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Adblock Plus is probably the reason Firefox and Chrome are such memory hogs

extremetech.com

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Re: Adblock Plus is probably the reason Firefox and Chrome are such memory hogs

#141

Post by nandhp »

zo1 wrote: post #18
neals wrote: post #14

I used to not do Adblock, because you know, ads make the internet go round and all that. But with the "download here"-button ads, there is no way to know what button to press anymore. Now installing Adblock is a requirement.

I got tricked once by one of those while on Sourceforge. Words can not describe how annoyed I was that day.

And if you try to download Windows binaries from Sourceforge, your download may be enhanced with WinZip, the Ask.com toolbar, and other optional offers.

http://www.ghacks.net/2013/07/17/sourceforges-new-installer-...

Re: Adblock Plus is probably the reason Firefox and Chrome are such memory hogs

#142

Post by bla2 »

Nexxxeh wrote: post #44
elvis635 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Together with umatrix ( https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/ ) are the best chrome extensions Since I went back to firefox those are the only extensions I really miss, there is policeman ( https://github.com/futpib/policeman/ ) but it's not as good as them yet To whoever develop extensions, please don't focus only on chrome, firefox during the last months has become must better that it was before, if developers only c…

As my paranoia ramps up year on year, I now use Opera with µBlock. For me, it has the polish of Chrome with some nice extras, but without the increasingly creepy Googality. It works fine, although I've not tried µMatrix. (I have my defaults changed to DuckDuckGo. Usually connecting via a VPN.) I've whitelisted a few sites I like to support (a couple of webcomics, HaD etc). I have a lot of filters: "62,501 network fil…

If this is motivated by your paranoia, why are you switching to a closed-source browser?

Re: Adblock Plus is probably the reason Firefox and Chrome are such memory hogs

#143

Post by Nanzikambe »

jacquesm wrote: post #84
sinemetu11 wrote: post #80

I use a modified hosts file instead which is much better. See http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ Remember the web is pull not push.

Hosts files only work when the ads and other trash are not served from the same domain, and of course the bigger operators do everything they can to make you lose some critical functionality if you block their ad serving IPs. So you'll need to go to the URL level at a minimum if you don't want to use some important functionality.

Actually this very rarely happens.

I a DNS server on my router which has zone that routes all ad hosting & other wanted stuff to an IP which is then rejected by the firewall.

I also have a transparent proxy rewriting all web pages removing IFRAMEs - this does ocassionally break things, but it's extremely rare to find a site that actually has a use for them other than serving ads.

Re: Adblock Plus is probably the reason Firefox and Chrome are such memory hogs

#144

Post by maxerickson »

bnr wrote: post #81
neals wrote: post #14

I used to not do Adblock, because you know, ads make the internet go round and all that. But with the "download here"-button ads, there is no way to know what button to press anymore. Now installing Adblock is a requirement.

I'd love an adblocker with a blacklist instead of whitelist so I could keep the ads on for the long tail of my browsing and remove them only on sites that go overboard.

Just remove the default block lists. I do this with adblock+, only adding rules for things that I decide are obnoxious (mostly trackers).

Re: Adblock Plus is probably the reason Firefox and Chrome are such memory hogs

#145

Post by ExpiredLink »

ghantila wrote: post #76

I uninstalled right after hearing from Mozilla [1] about the effects of AdBlock Plus on Firefox. Since, then I'm blocking things manually. First I was using this [2] hosts file by Dan Pallock. But now I've switched to this Neocities [3] hosted site. I don't know who manages this site, but the entries are uniquely sorted from various sources, which includes entries from Dan Pallock's hosts file. Apart from this, I use…

> But now I've switched to this Neocities [3] hosted site.

This file is far too large and may cause DNS cache problems on Windows.

Re: Adblock Plus is probably the reason Firefox and Chrome are such memory hogs

#146

Post by dstroot »

vacri wrote: post #22
neals wrote: post #14

I used to not do Adblock, because you know, ads make the internet go round and all that. But with the "download here"-button ads, there is no way to know what button to press anymore. Now installing Adblock is a requirement.

Flashblock is my middleground. The advertisers can have images, but the worst offenders are the Flash ads, and they get blocked.

Flashblock is not needed on Chrome - go to settings/advanced/content settings/plugins and select "click to play". Now flash will not run automatically. But you can decide to click on something and allow it to play if you want. Works great - no plugin needed.

Re: Adblock Plus is probably the reason Firefox and Chrome are such memory hogs

#147

Post by alopecoid »

A bit off topic, but could someone explain to me why it's so difficult for a browser (or extension) to effectively block 100% of all pop-ups/pop-unders? I realize that these account for only a fraction of ads, but they are really annoying and it seems that these should be the easiest to detect; doesn't this essentially boil down to a few specific API calls? For the few cases that a pop-up/pop-under is legitimate (really, are there any?), I'd be fine whitelisting these on a case-by-case basis.

Re: Adblock Plus is probably the reason Firefox and Chrome are such memory hogs

#148

Post by jccalhoun »

_JamesA_ wrote: post #87
mmgutz wrote: post #57

Noscript is not an option anymore. Too many sites rely on javascript. I'll take the memory hit every time to use adblock.

I would counter and say NoScript is still an option. I want to control what sites I allow to execute scripts in my browser rather than give global authority to any random site I may happen to land on. I see no value in allowing scripts from Facebook or Twitter, for example, to run on any of the sites I visit.

I would agree with the op that noscript is not an option any more but only because I think the widespread use of javascript makes it mandatory for sane web use.

Re: Adblock Plus is probably the reason Firefox and Chrome are such memory hogs

#149

Post by rtkwe »

MicroBerto wrote: post #20

People aren't using Adblock to conserve resources. They're using it to block ads and most are willing to take a performance hit to do so.

Sure using a blocker there's some expectation of resources used but in the case of Adblock it's ridiculously high and has really bad response to the number of iframes on a page.
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