Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

https://palant.de/2017/12/20/taking-a-break-from-adblock-plus-development

by robin_reala • 9 years ago

152 119 9 years ago

kleptako• 9 years ago

What is even the point of Adblock Plus now? uBlock Origin seems so much better

It's better than nothing for the non-expert users who don't know it's worse than other options available right now. Pretty much the only worthy use case for it

squeaky-clean2• 9 years ago

Yep, it just has a much better name than uBlock Origin.

Jonnax• 9 years ago

You're asking what the point in developing alternatives are?

Microsoft said the web was done at Internet Explorer 6.

It looks like it was also rewritten for webextensions from that blog post.

Spivak• 9 years ago

But AB isn't an alternative with pros and cons so much as it's a worse version of uBO.

squeaky-clean2• 9 years ago

Microsoft said the web was done at Internet Explorer 6.

Yeah? And this is like OP asking "Now that Edge exists, what's the point of IE 6?"

Moru• 9 years ago

The point is (as with so many things) money. If I remember right, ABP makes money by allowing "friendly" ads if they get payed for it.

paxy• 9 years ago

Adblock Plus sold out a long time ago by taking money from big players to let their ads through. I've been using uBlock Origin for a while and haven't looked back. Plus it's way faster and less buggy.

jameskegel2• 9 years ago

This is also why I switched to uBO

def_true_false7• 9 years ago

The ads still have to satisfy the Acceptable Ads criteria and they only have to pay when they exceed a certain volume (as in everyone besides the big players doesn't have to pay a cent). There is an opt-out checkbox in the settings.

Nadya2• 9 years ago

There is an opt-out checkbox in the settings.

Which should be opt-in. And if nobody wants to opt-in there is the problem; it's going against what the users want.

Most people never change default settings of software they install so "opt-in" may as well not have a way to "opt-out" except as a scapegoat to say you can.

radley• 9 years ago

Opt-out didn't actually opt-out of certain features of the ad deal. For example, YouTube's Up Next list contained risqué Sponsored videos at the top of the list. Prior to the deal they could be blocked. After the deal they couldn't, not even with AdBlock Extensions.

QAPereo• 9 years ago

Add in uMatrix for the ideal experience IMO.

sli• 9 years ago

Just not on Windows with Firefox. There's still a major rendering bug that makes uMatrix mostly unusable. You can't get to the XHR or frame columns, meaning things like reCAPTCHA aren't usable unless you simply turn off uMatrix for that site.

The current workaround is to open the log and allow/disallow from there. But you can't get to the log button 99% of the time because of the rendering bug.

Not sure if it only affects the Dev Edition of Firefox or not. It certainly doesn't affect the Linux versions, neither Dev or mainline.

Really wish they would fix it. Here's how it looks on reddit, notice how much of it is unreachable: https://i.imgur.com/UHN7AQD.png

I'd love to help, I just don't have the time right now.

DarronWyke4• 9 years ago

They never sold out, stop spreading this misinformation.

mockindignant• 9 years ago

Do you want to provide some facts to support your claim or are we just supposed to take your word for it? Because, from where I am sitting, it sure does look like they totally sold out.

TekMol• 9 years ago

Most tech people now seem to use uBlock Origin. But I use uMatrix (from the same developer) and I am super happy with it. It took me a minute or so to understand the interface. But then it is super intuitive and exactly the way I would have designed it myself.

Since I only allow the hosts that I need, I almost never see advertising. And the web is blazingly fast.

interfixus• 9 years ago

Not a thing! It's all you need.

gourou• 9 years ago

Has it got an easy way to unblock elements? Going through the every request in the logger using uBlock is pretty tedious.

nerdponx• 9 years ago

It's rare to enter a filter in rule by hand in uMatrix in the first place, so you just go to the matrix and switch the box from red to green.

I actually just switched from uMatrix back to uBlock Origin, because uBlock makes it easier to block individual JavaScript files, rather than blocking JS wholesale.

bmn__• 9 years ago

The matrix functionality is available in uBlock Origin, no need to install both. Simply enable advanced mode.

ilikepi2• 9 years ago

The matrix (and its corresponding rules syntax) in uBlock Origin is not as powerful as in uMatrix. In uBO, you can specify how to handle traffic between two origins. You can also choose which type(s) of content can be loaded from a particular origin. However, you cannot specify both at once. For example, you can't create a rule in uBO to allow only image requests from google.com to googleusercontent.com.

The uMatrix rule syntax can do this, and the matrix UI does provide this capability.

EDIT: formatting, typo

zerr• 9 years ago

What about Ghostery?

d3sandoval• 9 years ago

Depends on your opinion of this decision: https://adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/ghostery-sheds-ad-tra...

