Adblock Plus and (a little) more
Adblock Plus is most used extension · 2007-09-17 13:13 by Wladimir Palant
Justing Scott (aka fligtar, one of addons.mozilla.org developers) published interesting numbers in his blog. In addition to the (inherently unreliable) download numbers for extensions we now also have the numbers of active users to compare. Actually, they are not really user numbers, but at least Mozilla knows how often it received update requests for which extensions — and that’s good enough to compare relative usage.
How I "stole" the code that made Adblock a success · 2007-09-16 18:39 by Wladimir Palant
Just wow… I got a mail from a fellow extension developer with some corrections to the History of Adblock. He notified me that his content blocker was first to use content policies and suggested that I correct the history. I declined because the history never claims that I was first when I came up with this concept in June 2003, I was (and still am) simply unaware of already existing implementations.
Ads don't generate money · 2007-09-10 04:46 by Wladimir Palant
The Adblock discussion started by Danny Carlton’s half-hearted attempts to exert pressure on Mozilla Corporation continues. Now the “big players” entered the game, in the last few days I was contacted by reporters from NY Times, BBC World, National Public Radio, and several others. Their criticism of Adblock Plus is different — and more convincing. After all, nobody can deny that Adblock Plus is taking revenue away from content providers thus undermining the foundation of the Internet, right?
Profitability is not a right, it has to be earned · 2007-09-06 22:18 by Wladimir Palant
The first project I wanted to make money from became a failure. Yes, I got some customers, even one large company, but in the end what I earned wasn’t comparable to the effort I put into it. Who’s fault was it? Mine of course. I knew too little about how to get users interested and to sell my product, and, frankly, I didn’t even want to learn more — creating a good product was more important to me. Did I blame my customers for my failure, did I say that they should have been more interested, should have paid more? Of course not. The customers didn’t have any obligation towards me, they were free to choose, as always.
Adblock for Internet Explorer is not an option · 2007-08-29 15:59 by Wladimir Palant
I already answered that question several times but recently a few people asked me again to create an Adblock Plus version for Internet Explorer. So I thought it would be worth answering in detail in my blog. Fact is, this is not likely to happen, for various reasons.
Why Firefox is blocked · 2007-08-29 06:31 by Wladimir Palant
Do I really have to say anything about this ridiculous FUD campaign against Firefox? No, I wouldn’t have anything to add to Why Darwin Beats Danny Carlton anyway. Thank you, Michael Arrington, I couldn’t agree more.
Status update · 2007-08-26 21:04 by Wladimir Palant
You probably noticed that I have been very quiet lately — I only managed to reply a few of the incoming mails, almost didn’t comment in bug reports and didn’t visit the Adblock Plus forum at all. Main reason is that I finally moved with my wife to our own apartment in Cologne and we simply didn’t have Internet at home yet. This means that I only had Internet access at work where I had already enough to do with getting TomTom HOME 2.0 ready for a release.
Get WebRunner 0.5 while it is hot! · 2007-07-11 12:00 by Wladimir Palant
I have been using WebRunner for a few weeks now, and it is pretty useful. It allows me to use some web applications independently from my browser — which makes sense, since these web applications have a user interface of their own and don’t require the full power of the browser. The web applications then appear in my taskbar with the correct icon instead of cluttering the browser with tabs. In addition, this allows the web applications to run constantly, even if I frequently restart my browser (which happens sometimes). And finally, I no longer need to be logged in at Google in my browser, one site less allowed to set permanent cookies.
Getting application name and icon right with XULRunner · 2007-06-29 02:21 by Wladimir Palant
Despite a few disadvantages, XULRunner is a great tool for application development. The more disappointing it is when the very basic things fail: getting your application recognizable by its icon and application name. Setting icon and title for application’s windows is easy, and usually it is sufficient. However, Windows taskbar has the option “Group similar taskbar buttons” (enabled by default), and for a XULRunner application this group is displayed with XULRunner’s icon and the name “xulrunner”.
Mozilla Developer Day: XUL vs. HTML · 2007-06-26 01:10 by Wladimir Palant
Mozilla Developer Day in Paris was great. I still cannot believe that I sat at the same table with Daniel Glazman and Benjamin Smedberg (but in our modern times there is proof). There were lots of people I always wanted to meet in person and many interesting talks. The Joost guys delivered a very impressive demo. But the best of it were the discussion sessions. 70 XUL developers in one room — this doesn’t happen too often.