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AdBlock Plus’s effect on Firefox’s memory usage

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: AdBlock Plus’s effect on Firefox’s memory usage

#181

Post by Groxx »

chrismorgan wrote: post #42

I would like to see a lighter blocking list—one that doesn’t try to be absolutely comprehensive, but just focuses on the 95% of ads that can be fixed at 10% of the cost (actually I think it’d be more like 99% at 0.1% of the cost).

I've been using this on my Android phone (but have not audited it, I should really do that some time): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bluhell-firew...

ABP has a huge page-load slowdown on my phone, this is essentially unnoticeable, and still removes the vast majority that I encounter.

Re: AdBlock Plus’s effect on Firefox’s memory usage

#183

Post by qwerta »

axx wrote: post #92

It's 2014. My computer has 12 Gigabytes of RAM. I don't give a shit, as long as i don't have to view those terrible stupid Ads. Advertisers, fix your practises and i will view your Ads again.

My computer has 32GB RAM and I do care. For start it affects battery lifetime. I also do performance testing and it can be ruined if some page uses too much CPU.

Re: AdBlock Plus’s effect on Firefox’s memory usage

#184

Post by gorhill »

RobotCaleb wrote: post #178
gorhill wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends how you use HTTPSB, I can't decide for you. For one thing, HTTPSB doesn't hide DOM elements (I consider this out of its primary purpose), so if you still want this feature, you will have to keep ABP (or whatever equivalent does element hiding). As for Ghostery or Disconnect, they still can be useful if you use HTTPSB in a permissive way (allow-all/block-exceptionally). You could even use HTTPSB to bloc…

Okay, I'll spend some more time with it. While I have your ear, can I request color blind compatibility? http://i.imgur.com/WHA3BHw.png I think there are red and green elements there, but can't tell which is which. Also, I don't know how to set them to red or green specifically as I can't seem them. :) Could you maybe include a check mark and an X or some other non-color dependent means of portraying that information…

I did enter an issue 6 months ago to make it color-blind friendly: https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/issues/52

I know nothing about color-blindness though, so I will need the input of color-blind people. If there is an option to use blue instead of green, would that work?

Re: AdBlock Plus’s effect on Firefox’s memory usage

#185

Post by RobotCaleb »

gorhill wrote: post #184
RobotCaleb wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'll spend some more time with it. While I have your ear, can I request color blind compatibility? http://i.imgur.com/WHA3BHw.png I think there are red and green elements there, but can't tell which is which. Also, I don't know how to set them to red or green specifically as I can't seem them. :) Could you maybe include a check mark and an X or some other non-color dependent means of portraying that information…

I did enter an issue 6 months ago to make it color-blind friendly: https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/issues/52 I know nothing about color-blindness though, so I will need the input of color-blind people. If there is an option to use blue instead of green, would that work?

That would work for some. The best path would be to not solely rely on color for information representation. Add some other visual element, such as a pattern to the color, or a small icon.

I'll chime in on the issue.

Re: AdBlock Plus’s effect on Firefox’s memory usage

#186

Post by dbbolton »

If you are on a low-end machine and can't afford a larger memory footprint, you should probably be using a lighter browser in the first place, but if you really want to use Firefox and block ads, one option is to just block them through your hosts file, then the addon becomes largely unnecessary.

http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

Re: AdBlock Plus’s effect on Firefox’s memory usage

#187

Post by anigbrowl »

gorhill wrote: post #20

It's not just memory overhead, it is also CPU overhead. One approach is to write the filtering engine from scratch. It is what I did, without looking at ABP's code beforehand in order to ensure a clean slate mind. I didn't get it right the first time, I did spend quite a large amount of time benchmarking, measuring, prototyping, etc. Once I was satisfied I had finally had a solid code base, I went and benchmarked it…

This is my new favorite thing. It took me a few moments to 'get it' - eg sites like HN not loading by default, until I enabled them n the matrix display, but I worked it out without by experimentation very quickly and I love being able to edit preferences so fast. Well done, fantastic work.

Re: AdBlock Plus’s effect on Firefox’s memory usage

#188

Post by dfc »

Silhouette wrote: post #160
artursapek wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes you gain zero benefit from a network effect, which is rarely the case.

No, it only assumes that you don't gain a positive net benefit from a networking effect in a network where people use ad blockers and then get upset and storm off your site if you do something about it . In the absence of data to the contrary, that doesn't seem like an unreasonable assumption.

"Network effect" not "networking effect": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

Re: AdBlock Plus’s effect on Firefox’s memory usage

#189

Post by mullingitover »

This is like a commercial for forking Firefox to build highly efficient ad blocking into the browser.

It's sad that the most-demanded feature on every browser, as evidenced by plugin downloads, is ad blocking. However, all the major browsers are produced by companies with their hands in advertising, and this conflict of interest has resulted in this feature request going unfulfilled for a over a decade.

Fork 'em.

Re: AdBlock Plus’s effect on Firefox’s memory usage

#190

Post by DenisM »

mullingitover wrote: post #189

This is like a commercial for forking Firefox to build highly efficient ad blocking into the browser. It's sad that the most-demanded feature on every browser, as evidenced by plugin downloads, is ad blocking. However, all the major browsers are produced by companies with their hands in advertising, and this conflict of interest has resulted in this feature request going unfulfilled for a over a decade. Fork 'em.

I don't think we can block ads in mainstream browsers because ad providers will just work around the blocks. Plugins provide defense in numbers against suck workarounds, making ad blocks actually effective.
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