Adblock Plus and (a little) more

Adblock Plus 3.0.1 for Firefox released · 2017-11-08 15:41 by Wladimir Palant

This release adds many translations which were missing in the Adblock Plus 3.0 release. There are no changes beyond that.

Tags: adblock plus releases

Comment [12]

EskeRahn · 2017-11-08 16:03 · #

Tiny tiny suggestion:
Add the “Install” button on https://adblockplus.org/en/
to your default filter-list, so it won’t display when the ABP extension is already installed (and enabled).
;)

adblockplus.org###install-firefox
adblockplus.org##.install-button

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

This might upset people who are into installing updates manually rather than relying on automatic extension updates :)
EskeRahn · 2017-11-08 16:18 · #

Thanks for the quick reply. Did not think of the install as update, but of course.

You might hide an “Update” button under the “Install” though ;)

I found another issue.
the 3.0 inherited the old element list just fine, but if I try to edit it, it fails on save, stating

“Line 213: ‘xul:slider[xbl\:inherits=“disabled,curpos,maxpos,pageincrement,increment,orient,sborient=orient”]’ is not a valid CSS selector”

(I added the button for test, and would remove it from the list but then can not save)

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

You have to remove the filter ##xul:slider[xbl\:inherits=“disabled,curpos,maxpos,pageincrement,increment,orient,sborient=orient”] from your list, it should be number 213 there. I verified that the list is saved correctly as soon as you remove invalid filters.

Note that this filter might have worked in the past but definitely not recently.
EskeRahn · 2017-11-08 16:22 · #

PS
The line in question in its full is
search.eim.ebay.dk##xul:slider[xbl\:inherits=“disabled,curpos,maxpos,pageincrement,increment,orient,sborient=orient”]

I bet it is the back slash that is the problem

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

No, the problematic part is xul:slider – applying filters to XUL is no longer possible.
EskeRahn · 2017-11-08 16:32 · #

Yes, tried to remove it and it saved just fine.

It could be really ancient for what I know. ;)
user · 2017-11-10 01:01 · #

Three questions.

1. Is there a way to block the social media icons within the ABP UI?

2. Developer console lists a reference to ABP saying In add-on {}, attempting to use listener “notifications.onButtonClicked”, which is unimplemented. ExtensionParent.jsm:764:35. What does that mean? It is new since ABP 3 versions.

3. It appears as though ABP is no longer blocking some things in version 3 that it was previously. I am not sure if it is something due to the way the new version works.

On some pages I now see the Noscript placeholder showing it blocked some things that ABP used to block. Before version 3, ABP would block it and I wouldn’t see a Noscipt placeholder showing it blocked it.

I noticed something else after allowing a Flash video. The ABP log under developers shows a dz.glanceguide.com and b.scorecardresearch in red saying ABP blocked them. But the Firefox browser and web console show that Firefox loaded them stating it is loading the mixed content on a secure page and the Windows Event Viewer log shows a warning of Name resolution for the name dz.glanceguide.com timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded. That never happened before ABP 3 making it appear as something is not being blocked. Before ABP 3 there were no such references for those in Event Viewer or console on the same content.

Thank you.

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

1. Don’t think so. These aren’t your usual Facebook & Co. scripts however that will track you – if you don’t click, nothing happens.

2. It means that Firefox doesn’t implement an API that Chrome provides and Adblock Plus uses. But instead of just leaving it out (a condition that Adblock Plus could deal with), Firefox provides a mock that will accept calls but log a warning to the console.

3. If you have multiple blocking add-ons, the order in which they get applied likely changed now (and might even change randomly in future). Whether Adblock Plus gets to go first or NoScript isn’t something you can rely on. Now if you disable NoScript and these scripts get past Adblock Plus – that’s something different.

The mixed content warning doesn’t go by what the page actually loaded but merely by what it attempted to load. I’m pretty sure that it was the same with previous Adblock Plus versions already. But maybe you can provide more details on the Firefox version, operating system, website and the filter you added – I can try to see what is going on there.

