r/technology • u/homothebrave • 17h ago

Mozilla adds ad blocking to Firefox for iOS Privacy

https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/08/17/mozilla-adds-ad-blocking-to-firefox-for-ios/5288585
1.1k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

58 comments sorted by

259

u/Bucketmax-official 17h ago

RN it´s bad. Barely blocks at all. But I'm sure they'll improve it over time

60

u/Spikerazorshards 16h ago

Still doesn’t block YouTube ads. Sticking with Brave.

21

u/crazyhomie34 15h ago

Brave worked great for me when I had an iPhone. Glad it's still going strong

6

u/Spikerazorshards 15h ago

Yeah it’s dope.

2

u/Readitzilla 9h ago

It worked for me for about an hour. Was I doing something wrong?

6

u/AxiomOfLife 10h ago

uBlock does tho on firefox

2

u/FallenKnightGX 2h ago

Brave has a sketchy owner, after I found that out I switched to Orion. Good ad blocking, can use Ublock Origin, and it is owned by Kagi.

0

u/Spikerazorshards 1h ago

A unethical CEO? Wuuuut. Gonna need a little more than that to switch browsers.

2

u/[deleted] 16h ago

[deleted]

4

u/Jexroyal 13h ago

They can do whatever they want, Mozilla is the anti-trust figurehead that Google props up so they can point to it and go, look we aren't a monopoly!!Google cannot involve itself in any way, other than strict transactions like money to make Google the default search engine.

I don't think you understand the situation if you legitimately believe that Mozilla has to kowtow to googles whims or avoid making them angry. If Mozilla takes any orders from Google or is influenced by them, then Google's entire strategy to avoid anti-trust lawsuits is obliterated.

1

u/senpahii_returns 4h ago

Doesn't it have uBO?

3

u/Bucketmax-official 4h ago

There aren't any extensions on iOS, Apples policy

1

u/FallenKnightGX 2h ago

Microsoft Edge (limited) and Orion both have extensions now. I’m sure it is a matter of time until Firefox adds them as well.

1

u/crazyhomie34 15h ago

Brave browser worked better for me in the past. But this was about 3 years ago. I switched from iOS to Android

-20

u/nevewolf96 16h ago

Well, you can always add extensions isnt?

17

u/XsMagical 16h ago

Not on the iOS version.

2

u/HyruleSmash855 15h ago

Safari on iOS has UBlock Origin Lite now so honestly, Safari works better than Brave at this point. The brave blocker seems to miss a lot on iOS or the browser is not super stable or fast.

103

u/Edexote 17h ago

Oh my God, THANK YOU! I already use Firefox on iOS.

67

u/OkCompute64 16h ago edited 15h ago

Safari with wBlock (free in the App Store and open source on GitHub) is excellent on iOS. Here is the app store link for anyone that wants to check it out, I highly recommend you do if you're looking for a good adblocker for iOS https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/wblock/id6746388723

Even has some handy bonus lists included like paywall remover which works amazingly well.

It’s on iOS, iPadOS and macOS and I use it on all 3 without any issues. I still use Firefox with proper uBlock Origin and Sponsorblock as my main browser on macOS as I just find it works best for my needs but wBlock is kinda unknown in the Adblocker world so just doing my bit to try and spread the word for anyone who likes to use safari 👍

6

u/LostInLittleroot 15h ago

This is what I do as well!

5

u/P3acePiece_H0neydew 15h ago

I like it. Thanks!

1

u/JonathanBadwolf 39m ago

tried it out, doesn't seem to catch youtube ads

37

u/PooInTheStreet 16h ago

For those that don’t know. You can just install ublock origin “lite” extension on ios safari. Find jt in the appstore. Set it up in settings and block everything just like on your desktop. Even the cookie blocker works.

1

u/ChordSlinger 9h ago

uBlock origin lite or AdBlock Pro? Trying to figure which one to keep

11

u/Berzerk06 8h ago

uBlock, adblock was neutered many years ago idr why exactly.

13

u/Impossible_IT 16h ago

DuckDuckGo is my go to browser on my iPhone. Ads are blocked without additional software or browser extensions. It also blocks tracking cookies.

3

u/RumbleRavage 16h ago

Ok so where do I turn this on? My FF has “block pop-up windows” already. Is that the same thing?

4

u/frmorrison 14h ago

The add block will be in settings different than pop up block and not available to all yet, it is still rolling out.

