uBlock Origin 1.20

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases/tag/1.20.0

by babak_ap • 7 years ago

742 330 7 years ago

vasili1113• 7 years ago

After Chrome API changes announcement uBlock Origin news at HN became more popular than before. I like it.

victor9000• 7 years ago

It's become a pattern across many Google assets. The massive price increase of the Maps API, the order of magnitude limitations placed on the YouTube API, and now the neutering of ad blocking on Chromium. Google built an empire, and now they're cashing in their chips. I can't say I blame them, but they are no longer a platform that enables innovation. So now my only question is what's next? Which Google product will be the next to transform into an anaconda in their attempts to squeeze cash from their customers. Personally, I'm rethinking everything from Gmail to Android.

hi5eyes• 7 years ago

drive/docs/photos seems to be their next move

google recently changed the way photos synced with drive

that and the aggressive android push

https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/12/google-drive-google-phot...

throwaway2048• 7 years ago

The Youtube API restrictions are completely ridiculous, you use up the entire daily allocation by searching 3 times, or viewing like 10 video metadata blobs.

They might as well just scrap the free API completely, because its now worthless.

exergy3• 7 years ago

The funniest thing is, I would happily pay Google a reasonable amount each month to have access to their service! Caveat being that they agreed to drop all tracking and adverts, of course. But I love Gmail, Drive, Youtube and, most of all, Maps and Earth!

As things stand, though, if I gave Google any money, I'd be essentially wasting my time, because all I'd get in return would be dubious 'premium' features.

kylek• 7 years ago

Thank you gorhill.

> Free. Open source. For users by users. No donations sought.

6nf• 7 years ago

When will the planned changes to the Chrome API actually roll out to the public?

sp332• 7 years ago

They'll be rolled out with Manifest V3 which as of last week was "still very much in development" https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/chromium-exte...

ehsankia3• 7 years ago

The best estimates would be rolling out by next year, and enforced in probably 2 years. And they will probably change quite a lot until then.

tbodt• 7 years ago

I expect by the time anything actually ships, the API will be extended enough to allow most of uBlock Origin's functionality to stay.

neonate2• 7 years ago

If you already have it do you need to manually install the new version?

babak_ap• 7 years ago

It was updated automatically for me, both on Firefox desktop and Firefox for Android.

neonate2• 7 years ago

Good to know. Thanks.

nosianu2• 7 years ago

Still stuck on the previous version. The store shows 1.20, but even switching to "developer mode" in the Chrome extension overview and clicking on "Update" (button) and restarting the browser had no effect. Still the old version.

paul7986• 7 years ago

Just read Microsoft will allow ad blocker extensions (May build one in) in their new Chromium browser. Looks like I’m going to rewind 13 years and use IE again(IE of today).

Such a stupid move by the do no evil company! Now they do no stupid too.

EDIT: Here is link... https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/06/16/micr...

joenathanone• 7 years ago

Link?

jccalhoun• 7 years ago

there was a reddit ama where someone asked about adblockers and they said:

"we occasionally hear requests for a built in ad blocking experiences in Edge. For most users, we find that extensions (combined with strong defaults around tracking prevention) are the best option here because you can choose from a variety of experiences and defaults, but we absolutely want to hear from you if you think this should be built in."

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/c094uf/hi_reddit_were...

taurath• 7 years ago

Google has every incentive to believe ads and user surveillance is not evil

TimTheTinker• 7 years ago

Agreed. The problem with a mission statement like “do no evil” is that in today’s pluralistic world (especially in the west), there’s no generally agreed-upon definition of evil.

Philosophically, defining “evil” requires defining “good” first, and a definition of “good” depends entirely on one’s notions of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny — one’s worldview.

In google’s case, it’s probably better business to simply remove the motto than to risk offending large groups of people in the quest for philosophical rigor.

vxNsr3• 7 years ago

Do you have a link to that?

My only issue is that chrome is great bec I can have multiple profiles on the same windows user account, but that’s kinda anathema to the paradigm of how Microsoft wants us to use Edge.

I use chrome profiles the same way ppl use Firefox containers, my only hope is that edge builds something similar.

