Thank you Raymond and all others involved with uBlock Origin. It makes the internet bearable for me and other family members.
Every time I use the "YouTube" app on my elderly relatives TV and see how often it is interrupted with adverts I count my blessings that this add-on exists.
PSA: If it's a recent-ish LG TV, you can root it and install an ad-free youtube app in just a few clicks. That said, one might be afraid of potential future breakage/maintenance burden from installing homebrew software for a relative.
I mean, YouTube at least offers a subscription that makes the ads go away. Which is not the case with the cesspool that's the rest of the internet basically. It's such a privilege that a software like this exists, and is offered for free with no strings attached.
Fwiw - paying for YouTube premium removes all ads from all devices and I see it as a strong vote in favor of subscriptions that do so. But, yes, it’s nearly unwatchable in its free state.
Tangential question to anyone reading this: How does uBlock Origin block in-video ads that are in video format? I thought all those are embedded in the video stream and served from the same hosts that serve the video. If not, how has YouTube not changed the way it serves the video to disable such blocking functionality? Note that this is not about text ads that may be overlaid in the video or text ads elsewhere on the YouTube page.
>Every time I use the "YouTube" app on my elderly relatives TV and see how often it is interrupted with adverts I count my blessings that this add-on exists.
Sad reality is Google can make ad blockers obsolete if they really wanted to but I don't think it will happen anytime soon since antitrust lawsuit is pressuring them to ease aggressive business practices.
Block Element is a quite a useful feature of uBlock Origin.
You can right click on individual things in a website's UI and make them go away using the "Block element ..." context menu command added by uBlock.
This is useful for not only getting rid of ads, but anything that distracts you or tricks you into clicking on it.
For instance, in Reddit, if you find yourself accidentally clicking on switching to New Reddit (which annoyingly updates your profile to make that choice stick), you can just block that button.
FYI, all of the things you block wind up in a text list within the settings of the app, so it's super easy to copy/paste/edit/add elements that way if you need to.
The eyedrop (permanently hide element) is great for getting through most cookie walls without accepting anything.
The filters (custom rules for hiding stuff) is great for personalizing your browsing. Eliminate scores on Reddit, YouTube video cards containing keywords for stuff you don't want to get spoiled, Tweets types that don't interest you like "Stuff your follows such as "You might like", etc.
I actually found this useful the other day when I was shopping online on a bugged website. After I applied a filter, the loading spinner wouldn't go away, even after it had finished loading the filtered results.
I blocked the loading spinner element and the website worked perfectly after that.
This person is aggressively against being rewarded for their selfless desire to make the internet functional, nicer, quieter, and more about the users.
How many of you here instead spend your 40 hours a week making 6 digit salaries at a company that wants nothing more than to own the attention of everyone who connects to a network? How many of you have actively worked to create systems and technology to invade the screens and speakers of users who wanted nothing of the sort? How many of you have sat in meetings about "attribution" or "analytics" and lied to yourself about what you were building and what it would do to millions of people?
> This person is aggressively against being rewarded
Back when uB was transferred to a different maintainer and uBO came about, I recall reading something about this. It isn't so much that they don't want reward or recognition but rather the do not want the obligation that comes with it.
Back when I maintained a couple Add-ons for Firefox there was a constant external pressure from users to fix/improve/maintain/develop the Add-on. In addition to that, the user base wants to engage and feel part of a community and interact with you. In a way it's stifling and why I eventually abandoned the Add-ons.
When you start accepting recognition or donations for work you share, there's obligation tied to it.
Some people don't want the obligation, it has nothing to do with virtue.
Does anybody know if there's a way to donate to gorhill/uBO development? I looked through the entire README and I don't think there's any link to send $ (just a "contribute to translation" link -- what a brilliant crowdsourcing solution!).
Does gorhill just do this for free because he's an amazing human being, or am I missing where I can buy him a coffee?
Been trying to make a more conscious effort to donate to meaningful causes this year, and I have to say uBO is one of the strongest forces for good on the internet I know.
I find it funny that when HN loaded for me, the post below this one was "How I changed my mind about advertising." Not here - ads begone. Wuthout UblockO the net is ugly and insufferable.
Same. I'm sad to say that Mozilla really lost its way, but Firefox is still the most libre browser I know of, thus I will continue to use it until it becomes otherwise.
There was a pretty recent change where the most visited sites always open in a new tab, regardless of how it is accessed. I browse about 6 different sites. When I press the address bar by far the fastest way for me to go to news.ycombinator.com is to press it in the most recent sites.
But some time in the last half years I started having lots of new tabs. Right now I am at 60. 3 of which are interesting. So every day I have to spend about one minute closing tabs because firefox becomes sluggish (old lowhrange phone).
Ublock origin is the only thing keeping me on Firefox, but to be honest I have started looking at other browsers because this is driving me insane.
This is always the first addon/extension I add to a browse; installing uBlock is like "sudo apt update && sudo apt update -y" on a freshly installed system -- you're asking for trouble if you don't secure things as soon as possible.
