Adblock Plus and (a little) more
Decadblock: Adblock Plus turns 10 · 2016-01-22 17:34 by Ben Williams
Adblock Plus turned 10 years old this week! Celebrate the “decadblock” by reading about how Wladimir wrote the first Adblock Plus code from the original adblocker code, how Till met Wladimir and, oh yeah … how we’ve got something to celebrate after these 10 years: a half billion downloads!
Adblock Plus 2.7.1 for Firefox released · 2016-01-19 15:08 by Wladimir Palant
Install Adblock Plus 2.7.1 for Firefox
With this release Adblock Plus becomes fully compatible with the upcoming multi-process mode in Firefox, it no longer relies on backwards compatibility hacks in Firefox (issue 3259, issue 3407, issue 3449, issue 3465, issue 3486, issue 3494). This also means that the screenshot functionality in Issue Reporter is fully functional now (issue 3375), and also quite fast (issue 3504).
Additional changes
- Improved performance:
patterns.iniwas being saved way more often than necessary (issue 3473). - $ping filter option is back and will especially apply to requests sent via navigator.sendBeacon() (issue 3452).
- Requests produced by
<img srcset>and<picture>will be assigned typeimage(issue 3459). - Requests produced by the Fetch API will be assigned type
xmlhttprequest(issue 3459). genericblockandgenerichidetypes will no longer show up in the filter assistant (issue 3478).- Removed non-standard JavaScript syntax, which caused warnings in Firefox Aurora and Nightly builds (issue 1434, issue 3418, issue 3421, issue 3502, issue 3505).
- Fixed: Previously disabled and removed filter is still disabled when added back (issue 3451).
Regressions fixed
As the previous release changed Adblock Plus quite drastically, it inevitably introduced some issues. As far as we know, all of these have been resolved:
- Pop-up blocking doesn’t catch redirects to a different domain (issue 3458).
- Issue Reporter gets stuck if filter subscriptions need updating (issue 3461, issue 3464).
- Screenshot marker in Issue Reporter is no longer red (issue 3503).
- Fixed image preview in Blockable Items tooltip (issue 3491).
Known issues
- Element hiding functionality isn’t working on Mac OS X when multi-process mode is enabled (bug 1187099). Mozilla is working on this.
IAB dis-invites us, disses compromise and buries dissent · 2016-01-15 15:28 by Ben Williams
Last year we sent someone to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Leadership Conference. Even if we don’t always agree, it was a constructive event. Well, we wanted to go this year too. But after buying a ticket, booking a flight and reserving a room, we got, ahem, dis-invited. It left us a bit confused: how can the IAB top brass still think ad blocking will just go away? Why are their heads so firmly entrenched in the sand?
Adblock Browser 1.2.1 for iOS released · 2016-01-14 10:34 by Mario König
Install Adblock Browser 1.2.1 for iOS
Changes
- Fixed: Fixed bug that caused crashes for users who accessed the History tab with more than 200+ entries. (Issue 3265)
Finished support for multi-process Firefox · 2016-01-11 12:58 by Wladimir Palant
We continued working on improving our support for multi-process Firefox. So far we have still been relying on backwards compatibility code in Firefox which is slow and error-prone. However, starting with Adblock Plus 2.7.0.4123-beta development build that backwards compatibility code no longer applies to Adblock Plus — now we are on our own. As far as I know, all issues have been resolved, with one exception:
- Element hiding functionality isn’t working on Mac OS X when multi-process is enabled (bug 1187099). Mozilla is fixing this, we might also implement our own workaround however.
This development build is a release candidate for Adblock Plus 2.7.1 which we plan to release on January 19, 2016. Please tell us if you notice any other issues, particularly around Blockable items list and Issue reporter.
Adblock Plus 1.10 for Chrome, Opera and Safari released · 2016-01-05 13:44 by Dave Vandyke
Install Adblock Plus 1.10 for Chrome
Install Adblock Plus 1.10 for Opera
Install Adblock Plus 1.10 for Safari (Safari 6 or higher required)
This update adds the new CSS property filter syntax which should give filter list authors an additional tool against the circumvention of Adblock Plus. We have also created a page which will be shown when Adblock Plus is uninstalled. We are hoping to gain insight into the overall user experience and what we can improve.
Changes
- Added support for the new CSS property filter syntax (issue 2397).
- Improved how the first run page looks on smaller screens (issue 1292).
Chrome/Opera-only changes
- Added a feedback page that is displayed when Adblock Plus is uninstalled (issue 3269).
- Reintroduced the $ping filter option (issue 3452).
- Adapted for changes in Chrome 49 which allows for the context of web requests to be matched more reliably (issue 3453).
- Changed the way we detect the browser name and version (issue 3415).
Safari-only changes
- Avoid matching web requests with the type
OTHERwhen using the$fontfilter option (issue 3454).
Element Hiding Helper 1.3.6 for Adblock Plus released · 2016-01-05 13:15 by Wladimir Palant
Install Element Hiding Helper 1.3.6 for Adblock Plus
This is a minor update, removing non-standard JavaScript syntax, which caused warnings in Firefox Aurora and Nightly builds (issue 1434, issue 3260, issue 3418, issue 3421, issue 3430). It also slightly improves support for multi-process Firefox (issue 3431, issue 3443).
Customizations 1.0.4 for Adblock Plus released · 2016-01-05 13:10 by Wladimir Palant
Install Customizations 1.0.4 for Adblock Plus
This is a minor update, removing non-standard JavaScript syntax, which caused warnings in Firefox Aurora and Nightly builds (issue 1434, issue 3260, issue 3418, issue 3421). There are also a few additional changes:
- References to “add-on bar” have been replaced by “toolbar” (issue 1140).
- Displaying toolbar icon as text has been disabled in latest Firefox versions, Australis theme doesn’t support it (issue 1155).
- Fixed: “Toolbar item display” option keeps switching to default rather than showing the selected value (issue 1156).
- The special icon for “whitelisted” websites has been updated to better match the current Adblock Plus icon (issue 2269).
Diagnostics 1.3.1 for Adblock Plus released · 2016-01-05 13:07 by Wladimir Palant
Install Diagnostics 1.3.1 for Adblock Plus
This is a minor update, removing non-standard JavaScript syntax, which caused warnings in Firefox Aurora and Nightly builds (issue 1434, issue 3260, issue 3418, issue 3420, issue 3421).
Reintroducing the $ping filter option · 2015-12-23 16:59 by Sebastian Noack
Historically, there has been the $ping filter option in Adblock Plus, to limit request blocking filters to the URL given by the ping attribute on links. When such a link is clicked, the browser sends a request to that URL in the background. This technique is mostly useful for tracking. However, it has never been enabled by default in Firefox. Therefore, with Adblock Plus 2.0, $ping got deprecated and merged into $other.
But recently navigator.sendBeacon() got introduced, which is basically the JavaScript equivalent of the ping HTML attribute. And it is enabled by default. Moreover, on Chrome, <a ping> is supported by default too. And starting with Chrome 49, it’s possible to distinguish these requests from others.
Therefore, we are reintroducing the $ping filter option (issue 3452). Starting with Adblock Plus 2.7.0.4099 for Firefox and 1.9.4.1508 for Chrome/Opera, filters using the $ping option will only match requests that are either caused by <a ping> or by navigator.sendBeacon(). Note that the filter option $other won’t match these requests anymore.