Adblock Plus and (a little) more

Improved startup and shutdown performance · 2008-07-30 01:30 by Wladimir Palant

Changes

Fixed: Blockable items list header is hidden in fullscreen mode
Significantly reduced the time for reading patterns list from disk as well as for writing it back
Reduced the amount of memory used for long filter lists
Made sure patterns file isn’t overwritten unless write was successful (bug 16488)

Known issues

~~Object tabs open preferences rather than the filter composer~~
~~IP addresses are always considered first party~~
~~When subscriptions are added the updates aren’t enabled by default~~
~~Preferences: “Regexp tooltip” is shown for enabled column~~

Blocking malicious sites with Adblock Plus · 2008-07-03 11:48 by Wladimir Palant

I was reading about yet another wave of attacks exploiting a Flash vulnerability. It turned out that the Flash vulnerability used was already fixed but that doesn’t really matter — Adobe seems incapable of updating users to a secure Flash version in a timely fashion. So Firefox users were at risk here as well, and the continuing waves of SQL Injection attacks inserting malicious iframes into trusted websites didn’t exactly make the situation better.

Users with add-ons much more likely to upgrade? · 2008-07-02 14:00 by Wladimir Palant

Henrik Gemal posted on current Firefox market share. Apparently, current Net Applications figures say that only 24% of all Firefox users already switched to Firefox 3. Interestingly, the percentage amongst Adblock Plus users seems much higher. The numbers on addons.mozilla.org indicate 43% Firefox 3 users. This is confirmed by the numbers from popular filter subscriptions, e.g. 43% of EasyList users (largely US-based) and more than 45% of “Cedrics Liste” users (mostly German) are already using Firefox 3.

$third-party option done · 2008-06-30 04:03 by Wladimir Palant

Changes

New options $third-party and $~third-party restrict filters to third-party/first-party requests
Subscription download: Next attempt after failed download is after one day now rather than after one hour (preference extensions.adblockplus.subscriptions_fallbackerrors adjusted accordingly)
Fallback request can now disable automatic downloads for subscriptions that are no longer available
Fixed: Preferences dialog doesn’t immediately display changes to “downloaded automatically” status
Preferences: “Reset filter statistics” now resets “Last hit” as well
Preferences: using more obvious image for “enabled” state (forum topic)
Fixed: “Disable on this page only” won’t work for pages with query string

Simplified Preferences dialog · 2008-06-26 10:25 by Wladimir Palant

Changes

~~Added hidden preference extensions.adblockplus.usefiltercomposer to choose between filter composer and preferences dialog for adding of new filters (this preference might be removed later)~~
Preferences: Removed regular expressions warning and corresponding preference extensions.adblockplus.warnregexp (warning in composer and exclamation mark are enough)
Preferences: Removed dropdown list from filter editor
Preferences: Filter changes (with exception of element hiding) no longer apply immediately to the “current” window, this is only done for the composer
Preferences: “Add subscription” now opens a list of subscriptions instead of the “custom subscription” dialog
Fixed:Object tabs show up on print (bug 19405)

Known issues

~~Preferences window broken in SeaMonkey 1.1~~
~~Exclamation mark tooltip is cut off in Firefox 2~~

More small improvements · 2008-06-25 04:00 by Wladimir Palant

Changes

Made sure filter composer warns the user on regexps and too short filters
Preferences: Showing exclamation mark for too short filters as well now
Preferences: Added a tooltip explaining the meaning of the exclamation mark
Fixed: Findbar in preferences dialog has no icons (Firefox 3)
Mac OS X: Preferences menu changed into toolbar to make sure it stays inside the window (forum topic)

Known issues

~~Filter composer should have a help text for “custom pattern” field~~
~~Detached sidebar doesn’t work~~
~~Composer dialog doesn’t warn on regular expressions~~
Preferences window broken in SeaMonkey 1.1
Exclamation mark tooltip is cut off in Firefox 2

Small improvements · 2008-06-24 03:56 by Wladimir Palant

Changes

Moved warning that Adblock Plus is disabled from preferences to composer dialog, made it possible to enable with a single click
Blockable items: Tooltip now shows the filter subscription name in addition to the filter
Blockable items: Added “Copy filter” item to the context menu
Blockable items: Multiple selection and copying of multiple addresses/filters now possible
Blockable items: Added “Select all” item to the context menu
Fixed: Dates in Preferences window would sometimes use wrong character encoding (bug 441370)
Preferences: pasting filters that contain spaces (especially comments) now possible (bug 18920)

Known issues

~~Filter composer should warn if Adblock Plus is disabled~~
~~Filter composer won’t work in Firefox 2~~
~~Clicks on the status bar icon are ignored~~
Detached sidebar doesn’t work
Composer dialog doesn’t warn on regular expressions

Introducing filter composer · 2008-06-23 03:53 by Wladimir Palant

Only en-US locale is available at the moment.

Changes

Added new filter composer dialog that is opened to add a new filter
Added hidden preference extensions.adblockplus.usefiltercomposer to choose between filter composer and preferences dialog for adding of new filters (this preference might be removed later)
Blockable items: Changed default action for blocked items to “add exception rule” instead of “edit filter”
Fixed: Subscriptions are sometimes loaded from browser cache
Added hidden preference extensions.adblockplus.savestats to allow turning off hit statistics (useful if patterns.ini is put into a version control system)
Firefox 1.5, Thunderbird 1.5 and SeaMonkey 1.0 are no longer supported
Flock 1.2 is supported now
Cleaned up some backwards compatibility hacks
Removed ancient drag&drop handling code (not discoverable and not advertised anywhere)

Known issues

Filter composer should warn if Adblock Plus is disabled
Filter composer should have a help text for “custom pattern” field
Filter composer won’t work in Firefox 2
Clicks on the status bar icon are ignored

Yes, that's how you do it · 2008-06-20 18:28 by Wladimir Palant

Just read this article on The Daily WTF. Yes, that’s how you do it if you care about your readers and their impression of your site. I am not usually blocking Google Ads but I had to add a filter specifically for The Daily WTF to block Google’s image ads. I guess I can take that filter out again. Now if they would only get rid of animated ads altogether, I would disable Adblock Plus on that site.

Improving Songbird compatibility once again · 2008-05-16 11:47 by Wladimir Palant

The changes in these development builds concern only Songbird users.

Changes

Fixed: Adblock Plus only works with the default Songbird feathers (Songbird bug 8785)
Removed support for Songbird 0.4, added support for Songbird 0.6

Known issues

~~Songbird: Context menu doesn’t always show up in Songbird, consequently not all items can be blocked via context menu~~