I’ve also been using Vivaldi, I love it but I’m worried about using duh a small project that is still dependent on chromium.

vasili1113• 7 years ago

Try also Brave. It is fully open source and based on Chromium.

nvrspyx3• 7 years ago

Chromium Edge allows multiple profiles just like Chrome.

jbigelow76• 7 years ago

I've been running it on the Edge Chromium Dev build for a few weeks now, works great!

sundvor2• 7 years ago

Ditto. Google Meets didn't work for a while, then it did. Now it also has a dark theme.

I've swapped to Edge Beta on my PCs and Brave on my Android.

ryan-allen• 7 years ago

Well, that's exciting! I didn't know there was a build [0]!

[0] https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/

vasili1113• 7 years ago

It is not quit clear what exactly they think regarding ad blocking. Edge team AMA on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/c094uf/hi_reddit_were...

bdcravens• 7 years ago

Looks like I’m going to rewind 13 years

Well if you had asked your typical HN developer a few years ago whether they'd be using a Microsoft code editor ...

quickthrower2• 7 years ago

+ Microsoft tool for compiling to JS

+ Microsoft Public/Private Git Hosting :-)

scardine• 7 years ago

Lets not forget WSL. I just got the WSL2 upgrade - it turns a Windows 10 desktop into a quite decent software developer workstation.

Seriously guys, if the last time you used Windows was a few years ago it is time to give it a another shot.

pbhjpbhj7• 7 years ago

What I really like about using "code" on Ubuntu is the nostalgia.

# name that assumes no other apps exist, check

# randomly freezes, check

# doesn't produce a log without jumping through hoops, check

Seriously though, I only just started using it, looks great ;o)

Fat_Thor• 7 years ago

A little know fact about IE8 is that it came with a built in content blocking mechanism appropriately called Tracking Protection way back in 2009. IIRC it was the first browser to come with ad blocking built in, although not turn on by default. Opera came with content blocking a bit later.

IE9 improved on it with what I think is one of the most impressive feature to this day. It had a heuristic tracking protection that block trackers once it's detected at a certain re-occurrence counts that you can config. So in theory it doesn't need to subscribed to an ad list like all browsers do today.

IE took a lot of crap deservedly so, but that overshadowed a lot of pioneer works that later browsers adopted.

XzetaU82• 7 years ago

Speaking for Tracking Protection on IE, the Easylists TPL lists on the official IE gallery site is severely outdated[1] (Last updated Nov 7, 2017) This page from filterlists.com[2] offers an updated collection of TPL lists

[1]https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/iegallery

[2]https://raw.githubusercontent.com/collinbarrett/FilterLists/...

pmoriarty2• 7 years ago

The bright side of Google's anti-ad-blocking efforts is that ad-blocking is clearly no longer just an insignificant blip on their radar. There must be enough users of ad-blockers now to start to significantly affect their bottom line.

There might even be a critical mass of people who are against advertising to attempt to make some legal headway on this issue in Washington. Just as there has been legal action against telemarketers, there might be something on the legal front that can be done against online advertisers, who could be considered just as much or even more of a nuisance than telemarketers ever were. In addition, online advertising has repeatedly been a vector of malware, and perhaps companies which try to circumvent or forbid ad-blockers could have some legal consequences -- and, if not, perhaps laws could be introduced to make such consequences a reality.

IANAL, and this is just a pipe dream of mine at the moment -- but plenty of pro-consumer legislation has been made over the years. Perhaps the dawn of an unsolicited-advertising-free world is upon us.

PostOnce• 7 years ago

I would think it's more likely they legislate against us, i.e. making it a crime to circumvent advertising (see: circumventing DRM).

Rychard• 7 years ago

The bright side of Google's anti-ad-blocking efforts is that ad-blocking is clearly no longer just an insignificant blip on their radar. There must be enough users of ad-blockers now to start to significantly affect their bottom line.

I think the issue is that shareholders want to see significant year-over-year growth, something that isn't sustainable in the long-term. We're merely being seen as an untapped market than can keep the needle moving for a few more years.

I like capitalism, but I think it's entirely unreasonable for shareholders to expect such gains in perpetuity. After all, there's a finite amount of money that can be extracted from any user. The trendline will inevitably start to level off after a period of time, and I'm frustrated by the fact that this eventuality has negative connotations associated with it.

stevekemp• 7 years ago

There must be enough users of ad-blockers now to start to significantly affect their bottom line.

