Adblock Plus and (a little) more

Adblock Plus 1.1.3 released · 2010-01-07 11:36 by Wladimir Palant

This is a bugfix release with minimal changes.

Changes

Adblock Plus 1.1.2 regression fixed: Filter hits are counted in private browsing mode
Fixed: Subscription dialog comes up on each update in Fennec, regardless of existing subscriptions
Updated compatibility range for Songbird, 1.4.0 to 1.7.0a supported now

Adblock Plus 1.1.3 coming up · 2010-01-05 04:49 by Wladimir Palant

I messed up: private browsing integration no longer works in Adblock Plus 1.1.2, hits will be counted regardless of whether the user is in private browsing mode. This should be fixed in the current development build (1.1.2+.2010010502). I would be grateful if some people could confirm that things are working correctly now — I want to release Adblock Plus 1.1.3 from branch soon with this change only (other changes like subscription UI rework are still scheduled for Adblock Plus 1.2).

Subscription-related user interface parts reworked · 2009-12-27 03:53 by Wladimir Palant

The current development build (Adblock Plus 1.1.2+.2009122702) features many changes to the subscription-related user interface parts (mostly post-install subscription selection and “Add filter subscription” from Adblock Plus preferences):

Less/simpler text
User is immediately presented with the subscription suggestion matching his browser locale, other recommended subscriptions are available in dropdown list.
A warning is shown if the user closes the post-install page without adding a subscription.
Adding a different subscription no longer happens in a separate dialog window.
No longer necessary to go to the webpage for the full list of subscriptions, when you choose to add a different subscription the full list is loaded automatically. A subscription can be selected with one click, subscriptions matching your browser locale are emphasized.
Subscriptions are offered by languages rather than regions now.
Việt Nam List is back as a recommendation.

These changes can be discussed in the corresponding forum topic. Older changes since Adblock Plus 1.1.2 release:

HTML5 audio and video can now be blocked via context menu
Toolbar icon tooltip shows more information (number of filters/subscriptions in use, number of whitelisted items and matching element hiding rules)

More extension signing adventures · 2009-12-21 11:22 by Wladimir Palant

Things got significantly better since the last time I tried to sign Adblock Plus. Firefox 3.5.6 will now show my name instead of “Author not verified” even if the organization field of the certificate is empty (thanks, Boris). And StartCom certificates are accepted by all main applications that Adblock Plus needs to support (meaning Firefox 3.0 starting with 3.0.12, Firefox 3.5/3.6/3.7, SeaMonkey 2.0 and Thunderbird 3.0). So I started signing development builds again and even released Adblock Plus 1.1.2 as a signed XPI a little more than a week ago.

Adblock Plus 1.1.2 released · 2009-12-12 10:30 by Wladimir Palant

Major changes

Minimal Fennec 1.0 support (at least Beta 6 required)
Made subscription downloads support load balancing, downloads can be distributed to several servers now
Subscription downloads no longer fail if network.http.redirection-limit preference is misconfigured
List of filter subscriptions no longer offered only on first installation, also offered on update if the user has neither filter subscriptions nor own filters
Improved recognition of document source for $domain option in the filters

Adblock Plus 1.1.2 release candidate · 2009-12-09 10:39 by Wladimir Palant

Adblock Plus 1.1.2 release is coming close, the current development build (Adblock Plus 1.1.1+.2009120902) is a release candidate. Recent changes:

Improved the way “Subscribe” links in webpages are handled by Fennec, this makes it possible to add a subscription that isn’t on the list of recommendations. These links can be tested here.
“Subscribe” links that aren’t pointing to a valid HTTP/FTP location will no longer be handled.
Users without filters will be presented a list of subscriptions to choose from on update as well, not only on a new install.
Subscription downloads will no longer fail if the user misconfigured “network.http.redirection-limit” preference.

Adblock Plus roadmap · 2009-12-03 11:11 by Wladimir Palant

I understand that the decision making process around Adblock Plus hasn’t been very transparent, particularly when it comes to questions like “what will go into that release” or “when is this release done”. I decided to put up a roadmap that lists the features being considered for future releases (at least the ones where the details have been worked out enough to be implemented). I’ll try to keep this list up to date and it is open for discussion of course (preferably in the forum). Releases generally happen when all features have been implemented (or moved out to future releases) and sufficiently tested in development builds (meaning at least a week of testing). This is where the tentative release date for Adblock Plus 1.1.2 comes from — with all features being done it is going to be released at the end of the testing phase if no issues come up.

Fennec support and signed builds · 2009-12-03 04:00 by Wladimir Palant

Thanks to the work of Fabrice Desre the current Adblock Plus development build is compatible with Fennec (a.k.a. Firefox Mobile). It won’t work in 1.0 Beta 5, you need a nightly build or Beta 6 once it is out. As it is now, the support is very basic — the options are limited to choosing a filter subscription, you can only select one. You cannot tweak filter rules and you cannot whitelist websites, for such “advanced” things you will need to copy over your patterns.ini file from the desktop. Choosing a filter subscription on first run works fine but that page isn’t meant for small screens — this will be improved later.

Extension conflicts, 2009 edition · 2009-11-24 11:01 by Wladimir Palant

I realized something yesterday. I thought about the add-ons that caused me trouble lately by breaking Adblock Plus (and often the browser as well) — .NET Framework Assistant, Skype Extension, Ask Toolbar (a.k.a. Zone Alarm Toolbar a.k.a. Foxit Toolbar). I noticed that they all have something in common: none of these extensions is being hosted on AMO, consequently none of them had to pass AMO’s review process. So while AMO’s review process still receives its fair amount of criticism and the AMO team continues to improve — apparently, it managed to achieve an important goal. The AMO editor team enforced good coding practices successfully enough to make conflicts between extensions hosted on AMO rare, it is mostly external extensions causing the trouble now. My congratulations to the editors and to the entire AMO team!

Adblock Plus source code documentation · 2009-11-20 09:29 by Wladimir Palant

Sometime before the release of Adblock Plus 1.0 I started adding JSDoc comments throughout Adblock Plus source code. The idea was that source code documentation will be generated from it automatically in future. This took a while but now it is finally there. This documentation is updated whenever new development builds are created. There are still issues of course, some parts that aren’t properly documented and others where the documentation could be improved. Also, for now the documentation only covers the code that runs in the namespace of the XPCOM module (AdblockPlus.js), the UI code isn’t present. This should change in future.