Random Tech Questions you want answered.

I use Chrome mainly because I use the Google ecosystem for a lot of things and it just makes things convenient. If memory serves, Firefox doesn't use webkit which means there are rare occasions where something doesn't work in Firefox that does in Chrome, Edge, Brave and even Safari.

I use a pfsense router, and am starting to look into adblocking at the router level as a solution to this problem. It would be nice if every device just had adblocking to begin with. Anyone have any experience doing this, or is it even possible to do effectively?

There is a solution to network-level adblocking by using a pihole. I used to have one, but its advantages are somewhat limited without making some serious effort to ensure everything on your network uses it as your DNS server. Lots of devices just bypass your own DNS settings and talk to the DNS server they want to. Without wanting to implement the changes needed, I found the pihole didn't add anything that uBlock Origin wasn't already handling.

kazar wrote:

If memory serves, Firefox doesn't use webkit which means there are rare occasions where something doesn't work in Firefox that does in Chrome, Edge, Brave and even Safari.

I have been using Firefox for something like the past six years, and the number of times I have actually encountered this is basically zero. I say "basically zero" because there might have been an instance of this, but I can't fully remember it, and I'm not certain simply based on your remarks. There are, of course, different use cases for everyone, but Firefox handles everything I need just fine.

And to be clear, if something works in Webkit that does not in Firefox, that isn't necessarily a failure of Firefox, that's a failure of the testers to make sure their software follows coding standards for the internet correctly. They probably didn't test outside of Webkit.

NSMike wrote:

There is a solution to network-level adblocking by using a pihole. I used to have one, but its advantages are somewhat limited without making some serious effort to ensure everything on your network uses it as your DNS server. Lots of devices just bypass your own DNS settings and talk to the DNS server they want to. Without wanting to implement the changes needed, I found the pihole didn't add anything that uBlock Origin wasn't already handling.

With pfsense, I believe I can block that, and force everyone on the network to use the internal DNS. Haven't done it but I saw a howto on it.

NSMike wrote:

I have been using Firefox for something like the past six years, and the number of times I have actually encountered this is basically zero. I say "basically zero" because there might have been an instance of this, but I can't fully remember it, and I'm not certain simply based on your remarks. There are, of course, different use cases for everyone, but Firefox handles everything I need just fine.

I suspect as much, just remember hearing about this which gave me an irrational fear.

NSMike wrote:

And to be clear, if something works in Webkit that does not in Firefox, that isn't necessarily a failure of Firefox, that's a failure of the testers to make sure their software follows coding standards for the internet correctly. They probably didn't test outside of Webkit.

Probably true, but like the IE6 fiasco, for users it doesn't matter, they only care that it works.

NSMike wrote:

There is a solution to network-level adblocking by using a pihole.

kazar wrote:

With pfsense, I believe I can block that, and force everyone on the network to use the internal DNS. Haven't done it but I saw a howto on it.

Pi-Hole and pfBlockerNG (the blocking plugin for pfSense) are both great, and I used the former for a long time until I switched to a pfSense router and began using the latter... but DNS-based content blocking has pretty hard limitations, and cannot (and will not ever be able to) replicate the caliber of blocking that an in-browser content blocker can. Worse, DNS-based filtering is getting less effective over time, as content providers have gotten wise to it, and some (YouTube and Twitch notably) have started serving ad content from the same domains/subdomains as actual content, making DNS filtering useless.

I look at DNS-based content blocking as a good first level of defense, something which provides some level of content filtering to all your devices (eg. blocks ads and telemetry from my Roku TV), but isn't a replacement for in-browser content filters.

Firefox works 99% of the time, the few times a website is Chromium only I start Edge.

You know... for the Edge cases.

I'll see myself out...

I was just looking at squidguard. It is a transparent proxy where you can have them do the same thing as adblockers. I even found someone who wrote a script that would create content filtering rules which are derived from adblock plus. The downside to this is you have to setup an man in the middle cert on every client so it can look at the contents of HTTPS connections. Since I run both the router and the client, it is a small risk. Still might be too big a pain to setup though.

dejanzie wrote:

Firefox works 99% of the time, the few times a website is Chromium only I start Edge.