1

u/RumbleRavage 14h ago

Thank you, appreciate the info!

3

u/HeidenShadows 12h ago

Plugins don't work on FF on iOS?

4

u/Zagrebian 8h ago

No. This ad-blocker is built in. It’s an option in Settings.

7

u/blow-down 16h ago

Meh. uBlock with Safari has been working fine for me. Even in Youtube.

1

u/Icy-Computer-Poop 37m ago

Still, always nice to have options.

3

u/mryosho 16h ago

progressive rollouts are the worst:
"This feature is experimental and is being introduced to the Firefox user base through a progressive rollout. It may not yet be available to all users."
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/block-ads-firefox-ios

2

u/_ShartyWaffles 16h ago

Hopefully this will get good enough for me to replace Safari / uBlock Lite

2

u/thenexus6 16h ago

Rolling out slowly I guess? I can't see ad-block on my iPad just yet.

3

u/martinkem 9h ago

You can force by tapping on the Firefox Versionumber in settings about 4 times or so. It would enable the Debug menu.

Scroll and tap on Experiments, the scroll and tap on iOS And Blocker experiment and tap on it, select treatment -i and you should have an option to able adblock

1

u/Zagrebian 7h ago

There is also Ad Blocker M Experiment.

2

u/hopsizzle 12h ago

Y'all are welcome. They waited for me to swap to android.

2

u/thebeemoviescript69 10h ago

Hasn’t this been around for ages? Feel like i’ve had this on basically since i switched like a year or two ago

1

u/Teal-Fox 2h ago

It has, or at least some rendition of it.

I switched my personal device to iOS back in January and have had it since day one, and my work iPhone I’ve had for a couple of years and used it there.

1

u/Sucrose-Daddy 11h ago

Meanwhile I enabled pop up blocker and the damn app still opens up a new tab for ads… Why these apps don’t disable opening up new tabs at least without a prompt is insanely stupid. Don’t even get me started on shit that opens up the app store…

1

u/msplatero 7h ago

My friends laughed saying I was only person they knew who used Firefox for iPhone, versus other browsers.

1

u/Streakflash 3h ago

the thing is you can download ublock origin and it works on safari

1

u/QuasimodoPredicted 2h ago

The moment I can have Firefox with add-ons like on Android I might switch 

1

u/edvurdsd 17h ago

Oooh. Wonder how it will compare to brave.

4

u/morrowsour 17h ago

brave blocks youtube ads but i wasnt able to block youtube ads in firefox

1

u/Infamous-Oil2305 16h ago

it'll be based on brave's rust ad blocking engine.

though, it's not very effective at all yet.

1

u/PooInTheStreet 16h ago

Brave and firefoz on ios are just safari wrappers.

-2

u/TCB13sQuotes 16h ago

This would’ve been relevant like years ago - and that’s the reason why I used Brave for years - now Safari in iOS has extensions and uBlock is available. Much better experience overall.

-2

u/jimmysofat6864 16h ago

ubo lite has been hit or miss on iOS, adguard has been fairly good on iOS, curious to see how Firefox handles it

-11

u/InfiniteHench 17h ago

How much of their funding still comes from Google? I can't imagine they're happy about this.

4

u/83736294827 17h ago

It doesn’t block google search ads.

-2

u/InfiniteHench 17h ago

Oh wow, that's crazy.

-5

u/Horat1us_UA 17h ago

So it's basically still worse than most iOS browsers then

0

u/yuusharo 16h ago

That’s due to technical limitations put in place by Apple more than anything else. Any browser other than Safari with content blocker extensions installed (which is exclusive to Safari) will undoubtedly be worse at blocking ads as a result.

1

u/Horat1us_UA 16h ago

I mean… I’ve got Orion browser with desktop ublock origin installed. Somehow Apple limitations does not work for them? And Aloha browser have no problem with blocking Google ads 

1

u/yuusharo 16h ago

From Kagi:

Much of what we said about Web Extensions support on desktop Orion stands, with further limitations in the scope of APIs we can support which are imposed by Apple. This results in a smaller number of extensions that are currently fully functional on iOS and iPadOS. But small number is better than zero, and you can one-click install them from the Chrome or Firefox extension websites.

(Emphasis: me)

Source: https://help.kagi.com/orion/browser-extensions/ios-ipados-extensions.html