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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

#201

Post by atoponce »

aroch wrote: post #163
atoponce wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no uncertainty or doubt about it. Ghostrank reports back about how it has disabled tracking in your browser. It may be "anonymous", but Ghostrank tracks your web usage, and sells it to advertisers. http://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actuall... http://www.informationweek.com/software/social/ghostery-make... https://gigaom.com/2014/11/19/ghostery-uses-plugin-data-to-p... Ghostrank tracks you.…

I'm not disputing that Ghostrank tracks you, but your framing and presentation of the facts is FUD designed to fit your wished narrative.

Most people who use Ghostery aren't aware of the double standard.

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

#202

Post by nitrogen »

cozuya wrote: post #195
alopecoid wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there's no explicit way to distinguish between "new window" calls from other types of calls? I'm kind of shocked that, with all the effort that's been put into browsers in recent years, that the ability to "create a new window" hasn't been removed entirely from the API without explicit user consent. Again, I can't think of a single site that uses this feature legitimately.

If you're talking about actual new windows that are a separate process, those have been blocked by popup blockers for years. As far as popovers that block the screen/annoy you, those are just HTML elements that are positioned on top of normal content - its not a "special" thing backed into the DOM API. There's really no effective way to stop a page from being able to do that unless you disable javascript entirely.

There have been tricks that get popups through, possibly by exploiting browser bugs or opening the popup in one of the few on* handlers where browsers allow them.

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

#203

Post by gorhill »

elvis635 wrote: post #11
shpx wrote: post #2

People are using µBlock now for precisely this reason. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-vs.-ABP:-... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/%C2%B5block/cjpalh... https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

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…

I do want uMatrix ported to Firefox. The developer who ported uBlock[1] has now made it more easy for me to work on a port of uMatrix, as I have now a model on how to proceed + a lot of code which can readily be shared with uMatrix. Once it is ported, in all likelihood I will myself go back to use Firefox as my main browser.

[1] https://github.com/Deathamns/uBlock/tree/ports/xpi

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

#204

Post by iza »

alopecoid wrote: post #147

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 (rea…

They generally get around it by opening the popup when you click anywhere on the page.

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

#205

Post by avree »

vosper wrote: post #96
gorhill wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Youtube front page doesn't show any videos I see videos all fine on Youtube front-page, using out-of-the-box filter lists. That kind of issue was never reported for uBlock. I would need to know exactly what filter lists you were using, including custom filters. uBlock relies on 3rd-party filter lists to do the job, specifically, out of the box: - EasyList - EasyPrivacy - Fanboy's Social Blocking List - Peter Lowe's…

I haven't tried ublock yet, is it obvious how to work back from a broken page to figure out which blacklists need adjusting? I'd also recommend that the defaults should have YouTube and Facebook (at least) working out of the box. Otherwise I think people will just uninstall the plugin, rather than trying to figure out how to fix it, which would be a shame.

It works exactly like AdBlockPlus in terms of user experience. There's no way that you could have been using ABP and suddenly are flummoxed by uBlock.

If you have things being blocked you don't want, either whitelist the element or find the block rule in your rule list.

YouTube and Facebook definitely both work 'out of the box' with the recommended lists.

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

#206

Post by leephillips »

chimeracoder wrote: post #159
voyou wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they just use news to fill in the otherwise blank areas between ads" That is pretty much literally true. When I worked on a student newspaper, it was pretty common for the advertising manager to rush in to the editorial offices and say things like "I've just sold another full-page ad, so we're going to be printing extra pages - do you have any copy to fill them?"

> When I worked on a student newspaper, it was pretty common for the advertising manager to rush in to the editorial offices and say things like "I've just sold another full-page ad, so we're going to be printing extra pages - do you have any copy to fill them?" Perhaps at a student paper, though that's considered a pretty huge ethical breach. I can attest that the New York Times definitely does not do that; they tak…

I agree about the Times, but what in the story about the student paper constituted an ethical breach? The ads were not influencing copy, just allowing more to be printed.

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

#207

Post by lol123456 »

bla2 wrote: post #142
Nexxxeh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you are motivated by the love of free software, why aren't you thinking of the possibility that gcc can have a backdoor written by bribed immoral programmers ?

Or has Richard Stallman convinced you that by mere repetition of the word free, free software is also moral software ?

I have no doubts what so ever that Opera is run by ethical people and it an ethical company.

In any case a security / privacy audit is a much more rigorous test.

The whole free software movement is based on a pathetic assumption that if you can't read 10 million lines of open code you have to suffer from paranoia.

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

#208

Post by beagle3 »

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 would be ok with some (not-too-intrusive) ads to make the internet go around. But every single website now links to 30 trackers that try to track and profile your every move on the internet, with no accountability anywhere.

In addition to the NSA, GCHQ, SVR RF, Mossad and other n-letter agencies, there are some 30 corporations that know everything about what and where you browse, keep that data not-very-secure, sell it to the highest bidder - any bidder, actually.

Do you like that? I don't.

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

#209

Post by beagle3 »

gorhill wrote: post #192
snird wrote: post #60

I'm using Ghostery as a privacy and ad-blocking extension. Does anyone have data on the impact Ghostery might have on the browser memory usage?

Ghostery/Disconnect are leaner memory-wise than uBlock [1]. That is for their own memory footprint. I do not know how much they contribute memory overhead to web pages though, but I suspect not much. I have never benchmarked Ghostery/Disconnect CPU-wise. [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Own-memory-usage:-ben...

I've dropped ghostery about 3 years ago because, even though it was low on memory, it was extremely CPU hungry, making my (then a little old, but by no mean underpowered) laptop take 3-4 seconds of 100% CPU for almost every page.

I haven't tried it again since.

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

#210

Post by matthewmacleod »

chimeracoder wrote: post #159
voyou wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they just use news to fill in the otherwise blank areas between ads" That is pretty much literally true. When I worked on a student newspaper, it was pretty common for the advertising manager to rush in to the editorial offices and say things like "I've just sold another full-page ad, so we're going to be printing extra pages - do you have any copy to fill them?"

> When I worked on a student newspaper, it was pretty common for the advertising manager to rush in to the editorial offices and say things like "I've just sold another full-page ad, so we're going to be printing extra pages - do you have any copy to fill them?" Perhaps at a student paper, though that's considered a pretty huge ethical breach. I can attest that the New York Times definitely does not do that; they tak…

That's bollocks - it's not in the slightest an ethical breach to do that. It's just advertising working with production to make the product. We're not talking about running advertorial or anything.

The papers I've worked on usually had a little flexibility in terms of extra copy or advertising to populate pages as required.

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