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uBlock Origin 1.48 adds readiness status, code viewer, and other fixes

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Re: uBlock Origin 1.48 adds readiness status, code viewer, and other fixes

#81
post #13

Unfortunately, uMatrix (the other gorhill project) has bad bugs on Firefox. When you navigate to another page, it will sometimes get the host for a web request wrong, causing it to apply the wrong rules for that request. This can cause you to lose your login cookies. And since uMatrix has been discontinued, so there's no more central repository to collect bug fixes. A fork is available called nuTensor which does reso…

>This can cause you to lose your login cookies

Huh, so that was why that was randomly happening. Sigh, I totally understand gorhill not wanting to have to support another overlapping tool, but uMatrix is unparalleled for visualizing the sheer mass of privacy vampirism on the modern Web. I've learned a lot from using it on sites, and am now kind of a cottage expert on CDNs thanks to determining the minimum whitelisting to get a site's basic functionality to run.

Re: uBlock Origin 1.48 adds readiness status, code viewer, and other fixes

#82
post #5

I somewhat wished that when Chrome switches to manifest v3, uBlock Origin would stop supporting Chrome and its clones. Firefox is the only browser where uBlock Origin is actually working as intended, Chrome on the other hand (even in manifest v2) is blocking so many features that uBO isn't actually able to work as a privacy and anti-malware tool. CNAME uncloaking is essential because websites can counter any filter r…

There is a solution for Chromium based browsers:

https://github.com/brave/adblock-rust

but you will only have it built-in in Brave currently.

Re: uBlock Origin 1.48 adds readiness status, code viewer, and other fixes

#83
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wished it had been named "uBlock Neutered" or something that more strongly highlighted the relationship to uBlock Origin.

Or uBlock Chrome Edition. When it doesn't work as good as uBO on FF, let it be known whose fault it is.

uBlock Reduced Functionality exclusive to Chrome

Re: uBlock Origin 1.48 adds readiness status, code viewer, and other fixes

#84
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s a setting to enable cloud storage, so as long as you’re logged into Firefox Sync/Chrome it can be synced but has to be triggered manually to sync/merge the filter lists.

I've got that set up, but it doesn't seem to work: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Cloud-storage I've followed the steps carefully a coupe of times, but still no luck. The page does include the caveat "Cloud storage services offered by specific browser vendors have limitations and quirks and are out of the control of uBO" which seems to be the case for me.

Your list/filters is probably too large.

> If syncing is enabled, the data is synced to any Chrome browser that the user is logged into. If disabled, it behaves like storage.local. When the browser is offline, Chrome stores the data locally and resumes syncing when it's back online. The quota limitation is 100 KB approx, 8 KB per item. Consider using it to preserve user settings across synced browsers.

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/stora...

Re: uBlock Origin 1.48 adds readiness status, code viewer, and other fixes

#85
post #74
post #71

var internetExperience = uBO ? Experience.NICE : Experience.DIE_A_LITTLE_INSIDE; var internetSafety = -10; internetSafety += windows ? -5 : 3; internetSafety += uBO ? 4 : -9; internetSafety += uMatrix ? 13 : -99;

uMatrix is redundant with uBO Dynamic filtering: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-qu...

I just wish it used the uMatrix UI, which I think was easier to parse, at the cost of much more space of course. But I have plenty of room on my desktop display.

Re: uBlock Origin 1.48 adds readiness status, code viewer, and other fixes

#86
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My solution is to leave the site :) and then add the domain to an add-on I made for myself that hides any links to it, on any page, any where. I was hoping uBO would eventually get a dedicated feature like that, I don't think it's possible with filters. I tried pretty hard. I think knowing anyone could decide to completely erase a domain from their entire internet experience, down to the link level, would motivate si…

I would totally use that add-on if you were interested in maintaining it as a publically available add-on. Does it just strip out the tag?

It is in the official extension repository [1]. I had to put it there because of how difficult/impossible it is to run a local extensions. But it's definitely not designed for general use. I'll be glad to guide you if the tiny amount of help I've included isn't enough.

The source [2] is available too.

The actual idea of the extension is "Style stuff using regular expressions". So you specify a regex; what to search, attributes and/or text (text can cause a lot of undesired results so I don't use it much); and css styles to add to the elements containing matches. I only really use it to apply visibility: hidden to any element with an attribute matching one big regex that's basically just a bunch of domains regex |'d together. The example in the options UI is what I'm still using years later, I've just added more domains.

EDIT: I just realize the example has "searchText" set to true, you'll probably want to set that to false.

To give you some idea of how user unfriendly it is, configuration is JSON in a textarea and the regexs are defined in a string in that JSON, necessitating the use of many backslashes for escaping from both regex and strings. It's basically brainfuck :)

I originally started with just taking out tags but that idea was quickly shot down. Lots of links aren't tags. Sometimes the domain being linked to is buried in some JS in a onX event attribute, or some data-* attr that the UI framework uses and a bunch of other oddities. So the code searches all attrs. It's not super efficient but I've never noticed it causing a slow down.

Another problem is, often, the original request doesn't even contain the links, they're loaded after. So it uses a MutationObserver and looks at the new elements for matches.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ssure/

[2] https://github.com/7w0/ssure/blob/master/content/content.js

Re: uBlock Origin 1.48 adds readiness status, code viewer, and other fixes

#87
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just run AdGuard Home network wide and have never seen a huge need to run a browser blocker as well. What are you getting out of using both?

Is Adguard better than Pihole? I always thought that adguard were baddies, but maybe I’m conlflating them with another product…

Maybe you are confusing AdGuard with AdBlockPlus? The latter[1] and the parent company Eyeo GmbH have some points of criticism.

AdGuard is basically pi-hole, just with different pre-configured filter lists and especially child and parental control settings. IIRC, some services can also be blocked there directly, Instagram for example.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_Plus#Controversies

Re: uBlock Origin 1.48 adds readiness status, code viewer, and other fixes

#88
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or uBlock Chrome Edition. When it doesn't work as good as uBO on FF, let it be known whose fault it is.

Chrome will still be faster even if ublock doesn't block as much as FF does. In fact the new declarative filters will most likely be faster than the current ones.

In the same way that a car is faster if you make it lighter by removing parts that aren't technically needed to drive down the road :) Airbags, ABS, Crossmembers? Meh.

Re: uBlock Origin 1.48 adds readiness status, code viewer, and other fixes

#89
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s a setting to enable cloud storage, so as long as you’re logged into Firefox Sync/Chrome it can be synced but has to be triggered manually to sync/merge the filter lists.

Is it possible to sync between Firefox, Chrome, Brave, Edge? I assume we're limited to the same browser only though?

Yes, same browser since uBO just uses the `browser.storage.sync` API.[1] The sync storage is quite limited but uBO compresses the data to make the most of the limited storage.

* * *

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...

Re: uBlock Origin 1.48 adds readiness status, code viewer, and other fixes

#90

wish we can use ublock as a proxy to do a network wide adblock !

I used https://www.privoxy.org/ around 2002-2005, before adblockers as browser extensions existed. Proxy based adblocking was much easier when basically no website used SSL.
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