Adblock Plus and (a little) more

Filter list downloads require HTTPS now · 2019-05-24 04:00 by Manish Jethani

Starting with Adblock Plus 3.6 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera (and development builds as of 3.5.2.2320), the extension will no longer download filter lists over unencrypted HTTP (core#5). Any existing subscriptions with http:// URLs will stop syncing. If you are a filter list maintainer affected by this change, you can migrate any of your current subscribers over in a few simple steps.

Removed support for the $collapse and $object-subrequest filter options · 2019-05-15 04:00 by Sebastian Noack

Starting with Adblock Plus 3.6 (and development builds as of 3.5.2.2320), filters using the $collapse or $object-subrequest filter options will become invalid and have no effect. We advise filter list authors to update their filter lists, removing any $collapse filter option and replacing any $object-subrequest filter option with the $object filter option.

Adblock Plus 3.5.2 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera released · 2019-04-20 00:00 by Manish Jethani

Install Adblock Plus 3.5.2 for Chrome
Install Adblock Plus 3.5.2 for Firefox
Install Adblock Plus 3.5.2 for Opera

Changes

The $rewrite filter option now works for internal redirects only (core#4).
Worked around an issue due to missing browser.storage.onChanged events in Firefox 66 (Firefox bug #1541449) causing the options page to not respond to some preference changes (issue 7430).

Adblock Plus 3.5.1 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera released · 2019-04-04 01:00 by Andrea Giammarchi

Install Adblock Plus 3.5.1 for Chrome
Install Adblock Plus 3.5.1 for Firefox
Install Adblock Plus 3.5.1 for Opera

Changes

Added strip-fetch-query-parameter snippet to exclude undesired query string parameters from fetch operations (issue 7294).
The abort-current-inline-script snippet now works with properties that are functions (issue 7356).
The abort-on-property-read, abort-on-property-write and abort-current-inline-script snippets now work with sub-properties (issue 7236).
Fixed whitelisting of content within <iframe srcdoc> elements (issue 7305).

Adblock Plus 3.5 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera released · 2019-03-13 04:00 by Manish Jethani

Install Adblock Plus 3.5 for Chrome
Install Adblock Plus 3.5 for Firefox
Install Adblock Plus 3.5 for Opera

This release comes with significant performance improvements, enhanced support for the $rewrite and $csp filter options, and a new Korean filter list.

Changes

Overall CPU usage is down by ~60% since the last release:
- Blocking of network requests is now 5 times as fast on average (issues 6994, 7003, 7052, 7089, 7208, 7209, 7232, 7245, 7250 and 7265).
- Generation of the CSS style sheet for a document is now more than 10 times as fast on average and more than 1,000 times as fast for domains not occurring in any of the user’s filter list subscriptions (i.e. most domains) (issues 6956, 6957, 6989, 6997, 6999 and 7244).
- Extension badge updates to indicate the number of ads blocked are now at least 5-10% more efficient (issues 7253 and 7257).
The $rewrite filter option can now take a value of the format abp-resource:<name> where <name> is the name of a built-in resource (issue 7067).
If there are multiple filters with the $csp option that match a URL, now all corresponding CSP headers are injected into the document (issues 7179 and 7243).
Added a new Korean filter list (issue 7235).
Fixed: Domain-based whitelisting did not work in data: URI frames (issue 6953).
Fixed: Element collapsing style sheets could linger after the frame was destroyed (issue 7104).
Fixed: Critical notification animation did not stop when dismissed (issue 7077).

Chrome/Opera-only changes

Stopped using Shadow DOM v0 on older versions of Chromium that do not support user style sheets (issue 6998).
Fixed: The “Block element” context menu option disappeared after initial use (issue 6948).

Firefox-only changes

Fixed: The “Block element” context menu option sometimes did not work on first use (issue 6493).
Fixed: The “Block element” option did not appear in the extension popup for some websites (issue 5938).

