ptmb

Braves Adblock is generally very good as i recall. Traditional adblockers block content that is already downloaded while brave blocks it from using bandwidth at all. (Please correct if wrong)

This is wrong, almost all reputable ad blockers block specific known problematic domains or endpoints from being reached altogether, nothing is downloaded. You can check this in the most common blocking rules out there, such as EasyList.

This was also the drama about chrome deprecating manifest v1, which allowed for more of these rules dynamically, and in which Google forced extensions for the Chrome browser only to follow a more limited approach in manifest v2, but still network blocking.

I was hoping qwant, with its own (partial) search index, would be immune to it, but searching for neocities also doesn’t show any results for neocities.org there unfortunately, or at least it did not for me.

The entrance being behind a paywall is bad, but if you’re not aware of it before using the toilet this holds you hostage unable to get clean until you pay up, with either your money or your attention. I’d say this is a more evil design, even though both are evil.