PIA MACE - and Ad Blockers

Klaatu

I'm using PIA with FireFox (Mac OSX).  I've been using an adblocking extension as well as a "do not track" extension.  If I leave PIA connected all the time, with PIA MACE turned on, do I need the other extensions?

Thank you.
 

Max-P

Good question!

I personally don't really think there is much of a benefit to leaving MACE on as browser extensions have a much deeper access to the web pages and can properly filter ads based on its content, while MACE being a server-side option that acts at the DNS level it can only block entire domains. So for example, with MACE enabled, clicking on a sponsored link in Google search results will go to an error page because the google-analytics domain is blocked (because it's used for the Google Analytics tracking of the users). A browser extension can understand the difference and allow this one so the link is not broken, and depending on the extension I think some even rewrite those links to just remove the tracking and make them behave like normal links.

One advantage of MACE however is that it blocks domains at the DNS level. So any other software on your computer could benefit from it and it can even help block some malware by blocking their control domains.

Both don't conflict with eachother so it's really down to what kind of protection and blocking you want to have!

Klaatu

Thank you so much for answering.  My initiial main concern was conflcting processes, but also by using both MACE and ad blocking and anti-tracking extensions that I was slowing down FireFox's performance while not really adding much, if anything, to safety.

Max-P

MACE being on the server, it has zero extra usage on your computer's resource, browser or not. If anything it probably gives it a hand because a lot of the ad servers just cannot even be contacted with MACE enabled (the PIA server itself will not let you do), so the ad blocking extensions probably ends up having a bit less work to do as a result.

d4rkcat

@Klaatu
I find mace to be very ineffective.
Host based ad blocking works perfect for me and makes browsing the web much quicker and cleaner, plus it takes almost zero resources, unlike alot of ad-blocking extensions/addons.
https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Klaatu

d4rkcat said:

@Klaatu
I find mace to be very ineffective.
Host based ad blocking works perfect for me and makes browsing the web much quicker and cleaner, plus it takes almost zero resources, unlike alot of ad-blocking extensions/addons.
https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Did you mean to say "effective?" Also, are you saying that you do NOT use ad-blocker and/or stop-tracking extensions?  I'm using PIA with FireFox on a Mac Mini.  Thank you very much.

Omnibus_IV

Adblockers and anti-trackers are great, but they slow down the use of the browser. As does modifying the host file. However, host file modification is the first line of defense by not allowing a successful redirect to occur. Host file modifications can be daunting though. So the next best thing is a combination of adblockers, redirect blockers, and/or the likes of TamperMonkey. Unfortunately, any combination of add-ons will have a detrimental effect on browser performance. Even MACE can have the same effect.

d4rkcat

Klaatu said:

d4rkcat said:

@Klaatu
I find mace to be very ineffective.
Host based ad blocking works perfect for me and makes browsing the web much quicker and cleaner, plus it takes almost zero resources, unlike alot of ad-blocking extensions/addons.
https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Did you mean to say "effective?" Also, are you saying that you do NOT use ad-blocker and/or stop-tracking extensions?  I'm using PIA with FireFox on a Mac Mini.  Thank you very much.

No I meant exactly what I said, MACE does not block ads well. Host file modification blocks every ad as long as you use a good hosts file like the one i linked.

Omnibus_IV said:

Adblockers and anti-trackers are great, but they slow down the use of the browser. As does modifying the host file. However, host file modification is the first line of defense by not allowing a successful redirect to occur. Host file modifications can be daunting though. So the next best thing is a combination of adblockers, redirect blockers, and/or the likes of TamperMonkey. Unfortunately, any combination of add-ons will have a detrimental effect on browser performance. Even MACE can have the same effect.

Not quite true, the performance hit of hosts file editing is negligable when compared to addons/extensions/DNS based ad blocking. The hosts file is the first thing your OS checks before even DNS and it is kernel level, so it is very fast, and consumes near to zero resources. 

Klaatu

Thank you very much for the information...much appreciated.

MeFirst

"Adblockers and anti-trackers are great, but they slow down the use of the browser. "

If your system is stretched to its limit or just painfully slow already yes. It's unoticeable on any decent modern PC.
Other than that I can only say that so far MACE has blocked zero of the adds I have whitelisted in adblock.

d4rkcat

Here's a one liner to kill all ads and never have to use a single piece of ad blocking software again. Just rerun it every couple of months to make sure you have an up to date list:

sudo wget -q https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts -O /etc/hosts

Klaatu

Do I copy and paste the entire line into Terminal?  And, then do that again in a couple of months?  Thank you for all your help.

d4rkcat

@Klaatu
Yep just paste the whole line into your terminal and press enter, then repeat every few months.
You're very welcome, everyone deserves an ad and tracking free internet. 

d4rkcat

@Klaatu
I just realised you are on mac not Linux, and therefore will not have wget.
You should have curl, and if not you can install it:

http://macappstore.org/curl/

Then you should be able to run

sudo curl -o /etc/hosts https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts

Klaatu

Thank you very much...I think this may be over my head. I've never heard of "curl"...do you have the patience to educate me?

d4rkcat

@Klaatu
Sure thing bro, just run these three commands in your terminal in order:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" < /dev/null 2> /dev/null

brew install curl

sudo curl -o /etc/hosts https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts

d4rkcat

In case you are wondering curl is a powerful and flexible command line tool and library for interacting with the internet.
We are using it it in simplest format to download a file from the internet and place it at a specific location in your filesystem (/etc/hosts).

Klaatu

Thank you very much for replying.  I didn't get a notice, so I'm a bit late in thank you.