Firefox Has Integrated Brave's Adblock Engine

itsfoss.com

272 points by nreece 10 hours ago


evilpie - 5 hours ago

> The Firefox team is experimenting with ways to improve the built-in Enhanced Tracking Protection feature in Firefox. This is one of the libraries we're going to experiment with.

> - We are not, and have no plans to abandon MV2 extensions. This will ensure certain types of add-ons, like ad-blockers, continue to work best in Firefox.

> - Firefox supports several ad-blockers as add-ons on Desktop and Android, including uBlock Origin.

> - We are not bundling Brave's ad-blocking system, we're testing one of their open source Rust components to improve how Firefox processes tracker lists.

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1sttf82/firefox_wi...

This is what the official Firefox account had to say when this came up on reddit.

devsda - 9 hours ago

I hope this isn't a precursor to removing support for other AdBlock addons(MV2) citing native availability of an AdBlock engine and then gradually shift to acceptable ads etc.

Steve6 - 9 hours ago

I migrated from Firefox to Brave years ago, and it's been incredible. It's easy to turn off the crypto stuff and turn on more advanced privacy protection. Then it's just a fast browser with awesome adblocking.

My favorite recent feature has been Brave Scriptlets, which are just little javascript functions you can run on specific sites. I've replaced most of the add ons I used with small scripts. Pretty nice.

I would prefer an engine not built on Chromium... but I've lost faith in Mozilla. I'm glad that Firefox added a built in adblock engine, but it seems too late too late. Brave has been awesome, and being Chromium based gives them time to keep working on stuff that matters.

elros - 41 minutes ago

I stopped paying attention when the major browsers started to act somewhat against the interests of ad-blocking add-ons, some years ago.

Would anyone who has kept up let me know what would be the 2026 "industry standard" in terms of an ad-blocking and privacy stack?

I primarily use Chrome on Mac and Safari on iPhone but I'm willing to change browsers for better ad-blocking and privacy.

I would also be interested in solutions that scale beyond a single machine, for when I'm at home (e.g. should I get a little box and use it as an ad blocker between my internet my router and my network or something?)

MrAlex94 - 8 hours ago

I think people are reading into this too much - I don’t think Mozilla would ever implement an actual full spectrum ad blocker (although who knows with the new direction Firefox is headed), this will likely be used as an improvement/replacement for the current tracking protection implementation.

Weirdly enough, the same time this was added to Geckko is when I started implementing the adblock-rs library for Waterfox - I stumbled across the bindings by accident when using searchfox on the main branch instead of esr140! Quite the coincidence doing it at the same time.

gbil - 8 hours ago

If this means that they release a iOS version with the same Adblock features as brave then I’m sold. I use essentially all OSs and I want a browser with basic features like adblocking/custom filters on all the platforms and currently Firefox fails this on iOS devices. Still I believe the Firefox sync is much more robust than eg. Brave one , among various platforms. But then I will also need Firefox to fix keyboard shortcuts on Android which they had until the Fenix rebase some years ago and still haven’t fixed since

nirui - 4 hours ago

Great. Coming just in time when people think the "main stream" browsers are too boring.

I'm actually glad to see Mozilla has grown a little bit "predatorial" if it can bring good to the users. The implementation is polite too, as it lets you know there was an ad been muted.

There's a lot of things that can still be done in the browser space. For example, one-click login even without entering email, easy purchase without the website ever collecting your card number (or other financial detail beyond necessary), etc etc. Ads can also be improved too, by making them not violating nor annoying.

The possibilities are still great, I hope Mozilla can figure out a way to tap into it.

nextaccountic - 9 hours ago

Does this benefit people that use uBlock Origin?

Maybe uBlock Origin for Firefox could be updated to make use of this

fishgoesblub - 8 hours ago

It's surprising, and disappointing that this hasn't happened sooner. A real shame that it took a browser company other than Mozilla to make (In Rust no less!) adblock-rust. I wonder if this could've been a native Firefox feature and selling point years ago if Eich wasn't kicked out.

Markoff - 6 hours ago

For anyone looking for Android alternative:

Cromite - Chromium, MV2 extensions, good new tab page with 4x4 shortcuts (2x4 pinnable) with direct access to bookmarks

https://github.com/uazo/cromite/releases

Ultimatum - Chromium, MV2 extensions, not so good new tab page similar to original Chrome with only like 4 shortcuts without swiping, limitec customization, no password manager AFAIR

https://github.com/gonzazoid/Ultimatum/releases

Helium - Chromium, only MV3 extensions, built in browser from Graphene

https://github.com/jqssun/android-helium-browser/releases

Elixir - Chromium, only MV3, tabbed interface suitable for tablets

https://github.com/SF-FLAM/ElixirBrowser/releases

Former Kiwi Browser, then for about year IceRaven (Firefox) user up until recently when they fckd up already bad illogical UI and made it even worse, which was the last drop to again give up on this users hating browser (will never forget users begged for 10 years so dear devs will implement simple pull down to refresh).

On desktop the recommendation is much easier:

Vivaldi - Chromium, MV2, no AI, amazing customization compared to primitive Brave, faster than FF

https://vivaldi.com

gtrevorjay - 9 hours ago

This feels like a betrayal of their ousting of Eich in the first place. I can't imagine a world I would do this and be able to look at myself in the mirror.

poisonborz - 5 hours ago

Why do people still have hope in / clinge on Firefox when projects like Librewolf and Waterfox exists? Yes those are still dependent on Mozilla's upstream changes, but users not trusting them have still options.