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UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released

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Re: UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released

#41
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, all Safari releases going forward (12 onwards) are removing APIs that allow uBlock Origin to do what it does. This is extremely disappointing. There are "Apple-approved" blockers on the App Store but none is as efficient as uBlock Origin, they also lack transparency.

App Store blockers can be and in some cases are as efficient as uBlock Origin. Many are likely more efficient as the blocking is implemented directly by Safari using optimised content blocking rules that are executed by native code (as opposed to Javascript execution as per UBlock Origin). When compiling the content blocking rules, Safari also ensures the rules fit within reasonable execution limits to ensure there i…

Big fan of 1blocker! It works just perfectly. I think that Apple has created a really nice concept for adblocking. They leverage native performance with enough flexibility for 3rd parties. Plus, the privacy aspect is great.

Re: UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released

#42

The first plugin I install on a freshly installed system with Firefox is uBO. After that I harden the browser by changing stuff in about:config. Chrome has never been an option for us with privacy in focus. The guys behind uBO should get some price or something.

What does your workflow look like in terms of Firefox? What all sites do you visit where UBO doesn't mess it up too much to not have any work done? Just curious. I am on a similar boat but sometimes find some sites to be unreadable after having UBO and some other privacy adjustments through about:config. Thanks!

>UBO doesn't mess it

Never had this issue. Even in Slack, where UBO blocks 778 elements atm.

Re: UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released

#43
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, all Safari releases going forward (12 onwards) are removing APIs that allow uBlock Origin to do what it does. This is extremely disappointing. There are "Apple-approved" blockers on the App Store but none is as efficient as uBlock Origin, they also lack transparency.

App Store blockers can be and in some cases are as efficient as uBlock Origin. Many are likely more efficient as the blocking is implemented directly by Safari using optimised content blocking rules that are executed by native code (as opposed to Javascript execution as per UBlock Origin). When compiling the content blocking rules, Safari also ensures the rules fit within reasonable execution limits to ensure there i…

HN is full of advertising posts now...

Buddy, your product is not fully featured. In ublock, you can click and block individual elements or domains, in your product,the feature to whitelist any site is even a beta feature... And your app costs money, because the free version doesnt offer all blocking lists.

It also seems like i can not use my own lists, or language specific lists. Btw, where can we download your content lists to make sure you do not just resell free, community driven lists?

So thanks for promoting Safaris terrible adblocker framework with a paid product that is lightyears inferior to the free Ublock we are discussing here.

Re: UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released

#44

The first plugin I install on a freshly installed system with Firefox is uBO. After that I harden the browser by changing stuff in about:config. Chrome has never been an option for us with privacy in focus. The guys behind uBO should get some price or something.

What sorts of things do you change in about:config?

I search config for "autoplay" and disable everything related. It's not a privacy issue - just annoyance avoidance.

Re: UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released

#45
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

App Store blockers can be and in some cases are as efficient as uBlock Origin. Many are likely more efficient as the blocking is implemented directly by Safari using optimised content blocking rules that are executed by native code (as opposed to Javascript execution as per UBlock Origin). When compiling the content blocking rules, Safari also ensures the rules fit within reasonable execution limits to ensure there i…

HN is full of advertising posts now... Buddy, your product is not fully featured. In ublock, you can click and block individual elements or domains, in your product,the feature to whitelist any site is even a beta feature... And your app costs money, because the free version doesnt offer all blocking lists. It also seems like i can not use my own lists, or language specific lists. Btw, where can we download your cont…

You may be looking for something like AdGuard: https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardForSafari

Re: UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released

#46

Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but in this test uBlock Origin failed miserably, to say the least. https://avlab.pl/test-web-browser-extensions-protection-agai...

Since when is uBlock an Anti-Virus? If you benchmark the latest Ferrari against a wooden boat for driving on water you will get the same results as this test.

None of the other browser extensions in the test are Anti-Viruses yet they seem to block fine many of the malware threats

Furthermore, what is the purpose of Malvertising filter list by Disconnect​​​​​​​​​, Malware Domain List​​​​​, Malware domains, in uBlock Origin if they can't protect the user from malwares?

Re: UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released

#47
post #5

I wish gorhill would make a Safari content-blocker version of ublock. None of the existing blockers (who mostly just package existing block lists and charge money for it..) work as well as uBlock IME.

