uBlock Origin

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uBlock Origin
UBlock Origin.svg
uBlock Origin pop-up interface as of version 1.27.6
uBlock Origin pop-up interface
Original author(s)Raymond Hill (gorhill)
Developer(s)Current:
Raymond Hill
Past:
Deathamns, Chris Aljoudi, Alex Vallat[1]
Initial releaseJune 23, 2014; 7 years ago (2014-06-23)[2]
Stable release
1.37.2[3] / 28 July 2021; 35 days ago (28 July 2021)
Repository
Written inJavaScript
Operating systemCross-platform
Available in63[4] languages
TypeBrowser extension
LicenseGPLv3
WebsiteuBlock Origin
github.com/gorhill/uBlock

uBlock Origin (/ˈjuːblɒk/ "you-block") is a free and open-source, cross-platform browser extension for content-filtering, including ad-blocking. The extension is available for several browsers: Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Firefox, Opera, Pale Moon, as well as versions of Safari prior to 13.[5] uBlock Origin has received praise from technology websites and is reported to be much less memory-intensive than other extensions[6][7] with similar functionality.[8][9] uBlock Origin's stated purpose is to give users the means to enforce their own (content-filtering) choices.[10][11]

As of 2021, uBlock Origin is still actively developed and maintained by its creator and lead developer Raymond Hill.[1]

History[]

uBlock[]

uBlock was initially named "μBlock" but the name was later changed to "uBlock" to avoid confusion as to how the Greek letter 'μ' (Mu/Micro) in "μBlock" should be pronounced. Development started by forking from the codebase of HTTP Switchboard along with another blocking extension called uMatrix, designed for advanced users.[12] uBlock was developed by Raymond Hill to use community-maintained block lists,[13] while adding features and raising the code quality to release standards.[14] First released in June 2014 as a Chrome and Opera extension, by winter 2015 the extension had expanded to other browsers.

The uBlock project official repository was transferred to Chris Aljoudi[15] by original developer Raymond Hill in April 2015, due to frustration of dealing with requests. However Hill immediately self-forked it[16] and continued the effort there. This version was later renamed uBlock Origin and it has been completely divorced from Aljoudi's uBlock.[17] Aljoudi created ublock.org to host and promote uBlock and to request donations. In response, uBlock's founder Raymond Hill stated that "the donations sought by ublock.org are not benefiting any of those who contributed most to create uBlock Origin."[5] The development of uBlock stopped in August 2015 and it has been sporadically updated since January 2017.[18] In July 2018, ublock.org was acquired by AdBlock[19] and since February 2019 began allowing "Acceptable Ads",[20][21] a program run by Adblock Plus that allows some ads which are deemed "acceptable", and for which the larger publishers pay a fee.[22]

uBlock Origin remains independent and does not allow ads for payment.[23]

uBlock Origin[]

Raymond Hill, the founder and original author of uBlock, as of 2015 continued to work on the extension under the name uBlock Origin, sometimes stylized as uBlock0,[24] and abbreviated as uBO.[25]

A joint Sourcepoint and comScore survey reported an 833% growth rate over a ten-month tracking period ending in August 2015, the strongest growth among software listed.[26] The report attributed the growth to the desire of users for pure blockers outside the "acceptable advertising" program.[27]

In January 2016, uBlock Origin was added to the repositories for Debian 9 and Ubuntu 16.04.[28][29] The extension was awarded "Pick of the Month" by Mozilla for May 2016.[30]

On December 11, 2016, Nik Rolls released a fork of uBlock Origin for the Microsoft Edge browser (now known as Microsoft Edge Legacy).[31] In April 2020, this fork was deprecated as Microsoft replaced Microsoft Edge Legacy with a Chromium-based Edge.[32]

As of January 2021, the uBlock Origin Chrome extension had over 10 million active users and the Firefox version had 5 million active users.[33][34]

The project specifically refuses donations and instead advises supporters to donate to maintainers of block lists.[5][35]

Features[]

Blocking and filtering[]

uBlock Origin supports the majority of Adblock Plus's filter syntax. The popular filter lists EasyList and EasyPrivacy are enabled by default, along with the malware domain blocklist URLHaus. The extensions are capable of importing hosts files and a number of community-maintained lists are available at installation. Among the host files available, Peter Lowe's ad servers & tracking list and lists of malware domains are also enabled as default. Some additional features include dynamic filtering of scripts and iframes and a tool for webpage element hiding.