I host a bunch of websites, and about five years ago I stuck adsense adverts on them. Due to the decent traffic I was earning about £80/month and that was stable for 3-4 years.

This year, and last year, I instead earned about £100/year, despite having much more traffic/visitors, and more "aged content". When I get a chance I'll rebuild all the sites and drop the adverts. Adblockers - which I use myself - have rendered them almost pointless.

Causality1• 7 years ago

They're more likely to outlaw adblocking than they are outlaw advertising. Frankly I fear we're nearing the end of a golden age, where those in the know have an incredibly easy time blocking ads with a simple extension while our content providers are funded by the ignorant tech commoners watching ads. I don't want a future where ads are baked right into the YouTube video stream and articles refuse to load until they get confirmation the ads have been downloaded from an ad server.

finchisko• 7 years ago

Isn't Microsoft selling ads too? I believe they do (that's why bing was created). If so, I don't trust their ad blocking initiative any more then google's. Maybe in short term, as they want to steal users from Chrome, but in longterm, they'll in same position as google is now.

apsdsm• 7 years ago

They probably do, but Microsoft isn’t an ad company like Google, so that danger is probably fairly existential to them.

ePierre• 7 years ago

Looks like I’m going to rewind 13 years and use IE again(IE of today).

Why not using Firefox?

Yizahi• 7 years ago

Yes, but only for as long as Google allows them to do it in their Chrome mod. Microsoft will keep away from centain Chrome features in Chromium as long as all they need to do is to turn them off. i.e. stay on the same trunk but without certain optional element. Key here is - optional elements. If Google will change something that will require to branch Chromium (and I mean really branch, with internal changes) to stay away from such changes, I highly doubt that MS will do it. They don't wan't or can't to maintain a separate different browser as they already shown with Edge.

aepiepaey• 7 years ago

Since it keeps being misquoted: the motto was "don't be evil", not "don't do evil".

geniium• 7 years ago

Thanks for the great work!

mrsmee892• 7 years ago

This is great! Any plans for Safari support?

linux2647• 7 years ago

Not the most up to fate, but exists: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari

newman314• 7 years ago

This will no longer be usable on Catalina unless someone else takes up the charge. The problem afaik is similar to what Chrome has done.

lostgame• 7 years ago

I absolutely detest the way Extensions in Safari are handled in Mojave. Is there any way to install them without the App Store?

girvo• 7 years ago

Same. It's absolutely garbage that it requires a Mac App -- while there's workarounds for now, how much longer until they don't work either. It's a shame because I quite like Safari as a browser. Oh well, more incentive to switch back to Firefox!

briandear• 7 years ago

Part of the logic is that many extensions are very dangerous to users: the Grammarly extension, for example, vacuums up everything you type and sends your history to their servers. Most normal people don’t realize the trouble they can get into when installing extensions. Extensions can be as privacy destructive as anything on the web.

Marsymars5• 7 years ago

The lack of support is in the other direction - Safari doesn't support uBlock Origin anymore. The only way to block ads is with Apple's Content Blocking API, which is fundamentally not how uBlock Origin works.

mrsmee892• 7 years ago

Interesting. How do they differ fundamentally?

izacus• 7 years ago

Interesting, didn't know that - why wasn't there the same kind of outcry as for Chrome API changes?

Synaesthesia• 7 years ago

Pardon my ignorance, but I installed ublock via the App Store in safari and it seems to work fine, am I mistaken?

Edit: I see it’s ublock, not ublock origin. What’s the difference?

FabHK4• 7 years ago

I'm running uBlock Origin 1.16 on Safari 12.1.1 right now, unless I'm mistaken.

superkuh2• 7 years ago

Too bad it only targets Chrome webextensions. No support for people still using the Firefox version of Firefox instead of the modern Chrome style Firefox.

vxNsr3• 7 years ago

There's no dev team here, its a single guy building something for free, if you want this to be supported on the older version of firefox, build it!

michaelmrose4• 7 years ago

Pre quantum being unsupported and therefore by dint of lacking security updates insecure will end up with 0.1% marketshare. This is probably why nobody cares. You are of course free to maintain a fork for you and the other 28 users.

icebraining5• 7 years ago

gorhill is such a trooper that he's actually still maintaining a Firefox-legacy version, latest release just a couple of weeks ago: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases/tag/firefox-legac...

contravariant• 7 years ago

I can understand being upset that firefox removed support for non-webextension extensions, but I can't really understand someone who evidently chose to remove the webextensions support themselves and then complains that some extensions stopped working.

