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uBlock Origin review

722 points| miles | 4 years ago |addons.mozilla.org | reply

245 comments

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[+] perihelions|4 years ago|reply
If that wasn't *everything* you wanted to know about uBlock Origin, check out the (seriously impressive) documentation at

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki

[+] bspammer|4 years ago|reply
This just pushed me to try make a donation, as I realised just how much of a headache uBlock saves me every day.

They don't accept donations. Gorhill you are a beautiful person.

[+] q-rews|4 years ago|reply
Thanks! The article should have been title “Intro to uBlock”
[+] _yacj|4 years ago|reply
My family and I have been using FF and ad-blockers for so many years now that we've forgotten what the 'real' web looks like.

And it's all thanks to people like Raymond Hill.

[+] nicbou|4 years ago|reply
It takes a minute or two to realize you've picked the wrong browser, when every website has a cookie notice and a ton of ads.

I also started using the YouTube mobile website instead of the apps after getting 2 ads before a 3 minute video.

[+] KingOfCoders|4 years ago|reply
Same here, whenever I use a browser without adblock I'm amazed how every page is flooded with ads.
[+] NowhereMan|4 years ago|reply
I've been using the eye dropper a lot lately. It's great for making websites usable. It even works on mobile for disabling hostile ux elements such as "xyz is better with the app" nags.
[+] ricw|4 years ago|reply
I recently discovered that it also acts as a great anti-productivity page blocker. Simply add your top social and news addiction pages to the blacklist and you’re set.

I use Firefox only for work, which has helped me immensely to stay focused and not “just quickly check hacker news for the tenth time in an hour” (as much as I like to ;)).

[+] mjsir911|4 years ago|reply
Ironically, ublock origin does not work on this blog page & allows scripts such as google analytics to run because it is hosted under the umbrella domain addons.mozilla.org

I wish the exception for add-ons not working on the addons site would only apply to the actual add-on download portion of the site, and they don't host random non-addon-download content on the same domain.

[+] GekkePrutser|4 years ago|reply
Or that Mozilla wouldn't serve that crap. They should know better, after all they even make their own blocker.
[+] Lanrei|4 years ago|reply
I just wish that they'd add a text or symbol in the top of the global and local dynamic filtering boxes. Every single time that I use it I have to look up which one's which, because it isn't obvious and I can't remember.
[+] asddubs|4 years ago|reply
yeah, whenever I add a rule that ends up messing things up I click the wrong thing first to undo it
[+] andreyf|4 years ago|reply
don't usually flex with tech but isn't uMatrix [1] just a little bit harder to learn and a million times more satisfying? at least on my often-used systems, I have a hard time imagining loading a website without being able to control the third party content in a matrix these days.

1. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/umatrix/

[+] birksherty|4 years ago|reply
ublock can block everything umatrix can but reverse is not true. It had been the case from beginning but people are not aware. So I find ublock much more satisfying.
[+] perihelions|4 years ago|reply
I don't really recommend it for anyone other than very bored devs, but it is very satisfying at times. The effort-to-utility ratio is honestly quite bad. Most of the *actually useful* functionality is redundant now with newer uBlock features.

I love the seratonin rush of one-click "disable 1p CSS" on an ugly website, or figuring out how to fuck with a clever-but-stupid paywall for the first time. :)

Also, the uMatrix UX is absolutely brilliant (that genius 2.5D green/red matrix).

[+] GekkePrutser|4 years ago|reply
Not much harder to learn but so much more work..
[+] downWidOutaFite|4 years ago|reply
uBlock Origin is amazing in that it has not succumbed to scammers. Every other blocker including AdBlock and the original uBlock have sold out to scummy companies. It's a problem with every successful browser extension, they all start getting offers from scammers to sell out.

We all owe a huge debt of gratitude that gorhill is a principled character and has stayed on to guide uBlock Origin all these years.

[+] matheusmoreira|4 years ago|reply
uBlock Origin is so incredibly good it should be a standard feature of all browsers. Shame that conflicts of interest prevent that.

Thank you so much for your work, Gorhill. I tell everyone I know about uBlock Origin and they love it.

