Adblock Plus and (a little) more
Some progress on the object tabs again · 2006-12-08 14:52 by Wladimir Palant
Changes
- Added Persian translation
- Made it harder for web sites to tamper with object tabs
- Whitelisting options (“Disable Adblock Plus on …”) no longer disabled when Preferences dialog is open
- Added methods addPatterns() and removePatterns() to the public nsIAdblockPlus interface (to be used from other extensions)
Improved security in SeaMonkey · 2006-12-07 19:29 by Wladimir Palant
Changes
- SeaMonkey: Switched on a security setting that isn’t used by default for some reason
Optimized storage of internal data · 2006-12-06 16:06 by Wladimir Palant
Changes
- Made tab displayed by “Show tabs on Flash and Java” a link (because of the context menu and ability to middle-click, bug 15638)
- “Show tabs on Flash and Java” can be used without JavaScript again (bug 15637)
- Made sure that web pages constantly reloading images won’t increase required memory (bug 15317)
- No longer relying on extension version reported by the browser (is unreliable in SeaMonkey, forum thread)
- Firefox: Adblock Plus icon shows up at the right edge of the navigation toolbar by default (forum thread)
- Increased maxVersion for Songbird to 0.3
- Removed obsolete file property from install manifest (not required for Firefox 1.5 and higher)
- No longer using event handler for data storage (bug 15758)
- Using Gecko’s built-in feature for scrolling to node when selecting in the sidebar — should be less error-prone
- Improved check for objects opened on its own (tabs shouldn’t be shown for these objects)
Adblock Plus internals documented · 2006-12-04 18:57 by Wladimir Palant
I finally came to extending the Adblock Plus internals section of the FAQ. So if you need an explanation about which filters are faster and why or how often Adblock Plus really downloads subscriptions — that’s where you look. It also explains how blocking of addresses or element hiding work internally and gives some tips for extension developers.
Ethics of blocking ads - Part 3 · 2006-12-04 12:50 by Wladimir Palant
This article continues the discussion on ethical implications of ad blocking software. The first part and the second part were mostly dedicated to ads as a business model, now we want to look at the ads as part of the customer relationship.
Sorry Filterset.G but it is time for you to go · 2006-11-23 18:05 by Wladimir Palant
The issues with Filterset.G have been discussed several times in the forums and now it is official — I recommend Adblock Plus users to uninstall Filterset.G Updater and use some other subscription instead.
Hit counts for element hiding revisited · 2006-11-21 17:48 by Wladimir Palant
I was finally able to come up with a working (yet not exactly simple) scheme to implement hit counts for element hiding. It can also be used to show hidden elements in the sidebar and maybe even make element hiding rules respect whitelisting. There are two disadvantages however:
It is good to be right - we are No. 1! · 2006-11-21 12:29 by Wladimir Palant
December last year I had a discussion with rue, maintainer of the original Adblock extension. We were talking about the the necessity of major changes, and I was trying to convince him that these changes are long overdue. At some point rue proudly proclaimed something like: “We stayed in the Top5 for the last year — not bad considering we didn’t have any changes at all”. My answer was: “That’s not an achievement, this project has the potential to be No. 1”. And there we are, less than a year later — Adblock Plus is now the most popular extension on Addons.Mozilla.Org. It is good to be right, I knew it was possible!
Spare time projects and the "donate now" syndrome · 2006-11-07 04:46 by Wladimir Palant
I guess many of you have seen this development of a project already, maybe even more than once. Some developer has an idea he works on in his spare time. He shares his work with others without asking anything in return and the feedback allows him to improve it to a point where this project gains some popularity. Great features are being added, there are lots of plans for the future — until suddenly the project stalls. That’s usually the point where the developer explains that he needs money that would allow him to spend more time on the project.
Adblock Plus 0.7.2.2 released · 2006-10-30 18:37 by Wladimir Palant
Major changes
- Improved K-Meleon and Songbird integration
- Installation in SeaMonkey possible by simply copying the files (instructions)
- Fixed English strings in Danish and Traditional Chinese translations
- Fixed: Status bar icon always displayed as the most right icon, cannot be moved with Organize Status Bar