Adblock Plus and (a little) more
Adblock Plus 1.1 for Android released · 2013-03-19 16:15 by Felix Dahlke
Install Adblock Plus for Android
Even if you already have Adblock Plus for Android, please install this version manually, or you won’t get any updates in the future, because Google removed us from the Play store.
Changes
- Implemented automatic updates
- Added a dialog to help with the manual proxy configuration
- Separated filtering and proxy activation settings to avoid loss of connectivity after manual configuration
- Switched to the Holo user interface theme
- Improved icon hiding
- Implemented a workaround for a Chrome issue causing blank pages
- Fixed an issue with URLs containing apostrophes
Adblock Plus for Android removed from Google Play store · 2013-03-14 09:37 by Wladimir Palant
In a rather surprising move, Google removed Adblock Plus and other ad blocking apps from the Google Play store due to “interference with another service or product in an unauthorized manner.” This looks like a course change at Google, until recently the main distinction between Android and iPhone was that Android allowed you to install any apps as long as it isn’t malicious (meaning that it’s obvious what the app does). Google Play still allows apps stating “for rooted phones only” but I wonder whether they are next on the list to be removed – each of them performs “unauthorized actions”.
Update (2013-03-16): The Electronic Frontier Foundation did a great job explaining why this move is sadly disappointing, way better than I did.
Adblock Plus 1.4 for Google Chrome™ released · 2013-03-12 14:07 by Wladimir Palant
Install Adblock Plus for Google Chrome™
Changes
- Implemented pop-up blocking functionality to get rid of pop-ups that are being allowed by the built-in pop-up blocker.
- Worked around some developer tools functionality breaking due to Chrome issue 178109 (forum topic).
- Improved hiding of placeholders, frames in a frameset are hidden as well now (forum topic).
- Made sure the important functionality is synced automatically between the Firefox and Chrome extensions.
Improvements to pop-up blocking in Chrome · 2013-03-05 15:51 by Wladimir Palant
Turns out that our previous release candidate wasn’t catching all the pop-ups. We’ve improved the approach in Adblock Plus for Google Chrome 1.3.4.919, that’s the new release candidate.
Pop-up blocking for Chrome · 2013-03-04 12:55 by Wladimir Palant
We’ve had pop-up blocking support in Firefox for quite a while already, starting with the 1.3.4.918 development build the same functionality is now available for Chrome. Again, this is to complement the built-in pop-up blocker for the cases where it fails, not to replace it. By now the subscription authors added filters for the most notorious unwanted pop-ups so these should be blocked immediately.
This is a release candidate for Adblock Plus 1.4 for Google Chrome which is scheduled for release next Tuesday (2013-03-12).
Adblock Plus for Android issues with the latest Jelly Bean updates · 2013-02-15 18:32 by Felix Dahlke
As you might have noticed, Adblock Plus for Android no longer works out of the box on non-rooted devices running Android 4.1.2 or 4.2.2, it’ll show a warning asking you to manually configure the proxy instead. Since the manual configuration is non-trivial, you can follow our guide to configure the proxy.
Adblock Plus 2.2.3 for Firefox released · 2013-02-13 17:51 by Wladimir Palant
This release mostly works around breakage caused by AVG Security Toolbar 14.0.3.* extension, it prevented Adblock Plus from working correctly among other things. Other changes:
- Made sure that first-run page always opens is the current browser window (bug 819561).
Worked around AVG Security Toolbar issue · 2013-02-07 16:21 by Wladimir Palant
Current Adblock Plus versions are broken if AVG Security Toolbar 14.0.3.14 is installed. Investigation turned up a serious issue in AVG Security Toolbar affecting a lot more than just Adblock Plus and AVG has been notified about it. In the meantime the current Adblock Plus development build (Adblock Plus 2.2.3a.3629) implements a work-around that allows it to function properly nevertheless. Unless any issues pop up we are going to release Adblock Plus 2.2.3 with this fix next Tuesday.
Forward compatibility of filters [Done] · 2013-02-04 09:31 by Wladimir Palant
Done, this proposal has been implemented as of 2013-07-08.
Current state
A small number of our users stays on outdated Adblock Plus versions forever, e.g. 0.5% are still on Adblock Plus 0.7.* (mostly 0.7.5.5). There are similar numbers for Adblock Plus 1.3.10 which is the last version that can be installed on PowerPC Macs by regular means. Outdated versions create issues for filter list authors who don’t want to cause breakage for these users and have to use backwards-compatible filters like foo$popup,image,~image instead of just foo$popup. This is largely because Adblock Pus simply ignores unknown filter options.
Simplifying subscription downloads module [Done] · 2013-02-04 08:18 by Wladimir Palant
Done, this proposal has been implemented as of 2013-07-08.
The module responsible for updating subscriptions is one of the most complicated components of Adblock Plus, also one that is notoriously complicated to test properly. Much of the code here is outdated for one reason or another.