Adblock Plus and (a little) more

Adblock Plus 2.8 for Firefox released · 2016-10-25 12:38 by Wladimir Palant

This release changes the way element hiding works in Firefox, so that noticeable delays from changing a single element hiding rule should be no more. Also, the behavior should be more consistent now and filters not applying on a particular website should no longer be able to cause unexpected side-effects. On the downside, changes to element hiding rules will only apply after a page is reloaded now (which is actually consistent with blocking rules).

Additional changes

There is a special $websocket type option now to block WebSocket requests, the type was previously considered to be other here (announcement).
Our toolbar icon will look better on high-resolution screens (issue 4142).
Removed feature selection from the first-run page until the features can be removed similarly easily (issue 4294).
Hits for CSS property filters which were introduced in the previous release are being counted now (issue 3969).
Fixed: CSS property filters applied even when Adblock Plus was disabled everywhere (issue 4201).
Fixed: A regression in pop-up blocking functionality caused websites to be mistakenly considered pop-ups under some circumstances (issue 4335).
Corrected handling of frames with srcdoc attribute.
Fixed and improved search functionality in Filter Preferences, was partially broken in Firefox nightly builds (issue 4510).

Tags: adblock plus releases

Comment [16]

n/d · 2016-10-26 01:11 · #

hi, Search field (for Filters) is too small with build 2.8, about 1 centimeter large!
thanks for fixing.

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

I suppose that your user interface isn’t in English? Which language?
___ · 2016-10-26 06:57 · #

All filter vanish at shutdown firefox.

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

I guess that something is wrong with your Firefox profile, the easiest solution should be resetting Firefox and reinstalling extensions: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

Are you using an anti-virus application or anything else that would be scanning your files? Could you tell me which one?
Zlippy · 2016-10-26 08:47 · #

Updating to version 2.8 caused all my filters to vanish. Trying to import a backup causes nothing to happen. Newly added filters are not saved when closing and restarting Firefox.

Reverting to 2.3 and doing the same import loads filters as expected, and there is no unexpected behavior when closing and restarting Firefox

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

Please tell us at least what Firefox version and operating system you are using, otherwise we have no chance of reproducing this issue.

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

Are you using an anti-virus application or anything else that would be scanning your files? Could you tell me which one?
NotAvailable · 2016-10-27 08:55 · #

Same issue here:
No filters after update/ No import of old filters, but installing e.g. “easylist” via gui “Add filter” seems to work.

Win7 64bit
52.0a1 (2016-10-26) (64-bit)

Adblock Plus 2.8 (release)
Adblock Plus 2.8.0.4217-beta
NotAvailable · 2016-10-27 09:56 · #

This is what the browser console tells, when trying to import a backup.ini

09:50:19.502
too much recursion 1 Task.jsm:443

ToLength self-hosted

indexOf self-hosted

TaskImpl_handleException resource://gre/modules/Task.jsm:443:11

TaskImpl_run resource://gre/modules/Task.jsm:334:13

TaskImpl_handleResultValue resource://gre/modules/Task.jsm:404:7

TaskImpl_run resource://gre/modules/Task.jsm:330:15

TaskImpl_handleResultValue …

09:50:19.525
Win error 5 during operation move on file D:\…\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\User NIGHTLY\adblockplus\patterns.ini.tmp (Zugriff verweigert) 1 filterStorage.js:566

exports.FilterStorage.saveToDisk/writeFilters</< jar:file:///D:/Benutzer/…/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/User%20NIGHTLY/extensions/%7Bd10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d%7D.xpi!/lib/filterStorage.js:566:11

bound self-hosted

Handler.prototype.process resource://gre/modules/Promise-backend.js:940:21

this.PromiseWalker.walkerLoop resource://gre/modules/Promise-backend.js:816:7

bound self-hosted

bound bound self-hosted

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

Thank you, this helps. Your log shows quite clearly – there is a file system issue, file patterns.ini cannot be accessed for some reason. Removing that file might help, unless it’s some anti-virus application causing trouble. The other option is refreshing Firefox from about:support and reinstalling extensions.

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

Are you using an anti-virus application or anything else that would be scanning your files? Could you tell me which one?
Jack · 2016-10-27 10:33 · #

I have the same issue:
version: 2.7.3: everything ok
version 2.8: my custom filter list is empty
version 2.8.beta: “cannot import backup. make sure it’s a ABP backup file”

The same backup if added as subscription, is correctly loaded.

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

Are you using an anti-virus application or anything else that would be scanning your files? Could you tell me which one?
jack · 2016-10-27 11:46 · #

I tried a cleaner situation: abp uninstalled, adblockplus folder deleted.

- i’ve installed ABP 2.8, then i’ve unchecked easylis

- restarted firefox – i went on “custom filters” tab, then tried to restore own backup.

- the backup was made with ABP 2.7.3, and it says 2.6.12 in the header.

- in console, firefox says:
Too much recursion in filterClasses.js:161 // Remove line breaks and such text = text.replace(/[^\S ]/g, “”);

- a popup appears: “The file’s data could not be processed, maybe this isn’t an Adblock Plus backup file?”

the error 5 on patters.ini appears just after upgrade but it’s not the cause of the issue i think
NotAvailable · 2016-10-27 17:48 · #

I am using KIS 2017, but deactivating it doesnt change anything – same behaviour like before. Furthermore i cant imagine what else should block the fileaccess.

Deleting pattern.ini and a reimport of a backup.ini, leads to a new pattern.ini containing the basic header only:
# Adblock Plus preferences
version=4
mapx · 2016-10-27 20:07 · #

could be related ?
https://issues.adblockplus.org/ticket/4576
mapx · 2016-10-27 20:30 · #

go into
about:config

search for
extensions.adblockplus.please_kill_startup_performance

if it’s TRUE switch it (double click it) to FALSE

see if helps
jack · 2016-10-28 00:23 · #

Disabling extensions.adblockplus.please_kill_startup_performance allowed me to upgrade once from 2.7.3 to 2.8 without loose custom filters, but restore custom txt filters (2.6.12 or 2.8 makes no difference) still fails as in my comment #7
mapx · 2016-10-28 08:44 · #

if you have a lot of custom filters you should keep an own list (on some free server)

otherwise did you try simply pasting all those filters in a new group of custom filters ? (without using backup / restore)
Jack · 2016-10-28 10:47 · #

I backup my list on my server, i “make” the list using backup functionality. Btw this is still a regression: 2.7.3 worked just fine, 2.8 has some kind of bug in restore that makes the addon not reliabe as it was before.

If the author can’t reproduce the bug, my list can be downloaded from here:
http://jack.logicalsystems.it/homepage/adblockplus.txt

if subscribed, it works fine, if restored, it won’t work.

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

This appears to be the same issue, I can reproduce it but not with the latest development build. Adblock Plus 2.8.1 will be released shortly.
mapx · 2016-10-28 11:31 · #

try the last dev build
https://addons.mozilla.org/downloads/latest-beta/adblock-plus/adblockplus-devbuild.xpi

it was fixed this bug:
https://issues.adblockplus.org/ticket/4576
Jack · 2016-10-28 16:46 · #

I confirm this bug is solved for me in Adblock Plus 2.8.1

both upgrade and restore went fine at 1st strike upgrading from 2.7.3 to 2.8.1
Zlippy · 2016-10-30 07:17 · #

Bingo, I also use please_kill_startup_performance=true. 2.8.1 seems to have fixed the issue with filters not saving or importing correctly.

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