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µBlock for Firefox

github.com

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Re: µBlock for Firefox

#231

Post by dserodio »

driverdan wrote: post #207
mdellabitta wrote: post #156

I decided to dump extension-based privacy stuff and installed Privoxy instead. I used to have Ghostery, Disconnect, ABP, and some other things running simultaneously. When you think about it, that's a lot of JS running and iterating the DOM multiple times every time you load a page. Now there's a single, purpose-built, standalone process written in C doing it. Not going back.

What about when you're doing development work on a site that uses content you'd normally block (Analytics, ads, etc)? When I spend a day working I don't want to have to toggle Privoxy every time I want to search for something.

Use FoxyProxy and create rules that "whitelist" the sites you're working on

Re: µBlock for Firefox

#233

Post by tux »

dserodio wrote: post #232
tux wrote: post #230

Awesome exactly what I was looking for. Because AdBlock Plus is extremely slow at times. Also uBlock provides many more filters. Thank You!

The official XPI are here: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases

Thanks :-) Will check it out.

Re: µBlock for Firefox

#234

Post by cpeterso »

ecaron wrote: post #164
commentereleven wrote: post #2

They claim that when the extension gets added to addons.mozilla.org, it would start to auto-update.

Auto-updating is possible even without using addons.mozilla.org, sites like Pinterest do it all the time for their plugin. Mozilla rolls that option into their CFX builder - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Tools/cfx#cf... - the update file just needs a consistent place to live. I use CloudFront for it.

Unfortunately I doubt the auto-updates will work when the add-on's .xpi URL is not stable because it includes uBlock version number. He might be able to workaround that limitation by hosting a stable .xpi URL on a github.io website.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases/download/0.8.5.7/...

Re: µBlock for Firefox

#236

Post by dserodio »

lqdc13 wrote: post #204
JohnTHaller wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Useful why? It's blocking stuff, that's great. I don't care how many things it blocks on a specific page. It make no difference to me while browsing. The little counter changing just looks like an annoying animated GIF in the corner of my browser. I get that a subset of users would derive some pleasure at knowing how many things are blocked on every single website they visit or users who'd like to use it to troublesh…

This is super useful feature for debugging. Happens sometimes that something goes wrong and an ad is regenerated after being blocked. So the ad blocker would block it again, thus generating an infinite loop that can take up all the memory (if the ad blocker saves any information about the blocked ads on the current page in memory) and crash your machine in less than a minute in the worst case. In the best case it wou…

This is a very specific corner case, which doesn't justify the default settings

Re: µBlock for Firefox

#237

Post by dserodio »

hullo wrote: post #149
ps4fanboy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be like saying a service that blacked out the ads in news papers is theft, its completely rubbish. Plus educate yourself on the definition of theft: "theft is the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it." At best its unauthorized modification of a creative work without distributing it, which is not illegal and never…

Don't know why parent comment was killed when the article contains a similar assertion (the other way). While not a lot is gained by using loaded words like "theft", it is a simple fact that using ad blockers causes the owners of many of the sites that you visit to receive less revenue than they would otherwise. One can argue that one is perfectly justified in doing this (e.g. many typical examples of this are includ…

That's the feature I'm missing mostly from ABP: the "whitelist this site" quick toggle

Re: µBlock for Firefox

#238

Post by dpifke »

bsder wrote: post #229

Does this work on any of the mobile browsers? I'd kill for something to block stuff properly on mobile.

I just tried and was unsuccessful at installing it on Firefox for Android. (Fails to install silently after download.)

That said, Ghostery (and for that matter, HTTPS Everywhere) both work great.

Re: µBlock for Firefox

#239

Post by edwintorok »

chdir wrote: post #177

Can someone familiar with the code explain what's the difference between this & adblock/disconnect etc. Why is this lighter? (a little technical algorithm difference would be good to know)

I think uBlock only injects the CSS rules needed, not 14000+ like ABP: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/161#issuecomment-52...

Re: µBlock for Firefox

#240

Post by euid »

pekk wrote: post #225
Tobu wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't work with the push to HTTPS. Either you use proxy connect, and Privoxy is no better than /etc/hosts blocking. Or you'd rely on the proxy's poorer and slower implementation of TLS. Certificate verification will suffer (no certificate pinning, no certificate blacklist, no OCSP stapling, no way to verify incomplete chains), no SPDY, no sunsetting of bad ciphers or bad protocols.

Is there some reason in principle why you can't constructively MITM yourself without using piles of Javascript in the browser?

There is no reason in principle, and you can even do it for kicks.[1] The only issue here is a practical one, as the parent poster described: from an end-user perspective, browsers do SSL/TLS better than ad-blocking proxies.

[1]: An example from the other side of the coin: http://www.wired.com/2010/03/packet-forensics/

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