Endy4• 7 years ago

Cool. Is there a non-WebExtensions XUL version for us Pale Moon users?

canistel• 7 years ago

I don't think there is an updated one. For the brief period when I had used Basilisk, I used an old version of uBlock Origin (downloaded from the Mozilla website).

michaelmrose4• 7 years ago

Pale moon is a bad product made by horrendous individuals.

For the technical reasons read

https://www.howtogeek.com/335712/update-why-you-shouldnt-use...

For the interpersonal reasons please see the lead developer acting like a spoiled child here.

https://github.com/jasperla/openbsd-wip/issues/86

Friends don't let friends use a crappy, out of date, insecure, janky browser.

jversd6732• 7 years ago

No, Pale moon is not bad product at all, as for the horrendous individuals, well that's wrong too.

For the technical reasons read

https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?p=135424#p135424

For the interpersonal reasons please see the lead developer acting like a spoiled child here.

(btw mattatobin is not a lead developer, get your fact straight please)

https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?p=134236#p134236

Friends don't let friends use a crappy, out of date, insecure, janky browser.

https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?t=21626

https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?p=168679#p168679

Endy4• 7 years ago

I agree with their technical choices, and I both understand and agree with their BSD position.

LordLestat2• 7 years ago

I rather would use Pale Moon before i would touch Mozilla Firefox - Mozilla which killed almost all customization options just to be able to be as attractive to Chrome users as possible.

In fact, i also would use Vivaldi every day over Firefox. Mozilla has turned into a greedy sell-out developer with zero respect for power- or geek users!

sjwright3• 7 years ago

I would strongly advise not using Pale Moon—for numerous reasons specific to that particular distribution (which aren't interesting enough to repeat here) but mostly for reasons that apply to all minor web browser projects; particularly ones based off old code:

— How quickly will serious vulnerabilities be patched?

Given the project is so small, I wouldn't trust their future response to be rapid even if they have been in the past. Right now most security fixes come in the form of merging upstream security fixes from Mozilla. As their code base becomes increasingly divergent to the Firefox head, merging in upstream security fixes will become increasingly difficult and increasingly cumbersome.

— How much do you really trust these developers?

I don't think many people realise just how important your browser is when it comes to trust. When you access online banking, your browser is in ultimate control of the entire trust chain. Your browser validates the security certificates. Your browser decides what to do with the passwords you enter. Your browser decides what to show you in the address bar.

— What's wrong with Firefox 67+ anyway?

The one thing everyone seems to cite when they say they use Pale Moon or Waterfox is that they still support the older extension system. The reality is all important extensions were unaffected. And while some genuinely useful extensions were lost in the transition (e.g. DownThemAll) most should be standalone applications anyway.

Endy4• 7 years ago

I have found that, as much as Moonchild & Tobin can be difficult, I trust their judgment far more than I do Mozilla's. I want to be in control of my browser, I want to determine what gets downloaded and uploaded from my PC. They tend to be on that side.

Also, my problems with the browser product itself are simple: the UI is awful and cannot be meaningfully fixed, and multi-process programs cause my computer to hang (so I set up a script to auto kill them). Pale Moon respects me as a User, not as an ad profile for Google.

LordLestat2• 7 years ago

Using Firefox from that sell-out developer with zero respect for power- and geek users.. from the developer who rather wants to attract Chrome/simple users and not supporting their own target user-base..

Mozilla is morally wise a totally unacceptable developer. They have been on the good side in the past, but what is left is almost as disgusting as Google itself... the Google - which Mozilla tries so hard to become itself.

XzetaU82• 7 years ago

Yes

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases/tag/firefox-legac...

and here's the uBlock Origin Updater https://addons.palemoon.org/addon/ublock0-updater/

keyle• 7 years ago

I've just noticed Safari is stuck at 1.16 and I've been using a fork.