You know... for the Edge cases.

I'll see myself out...

Wrong thread

Tell us your best dad jokes!

WizKid wrote:

Does Brave block ads on iOS?

I can't personally vouch for the iPhone version (I have an Android), but apparently it blocks ads just as effectively.

NSMike wrote:

There is a solution to network-level adblocking by using a pihole. I used to have one, but its advantages are somewhat limited without making some serious effort to ensure everything on your network uses it as your DNS server. Lots of devices just bypass your own DNS settings and talk to the DNS server they want to. Without wanting to implement the changes needed, I found the pihole didn't add anything that uBlock Origin wasn't already handling.

I had similar experiences. Had a PiHole in my last house but didn't bother to set it up again when we moved to a new place. With ad blockers and ad-blocking browsers on all devices, the PiHole felt like a redundancy, and I was forever in fear (probably unjustified) of it screwing something up on the network.

Tasty Pudding wrote:
WizKid wrote:

Does Brave block ads on iOS?

I can't personally vouch for the iPhone version (I have an Android), but apparently it blocks ads just as effectively.

On iphones the browser doesn't matter, does it? Apple doesn't allow 3rd-party browser engines, so I'd think whatever ad blocking exists in Safari should apply to all browsers.

fenomas wrote:
Tasty Pudding wrote:
WizKid wrote:

Does Brave block ads on iOS?

I can't personally vouch for the iPhone version (I have an Android), but apparently it blocks ads just as effectively.

On iphones the browser doesn't matter, does it? Apple doesn't allow 3rd-party browser engines, so I'd think whatever ad blocking exists in Safari should apply to all browsers.

I don't know anything at all about iOS, quite honestly. All I know is that the App Store page for Brave claims it blocks ads ("Built-in 3rd party Ad-Block"), which I don't think Safari does(?).

Here's the link, for anyone interested.

Huh, I'm not sure. Apple doesn't allow browser engines in the app store, so all non-Safari browsers on iOS are basically 3rd-party UIs on top of a webkit component. But I guess Brave manages to do its ad blocking within that UI layer?

The stacks have kind of been fighting a slow war over this stuff for the last few years and I haven't followed it closely. From a casual search, it looks like in recent months Brave/iOS has sometimes been able to block youtube ads, and sometimes not, so I guess there's some cat-and-mouse going on.

fenomas wrote:
Tasty Pudding wrote:
WizKid wrote:

Does Brave block ads on iOS?

I can't personally vouch for the iPhone version (I have an Android), but apparently it blocks ads just as effectively.

On iphones the browser doesn't matter, does it? Apple doesn't allow 3rd-party browser engines, so I'd think whatever ad blocking exists in Safari should apply to all browsers.

The engine is the same, the add-ons are not. It's why Cordova can exist. Content blockers are registered explicitly for Safari, previously in its Settings as Content Blockers, now as Extensions, so they don't apply to all the browsers.

Recently I've noticed that Firefox, Chrome, and Edge won't load Google sites, at all, unless "Use secure DNS" is enabled.

I use a Pi-hole as my DNS server, and until recently everything worked fine.

But now, with that setting disabled, YouTube, Google.com, Google Drive, none of that loads. Even gamerswithjobs.com doesn't load right (I assume because there's some Google stuff on the site?)

Enabling that setting and choosing Cloudflare, Google, whatever as the DNS results in everything working again, but doesn't that mean my Pi-hole is being bypassed? Checking my Pi-hole logs that seems to be the case, as none of the sites I'm visiting are appearing in the list.

Does that mean that you basically can't use a Pi-hole now if you also use Google services, or visit any sites that use Google services? Did Google make that mandatory for using Google services recently?

Considering what they're doing with Chrome, it wouldn't surprise me if they were deliberately undermining pihole.

fenomas wrote:
Tasty Pudding wrote:
WizKid wrote:

Does Brave block ads on iOS?