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

Note that the Windows Event Viewer shouldn’t log any DNS resolution errors from Firefox IMHO. Firefox uses its own DNS resolver rather than rely on the operating system. Sure that this event wasn’t generated by some other application?
user · 2017-11-11 02:31 · #

Thank you for the info.

<The mixed content warning doesn’t go by what the page actually loaded but merely by what it attempted to load. I’m pretty sure that it was the same with previous Adblock Plus versions already. But maybe you can provide more details on the Firefox version, operating system, website and the filter you added – I can try to see what is going on there.>

FF 56.0.2. W7. Watching a Hulu show using Flash. Using Fanboy Ultimate filter.

<Note that the Windows Event Viewer shouldn’t log any DNS resolution errors from Firefox IMHO. Firefox uses its own DNS resolver rather than rely on the operating system. Sure that this event wasn’t generated by some other application?>

Unless Flash counts as some other application, positive. The dz.glanceguide.com event viewer warning happens at the first instance of watching a Hulu video. That never happened before ABP version 3.

That mixed content warning in the FF console and dz.glanceguide.com event viewer warning started happening immediately after ABP 3. Neither of those happened before under the same conditions (ABP 3 being the only difference).

The only time I have noticed anything along those lines is when using Flash to watch a show sort of like ABP is no longer blocking something related to Flash that it used to (eg. dz.glanceguide.com and b.scorecardresearch mention that ABP lists as red/blocked but the FF console and Windows Event Viewer list as attempted to made). Or maybe it is still blocking those, even though the console and event viewer are logging them as attempted to be made, but that is new versus previous ABP in case that is worth looking into.

Thanks Wladimir.
Mixer · 2017-11-15 15:27 · #

I was shocked about the limited interface to control filters! Why are some domains not blocked despite we typically block the TLD? (like *.facebook.com *.facebook.net *.ioam.de etc)
Without good patterns there will be no reliable adblock blocker filtering.

Actual consideration: wouldn’t it be better to setup adblock as network service permitting system-wide malware & nagware intrusion?
Filtering of network segments based on named patterns (including akamai-derivatives) would be more clever than IP filtering (like hosts-based filters). By network bleaching we can get a more clean sky of web and Internet in general.

Thanks for your efforts! With the hope that ABP will survive this punch by Moz, FF, Chrome, Web ext.
esr+abp+ehh · 2017-11-16 08:57 · #

Thanks to ABP 3.x.x its easy to see what to expect from ff57+..

ESR is still there and abp 2.9.1 is here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/versions/

Which should be maintained for a bit longer, IMO.
max · 2017-11-22 04:52 · #

I installed Firefox Android 57 + Adblock Plus 3 beta. There is no ‘update’ button to update filterlists. So bad design. and No thanks for Adblock Browser.

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

The button to update filter lists is there, but you have to switch to the “Advanced” tab.
max · 2017-11-22 13:31 · #

Thanks for your reply. My Firefox is a mobile version, not PC version. Firefox mobile version + ABP 3 beta. No update button there. If add a text area to store my coustom filters, that will be great.

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

I’m pretty sure that there wasn’t an update button in Adblock Plus 2.x on mobile either. The user interface for mobile devices has to be minimal, and the current state is already an improvement over Adblock Plus 2.x (particularly the support for multiple filter subscriptions). While I’m not involved in the development here, I’m certain that more features will be added in future – but a manual update button is unlikely high on the list.
EskeRahn · 2017-11-23 00:53 · #

On some pages the “Block element” option does NOT always appear with 3.0.1.
e.g. https://www.dpreview.com/ and subpages
On other pages it does appear (and works fine).

It goes for both the Content Menu by right/clicking and clicking the ABP icon
It is not related to the “Allow Acceptable Ads” setting.

It goes for both Firefox 57 and the developer edition 58. (And restarting the browser does not change anything)

Reply from Wladimir Palant:

Yes, that’s an issue I can reproduce, seems to be a Firefox bug (works fine on Chrome). I filed https://issues.adblockplus.org/ticket/6092 on this.
EskeRahn · 2017-11-23 01:30 · #

PS to #11
If I disable and enable ABP as an add-on, the option appears on the menu. If I then press F5 for the tab, and reopens the menu the option is gone again.

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