The worst thing is that Firefox removes all add-ons if it was not used for a while. One can disable this by setting disableResetPrompt to true, but it's annoying e.g. when you set up an ad blocker on your mom's laptop only to find it being removed a few months later.
Indeed. I'm no stranger to creating new browser profiles for different things, and the first thing I do when setting up a new profile (in Firefox) is to install uBo. I have it turned off in one profile for sites that break when using it. For some reason, some e-commerce stores don't work with it, because of KYC BS and having them flagging you as suspicious because you're using an AD-blocker. That I can tolerate though (it's finance right?). But for the bulk of my browsing, uBo is essential.
I was setting up a workplace computer last week. It was shocking to see all the scams circulating in the adds. Especially the download scams on download pages. Next time I will change the order and install uBlock the first thing after the browser.
At the risk of comming off as pathetic but it just struck my mind that Raymond probably deserves something like a Time's Person of the Year (if not Decade) award. I mean - this is the only piece of software (not exaggerating - I'm actually just realizing it now) which I consistently install everywhere and anywhere me or somebody who means something to me is accessing the internet from. We reached a point where for me and probably each one of you guys the Internet is unusable / unbearable without it! It's an integral part of the Internet now to just make it and keep it useful.
Does anyone know of a way to run uBlock Origin as an HTTP(s) proxy? I'd really like to be able to provide uBlock Origin style functionality to mobile and other browsers on my network that can't easily run uBlock. Historically privoxy could do some of what uBlock does, but development on privoxy seems to have declined...
Yes and no. One could create a Squid SSL-Bump (MITM) proxy and create ACL's that operate closely to uBlock. There won't be full parity between the two so uBlock would still provide some benefit to the client. The method of using Squid as a MITM proxy method assumes one can install and trust a server public key into the clients. Squid will limit what HTTP protocols one could use. e.g. h2, alpn won't be supported. If one does not mind those limitations and having to maintain a small list of sites to bypass MITM due to public key pinning then Squid can have rules for anything the client or server can see. Domains, URL's, Content-Type, Size, Methods, Ports, you name it. One could save some bandwidth on static content as an additional benefit.
You could try adguard (android version), but it is paid.
And the biggest problem is most of sites are already upgraded to https, it needs MITM attack, but lots of applications won't accept any user certificate... (so adguard needs be installed to let those apps bypass its proxy, that's mean, you cannot just host a central proxy server to filter all ssl traffic)
>By default, at browser launch uBO waits for all filter lists to be loaded before unsuspending network activity so as to ensure web pages are properly filtered at launch.
Fun Fact: uBO might wait, but Chrome DGAF and will load pages without waiting for all extensions to properly load.
What a wacky industry we are in. 90% of the websites people like us build are primarily there to show us ads. And then there's this one addon maintained by one guy (and an army of helpers) for free that removes those ads and makes the web more usable again.
I have recently switched to AdGuard as a system-wide blocker on all my devices since uBlock will be unusable on Chromium browsers due to them blocking MV2 extensions in 2023.
While still a good product, the UI is nowhere near the quality of uBlock Origin, nor are the options which are available to the user.
Ever since I heard about AdGuard Home I never looked back. I have a raspberry pi 4 serving all dns requests from every electronic at my house for 215 days of uptime now without any issues. Browsing the web seems faster and cleaner ever since.
Well, all dns except that over ipv6, DOH, DOT, software using a separate resolver hard-coded to a specific ip... The amount of work to force dns to your dns server these days is nuts.
I use a pi-hole and these days I have to:
- block dns advertisement of my ISP's dns server for ipv6 (which, there's no UI for that on my router so i have to edit the config by hand)
- maintain a list of dns over https ips and block them in my firewall (since mitming this traffic is a huge pain)
- force all traffic to port 853 to my pi and setup a masquerade for that traffic so the client doesn't know
- force all traffic to port 53 to my pi and setup a masquerade for that traffic so the client doesn't know
[+] [-] sherr|4 years ago|reply
Every time I use the "YouTube" app on my elderly relatives TV and see how often it is interrupted with adverts I count my blessings that this add-on exists.
[+] [-] Retr0id|4 years ago|reply
https://rootmy.tv/
https://repo.webosbrew.org/apps/youtube.leanback.v4
[+] [-] npteljes|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmod|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnonHP|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrkramer|4 years ago|reply
Sad reality is Google can make ad blockers obsolete if they really wanted to but I don't think it will happen anytime soon since antitrust lawsuit is pressuring them to ease aggressive business practices.
[+] [-] HeavyStorm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkesper|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kazinator|4 years ago|reply
You can right click on individual things in a website's UI and make them go away using the "Block element ..." context menu command added by uBlock.
This is useful for not only getting rid of ads, but anything that distracts you or tricks you into clicking on it.
For instance, in Reddit, if you find yourself accidentally clicking on switching to New Reddit (which annoyingly updates your profile to make that choice stick), you can just block that button.