Anyone here uses Safari as their main browsing tool and has a good alternative? I mean 1.16 seems to do the job just fine, but if it falls behind too far...

krtkush• 7 years ago

I use AdGuard but it is no uBlock Origin.

geowwy• 7 years ago

I use AdGuard too. It does the job.

leadingthenet• 7 years ago

The paid version is even better than uBlock Origin.

hutattedonmyarm• 7 years ago

AdGuard or even 1Blocker if you're willing to spend cash

JMTQp8lwXL2• 7 years ago

Setup a Pi-Hole and don't depend on browser-level but network-level ad blocking.

ycombonator2• 7 years ago

+1 ! Loving the pihole setup myself. Optimized the dnsmasq & raspbian network a little bit. I have 248,000 hosts on block list. Can you share your block lists if you can ?

vbezhenar• 7 years ago

What's the advantage of Pi-Hole over ubound?

FabHK4• 7 years ago

Couldn't one just use a hosts file, eg with Gas Mask?

https://github.com/2ndalpha/gasmask

(And btw, uBlock origin can do more than block certain IPs)

ddebernardy• 7 years ago

That's all great, but not particularly useful when you need to use your laptop on a network you don't control.

zamadatix• 7 years ago

Note DNS ad blocking is a very limited subset of what browser-level blockers support. Better than nothing but certainly not a replacement.

aluren• 7 years ago

I am dumbfounded that uBlock Origin, arguably the single most important extension in modern web browsing, and one that makes millions of lives easier by making their web experience bearable at all, all of this depends on one single person, working for free.

Now there's also the list maintainers, who also work for free. Still makes you wonder about how the world works. There's probably many other similar instances. In any case, I think these people deserve more recognition than they currently do and we shouldn't take anything they do for granted.

foepys2• 7 years ago

The biggest and most important lists (Easylist and its localizations) are heavily maintained by eyeo GmbH, the company behind AdBlock Plus. It might be a community project but in reality it's more like Chromium or Go.

feanaro5• 7 years ago

How would this make the uBlock Origin project like Chromium? The lists work and if the bigger lists choose not to block everything you'd like, you can simply enable additional lists. It's just a data source.

earenndil2• 7 years ago

Not really, no. The lists themselves are ultimately less interesting than the technology used to run them; there are other lists, and if easylist soured, a community-sourced alternative could be made relatively easily.

gorhill4• 7 years ago

EasyList/EasyPrivacy and other lists are maintained by volunteers, not by Eyeo GmbH.

ehsankia3• 7 years ago

There are definitely a few OSS that don't get anymore as much love as they deserve. VLC and OBS are two example of programs that are so damn good, even paid alternatives hardly can compete.

benoliver999• 7 years ago

VLC is what got me interested in the free software biz to begin with.

I wondered how it was even possible, found out they made whole OS-es in a similar manner, been a linux user for over 15 years now.

gempir• 7 years ago

OBS seems so insane to me. The devs do amazing work delivering a high quality product and creators make millions with their software.

I wish someone would campaign a bit for the devs and support the development of OBS with all that money made from streaming with OBS.

nickjj• 7 years ago

OBS is interesting because not only is it one of the best programs available for what it does (and cross platform to boot, which is huge), but it's also a catalyst for making people an absurd amount of money.

Pretty much every top streamer uses it. I wouldn't be surprised if OBS was responsible for generating over $75 million worth of earnings for just the top streamers on Twitch in the last few years, then there's Twitch's cut on top of it. That's going by 1 article saying just the top 10 streamers alone earned $20 million last year alone.

OBS is one of those products where I bet if they put up a Kickstarter asking for support they would end up raising a few million. Come to think of it now, I wonder if Twitch has tried to buy / fund OBS in the past.

axylw• 7 years ago

MPC-HC and mpv are much better than VLC.

de_watcher2• 7 years ago

Well, if something is distributed for free but developed by someone who doesn't work for free then it serves the interests of the one who is paying.

fwn• 7 years ago

Yes, but in a good way.

AFAIK that's exactly why the primary developer of uBlock forked uBlock (from it's rough new owner) into uBlock Origin and chose not to seek donations.

...to not have any obligations regarding the community.

