Adblock Plus and (a little) more

Oh well, looks like Facebook just got all anti-user · 2016-08-09 17:52 by Ben Williams

Facebook announced today that it would start attempting to show ads to ad-blocking users who visit its desktop site. This is unfortunate, but it’s nothing new: they join a long list of “circumventionists” in an arms race against the open source community fueling ABP and other ad blockers.

Element Hiding Helper 1.3.9 for Adblock Plus released · 2016-08-02 14:18 by Wladimir Palant

Install Element Hiding Helper 1.3.9 for Adblock Plus

This is a minor update, fixing the position of the icon in the Inspector panel for Firefox 48 and above (issue 4255), as well as improving its quality on high-resolution screens (issue 4256).

Finally! Adblock Plus for Microsoft Edge now available for 350 million Windows 10 users · 2016-08-02 14:00 by Oleksandr Paraska

Today, Microsoft is releasing the big Anniversary Update to Windows 10. Among other changes to the operating system, this brings support for extensions to Microsoft Edge. Which means that people running Windows 10 can install Adblock Plus for Microsoft Edge, and start blocking annoying advertisements in Microsoft’s new standard browser.

The lonely bully: China issues edict to ban ad blockers · 2016-07-20 14:00 by Ben Williams

Just last week China issued its Internet Advertising Interim Rules, essentially a list of prescriptions for online ads that included Article 16, which stipulates that ad blockers will be banned from September 1. This is troubling news for Chinese users, many of whom block ads on their mobile phones, but it’s even more concerning for the door of online oppression it leaves open.

Resolving the ad blocking 'dilemma' – new research from HubSpot shows how · 2016-07-13 14:01 by Ben Williams

HubSpot Research conducted a global survey on ad blocking. Now, before you dismiss it and go back to hunting down corpses in rivers on Pokémon Go, bear in mind that we got to add some questions this time that produced results which delve into places other studies don’t go. While it doesn’t reveal any waterlogged bodies we did stumble on some solutions for advertisers’ “ad blocker issue.”

The full study is available here, a slideshare’s here.

BIG Flattr Plus update · 2016-07-07 17:05 by Ben Williams

“BIG” as in long … we take a deep dive into the status our Flattr Plus project: what we’ve accomplished since we announced it in May, what we need to improve on and where the project is heading. If you’re interested in getting the beta this fall before anyone else, sign up here.

Adblock Browser 1.4.0 for iOS released · 2016-06-29 11:05 by Mario König

Install Adblock Browser 1.4.0 for iOS

Changes

Added “in page” search functionality via URL bar (Issue 3929)
Added the ability to open websites in Adblock Browser from Safari using Safari App Extensions (Issue 3901)
Added the possibility to show the settings bar by tapping the bottom of the screen as well as the possibility to scroll to the top of the page by tapping the status bar (Issue 3859, Issue 3932)
Deferred the location permission dialog to when websites actually request the user’s location (Issue 3898)
Implemented multiple minor user experience improvements (Issue 3812, Issue 4003, Issue 4016)
Fixed multiple bugs which caused ABB to crash under specific circumstances (Issue 3534, Issue 3925, Issue 4002, Issue 4074, Issue 4166)
Fixed multiple additional minor bugs (Issue 3897, Issue 4035, Issue 4064)

Adblock Plus 1.12.1 for Chrome, Opera and Safari released · 2016-06-28 12:56 by Dave Vandyke

Install Adblock Plus 1.12.1 for Chrome
Install Adblock Plus 1.12.1 for Opera
Install Adblock Plus 1.12.1 for Safari (Safari 6 or higher required)

This is a minor release, including some bug fixes and performance improvements.

Changes

Further improved element hiding performance, reducing overall page load times (issue 4075).

Chrome/Opera-only changes

Fixed a bug that stopped Adblock Plus filter subscription links from working for old versions of Chrome and Opera (issue 4065).

Safari-only changes

Fixed a regression, introduced with the previous release, that stopped adverts from being blocked on YouTube when using older versions of Safari that still relied on the Flash player (issue 4141).
Fixed a minor bug when converting $document exception rules to Safari Content Blocking rules (issue 4076, issue 4072).

German court (again) says ad blocking legal; Axel Springer given consolation prize on appeal · 2016-06-24 12:18 by Ben Williams

Axel Springer, the multi-billion transnational publisher who puts out Business Insider and Germany’s Bild, among others, appealed our previous victory against them in German court, and we’re happy to inform you that users got another win today at the German regional court of appeals. That is, ad blocking is still legal in ye olde Deutschland. They were granted a secondary part of the appeal, but the important part resulted in an outcome we know very well: users win!

Adblock Plus 1.12 for Chrome, Opera and Safari released · 2016-06-01 15:03 by Sebastian Noack

Install Adblock Plus 1.12 for Chrome
Install Adblock Plus 1.12 for Opera
Install Adblock Plus 1.12 for Safari (Safari 6 or higher required)

This release features experimental Safari Content Blocking support. So if you’re on Safari 9, you can try out the new (faster) blocking mechanism now by enabling it in the options. But please read the announcement first; as that feature is still experimental and Content Blockers have some limitations, there are some caveats. However, Content Blockers will eventually completely replace the old mechanism we relied on so far on Safari.

There also have been some bug fixes and other improvements for all platforms which are listed below, and some changes under the hood which aren’t visible to the user.

Changes

Improved performance of element hiding, reducing page load times (issue 235, issue 4038, issue 4036).
Fixed a regression, introduced with the previous release, which caused the Adblock Warning Removal List to not be added anymore (issue 3772).
Prevent websites from circumventing element hiding by removing or disabling the stylesheet (issue 3699).
Prevent websites from showing previously blocked elements (issue 3840).

Chrome/Opera-only changes

Added an option to hide the Adblock Plus developer tools panel (issue 3796).
Prevent websites from tricking users into adding subscriptions by simulating clicks on abp:subscribe links (issue 3828).
Worked around a Chrome bug that broke the feedback functionality on blogger.com (issue 2687).
Administrators deploying Adblock Plus via group policy can now configure additional subscriptions (issue 3801).
Starting with this release, there are unified builds for Chrome and Opera, using the exact same code on both browsers (issue 3760).

Safari-only changes

Added experimental support for Safari Content Blocking (see above, issue 3687).
Fixed: Wrong domain was whitelisted by icon menu after navigating through the history (issue 3924).