Lev1a• 9 years ago

IIRC they have the same problem as ABP, i.e. selling out their users.

ship_it• 9 years ago

Sold out same as ADB. Use EFFs Privacy Badger[1]

[1] https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

romanovcode2• 9 years ago

Who is even using this anymore? ABP lost all its cred when it took money from ad business.

Just use uBlock Origin.

andrepd• 9 years ago

Unfortunately more people are using ABP than uB. The common person googles "adblock", and ABP is usually the first result.

toyg2• 9 years ago

To be fair, that's because "adblock" basically defined the space. They are entitled to the name recognition, since they built it themselves. It's a bit like WinZip vs 7-Zip.

votepaunchy• 9 years ago

Just use uBlock Origin.

Has there always been a uBlock extension for Safari? That was my last holdout for using ABP. I've now manually installed the downloadable extension but ABP is prominently displayed in Apple's Safari extension app store.

tambre• 9 years ago

The port seems to be in a separate repo until it's considered stable. The development of the port is quite a bit behind and doesn't seem to be actively maintained. I guess no one wants it badly enough to maintain it themself until it's stable.

romanovcode2• 9 years ago

It is even on Edge so it would be super-weird if it would not be on Safari.

uptown• 9 years ago

Any idea if uBlock Origin protects against session-replay?:

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/11/15/no-boundaries-exfil...

betterunix2• 9 years ago

I used ABP until very recently; I was skeptical of the acceptable ads program but it has not really been abused and anyone could opt out at any time. The point of ad blockers was not to actually block every ad, it was to keep the web sane and stop the trend toward increasingly intrusive advertising. ABP accomplished that goal even with the acceptable ads program.

mgbmtl3• 9 years ago

Many comments are bitterly unfair against ABP. Wladimir/Eyeo changed how we use the web, gave us means to fight back against abusive advertising. They built a business model to make the extension sustainable and find a strategy to legitimate themselves, fight in the courts, etc. Not to mention that ABP never tried to close the market. Alternatives were easy to build thanks to EasyList.

Today there are many alternatives to ABP. I am extremely grateful for his work. He's going on a well deserved vacation. I wish him success in his future projects.

(In case anyone wonders, I am not affiliated. Just a happy user of ABP.)

ycombobreaker• 9 years ago

As is frequently the case, I would give credit to Opera. They didn't have a central list but the browser had an easy-to-use element blocker that was suitable for blocking many obnoxious ads of the era. The central list ideas I've seen come out of projects built on squid proxies with known-advertiser black holes.

ABP may have packaged things up nicely, I dont remember that evolution of history. And they may have other good will now to balance out the "acceptable ads" monetization. But the tools to "fight back against abusive advertising" should be credited elsewhere, IMHO.

Fnoord10• 9 years ago

Interestingly, Opera was proprietary with its own rendering engine (Presto) and you could buy a license or you could run it for free with an ad showing (back then, ads were more profitable as well). Bummer they never open sourced Presto. Maybe that inspired Brave. Though you can't "buy" Brave.

Fnoord10• 9 years ago

Come on, as if ABP innovated so much? ABP wasn't the first. I remember using an adblocker native in Firefox back around 2004 (and IIRC I even used on on Mozilla milestones). Back then, there were already /etc/hosts based alternatives (which also have always worked in Windows btw) as well, and a so-called personal firewall could also block ads. These existed for Windows 9x. We're talking end of '90s here.

As for the current direct comparison: uBlock yields better performance and doesn't have a shady track record [1]. Other than "I've always used this" or "I benefit if other people use this" (ie. am affiliated which you're not) I just do not see your point. So could you explain us why you pick ABP over uBlock?

[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-vs.-ABP:-effic...

def_true_false7• 9 years ago

doesn't have a shady track record

Care to expand on that?

cuckcuckspruce• 9 years ago

I remember using the Internet Junkbuster[1] and Privoxy[2] to block ads in the browser long before ABP. The novelty was embedding the functionality directly in the browser through the extensions.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/19980210082938/http://internet.j...

[2] http://www.privoxy.org/

m12k• 9 years ago

ABP wasn't the first

Sure, and the iPhone wasn't the first smartphone either, but it did bring the concept to mainstream attention. Same goes for ABP

wnevets• 9 years ago

It was the first meaningful adblocker for me.

mgbmtl3• 9 years ago

"So could you explain us why you pick ABP over uBlock?"

On a philosophical level: I support the ABP strategy of "acceptable ads". I think it's a good way to legitimize the development of adblocking extensions. They also make it easy to disable those ads.

Technically: For a long time, ABP blocked more ads than uBlock. Maybe this is not as true today. For example: some adblockers didn't block ads in videos. I also appreciated the "Element Hiding Helper" extension (which has not been ported to webextensions). ABP was usually one step ahead of everyone else.