It's just that in this case, the owners intention to have a great content blocker does seem to align with the needs of many other users.

Keep in mind that it's a product, not a service and open source, so no lock-in. The project being rarely forked shows the satisfaction of its users.

nocture• 7 years ago

I send a small mental thanks to Raymond almost every day - his impact is stunning when you think of it

agumonkey3• 7 years ago

yeah, because of him, everytime I use ublock-less chrome on android I get angry, thanks a lot gorhill ! ;)

agumonkey3• 7 years ago

First thing I install in any browser.

I always mention it to neighbors (who still don't use one..)

Massive thanks to everyone involved

panta• 7 years ago

Yes, this.

uBlock Origin seems to have ~15 million active users between Chrome and Firefox (source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin#uBlock_Origin). If it only spared us 10 seconds a day on average (probably a super conservative estimate), it would save the equivalent of an average human life (~70yrs) every 15 days! (And given that probably at least 70% of users don't use an ad blocker, it's infuriating to think what's the "human" cost of ads on the web alone...)

anoncake• 7 years ago

Don't forget the added stress adverts cause.

ehonda• 7 years ago

uBlock saves my laptop battery and CPU when web browsing, by a lot. It has an older core2 CPU that can easily churn at 40% just staring at a page where some ads aren't blocked. That and the cpu fan spins up to high. Turn on uBlock, and CPU use goes to zero. uBlock saves electricity and is therefor good for the environment. I'd say we're all obligated to use it ;)

GrumpyNl• 7 years ago

Try to watch a playlist on Youtube without a add blocker. Its insane the length and amount of commercials. A add blocker save you much more then 10 secs a day.

user17843• 7 years ago

it is way more. more like up to 50 million.

sam_goody• 7 years ago

If I recall correctly, he trusted one of his maintainers too much, and that is the reason he no longer contributes to uBlock (his original project), but rather created uBlock origin.

The fact that there is no easy way to make this into a money project probably led to his relying so much on such a maintainer.

Part of the issue seems to be that the devs that actually value an OSS project don't have any way to persuade the company they work for to contribute to the project. If there was some way to be able to create a tier where a company would pay $12/month and be able to "something which benefits the company ?? bugfixes ??" - something support related or somehow, many of these projects (timezone, adblocker, ssh, even things like Matrix) could be funded.

pbhjpbhj7• 7 years ago

Something like uBlock I'd imagine it's worth supporting for some brands just to be associated with by name.

Like a VPN service, or such.

jannes• 7 years ago

We should also thank Firefox for having adblockers at the time when Chrome was released. Otherwise Google wouldn't have felt the need to add an adblocker extension API in the first place.

Having adblocker extensions was one of the things that allowed Google to get Firefox users to switch at the time.

Ever wonder why Mobile Chrome doesn't have extensions or adblockers? Because it didn't have to compete with Firefox to gain marketshare.

gbrown• 7 years ago

Firefox mobile on Android with uBlock origin is currently a vastly superior experience to Chrome.

rvnx• 7 years ago

"for free".

There are at least two revenue sources on uBlock Origin... The software is free-to-use yes, but it doesn't mean that gorhill won't put money in his pockets.

xrisk• 7 years ago

What are these revenue sources?

gorhill4• 7 years ago

Why resort to innuendos when you can just ask directly whether I "put money in [my] pockets"?

fanttazio• 7 years ago

Maybe a good start could be sponsoring the maintainer since GitHub added the feature?

Tepix3• 7 years ago

It's not that people don't want to give him donations. He doesn't want any.

Tepix3• 7 years ago

My guess is if he were to start accepting donations he could do it full-time as his main job. Guess he doesn't want that.

hombre_fatal2• 7 years ago

Nah, he'd probably make enough to buy a few beers.

Maybe he could make $thousands per month spending serious time on self-marketing begging effort, but I wouldn't blame him if he wasn't interested in that

TheKIngofBelAir3• 7 years ago

and we shouldn't take anything they do for granted.

You can say that again

"Ublock collaborators gorhill and Deathamns leave the project" (2015)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9308439

Kurtz79• 7 years ago

This is the whole reason why we have uBlock "Origin" and not (only) "uBlock".

