Adblock Plus and (a little) more
New #?# syntax for advanced element hiding rules · 2017-06-19 17:21 by Hubert Figuière
Starting with Adblock Plus 1.13.3 for Chrome and Opera (and development builds as of 1.13.2.1782) there is a new and improved syntax which can be used for advanced element hiding filters. It allows for elements to be hidden based upon their contents using :-abp-has. CSS property filters have also being adjusted to be consistent with the new syntax, so both those and :-abp-has filters now use the #?# option separator.
Key elements of the new Flattr – the all-knowing, privacy-friendly algorithm · 2017-06-19 13:00 by Laura Dornheim
The new Flattr is completely automated, meaning that it flattrs your favorite content for you based on the attention you give it. This is done through our smart algorithm, but how does it really work? What does the algorithm know? What does it tell us? Let’s take a dive into automation, algorithm and privacy!
Key elements of the new Flattr - a status update · 2017-06-08 14:00 by Laura Dornheim
Soon we are officially launching a completely new, hands-off way to Flattr. So it’s about time to explain how it works and why we decided to do it this way. This is the first of a series of posts where we will also go into more detail about the internal work process around the new Flattr, as well as developer updates for some technical aspects.
Adblock Plus 2.9.1 for Firefox released · 2017-06-07 20:11 by Wladimir Palant
Install Adblock Plus 2.9.1 for Firefox
Unfortunately, the Adblock Plus 2.9 release didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped for. Most importantly, the performance degradation caused by the new data storage turned out more severe than we expected, some users were experiencing regular noticeable browser hangs. While the performance of reading and saving Adblock Plus filters hasn’t improved yet, we turned off filter hit counts by default in Adblock Plus 2.9.1 as a first consequence to make sure the data no longer needs to be saved that often (issue 5298). Users who need this functionality can turn it back on by clicking the ABP icon, going into “Options” and checking “Count filter hits.” We will be looking into other ways to improve this, even though the main issue can only be resolved by the Firefox developers.
It also wasn’t noticed before release that the new data storage doesn’t work in Thunderbird and SeaMonkey, so these users ended up with filters being reset on each restart. This has also been resolved in Adblock Plus 2.9.1 (issue 5279, issue 5285), the original data should show up again now. Some users are reporting similar issues in Firefox, a problem we couldn’t reproduce so far. If you are experiencing data loss on Firefox and are willing to let me debug the issue on your computer (via TeamViewer or a similar desktop sharing tool), please let me know in the comments below.
Fixing Adblock Plus 2.9 for Thunderbird and SeaMonkey users · 2017-06-01 14:23 by Wladimir Palant
Adblock Plus 2.9 introduced very significant changes to the data storage. The unfortunate side-effect was that Adblock Plus was broken for Thunderbird users as well as users on pre-release SeaMonkey versions, and nobody noticed before the release. After we discovered a problem with our original fix, as of Adblock Plus 2.9.0.4251-beta development build things should work correctly on all platforms. This being a rather non-trivial change, your feedback is appreciated. If no other issues pop up we plan to release Adblock Plus 2.9.1 next Tuesday, June 6.
GlobalWebIndex study: people want to block ads on mobile – but only half know they can · 2017-05-31 14:00 by Ben Williams
We wanted to know why mobile ad blocking, something that’s big in the Asia Pacific region, is not popular in other parts of the world, so we hired GlobalWebIndex to write and conduct a survey of 1,011 users about the topic. Their findings, which you can download in an analysis here, play out basically as expected: that people don’t block on mobile and didn’t know they could.
Adblock Plus 2.9 for Firefox released · 2017-05-25 13:34 by Wladimir Palant
Install Adblock Plus 2.9 for Firefox
This release lays important groundwork for the Web Extensions migration. The way Adblock Plus stores its data has changed drastically, though for users everything should stay exactly the same (issue 5048). The new location of your filters and subscriptions is the browser-extension-data/{d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}/storage.js file in your Firefox profile, the same data will be used by the Adblock Plus build based on the Web Extensions platform once it is ready.
Additional changes
- The hidden
data_directoryandplease_kill_startup_performancepreferences have been removed. - It is now possible to use
{and}in CSS property filters (issue 4684).
Get your Samsung Internet ad-free experience on Samsung and Google Nexus devices today · 2017-05-23 14:24 by Vicky Yu
Android users who have Samsung or Google Nexus devices can now surf without annoying ads thanks to Adblock Plus for Samsung Internet.
Adblock Plus for Samsung Internet 1.1.0 released · 2017-05-23 14:17 by Mario König
Install Adblock Plus for Samsung Internet 1.1.0
Changes
- Added support for Nexus devices. (Issue 5192, Issue 5193)
- Translated ABP for Samsung Internet Browser into Spanish, Polish, Korean, Portuguese, Turkish, German, Greek, Russian, French, Italian and Dutch. (Issue 4505, Issue 5232)
- Added support for whitelisting websites. (Issue 4769)
- Improved user experience by introducing the new Material theme. (Issue 4513)
- Fixed multiple minor issues. (Issue 4522, Issue 4602, Issue 4772, Issue 4813, Issue 5100)
Please see this blog post for more details on the newly supported devices.
New Flattr extension in closed beta · 2017-05-10 14:00 by Laura Dornheim
First users to test the revolutionary zero-click payment solution
For many months now, we’ve been internally testing the new version of Flattr. The browser extension cleverly understands which content a user really likes, and on what content he / she spends a lot of time. These sites are automatically flattred by our shiny new Flattr extension and content creators / publishers receive a share of the user’s total monthly Flattr budget.