On performance: Firefox had ups and downs with regards to performance, and ABP was part of the problem. I remember reading a few blog posts from Firefox about the work they did to improve that. These days, I don't notice any difference, especially with Quantum/webextensions.

madmax108• 9 years ago

Comments like this is why us developers can't have good things. Just like we hated dropbox because it's oh so trivial to replicate the functionality [1]. ABP took ab blocking mainstream to the level where many non-technical friends started adding ABP as the first addon when they installed Firefox/Chrome, and that's saying a lot.

Is uBlock better? Yes, but uBlock probably wouldn't exist if ABP had not established the market and highlighted the need for ad blocking extensions.

Happy uBlock user (and happy former ABP user).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

Sir_Cmpwn• 9 years ago

You're right, we owe them a debt for starting this thing. But there are lines you don't cross - they crossed them, and lost all credibility as a result.

stirner• 9 years ago

ABP’s filter list syntax is underspecified with vague, conversational English; some members of the community have tried to formally document the more common pieces of syntax but it’s far from complete. Instead of using a simple-to-parse CFG or regular expressions, ABP appears to have arbitrarily added new bits of syntax as they please. I’d encourage you to attempt to make an ABP filter list decoder before calling ABP alternatives “easy”.

Feniks2• 9 years ago

Pretty sure ABP wasn't the first adblocker. Just the one that made it to mainstream popularity.

nasredin• 9 years ago

I have very strong feelings WRT the creator of ABP.

---

The creator of ABP ("Wladimir"?) is a scammer, con man, and malware distributor.

He created an adblocking extension.

He then used the auto-update feature to update his extension to include "acceptable ads".

I was not warned about this. I discovered this accidentally after going into ABP settings.

"Acceptable ads" IS the antithesis of adblocking. Do you know the malware that masquerades as anti-virus software, etc., euphemistically called "potentially unwanted programs / PUP"? ABP is EXACTLY the same.

Vladimir gained my trust by providing an adblocking software. He then betrayed that trust.

He is a con man in my book.

/rant

merlish• 9 years ago

And so, XUL is returned to the TLA pool.

Anyone got any claims for what XUL should mean now?

perlgeek• 9 years ago

Recycling XUL as another TLA would be LTA (Less Than awesome), IMHO :-)

calcifer2• 9 years ago

TLA?

grzm• 9 years ago

Three-letter acronym.

hartator• 9 years ago

I also want to spend more time doing security research again, which should help pay the bills as a side effect.

I would have thought he would have savings from Adblock Plus deals.

Larrikin• 9 years ago

I find it odd that I never see AdNauseum recommended. I switched from ABP a few months ago. Screws over trackers by making me appear interested in everything.

https://adnauseam.io/

aphextron• 9 years ago

I'm confused as to what ABP does that is more useful than just adding a blocked list to your /etc/hosts file. Moreso, as to how someone could work on it for 12 years. Exactly what am I missing here?

praneshp• 9 years ago

Easy. A quick google and couple of clicks led me to https://github.com/adblockplus/.

mistercow• 9 years ago

I don't know much about the specifics of ABP's history, but there's an obvious arms race component to ad blocking that could keep a developer busy indefinitely.

djur• 9 years ago

1) There's a lot of cases where blocking an entire domain is either excessive or insufficient -- important assets can be located on the same domain as ads. Adblockers can target specific files and specific elements on the page. They also provide much better ease of use for the average user than updating a hosts file.

2) The list of ad domains, URLs, and elements has to be constantly updated. The plugin has to be kept up to date with changes in browsers. Advertisers occasionally come up with new techniques to bypass or detect adblockers, so those need to be worked around.

ivanfon• 9 years ago

A bit unrelated, but does anyone else think the new NoScript has an absolutely awful interface?

jhiska• 9 years ago

uMatrix is better than the new NoScript.

thg• 9 years ago

It made me switch to uMatrix, which incidentally also gave me the cookie controls back that I had with the Cookie Monster extension pre-Quantum.

calcifer2• 9 years ago

Here [1] is a post by the NoScript developer explaining how the new UI works and which buttons map to which legacy functions. After reading it and letting myself adjust for a few days, I'm perfectly comfortable with the new version.

[1] https://hackademix.net/2017/12/04/noscript-quantum-vs-legacy...

INTPenis• 9 years ago

I've always been a control freak. Long before ABP I used ipfw to block ads at home. I remember having to use Opera on my poor laptop because Firefox was becoming too bloated to run.

And Opera at that time had ads in the INTERFACE of the browser. So blocking those at the router level left big blank spaces in the interfaces that were more satisfying to me than ads.

So I'll give this guy credit because I used his plugin, but not too much credit when you sell out to the people you've basically made a business model out of blocking.

Like many others I've switched to ublock and I'm a control freak so I also use noscript extensively.

For many years now the browser has been the number one threat to the average internet user so I firmly believe in noscript.

You should in fact take it even further and use qubes os.

Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

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