If anything, the split was because one of the uBlock contributors tried to monetize it for his own benefit only.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin

MattyMc• 7 years ago

I'm hoping that Mozilla's upcoming paid browser will open a market for browsers and browsing software.

lunchables• 7 years ago

Is there a way to donate to the uBlock Origin project? If you want to imagine what the world would be like without uBlock, just try turning it off for a day. That's horrifying.

AdmiralAsshat• 7 years ago

gorhill refuses out of principle to take donations. This is a passion project for him, and he wishes to maintain the freedom to stop working on it at any time without feeling "obligated" to continue.

app4soft2• 7 years ago

I am dumbfounded that uBlock Origin, arguably the single most important extension in modern web browsing

Also it's recommended[0] to install uMatrix[1] or eMatrix[2] side-by-side with uBlock Origin.

[0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17361827

[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix

[2] https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=21561

sunaurus• 7 years ago

Recommended why, and by whom?

whamlastxmas2• 7 years ago

I have used uMatrix for quite a while and honestly it's a huge pain in the ass. I wind up just opening a different browser for certain web pages

chongli• 7 years ago

Also keep in mind that the entire problem exists because it was created by thousands of people working in the advertising industry. It's frustrating how often people have to solve problems created by other people.

danmg• 7 years ago

Just like how we have to have to spend billions cumulatively on computer security related products, because some people are trying to make a few million ransoming workstations and sending spam.

therealdrag0• 7 years ago

And thousands of people are working in the ad industry because so many people want internet content for free.

red_admiral• 7 years ago

For a while, openssl was maintained almost for free. That truly boggles the mind.

tomc19852• 7 years ago

There used to be a rich history of one-man products maintained selflessly by their creators, even up until the early 2010's. Entrepreneurship and business assholes destroyed that -- we gave this up when we made tech so easy to use that every brother and their mother got on board. Now tech is too big, with too much money, that it cannot help but attract sharks that buy up these sorts of things and then destroy them

jsloss• 7 years ago

Tech should just be for tech people! Mothers and brothers be damed!

I get the frustration, but shouldn’t we be working towards models that allow for better compensation for creators rather than ... well I’m not exactly sure what you’re advocating for here ...

ec109685• 7 years ago

It's crazy how good uBlock is and everything it blocks.

What happens if more of the Internet learns about this extension? Subscriptions for all sites? Some other business model?

neuronic• 7 years ago

Blocking of ad-blocking?

suprfnk• 7 years ago

This is a game of cat-and-mouse which I don't think companies want to spend time playing.

Tepix3• 7 years ago

You probably mean uBlock Origin, not uBlock.

michalu• 7 years ago

It already happened in a way. uBlock Origin is the the version maintained by its founder that stays in line with the original vision.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14335190

asark3• 7 years ago

Lots of ad-supported sites and services could/would be replaced by something free and volunteer-driven—and in some cases probably a little worse, in others, a little better, than their existing commercial counterparts—if ads just went away tomorrow. There's low motivation to do so now because you're "competing" with deep-pocketed ad-supported orgs for users, but if a gap opened up due to ads no longer being viable, it'd be filled. In some cases the alternatives already exist, they're just not well-trafficked and are somewhat neglected. Maintainers/supporters and users would flow in and they'd quickly grow and improve if the commercial alternatives died.

We've seen the open web and protocols stagnate because capturing users to spy on them is so lucrative, and open protocols make it harder to capture them. The open web would be revived without all the ad money and (consequent) developer time going into that capture effort.

For the rest, yeah, probably subscriptions.

Sohcahtoa822• 7 years ago

You're a little too optimistic, IMO.

Running a website has costs. Even if it can be run by a single person in their spare time, servers and bandwidth costs money.

proszkinasenne2• 7 years ago

Is there a good short answer for why uBlock is using constructs like this:

if ( self.browser instanceof Object ) { self.chrome = self.browser; } else { self.browser = self.chrome; }

Instead of using a polyfill like that one https://github.com/mozilla/webextension-polyfill?

gridlockd4• 7 years ago

This may sound shocking to "modern Javascript" developers:

Often, a little copy is better than a little dependency.

More often, a little copy is better than a large dependency.