[+] [-] arrosenberg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ohyeshedid|4 years ago|reply
For a great many sites, I remove headers, footers, sidebars, etc.
[+] [-] BbzzbB|4 years ago|reply
The filters (custom rules for hiding stuff) is great for personalizing your browsing. Eliminate scores on Reddit, YouTube video cards containing keywords for stuff you don't want to get spoiled, Tweets types that don't interest you like "Stuff your follows such as "You might like", etc.
[+] [-] diabeetusman|4 years ago|reply
I blocked the loading spinner element and the website worked perfectly after that.
[+] [-] SamuelAdams|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrguyorama|4 years ago|reply
How many of you here instead spend your 40 hours a week making 6 digit salaries at a company that wants nothing more than to own the attention of everyone who connects to a network? How many of you have actively worked to create systems and technology to invade the screens and speakers of users who wanted nothing of the sort? How many of you have sat in meetings about "attribution" or "analytics" and lied to yourself about what you were building and what it would do to millions of people?
[+] [-] cptskippy|4 years ago|reply
Back when uB was transferred to a different maintainer and uBO came about, I recall reading something about this. It isn't so much that they don't want reward or recognition but rather the do not want the obligation that comes with it.
Back when I maintained a couple Add-ons for Firefox there was a constant external pressure from users to fix/improve/maintain/develop the Add-on. In addition to that, the user base wants to engage and feel part of a community and interact with you. In a way it's stifling and why I eventually abandoned the Add-ons.
When you start accepting recognition or donations for work you share, there's obligation tied to it.
Some people don't want the obligation, it has nothing to do with virtue.
[+] [-] vanilla_nut|4 years ago|reply
Does gorhill just do this for free because he's an amazing human being, or am I missing where I can buy him a coffee?
Been trying to make a more conscious effort to donate to meaningful causes this year, and I have to say uBO is one of the strongest forces for good on the internet I know.
[+] [-] lazlee|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] npteljes|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lazlee|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NotAWorkNick|4 years ago|reply
New - Dark mode Support for dark mode added to the Settings pane, under the (new) Appearance section:
Thanks Raymond!
[+] [-] favourable|4 years ago|reply
> A new setting in "Filter lists" pane to control whether uBO should wait for all filter lists to be loaded before unsuspending network activity.
[+] [-] shantara|4 years ago|reply
Not a fan of the recent Firefox changes, but alone makes me keep it as the default browser
[+] [-] ravenstine|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjoli|4 years ago|reply
But some time in the last half years I started having lots of new tabs. Right now I am at 60. 3 of which are interesting. So every day I have to spend about one minute closing tabs because firefox becomes sluggish (old lowhrange phone).
Ublock origin is the only thing keeping me on Firefox, but to be honest I have started looking at other browsers because this is driving me insane.
[+] [-] freediver|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mikece|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gggfvvff|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] favourable|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rightbyte|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2-718-281-828|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geoffeg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] favourable|4 years ago|reply
[0] https://pi-hole.net/
[1] https://nextdns.io/
[2] https://adguard.com/en/welcome.html
[+] [-] nix0n|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LinuxBender|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CodeHz|4 years ago|reply
And the biggest problem is most of sites are already upgraded to https, it needs MITM attack, but lots of applications won't accept any user certificate... (so adguard needs be installed to let those apps bypass its proxy, that's mean, you cannot just host a central proxy server to filter all ssl traffic)
[+] [-] quesera|4 years ago|reply
Once the framework is in place, the interesting action is in filter configuration, right?
https://www.privoxy.org/ says latest release is about two months ago.
[+] [-] imglorp|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rasz|4 years ago|reply
Fun Fact: uBO might wait, but Chrome DGAF and will load pages without waiting for all extensions to properly load.
[+] [-] haunter|4 years ago|reply
1, https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium
[+] [-] matheusmoreira|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lostgame|4 years ago|reply
They’d asked ‘why do you even need sideloading, what apps would you even need?’
I’d said ‘emulators’, but uBlock is definitely another thing I wish I could sideload onto my iPhone.
[+] [-] NelsonMinar|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlwaysRock|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baxuz|4 years ago|reply
I have recently switched to AdGuard as a system-wide blocker on all my devices since uBlock will be unusable on Chromium browsers due to them blocking MV2 extensions in 2023.
While still a good product, the UI is nowhere near the quality of uBlock Origin, nor are the options which are available to the user.
[+] [-] ck2|4 years ago|reply
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases/tag/1.39.0
[+] [-] _x5tx|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CamJN|4 years ago|reply
I use a pi-hole and these days I have to:
- block dns advertisement of my ISP's dns server for ipv6 (which, there's no UI for that on my router so i have to edit the config by hand) - maintain a list of dns over https ips and block them in my firewall (since mitming this traffic is a huge pain) - force all traffic to port 853 to my pi and setup a masquerade for that traffic so the client doesn't know - force all traffic to port 53 to my pi and setup a masquerade for that traffic so the client doesn't know
[+] [-] kerneloftruth|4 years ago|reply