Adblock Plus 3.4.3 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera released · 2019-01-23 04:00 by Sebastian Noack

Install Adblock Plus 3.4.3 for Chrome
Install Adblock Plus 3.4.3 for Firefox
Install Adblock Plus 3.4.3 for Opera

Changes

Added the new abort-current-inline-script snippet for terminating inline scripts containing a given pattern (issue 7141).
Added the new abort-on-property-write snippet for terminating scripts that assign a value to a given property (issue 7207).
Changed name to “Adblock Plus – free ad blocker” (issue 7219).
Worked around an issue that caused Firefox to run out of memory and crash (issue 7210).
Provided the ABPIndo filter list to Malaysian users (issue 7158).

Adblock Plus 3.4.2 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera released · 2018-12-03 17:48 by Dave Vandyke

Install Adblock Plus 3.4.2 for Chrome
Install Adblock Plus 3.4.2 for Firefox
Install Adblock Plus 3.4.2 for Opera

Changes

Fixed the “Waiting for Extension Adblock Plus…” problem which some users were experiencing (issue 7065).
Added the new hide-if-contains-image snippet (issue 7088).
Added the new hide-if-has-and-matches-style snippet (issue 7137).

Adblock Plus 3.4.1 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera released · 2018-11-14 21:00 by Sebastian Noack

Install Adblock Plus 3.4.1 for Chrome
Install Adblock Plus 3.4.1 for Firefox
Install Adblock Plus 3.4.1 for Opera

Changes

Added the new abort-on-property-read snippet (issue 6969).
Fixed a bug where an issue reporter screenshot was submitted without annotations under certain circumstances (issue 7100).

Adblock Plus 3.4 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera released · 2018-10-31 02:00 by Thomas Greiner

Install Adblock Plus 3.4 for Chrome
Install Adblock Plus 3.4 for Firefox
Install Adblock Plus 3.4 for Opera

This release includes user interface improvements as well as a further reduction of the overall memory usage.

Changes

Redesigned the first-run page (issue 6749).
Redesigned the icon popup (issues 6794, 6801, 6816 and 6922).
Polished the design of the issue reporter and begun including a screenshot with each report (issues 6751, 6795, 6827, 6828 and 6895).
Made the following improvements to the settings page:
- Added the “Show number of ads blocked in icon” option (issue 6740).
- Started showing the “Show useful notifications” option regardless of whether the user has seen a notification previously (issue 6736).
- Tooltips are shown on click now (issue 6758).
- Removed the title input field when adding a filter list (issue 6760).
- Removed the “NEW” label from Acceptable Ads without third-party tracking (issue 6768).
Snippet filters are now required to be restricted to at least one domain (issues 6797 and 6846).
Started logging snippet filter hits in our developer tools panel (issue 6843).
Removed support for legacy :-abp-properties() syntax (issue 6870).
Special comments are now required to be given at the top of filter lists (issue 6923).
Added the EasyList Portuguese filter list (issue 6944).
Added the new dir-string snippet to simulate logging in the developer tools console (issue 6964).
Reduced the initial memory footprint by ~16% (issue 6916), base memory usage by ~28% (issues 6815, 6916), and memory used per frame by ~660 KB (issue 6967).
Fixed: Layout shifted after opening dialog for adding new filter list on the settings page (issue 5851).
Fixed: Blank values for snippet arguments were ignored (issue 6811).
Fixed: Sometimes all subscriptions were listed as additional subscriptions (issue 6838).
Fixed: $rewrite filters using wildcards didn’t match end of URL (issue 6868).
Fixed: $csp filters with blank value caused errors due to injection of an invalid header (issue 6871).
Fixed: Element hiding emulation filters for the domain localhost were considered invalid (issue 6931).
Fixed: Snippet filters were ignored if the user resubscribed to the ABP anti-circumvention filter list (issue 6974).

Firefox-only changes

Reverted to using inline styles for element hiding emulation filters (issue 6504).
Ported the hide-if-contains-and-matches-style snippet (issue 6938).

Changes to parsing metadata from filter lists · 2018-09-17 15:00 by Sebastian Noack

Starting with Adblock Plus 3.4 (and developments builds as of 3.3.2.2135), special comments must be given at the top of the filter list, right below the header, otherwise they will be ignored. Furthermore, the Checksum special comment is no longer supported.