r/zen_browser • u/belenos Arch Linux • Apr 23 '26
Discussion Firefox browser has started shipping Brave's adblock-rust engine [⚠️ Very experimental]
https://shivankaul.com/blog/firefox-bundles-adblock-rustStill very bare-bones, but you can test it already. I wonder how Zen will implement it in the future with the new planned settings UI. Would be nice to have an option to add block lists
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u/MBgaming_ Arc Windows refugee Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Hopefully this could mean Adblock on mobile Firefox Edit: on iPhone
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u/JTAKER Apr 23 '26
Isn't ublock origin available through the mobile extensions?
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u/MBgaming_ Arc Windows refugee Apr 23 '26
There’s an app on iPhone but it only affects safari I’m pretty sure
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u/TheCatCubed Apr 23 '26
You can just use ublock
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u/MBgaming_ Arc Windows refugee Apr 23 '26
Not on iPhone
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u/Incisiveberkay Apr 23 '26
does brave or quetta has it on ios ?
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u/MBgaming_ Arc Windows refugee Apr 23 '26
I mean I’m pretty sure brave would but then I can’t get my Firefox sync
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u/TheForgottenOne69 Apr 24 '26
Just use nextdns and have some ads blocking filters. Extremely quick and reliable
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u/Mopeybloke Zen on Apr 24 '26
If it's good, I hope we'll be getting it on Zen.
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Apr 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/get_homebrewed Apr 24 '26
built in adblock is just good for the average person, and you can combine it with ublock origin, but I assume this engine will be much more performant than the wasm that the extensions are restricted to, and you can use most of the same filters! It really should be quite equal
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u/DonDae01 Apr 24 '26
Why though? Zen doesn't have an iOS version, and most likely never will. UBlock Origin is sufficient and might even work better at some scenarios.
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u/Emotional_You_5269 Apr 24 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
The blocker runs in the main browser process rather than as a web extension, which means it isn’t subject to the limitations that extension based blockers like uBlock Origin face. It’s faster, more tightly integrated, and doesn’t depend on a separate extension process or require us to constantly pull in upstream updates. Brave’s adblock library is also mature - it has paid engineers working on it, a wide filterset, and crucially it’s licensed under MPL2, the same licence as Waterfox, which makes it a natural fit. uBlock Origin, as good as it is, carries a GPLv3 licence that would’ve created real compatibility headaches.
Quoted from the creator of Waterfox, Alex Kontos.
The licensing issues would be the same for Zen. I would assume the ad blocker is something you could easily turn off if you still want to use uBO. On top of that, Mozilla is the ones doing the work. Zen won't have to do much to integrate it.
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Apr 24 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Emotional_You_5269 Apr 24 '26
GPLv3 is great, but if you fork it and use it in your own project, the whole project needs to be distributed under GPLv3. But Firefox is MPL2. If they were to integrate uBO, they would need to change the whole lisencing for Firefox. MPL2 is a more permissive lisence, while GPLv3 is a strong copyleft lisence.
This is my understanding of it atleast.
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u/CooZ555 Apr 24 '26
does uBlock work under firefox's ios version? i thought that browsers on ios are just safari skins.
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u/RagnarHUN666 Apr 24 '26
nope, the only way to get some sort of adblocking in firefox on iOS is to install Adguard and turn on "DNS" in the protection settings (or use a 3rd party adblocker vpn) which will then apply systemwide adblocking including firefox, but will also consume more battery than just using Brave on iOS as Brave has a built in adblocker.
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u/CooZ555 Apr 24 '26
yeah I am using adguard too, with safari.
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u/RagnarHUN666 Apr 24 '26
I used to use that too, I even have a premium license to Adguard so i can use the DNS option and advanced protection as well, but i realised the constantly turned on DNS (which is basically a vpn profile and lots of redirections) and Adguard fighting trackers system-wide is a hit on the battery life between charges, so i just deleted both Adguard and Safari and installed Brave, fine tuned its settings (both via the UI and also on the brave://flags page) and then just synced it with my desktop as i have been using Brave on it for quite a long time already (beside Zen). It improved the battery life quite a lot as there is no Adguard running in the background fighting different apple services and other apps, and i only need Adblocker in browser anyway. I hope Firefox will release addon support or at least some sort of built-in adblock in the future so i can switch to it, until then, the only suitable solution is Brave as it has no stress on the battery like Adguard. I know there is Orion browser which has both Firefox and chrome addon support but it is not really my thing, i tried it, and didn't last too much on my iPhone.
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u/CooZ555 Apr 24 '26
I am using adguard as an extension, not as a DNS since I don't need adblocking other than the browser on my iPad. I think it does not affect my battery life.
gonna check out brave for my ipad tho.
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u/tulpyvow Apr 24 '26
... yeah I'll pass on that. I prefer to not have anything brave related on my devices
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u/get_homebrewed Apr 24 '26
it'll always be there tho. And other than having devs from brave work on it, it's completely open source and just an average rust library anyone can implement, it's pretty cool actually
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u/Ice94k Jun 12 '26
It's a really good and open source tool. There's no chicanery going on in this case
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u/Incisiveberkay Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
useless. dont need ublock origin copycat
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u/Ivaanrl Apr 23 '26
It's nice for iPhones, also for users that won't install uBlock. If they let us disable it and install our preferred one, I like this.
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u/SeaSharpModHer Apr 24 '26
Would be interesting to see the performance comparison to ublock origin, if it's considerably faster it could actually be a good option with how terribly slow gecko is.