I am using my iPad to watch videos on some sites and even though both Adblocking and Popup blocking are turned on, every time I click on a link the site opens up a bunch of tabs for junk sites. This is incredibly annoying.
Please add an option to prevent all new tabs from being opened, unless it’s something I explicitly choose to do manually (e.g. by long pressing the link and choosing Open in new tab). This option is already available in another browser I use on my Android TV called TV Bro
This isn’t related to the Clean Link feature. This is about when using some video sites, just clicking on some elements like the video player would trigger the site to open a bunch of junk/ad sites in new tabs. Also, this is about the browser on iPad/iOS, not on desktop.
@ncann what you’re speaking of are more of invisible overlays put in by websites. Typically you find these on “illegal” sites like places that stream movies and all. These websites constantly are changing their ad servers and code so as to combat adblockers.
As sites are reported, they sometimes can get temporary fixes in. However, this usually gets changed by the site within a matter of days. The main way of avoiding is to block scripts, which will make it so these links won’t open as you mention. The downfall is doing so will also break videos or other content on the site.
And speaking of iPad/iOs, these are even more limiting than other devices. Apple is highly restrictive of what people can do. For example, I have some manhwa sites that will work perfectly on Android or Desktop but I’ll get the pop-up links like you’re mentioning on iPhone. Brave is working on increasing code and getting it pushed through, but it’s not a quick or easy process.
@Saoiray You are right that this is mostly an issue on “illegal” or “sketchy” sites that offer free contents like anime/manga/sport streams/etc. in exchange for a ton of ads on new tabs every time you click on something. Still, it doesn’t matter how the popup/new tab is triggered, whether it’s through invisible overlay or simple onclick handler on everything or something else, I don’t care and I want to have the option to block them all. I hope that’s not too hard to implement.
That’s what I tried to explain, it is.
Doesn’t Brave already have an option to block popups? I don’t know how it’s implemented, but shouldn’t a blanket new tab/popup block be easier to implement than a “smart” popup block?
There are other ideas that I can think of, like a mode that only allows one tab to be opened and only that tab, and no other tab can be opened. And if Brave can’t prevent tabs from being opened for some reason then just periodically close all new tabs other than the first one e.g. every 1s.
I suggest you try to learn more on content filters. There’s a lot of work that go into them to make them work and they consistently have to be updated.
Nah, because there’s not really a blanket “no pop-up” thing. And a lot of what happens are through scripts and all. You can block that by choosing to Block Scripts which is an option in Brave. But as I said, that also would stop videos from playing and could break other things.
@anon57438784 you’re better at this and far more knowledgeable. Care to explain?
well, if you don’t want websites to open popup junk new tabs like that, don’t use those websites, usually those websites are linked to movies or anime or manga, I am sure there are hundred of websites that can give you the same content but without so much junk, like Saoiray said.
The thing is iOS versions of Brave don’t run Chromium, if not it would be easier to deal with popups.
Brave has ways in Desktop and Android to avoid popups, and other type of APis and ways to annoy users, like popovers, popunders, they even put in trial a feature called Open popups as fullscreen windows… so yeah… not good, but some developers will use it.
But yeah, better way to deal with this is to actually report the websites where you are having issues and let Brave handle it, just make the posts with the ‘adblocking tag’ and since FanboyNZ works with Easylist and also work for Brave for anything else that is Brave specific. That means, he will probably update easylist and block whatever is causing the popups and if not he will talk to uBlock people to come up with something or update Brave lists.
Something will be done for iOS if it is not compatible with the ‘normal methods’ used in Desktop.
iOS is more limited than Android and Desktop because iOS only allows Webkit browsers. And for example, many of popups get blocked by regex rules, and regex rules are not even compatible in many cases with Brave adblocker on desktop, so what Easylist does is individually block every domain causing popups one by one.
Which is the most effective way for most adblockers to get to block popups.
Of course, Desktop is not issues free, especially with popups, because it still lacks some features or uBlock blocks many popups by using regex and that regex might be incompatible with Brave adblocker’s RUST regex. So, in many cases the rules also don’t work in desktop, and then each domain has to be manually added to lists to deal with the popups.
Also Brave still lacks support for $popup which is used in most lists is still not supported today.
I don’t like it, because it uses window.close() to deal with popups, that means it allows the popup to happen but closes it, but it is used in most lists to deal with popups.
So Brave is not perfect not even on Deskop, but it is a fact iOS/Webkit doesn’t have the best experience for adblocking, that’s because iOS doesn’t run Chromium, but WebKit, in Webkit, Apple implemented content blocking which is done by the browser, all Brave can do is try to translate normal uBlock rules to webkit content blocking.
It’s exactly the same Google is doing with Manifestv3, where the adblocking is done by the browser and not extensions.
This means, Brave on iOS doesn’t have the same resources and capabilities than Android and Desktop.
Still, until iOS allows Blink/Chromium website and Brave can be the same in Android and iOS and have the same adblocking capabilities than Desktop, iOS will be always more limited.
You might think that an option to block popups like TV Bro, does is a good thing, but I mean, it is still a non-webkit browser, which is meant for tvs only and can implement these things because they don’t expect you to browse the whole internet with it, so it doesn’t matter if something breaks or not.
For example, many pages need JS to create a popup, you don’t get to ‘right click’ to open the links, so that’s how Brave can’t just implement something like that, and since Adblocker could technically deal with it, well, it is not necessary.
The problem is iOS is more limited, but popups can still be properly deal with without breaking anything, even if iOS lacks features, sometimes just blocking a domain will do it, which is why I tell you the best thing you can do is to report issues and wait for the fix.
I think you misunderstood how that feature in TVBro work. It is entirely optional and can easily be turned on/off with a button so it’s very easy to only turn it on for ads spammy sites and turn it off for other sites. It also doesn’t block any JS so video players etc. still work.
Also you wrote a lot about Brave’s limitation for adblocking on iOS, which while I understand and appreciate, is missing the point. If I have the ability to prevent any new tab from being opened automatically I don’t need/care about any adblocking in the first place. Reporting the sites may work but is too cumbersome, especially when a lot of the sites that I have this issue with are non-english, plus I have no doubt the list of ads and junks they open constantly changes, so updating the adblocking rules is just a never ending cat and mouse chase while an option to prevent all new tabs from being opened would solve the issue once and for all.
Is it possible to have a lockdown function where if any new tabs are opened brave can automatically close them after they open except for the tab/s you have open already (not trying to prevent the opening just closing any extra tabs for you so you don’t need to do it manually) or be able to let the user set a limit for how many tabs can be open at once within the browser window?