[+] thenoblesunfish|4 years ago|reply
I’ve really been enjoying Firefox lately, and this just makes it better. I was historically suspicious of the idea of doing things in the browser, but for many things it now seems the most portable and privacy-preserving way to do most things, and I’ve given up many apps (e.g. I listen to podcasts now from the browser).
[+] personjerry|4 years ago|reply
God I just wish Safari supported uBlock Origin. I want to use Safari for the performance and battery saving.
[+] NegativeLatency|4 years ago|reply
Been using 1blocker and it’s ok generally but useless on YouTube.
[+] webmobdev|4 years ago|reply
Using Firefox + uBlock will also increase battery saving - with uBlock Firefox makes fewer network connections (to the ads / trackers servers), fewer ad images / videos are loaded by the browser saving both processing power, memory and bandwidth, and cpu processing is reduced due to blocking of unwanted (ad / tracker) javascript.
[+] tuananh|4 years ago|reply
i hate that website start serving ads on their content domain. this is where ublock origin shines because pihole or adguard do not cut it anymore.
[+] Felger|4 years ago|reply
From a French tech that deployed UO for quite a long time on hundred of computers, and stopped since a year or two :

UO started blocking or makes a lot of widely used french websites, hosters and services unusable since one or two year. Thus generating lots of requests and taking lots of time. Common webmail functions from french ISP and public services are impacted.

Had sadly to switch back to ABP.

[+] hsbauauvhabzb|4 years ago|reply
I love unlock, don’t get me wrong, but why the hell isn't adblocking built into my browser? And disabling auto play for that matter.

The state of web browsers is absolute and pure insanity.

[+] josephcsible|4 years ago|reply
> why the hell isn't adblocking built into my browser?

Because the maker of your Web browser is funded by advertising money.

[+] webmobdev|4 years ago|reply
I don't know why you are being downvoted for your curiosity.

To answer your question - it's because the major source of revenue for browser makers is search engines. Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. pay browser maker money to bundle their search engine in the browser, and also share a small percentage of revenue with them. Search engines make money from advertising. So obviously they discourage browser makers from including ad blocking tech in browsers. (Look at the money involved - Google Said to Pay Apple $15 Billion to Remain Default Search Engine on Safari in 2021 - https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/google-apple-default-sear... ... and you can understand why it is so difficult to say no to it).

[+] matheusmoreira|4 years ago|reply
I too often wonder about this. The answer is conflicts of interest. We can't trust Google to maintain an effective ad blocker. Firerox is also funded by Google.
[+] tuananh|4 years ago|reply
bc Chrome is owned by Google - an advertising company, same goes for Edge?
[+] darepublic|4 years ago|reply
I too love ublock but your statement just smacks of stupidity. I don't want a mainstream browser to be so opinionated as to take it upon itself to block various domains. And the meme of calling everything you don't like "absolutely insane"... Take that shit back to Reddit imo
[+] sampling|4 years ago|reply
Was worried about running all my web history through this extension for privacy reasons, has anyone gone through the source code to verify uBlock Origin’s privacy policy?
[+] temp8964|4 years ago|reply
I find pi-hole much better than browser extensions. It just works for all devices/ apps.
[+] eru|4 years ago|reply
On Android, Firefox allows extensions. Including uBlock Origin.
[+] asjfj9|4 years ago|reply
uBlock has always been the first add on I install on any new computer.
[+] imbnwa|4 years ago|reply
I sorta wish Brave worked with gorhill to port uBO to C++ instead of building their own Shields native module
[+] matheusmoreira|4 years ago|reply
That would be awesome. Brave's blockers just aren't as good as uBlock Origin.
[+] arbol|4 years ago|reply
You can use ublock origin with brave in conjunction with shields. It would've made sense to partner though
[+] subpixel|4 years ago|reply
Can someone help me understand the possible negative impact of running ublock? Eg do some sites not work unless you disable it, etc? If so how do you go all-in on ublock without undue frustration?
[+] Sebb767|4 years ago|reply
I browse a lot and I'm an uBlock user for many years now. I'm even using more strict settings than the default. Yet I've only encountered a broken page once. It's really a non-issue.
[+] michaelbuckbee|4 years ago|reply
Most "sites" work entirely fine with uBlock. Sometimes there will be an issue with form filling and web-apps with built in tracking (via mixpanel or something) will break, but it's a seconds worth of effort to disable it on a particular site.

If you run into repeated problems you can set permanent rules allowing certain domains. Overall it's a very minor hassle in the scheme of things.

[+] Synaesthesia|4 years ago|reply
One possible negative impact is being culturally out of touch due to not seeing ads. Otherwise I can't think of a negative. It's never broken a site for me but if it does you can just disable it from the toolbar.
[+] AlfeG|4 years ago|reply
Haven't seen any issues for years, with some exceptions.

Anecdotally - I've visit only few sites that were totally blocking their work, all of them were piracy related sites.