Firefox for iOS having ad blocking

[Travis_M_AOG]

I honestly prefer Firefox across all the platforms it is available on. I’m normally an Android OS user, but I have received an iPad from going to college, and because of that, I wanted to make use of the iPad as much as possible, including with the likes of watching and listening to content on it. The issue here is how ad blocking doesn’t work on iOS, as you’re expected to download specific apps that CLAIM to do this, yet you’re given no real results that you can point to, especially on YouTube.

Firefox Focus doesn’t even live up to the hype of having ad blocking built in, let alone, it’s stuck on basically permanent private browsing… So, I can’t make use of even signing into YouTube for example, while it hasn’t even properly blocked ads in the first place. With how Android OS can make use of “Adblock Browser” to avoid all ads, AND it is a modified Firefox browser to begin with, it makes this effort on iOS ridiculous…

I’m not trying to put you down, Mozilla dev team, I’m just being honest, this REALLY needs to be fixed. Can’t Firefox have access to add-ons in the first place, so that ad blocking can be obtained? I doubt it’s unobtainable outright, I initially thought Firefox couldn’t be on iOS devices at all, and here I am using it to type this out to you guys! There has to be something that can be done about this, there is at least this available as an add-on for Safari, and while it won’t work as intended, it is showing that add-ons for browsers can be achieved for iOS. Is Apple just trying to block such an update? If not, then there really isn’t any excuse against this being possible, it is more than possible as a whole.

I have faith you guys can pull this off.

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[Jon]

Some similar ideas here:

Firefox built-in Adblocker 

Firefox Focus ad-blocking in iOS Firefox 

Work with the developer to integrate Ublock Origin directly into Firefox 

[jouo]

Love Firefox, wish true ad blocking would be shipped.

Considering using Brave on iOS, as tracking protection doesn't get all ads, such as Youtube.

[Paulter]

The lack of AdBlocking functionality is the only thing that keeps me from using Firefox on iOS. Microsoft Edge, for example, has had this feature for years now, and I don't see what's stopping Mozilla from adding it to their browser. There used to be some obscure App Store rule banning add-ons in the past, but it is not an add-on if it's built in (like in MS Edge). 

[Carljensin]

Would love to see Adblock functionality on iOS 

[joele54]

I agree that it is time for iOS browsers, especially Firefox, to have as block capability on iOS. 

[joele54]

I agree. It is about time Mozilla on iOS had ad block capability. 

[jpxsat]

I'm using Firefox Focus as my Ad-Blocker for Safari and it works great.

You'd imagine that it would be natural for Firefox to use Firefox Focus the same way, but that's not the case.

But I hope this is the “easy way” to fix the ad-blocker issue on iOS for Firefox 🙂

[cenon415]

Is this idea still ongoing? Given that it’s now 2024, I’m sure this has been considered for some time, especially since browsers like Vivaldi, Brave, Arc, and Opera already have this feature.