add hblock by default to improve privacy, security, and web browseing experince of new and currant users

[fosslover306]

Just what it sounds like, one of the first things i install on all of my systems is to install hblock to block malware, ads, phishing, and tracking urls with no CPU overhead or RAM overhead.

The benefit is obvious, making it easier to install or having it pre-installed protects all users from tracking, malware, phishing, ads, spyware, ransomware, or being part of a DDOS botnet. improving the user experience.

Making Linux Mint more attractive overall, and actually saves electricity and is green.

Do I need to keep listing stuff to get anyone interested? It could literally be a simple bash script run in the terminal when a button is pressed, hell I will make the bash script my self if it gets any interest.

https://github.com/hectorm/hblock
https://akmatori.com/blog/hblock-guide

[AtomicRobotMan0101]

My first thoughts are that using Pihole is easy, but even easier is the free AdGuard Public DNS: https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html

My second thought goes towards a very good post I saw from @clefebvre here: linuxmint/mint22.1-beta#4 (comment) WRT new user overload.

Perhaps it would be worth considering a "Value Pack" or "28 Days Later" pack :-) where users can be introduced to the Whats Next of ideas that will help them along their journey after a reasonable settling in period.

New users have a mighty steep learning curve, one that Mint does an outstanding job of flattening out, but more tools/options always leave more to learn (and maintain). Blocking things needs to be considered carefully - for in some ways it goes against the ethos of Openness - even if we are blocking Evil.

[fosslover306]

And now users would need to change dns settings which is a pain, and now you are trusting the dns provider to protect you which still allows data to be scraped by the goverment and ISP, so basicly useless. While still wasting internet bandwith, unless you use pi hole but at that point you are using hblock with extra steps.

[Fantu]

Blocking at the system level with the hosts file is not optimal and from what I've seen from experience, it is often necessary to disable this for certain sites (which block access if you use adblock software or if they have problems with "false" positives) so for single PCs and the majority of users it is better to use a browser extension instead (even if unfortunately some recent browsers are complicating things) so you can disable it for specific sites if necessary quickly and easily (doing it in a central block by whitelisting sites in many cases does not work because there are elements on other domains), furthermore it is almost only useful for browsers.
Regarding blocking access to infected websites and addresses, it's technically impossible to have complete or near-complete protection; there are too many, variable, and constantly growing threats. Blocking some of them can help, but the fact that users must be vigilant is still very important. Unfortunately, there's also the annoying fact that recently, "minimal" malware that attacks at the browser level has become increasingly common. It's impossible, or almost impossible, to block them with antivirus, antimalware, or block lists (which, in fact, can't track them all). These malware attempts to trick users, particularly by using system notifications and playing on fear (displaying messages about an infected PC). They also perform limited actions to avoid being blocked by antivirus and antimalware programs (even modern ones), such as asking users to change their search engine, installing extensions, etc. In general, most of them simply acquire data from the browser.
To mitigate this, I was recently thinking that by default notifications should be blocked in the browser (instead of asking the user, that is the more common setting), as the cases in which they are really needed are so rare that they can easily be enabled on the given site in such cases.

In cases with several devices or small companies, solutions like pihole are useful and better (for example I have been using pihole for years at my home on an old rpi2). But this too has its limits.

[fosslover306]

Oh what a surprise Mozilla the ad and and AI company that just so happens to have a web browser has considered blocking ad blockers acrording to The Linux Experiment, I hope he is wrong tho I severly doubt it.

[fosslover306]

"blocking ad blockers seems off mission"
says mozilla, great only "off mission" not "wrong" because blocking ad blockers would supposidly bring in at least 2 million dollars a year.

So yes Mozzila does plan on getting rid of ad block so you can see ads from them, all users of vanilla firefox are chickens in a hen house guarded by a starving fox.

[AtomicRobotMan0101]

Sadly, this has been the way of the world since I was a wee babe. Radio, Newspapers, TV and now the internet.

Until we break apart monopolies and the unsavoury outcomes they create, then these ad-supported compromises will be forever or burden.

The alternative is people paying or donating, but even then I've seen too much enshittification to hold much hope.

Until then we must educate users on how to protect themselves.

[fosslover306]

That does not mean we can't provide tools, not telling them any tools exist and then also not including any is a false choice, and it is ridiculous I have to make there points If anyone cared some form of hostfile based ad blocking would already be included, these ads they "chose" to not be protected from are 70% financial scams, 30% ad-ware, and 100% malicious even the FBI recommends everyone to use a ad-blocker for security reasons so if nothing is going to be done proactively about removing infections that get in, at the very least build in a ad-blocking tool that will provide protection from them.

And whose this "we" you speak of? Any "we" begins with a "me" I'm trying to do my part wheres yours?

"unless someone like you care's a whole awful lot, nothing going to get better it's not, plant a new trufufla do it care, and protect it from axes that hack"

Dr. Suess

FYI linux lite had a built in script to add hblock like 8 years ago, surely a skilled team of Linux Mint users and team members can write a one time use shell script? And in case you have forgotten me a total shell script novice wrote one that works perfectly the first time and no further interactions with hblock is required and was then told it was not good enough when no one else was doing anything to help or had any other ideas.

And setting a custom dns per network as a replacement is far beyond the skills of 90% of computer users, not even server admins want to mess with dns settings, so why would you expect grama to change them?

[fosslover306]

Even some buisnesess want you to use an ad blocker if you don't want ads, because other wise they have to pay google an extra few million dollars a year for irelivent ad placements which only benifits google and no one else.