Adblock Plus and (a little) more

Adblock Plus 0.7.5 released · 2007-04-20 18:06 by Wladimir Palant

Major changes

List of blockable items is displayed at the bottom of the browser window
Element hiding improvements: matches are now counted and appear in list of blockable items
Subscriptions can now be moved to new locations without inconveniences for users
Support for additional blocking features in Firefox 2.0.0.4 and higher
Compatibility with K-Meleon 1.1

Known issues

Mac OS X: Flash movies might not be displayed properly if “Show tabs on Flash and Java” option is switched on

Firefox 2.0.0.4 closes ad blocking loopholes · 2007-04-19 00:57 by Wladimir Palant

Adblock Plus has just got a little more useful. Yesterday two patches of mine landed on the Mozilla 1.8 branch which will be used for Firefox 2.0.0.4. What are they good for? They close loopholes that advertisers could use (and some already do use) to initiate requests to their servers without Adblock Plus interfering.

Added support for permanent redirects · 2007-04-18 06:38 by Wladimir Palant

This is a release candidate for Adblock Plus 0.7.5.

Changes

Added locales: Arabic, Frisian, Mongolian
Subscription address is now changed if download results in a permanent HTTP redirect
Next download for subscriptions containing comment with text “Redirect: http://example.com/new.address” will happen from the new address, subscription address is changed if this download is successful
After 30 failed subscription download attempts the default fallback address is requested for information on new subscription address (extensions.adblockplus.subscriptions_fallbackurl and extensions.adblockplus.subscriptions_fallbackerrors preferences added)

Known issues

~~Header of the blockable items list not visible in fullscreen mode~~
~~Object subrequests in Firefox 2.0.0.4 and higher displayed with type “object”~~

Yet another round of extension recommendations · 2007-04-16 10:04 by Wladimir Palant

ComputerWorld managed to generate quite a lot of buzz with its list of must-have extensions and extensions to avoid. But, as many commenters noticed, the extensions listed appear pretty random. The first list contains a number of extensions that are based on good ideas but either didn’t manage to implement these ideas properly or are simply useless to most Firefox users. On the other hand, some extensions that these users would really consider absolute “must-have” like Adblock Plus are simply missing which undermines the credibility of this article.

Legal implications of security research · 2007-04-08 16:23 by Wladimir Palant

The Chilling Effect is quite interesting read (yes, the article is a few months old but I only discovered it now). It shows nicely how security research on web applications is different from research on software you install on your computer. It also shows why responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities is so rare in this field. I also find it very interesting how it explains that most software is of a low quality.

Java and Firefox memory usage · 2007-04-04 15:59 by Wladimir Palant

I have been using Sun’s old Java 1.5.0_06 runtime for quite a while, there simply wasn’t a good reason to waste time updating it. When investigating a Java-related crash I decided to check whether it will happen with a newer runtime (1.6.0-b105 was current at that time). Surprisingly, the crash disappeared even though this crash happened in Gecko code and not in the Java plugin.

Why you should not get married in Germany · 2007-03-31 02:32 by Wladimir Palant

Until recently I thought that the low number of marriages and the relatively high age of people getting married in Germany was solely an expression of the mentality where everybody only relies on himself. Now I have learned that there is another factor as well — getting married in Germany is just difficult, despite all the talk about “improving family-friendliness of the state”.

80% of malware served through ads? · 2007-03-28 03:45 by Wladimir Palant

PC World published an article on the analysis done by security firm Finjan that shows that 80% of all malicious code is served through online advertising. Now as with every statistic their selection might not have been representative, I have strong doubts that this number is accurate. But the trend is clear — there is much to be gained by infiltrating advertising networks, it allows hackers to inject their code into many sites including the ones where users don’t expect it. So the common advise to avoid visiting “shady” sites has once again lost some of its appeal, ads are displayed on “serious” sites as well. But I guess it will not stop most webmasters from trusting third-party content unconditionally by embedding scripts from third-party servers into their web pages. If these third-party servers get compromised their web site will be automatically affected as well, with identity stealing being the least serious consequence.

Usability vs. Security · 2007-03-25 01:53 by Wladimir Palant

Disclamer: This post is only about using NoScript as a security solution, not as a way to block annoyances.

It seems that me pointing out the fundamental flaw in NoScript only inspired another round of madness — that’s the only name I can find for it. Giorgio Maone has developed a solution that will effectively stop untrusted sites from injecting JavaScript through XSS holes in whitelisted sites. He is currently testing it with a development build and from what I can tell it mostly holds what it promises. Is that an achievement? Giorgio has obviously put much thought into this feature but I still have to say: no.

Frame handling rewritten - again · 2007-03-21 04:57 by Wladimir Palant

Handling of frames has been rewritten (hopefully for the last time) to be more consistent and to avoid hitting issues in Gecko like bug 345857. Also, multi-language packages for K-Meleon can now be created (note, these packages will not work properly in K-Meleon 1.02). The multi-language builds currently contain three languages: English, German and Russian.

Changes

Removed SeaMonkey sidebar customization hack
More consistent handling of frames, less likely to trigger bugs in Gecko (side effect: frame’s URL no longer disappers from the list of blockable items when frame’s location changes)
Changed appearance of object tabs to make them less intrusive (forum thread)
Fixed: EMBED elements containing images should be recognized as objects
Fixed: Object tabs require two restarts after installation to work correctly in Firefox 3.0 alphas (bug 16077)
Made compatible with K-Meleon 1.1, multi-language packages can be built now (those will not work correctly in K-Meleon 1.02)

Known issues

~~Errors appear in the Error Console when right-clicking in XUL files~~
~~Counter for element hiding not working on table cells and rows (bug 83830)~~
Header of the blockable items list not visible in fullscreen mode