How I browse the Web with uBlock (Hard Mode)
63 points by untrusem
63 points by untrusem
I salute people who can default to JS off; more power to yall. But if that's too extreme for you, blocking 3rd-party scripts only (medium mode) is nearly as good, because the worst offenders when it comes to scripting are almost always 3rd-party scripts. The scripts written by people who actually know what they are doing tend to be first-party; for example the upvoting scripts on this site.
The other thing I really like is setting a key binding for "Relax blocking mode" in the Shortcuts section. When I didn't have this, I would often just turn off ubo altogether when all I really wanted was to allow the occasional 3rd-party script.
The other thing I really like is setting a key binding for "Relax blocking mode" in the Shortcuts section.
I didn't mention that in the piece because you can only enable it not disable it via keybind and you will need to disable third party manually after that because there is no indication in the uBlock extension icon that it is in relaxing mode.
When I didn't have this, I would often just turn off ubo altogether when all I really wanted was to allow the occasional 3rd-party script.
I agree, this option would be useful in this scenario.
I've been using uBlock's medium mode these last months—in large part thanks to your feedback!
I already knew how blocking 3rd-party fonts breaks the visual design of a lot of sites, but I was very surprised to discover how many of my usual websites are broken when 3rd-party scripts are blocked, to the point where I'm starting to think that I might as well default to JS off.
Often times, the blocked scripts come from other domains under the control of the devs, not even some CDN.
I block 3rd party scripts routinely, and I occasionally click over to disable JS -- several sites do stupid or aggressive things when they can, but are much more reasonable when just presenting their data.
Thanks for the post! It still looks rather daunting, TBH. I suppose uBlock really is uMatrix on steroids, there seem to be many more features.
hehe, yes that's why titled the post as such, but over the years I have set up uBlock in such a way, I rarely have to change anything. :P
uBlock's selective blocking is somewhat simpler and more limited than uMatrix's, which is both good and bad. Getting a working uMatrix setup for a particular website can be a real exercise in staring at a grid that's mostly red and trying to figure out which particular bits need to be green; does this place need XHR or frames in addition to JS? How about cookies?
(I've given up for some sites and run them in a separate Firefox setup that's allow-by-default (still with uBlock, of course).)
I've given up for some sites and run them in a separate Firefox setup
If you don't mind sharing, could I know these sites (either here or in pm) so that I can test uBlock on it?
FWIW, there's also medium mode. It's a little daunting at first, too, but somewhat easier than this.
I'm so disgusted by all these modern websites that can't even display plain text without JavaScript that I decided to make my own website non-JavaScript-only by embedding this:
<script src="no.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
Source: https://j.wied.co/no.js
Don't you think it's a bit aggressive? One can't just disable JS for specific sites without using an extension, or at least that's what I'm aware of. I think a banner is fine, but blocking the whole thing is rather intrusive. Which is ironic, since you're demonstrating the very thing you don't like about JS.
Yes, it probably is... Effectively, I'm blocking my family and many other innocent people from reading my (rather boring) website.
On the other hand, requiring JS to show plain text (like many websites do) is not much less aggressive I think ;-)
The technique I settled on five years ago is to block all scripting with uMatrix (where the rules are easier to maintain than in uBlock Origin, though still nothing like suitable for Normal People), and then have the uMatrix extension disabled in Private Browsing mode. That way, only whitelisted JS runs normally, but I have an easy temporary escape hatch in Private Browsing windows. And uBlock Origin is always enabled, of course.
(Aside: in the fourth paragraph, the word “disclaimer” is a completely inappropriate choice. Normally that means the word should have been “disclosure”, but this time it should be something else again, maybe “note”. Or “aside”. Or present that paragraph and the pre that follow in a distinctly-styled <aside> and drop the “Disclaimer:” altogether.)
(Aside: in the fourth paragraph, the word “disclaimer” is a completely inappropriate choice. Normally that means the word should have been “disclosure”, but this time it should be something else again, maybe “note”. Or “aside”. Or present that paragraph and the pre that follow in a distinctly-styled <aside> and drop the “Disclaimer:” altogether.)
You are right, I changed it. Thanks.
Excellent post! I do something similar.. but I don't like it at all. Basically the only thing between usable web and ad induced nausea is uBlock Origin and nothing lasts for ever. Before uBO I used uMatrix, when it was archived I had a mini-crisis...
I'm on this Hard Mode too, and I have the shortcut to relax the setting for the current site. But I often find that the relaxed reload causes JS to error out, and then if I reload about 10 mins later it will work. Does anybody see this behaviour?
nope i haven't seen this behaviour, I think you should use uBlock logger to see whats happening, that might give some insights.
I've been aggressively creating personal filter rules for website elements that annoy me, including sidebars with unrelated stories on news sites. It doesn't take long before most websites I land on, either through my own browsing or from getting links sent to me, are clean and just showing the main content I care about.
Some people say they don't like running (aggressive) ad/content blocking because it makes them worry that each time a site breaks, it's because of the blocking. I just accept that I don't need those websites (or I disable the blocks if I really do).
One thing that I have on my todo list is to start building an allowlist of common domains which cause site breakage (often cdns --- nice tip about localcdn!), or even just scraping my own allowlist to build one. Yes I probably am not using the tool right; would welcome suggestions on what I'm doing wrong, but most of the time noscripting for me is opening a page, seeing it needs cloudflare or something, allow cloudflare, reload, it's missing a cdn, allow cdn, etc. etc.
Maybe we should start sharing our allowlists to make JS blocking more palatable?
but most of the time noscripting for me is opening a page, seeing it needs cloudflare or something, allow cloudflare, reload, it's missing a cdn, allow cdn, etc. etc.
So I think this both can be solved using rules, by cloudflare, I presume you meant the cloudfare captcha? you can add this rule for that, you can do the same for google captcha too, though I don't do it. Also cloudflare challenges also uses a inline-font, to block that you need to add a filter, but I don't want to deep into that.
* challenges.cloudflare.com * noop
For cdn, I have added a short sentence of setting up localcdn in the piece
One thing that I have on my todo list is to start building an allowlist of common domains which cause site breakage
Along with this, it would be beneficial if we start adding these cdn in localcdn too, if they are not present there.