Adblock Plus and (a little) more

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.

Advantages of the new approach:

• Much cleaner and less problematic code
• The webpage is no longer modified to insert the tabs. This should eliminate any kind of side-effects these tabs had before (like videos restarting when the tab appears). It also makes detecting the tabs impossible.
• The tabs are displayed outside the webpage meaning that they are no longer constrained by it. This fixes bug 12910 (Object tabs don’t work if there is no space for them).
• When the mouse is moved away the tab no longer disappears abruptly, only after a second. This decreases the risk of “losing” the tab simply because of bad aiming.

Known issues:

• Firefox 3.0: Position of the tab will not adapt if the object moves (e.g. when scrolling).
• If the upper part of the object is scrolled away the tab position will not consider it, resulting in strange tab placement (bug 543418).
• The tab will not always show up, particularly not if the mouse moves fast (this is unchanged from Adblock Plus 1.1.3).
• The tab no longer behaves like a regular link, e.g. middle-clicking it will open a new tab in foreground even if the browser is configured differently.
• Collapsing of blocked elements doesn’t work (will be fixed in 1.1.3+.2010020402 build).

Things to look for when testing:

• Pages where the tab is positioned incorrectly
• Situations where tab position won’t adapt to changes
• Situations where the tab will not disappear even though it should
• Focus stealing (moving the mouse over an object brings up a browser window that wasn’t active before)

Installation:
https://adblockplus.org/devbuilds/adblockplus/

Tags: adblock plus development builds

Comment [11]

1. Herochild · 2010-02-03 20:41 · #

   After downloading the newest build (1.1.3 + 2010020302), I keep getting the message “Namoroka has stopped working” whenever I open flash content.

   Reply from Wladimir Palant:

   Is that the precise wording of the message? Does the browser exit, meaning it crashes?

   Namoroka means a Firefox 3.5 nightly build. Which nightly build is it and on which operating system? Also, which Flash version (you can see it by typing in “about:plugins” in your location bar)?

   Reply from Wladimir Palant:

   Never mind, I see your bug report…

2. Herochild · 2010-02-03 21:45 · #

   Yes, that is the precise wording. I use Flash 10.1 Beta 2. Namoroka is the final build, it’s just an optimized build (from binaryturf.com) that adds SSE2.

   Yes, Firefox exits.

3. Herochild · 2010-02-09 22:43 · #

   The ads are blocked, but there’s a big black line above where the ads would be that says ‘Advertisement’. is there any way to block that?

4. Herochild · 2010-02-09 22:46 · #

   Never mind. I figured it out.

5. ,hmx · 2010-02-10 15:14 · #

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6. Danial · 2010-02-28 22:00 · #

   ADblock plus is messing with gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled and preventing D2D backend from working correctly

   Reply from Wladimir Palant:

   It’s not, it simply uses a system component earlier than this code is expecting it. Anyway – since you are commenting on a development build, how about installing an Adblock Plus development build? This issue is fixed there.

7. Neil · 2010-03-02 03:23 · #

   FFox Minefield (3.7A3) no longer allows Adblock Plus to load – including dev build. Not really a bug but just thought you would want to know.

   Reply from Wladimir Palant:

   I updated the compatibility range on addons.mozilla.org, the development build tomorrow will be working with 3.7a3pre as well.

8. Brassen · 2010-03-02 14:50 · #

   With the latest dev build I have difficulties clicking in play/pause of flash videos (youtube and at globo.com for examples). This does not happen with release version. Sometimes must click several times to register and other times need to copy url and open in a new tab/window to be able to click on play. Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.3a3pre) Gecko/20100301 Minefield/3.7a3pre Firefox/3.6

   Reply from Wladimir Palant:

   I guess it is 3.7a3pre after all and not 3.6?

   Please try to switch off dom.ipc.plugins.enabled option and restart browser, does it still happen then?

9. Brassen · 2010-03-02 15:18 · #

   Still happen. And by release version I meant adblock plus release. I’m on a Mac so, no OOPP for us yet. If you need more info from me please ask.

10. Herochild · 2010-03-29 03:53 · #

    Did you know that the Adblock addon for Chrome can remove ads from YouTube videos? Can you add that feature to Adblock Plus?

    (If you want, I could link to the Chrome addon)

    Reply from Wladimir Palant:

    Oh, YouTube videos have ads? I didn’t realize, had to disable Adblock Plus to see them. I suggest you add the EasyList filter subscription, it blocks them automatically. If you prefer the manual way you can add “/swf/ad-” to your filter list (see https://adblockplus.org/en/faq_basics#objects – the second “Show me how this is done” explains how you would track down the ad yourself, it is an object subrequest).

11. Mhunter · 2010-05-07 14:24 · #

    Adblock plus integrates with Filterset G, which is basically a blacklist/whitelist update tool, whereas adblock doesn’t. that’s the most important for me

Commenting is closed for this article.