Unfortunately, all Safari releases going forward (12 onwards) are removing APIs that allow uBlock Origin to do what it does. Apple are basically neutering _all_ blockers, unfortunately. I don't know if they're planning on filling the void though.

This is not quite true; what Apple has done is deprecate the old extension API (which has not been removed yet! You can still install these extensions from the Safari Extension Gallery in Safari 12, and will be able to do so until some unspecified point in the future which is extremely likely to be next year), which is what uBlock Origin was written using. Apple would like extensions to move to an app extension based model, which while lacking some API is not actually missing anything that uBlock Origin needs to function to my knowledge, which is to say that an enterprising individual is free to port uBlock Origin almost unchanged to this new model.

However, as of iOS 9, Apple has provided a new model for blocking ads: the content blocking API, which relies on lists of filters that the browser applies automatically. This is meant to replace an extension running JavaScript on your page to do the same thing, which means that blocking is faster and doesn't mean you have to trust the extension author to make sure they're not doing anything malicious.

Re: UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Results on mine: Benchmarking, the higher ops/sec the better. Firefox 63.0 on Windows 10 64-bit. Test 100 needles against 16 dictionaries of hostnames - Set-based x 1,443 ops/sec ±3.46% (54 runs sampled) - Regex-based x 4,093 ops/sec ±1.18% (25 runs sampled) - Trie-based (1st-gen) x 8,993 ops/sec ±1.92% (59 runs sampled) - Trie-based JS (2nd-gen) x 7,923 ops/sec ±2.81% (44 runs sampled) - Trie-based WASM (2nd-gen) x…

Interestingly, my numbers are completely different relative to each other when compared with yours... I wonder how the number of runs is determined and if this affects the results. Benchmarking, the higher ops/sec the better. Firefox 63.0 on Fedora 64-bit. Test 100 needles against 16 dictionaries of hostnames - Set-based x 1,707 ops/sec ±1.93% (60 runs sampled) - Regex-based x 4,078 ops/sec ±0.88% (25 runs sampled) -…

I got these results on an i7 8700K (not overclocked):

  Benchmarking, the higher ops/sec the better.
  Firefox 63.0 on Windows 10 64-bit.

  Test 100 needles against 16 dictionaries of hostnames
    -                 Set-based x 1,917 ops/sec ±1.21% (14 runs sampled)
    - Trie-based (2nd-gen) x 829 ops/sec ±0.64% (66 runs sampled)
  Done.

    -               Regex-based x 4,475 ops/sec ±0.37% (27 runs sampled)
    -      Trie-based (1st-gen) x 8,624 ops/sec ±0.29% (48 runs sampled)
    -   Trie-based JS (2nd-gen) x 8,848 ops/sec ±0.43% (49 runs sampled)
    - Trie-based WASM (2nd-gen) x 10,441 ops/sec ±0.30% (57 runs sampled)
  Done.
Interestingly, my CPU only boosts to 4.3 GHz during this benchmark and CPU utilisation of the Firefox process only goes up to 8%.

Re: UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released

#49
post #5

I wish gorhill would make a Safari content-blocker version of ublock. None of the existing blockers (who mostly just package existing block lists and charge money for it..) work as well as uBlock IME.

Use a different browser?

Re: UBlock Origin 1.17.4 released

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sorts of things do you change in about:config?

I've got this list in my favs, I think it was posted on HN a while ago: https://gist.github.com/0XDE57/fbd302cef7693e62c769 I had some problems with sendRefererHeader, so it can definitely break some websites

See, there are some good ideas in that list, but then it gets to disabling Safe Browsing without any explanation. There's a lot of false information around about what Safe Browsing sends to whom, and you should make sure you know what you're doing when disabling it.

Also, the DNS cache size explanation is a bit backwards. "Number of cached DNS entries. Lower number = More requests but less data stored." Where do you think that data is stored? Bigger cache size means fewer requests that inform a third-party (your DNS server) of which sites you're visiting. (Information leaks from the speed of resolving a query might be a concern, but I'm not sure how doable this is from a webpage.)

And then it disables all caches (including in-memory) for... what reason, exactly? You can configure firefox to clear all your browser data when you close it.

But then they force-enable WebGL, which enables quite a few tracking techniques. This list is weird.

I guess all I want to say is don't blindly apply settings from this list. The author traded a lot of convenience, speed, and security for some perceived privacy.

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