Klathmon3• 7 years ago

I'd argue that it's not exactly "better", but more that it just makes different tradeoffs.

Using a full well-written* dependency for something not part of your "core competency" (even something seemingly trivial) is often a better choice in my opinion. That dependency will often know the "unknown unknowns" to you since their "whole purpose" is solving that one issue.

In this case, and from what I can see from my VERY small glance at the code, I'd argue using a polyfill would be a better choice in this situation. The polyfill has cross-browser tests, ensures compatibility, continually tests against new browser versions and will alert you and shield you from things if they change, download size is less of a worry for extensions and most of it no-ops away in 100% supported browsers, and it's maintained by mozilla.

Obviously there might be additional reasons why the uBlock origin developer isn't using it, it might be super overkill for his needs, he might consider the browser API part of his "core competency" and therefore shouldn't be relying on 3rd party code for it. I'd trust him more than myself here since I know so little about the domain. And I had a similar question to the GP commenter of why he decided to avoid the polyfill.

Your little saying isn't a useful answer, and the dig at "modern javascript developers" is not only unnecessary but also a real annoyance for me because it's used to dismiss just about every opinion while providing no real reasoning why you think that way. If you think a little copy is better, explain why! Don't just put down a group and leave without giving out any useful information!

* A "well written" dependency meaning something well tested, has a solid development team or dedicated person, and has somewhat widespread usage. Obviously it will differ depending on your needs.

gorhill4• 7 years ago

This polyfill is useful if you want your Firefox-based extension to seamlessly run as a Chromium-based extension.

However uBO's code base was primarily that of a Chromium-based extension (it predates Firefox WebExtensions), and Firefox extensions API does not require a polyfill to run Chromium-based extensions.

So roughly I just needed both `chrome` and `browser` references to access the same API, the long term goal being to opportunistically replace all instances of `chrome` with `browser` (I find the later more vendor neutral).

Arbalest• 7 years ago

As much as Advertisers want to be able to use their own domains to be able thwart fake clicks, this approach leaves them open to ad blocking. At what point with the wish to deliver ads outweigh the want to measure user engagement? Once ads are slipstreamed, adblockers are going to have to get a lot more aggressive, more like antivirus scanning for code signatures.

Thanks to the team (and especially Ray) for keeping us free of performance bogging, malware delivering scripts.

exergy3• 7 years ago

That wouldn't be the worst future though. In my head, once the adverts are being hosted on the website domain, there'd be a lot more incentive to a) NOT deliver malware, and b) NOT have those wearisome video/sound/flashing/js-heavy adverts.

icebraining5• 7 years ago

Why? It's not like the user can distinguish the two, so in term of giving a bad image, it's essentially the same.

uponcoffee• 7 years ago

At what point with the wish to deliver ads outweigh the want to measure user engagement?

It could be argued that self selection from advertisements makes ad campaigns more cost effect per impression/click. If a person wants to block ads they might be less influenced/willing to purposefully click on adverts.

The other end of the stick is that website owners cant be trusted to self report metrics which influence payout.

jefftk• 7 years ago

Once ads are slipstreamed, adblockers are going to have to get a lot more aggressive, more like antivirus scanning for code signatures.

Adblockers also do CSS blocking. Look at how uBlock origin blocks the (included in the page HTML) ads on google.com.

deanclatworthy• 7 years ago

Has the author of uBlock origin said what the plans are post-this-change? Should Chrome actually follow through with what it says it will do, the performance of uBO will drop overnight. Is this acceptable? Will development continue?

FabHK4• 7 years ago

Does anyone know about the status of the Safari port?

That hasn't seen a release since 1.16 in April 2018.

https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/releases

thomas• 7 years ago

I've found the same. I honestly can't get uBlock Origin to work well on any of my browsers lately.

jermaustin1• 7 years ago

I love uBlock Origin. I wish I could donate to gorhill, and I'm actually kind of annoyed he wont even put up a paypal me link or something.

That said, I've noticed more and more sites are starting to do the ad blocker detection and not allowing you to see the content until you white list them. It started with a simple body {overflow:hidden} and a modal box, but they are now truncating their content.

And I don't mind a site advertising, they have to make their money somehow, but I don't like how the modern ad-tech is so kludgy.

uBlock Origin 1.20

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