I can't personally vouch for the iPhone version (I have an Android), but apparently it blocks ads just as effectively.

On iphones the browser doesn't matter, does it? Apple doesn't allow 3rd-party browser engines, so I'd think whatever ad blocking exists in Safari should apply to all browsers.

FWIW I've been using Firefox on iOS for awhile now, and it has its own anti-tracker stuff built in. Setting its "Enhanced Tracking Protection" to "Strict" seems to block a very good amount of ads for me. Plus, of course, FF/iOS syncs bookmarks and history with FF desktop.

99% of the time I never have to open Safari on iOS (and you can set Firefox as the iOS default browser). The only time I need to open Safari is when I want to make a purchase via Apple Pay, though reportedly its supported in iOS 16

ccoates wrote:

Does that mean that you basically can't use a Pi-hole now if you also use Google services, or visit any sites that use Google services? Did Google make that mandatory for using Google services recently?

This sounds like a misconfiguration on the Pi-Hole side. I would take a look at your lists and see if one of them updated with some over-aggressive new entries or something.

I know I can use a sound mixer to output multiple sound sources to my headphones but I am having trouble finding a way to do this using bluetooth headphones.

I want to listen to my tablet and PC at the same time using bluetooth on my headphones. I have only found mixers that can receive bluetooth as a source but not transmit it. Receiving is a bonus but not needed for me.

Is this something that can only be done wired?

Baron Of Hell wrote:

I want to listen to my tablet and PC at the same time using bluetooth on my headphones. I have only found mixers that can receive bluetooth as a source but not transmit it.

Just plug a Bluetooth transmitter into an output on the mixer?

*Legion* wrote:
Baron Of Hell wrote:

I want to listen to my tablet and PC at the same time using bluetooth on my headphones. I have only found mixers that can receive bluetooth as a source but not transmit it.

Just plug a Bluetooth transmitter into an output on the mixer?

This. I’ve done this successfully. The problem is if you ever want low latency for things like gaming you need to buy specific low latency supporting transmitter and headphones. They exist but most Bluetooth is not low latency.

Yeah, I have to echo what pandasuit said

I do have a set up where I can connect my TV through Bluetooth to my mixer and then from the mixer to my Bluetooth headset, but the latency made everything too noticeably out of sync. I can handle the sound passing through one Bluetooth connection, but not two.

Also next time I buy a TV I will have to make absolutely certain that it has an actual audio port built in and not a diagnostic port that happens to use the exact plug type! It's either a Bluetooth connection or the crappy, built-in speakers!

This same conversation is happening right now in the yet another headphone thread.

thanks for the transmitter idea. I just found another easy solution. I can can connect my tablet to the pc audio input.

Going back to the Firefox praise from a few days ago, I just updated my FF and it popped open a new tab with The Tech Talk:

Making awkward tech conversations with kids slightly less awkward.

Firefox is here to help you out with some starter topics to get things rolling. You got this!

No new information for me personally, but it looks like a good and well-presented resource for a lot of families out there.

Plus, they brought back <marquee>! (not really)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/3tF0NJU.png)

lol

*Legion* wrote:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/3tF0NJU.png)

lol

Yeah, I felt that one too.

Where do people sell old tech things these days? I just upgraded my GPU and have a 1080Ti that I can presumably still get $100 or so for, but have no idea where to put it.

First place I'd list it is the Trading Post here, over in Everything Else. Beyond that... eBay? Facebook Marketplace? Maybe Offerup?

For phones, tablets, computers, and camera equipment, I'd try swappa.com. They have tried to branch into other areas like gaming, but I don't think they've had much uptake there, and PC parts doesn't look like one of those areas.

PurEvil wrote:

First place I'd list it is the Trading Post here, over in Everything Else. Beyond that... eBay? Facebook Marketplace? Maybe Offerup?

Thanks! I don't know why I always forget about the Trading Post. I'll try there first.