Adblock Plus and (a little) more

Changes to the "Show tabs on Flash and Java" feature, second round · 2010-03-30 07:00 by Wladimir Palant

The current Adblock Plus development build (1.1.3+.2010033002) once again reworks “Show tabs on Flash and Java” feature. This should keep all of the advantages of the previous approach but make the issues (unreliable and ugly display on Linux, focus stealing, bad positioning) go away.

Major changes to the "Show tabs on Flash and Java" feature · 2010-02-03 05:39 by Wladimir Palant

The current Adblock Plus development build (1.1.3+.2010020302) brings major changes to the “Show tabs on Flash and Java” feature. While the tab displayed on Flash and Java content should mostly look the same as before, it is implemented in an entirely different way 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)

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.

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.

Second Adblock Plus 1.1.1 release candidate · 2009-08-09 15:12 by Wladimir Palant

The current development build (Adblock Plus 1.1.0+.2009080913) is again a release candidate for Adblock Plus 1.1.1, the release should happen in a few days. Changes:

Made Adblock Plus initialization more bullet-proof so that neither FoxyProxy nor Sxipper extension can disrupt it.
Added ChinaList as recommended subscription.
Fixed an issue with the list of blockable items: if page is loaded while the list of blockable items is open the list would sometimes be incomplete.

Adblock Plus 1.1.1 release candidate · 2009-08-08 17:17 by Wladimir Palant

The current development build (Adblock Plus 1.1.0+.2009080815) is a release candidate for Adblock Plus 1.1.1, the release should happen in a few days. Three more issues have been fixed:

Conflict with the FoxyProxy extension preventing Adblock Plus from blocking anything
Conflict with the ImageToolbar extension preventing “Collapse blocked elements” feature from working
Another scenario where Adblock Plus might slow down some webpages

Two Adblock Plus 1.1 regressions fixed · 2009-08-05 04:30 by Wladimir Palant

The current development build (Adblock Plus 1.1.0+.2009080502) fixes two regressions released with Adblock Plus 1.1:

Adblock Plus causes the browser to hang on some webpages, sometimes up to the point that the “unresponsive script” message appears.
Collapsing of blocked items sometimes fails to work correctly, placeholders of blocked images become visible despite “Collapse blocked elements” option enabled.

Adblock Plus 1.1 release candidate available · 2009-07-10 03:19 by Wladimir Palant

Important note: From now on, updates for development builds will be found automatically, it is no longer necessary to install them manually every time. Also, development builds will be created automatically once per day (night) if changes are found in the repository. Changelogs for all builds are also generated automatically and can be found in the directory of the development build (to view the changelog click “Show information” when Firefox offers you an update). This means that the announcements here are no longer necessary, they will only be posted for important builds.

The development build 1.1alpha.0+.2009071001 is the first release candidate for Adblock Plus 1.1. So far the known issues are:

Subscription list on first run in Thunderbird: entire mail window is closed when clicking “Subscribe” (bug 503299)
SeaMonkey: Toolbar button looks ugly with the Modern theme (Modern theme doesn’t allow properly adding buttons other than the ones coming with SeaMonkey)
About dialog: version number is vertically misaligned in Firefox nightlies

If you find more, please leave a comment here.