So, the elephant in the room is Chrome killing ad-blocking.
I think that Firefox (and Firefox forks, like Zen Browser) have low-enough marketshare that websites that depend on ad revenue may just kill support for Firefox if Firefox does permit ad blocking.
Safari on IPhone does have adblocker extensions. So the websites should stop supporting Apple devices as well in order to display ads. This is nearly 20% of users based on your stats.
I think that Firefox (and Firefox forks, like Zen Browser) have low-enough marketshare that websites that depend on ad revenue may just kill support for Firefox if Firefox does permit ad blocking
An argument could also be made that Firefox and its forks have low-enough marketshare that websites that depend on ad revenue won’t want to deal with the extra work of keeping those users out.
There’s always PiHole to block ads at the network level. It takes some setup and a raspberry pi but it can be one of the cheaper ones. And I’m pretty sure the sites aren’t going to do much more than check the User Agent to get the browser so User Agent Switcher will get around 99% of that.
You could, I suppose, block Firefox in other ways (like maybe checking for some random Chromium feature not yet supported in Firefox) but Firefox isn’t usually far behind Chrome so it would almost take an entire new developer to be effective. And there’s probably ways around that too. (I’m a web developer but have never worked on an ad-supported project and never will so I’m not sure but life finds a way.)
You’re underestimating these websites though. I already run into sites that arbitrarily throw up a “Firefox not supported” gate until I switch user agents. That will only get worse.
I’m still very concerned about Firefox’s funding majority coming from Google search, especially after the antitrust shutting it down. https://slashdot.org/story/431592
We’re headed for dark times for the open internet.
Is it possible to set up the pihole so certain devices are unfiltered? My partner works in digital marketing and needs to test that her clients’ ads are functional.
As I recall, the answer is yes, as long as you make the Pi your DHCP provider or assign static IP. I was using it in the opposite way to block certain sites from certain devices. But my kids are old enough now that I haven’t done it in a couple of years.
Yep. You can just disable filtering for specific devices. Or, if you want to get more granular, you can create device groups with different levels of filtering (including none).
My partner uses Facebook, I don’t. Her phone has Facebook unblocked, but it’s blocked on all our other devices.
So, the elephant in the room is Chrome killing ad-blocking.
I think that Firefox (and Firefox forks, like Zen Browser) have low-enough marketshare that websites that depend on ad revenue may just kill support for Firefox if Firefox does permit ad blocking.
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
As of February:
Chrome: 66.3%
Safari: 17.99%
Edge: 5.33%
Firefox: 2.62%
The software used to view the Web in 2025 is really mostly under the control of either Google or Apple.
Safari on IPhone does have adblocker extensions. So the websites should stop supporting Apple devices as well in order to display ads. This is nearly 20% of users based on your stats.
An argument could also be made that Firefox and its forks have low-enough marketshare that websites that depend on ad revenue won’t want to deal with the extra work of keeping those users out.
A lot of Firefox users spoof the useragent.
I don’t bother. Most sites I wouldn’t miss at all. There’s only half a dozen or so websites that could force me to take any action on my end.
There’s always PiHole to block ads at the network level. It takes some setup and a raspberry pi but it can be one of the cheaper ones. And I’m pretty sure the sites aren’t going to do much more than check the User Agent to get the browser so User Agent Switcher will get around 99% of that.
You could, I suppose, block Firefox in other ways (like maybe checking for some random Chromium feature not yet supported in Firefox) but Firefox isn’t usually far behind Chrome so it would almost take an entire new developer to be effective. And there’s probably ways around that too. (I’m a web developer but have never worked on an ad-supported project and never will so I’m not sure but life finds a way.)
Yep, I have my PiHole running on a Pi2 still.
You’re underestimating these websites though. I already run into sites that arbitrarily throw up a “Firefox not supported” gate until I switch user agents. That will only get worse.
I’m still very concerned about Firefox’s funding majority coming from Google search, especially after the antitrust shutting it down. https://slashdot.org/story/431592
We’re headed for dark times for the open internet.
Is it possible to set up the pihole so certain devices are unfiltered? My partner works in digital marketing and needs to test that her clients’ ads are functional.
As I recall, the answer is yes, as long as you make the Pi your DHCP provider or assign static IP. I was using it in the opposite way to block certain sites from certain devices. But my kids are old enough now that I haven’t done it in a couple of years.
Yep. You can just disable filtering for specific devices. Or, if you want to get more granular, you can create device groups with different levels of filtering (including none).
My partner uses Facebook, I don’t. Her phone has Facebook unblocked, but it’s blocked on all our other devices.
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