uBlock Origin includes a growing list of features not available in uBlock, including:

  • A mode to assist those with color vision deficiency.
  • A dynamic URL filtering feature.
  • Logging functionality.
  • Interface enhancements including a DOM inspector, privacy-oriented options to block link prefetching, hyperlink auditing, and IP address leaks via WebRTC (uBO-Extra is required to block WebRTC connections in Chromium).[36][37]

Site-specific switches to toggle the blocking of pop-ups, strict domain blocking, cosmetic filtering, blocking remote fonts, and JavaScript disabling were also added to uBlock Origin.[38] The Firefox version of uBlock Origin has an extra feature which helps to foil attempts by web sites to circumvent blockers.[39]

CNAME-uncloaking third-party trackers in Firefox[]

In November 2019, a uBlock Origin user reported a novel technique used by some sites to bypass third-party tracker blocking. These sites link to URLs that are sub-domains of the page's domain, but those sub-domains resolve to third-party hosts via a CNAME record. Since the initial URL contained a sub-domain of the current page, it was interpreted by browsers as a first-party request and so was allowed by the filtering rules in uBlock Origin (and in similar extensions). The uBlock Origin developer came up with a solution using a DNS API which is exclusive to Firefox 60+.[40] The new feature was implemented in uBlock Origin 1.25, released on February 19, 2020.[41]

Performance[]

Technology websites and user reviews for uBlock Origin have regarded the extension as less resource-intensive than extensions that provide similar feature sets such as Adblock Plus.[42][43][44] A benchmark test, conducted in August 2015 with ten blocking extensions, showed uBlock Origin as the most resource-efficient among the extensions tested.[45]

uBlock Origin surveys what style resources are required for an individual web page rather than relying on a universal style sheet. The extension takes a snapshot of the filters the user has enabled, which contributes to accelerated browser start-up speed when compared to retrieving filters from cache every time.[46]

Supported platforms[]

uBlock Origin is actively developed for applications based on two major layout engines.[13][42][47]

Currently supported[]

Previously supported[]

Notes
  1. ^ uBlock also supports Firefox legacy browsers (including SeaMonkey and Pale Moon), use the firefox-legacy release starting with firefox-legacy-1.16.4, see github.com/gorhill/uBlock-for-firefox-legacy)
  2. ^ Unofficial release. Fork by Ellis Tsung (el1t) for Safari from the official project.
  3. ^ Unofficial release. Fork by Nik Rolls (nikrolls) for Microsoft Edge.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "Contributors to gorhill/uBlock". GitHub. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  2. ^ "Changelog for the first versions". Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  3. ^ "Release 1.37.2". Retrieved July 28, 2021.
  4. ^ "Completed translations". Crowdin.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c "uBlock / README.md". Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  6. ^ Henry, Alan (January 27, 2015). "uBlock, the Memory-Friendly Ad-Blocker, Is Now Available for Firefox". Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  7. ^ Brinkmann, Martin (October 10, 2014). "How to add custom filters to Chrome ad-blocking extension μBlock". Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  8. ^ Schofield, Jack (January 29, 2015). "Are there any trustworthy sources for downloading software?". TheGuardian.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  9. ^ Whitwam, Ryan (February 12, 2015). "μBlock aims to block ads without draining system resources". ExtremeTech.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  10. ^ "uBlock". github.com. GitHub. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  11. ^ Gardiner, Michael (November 5, 2015). "Adblock Plus vs. Ghostery vs. Ublock Origin: Not All Adblockers Were Created Equal". International Business Times. Archived from the original on July 22, 2017. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  12. ^ "uMatrix". Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b Brinkmann, Martin (June 24, 2014). "uBlock for Chrome is a resource-friendly adblocker by the HTTP Switchboard author". ghacks.net. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  14. ^ Hill, Raymond. "Changes from HTTP Switchboard". Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  15. ^ Hill, Raymond. "Please clarify uBlock₀ vs. uBlock". Github.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  16. ^ "uBlock". April 27, 2015. Archived from the original on April 27, 2015. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  17. ^ Hill, Raymond (October 21, 2017). "uBlock Origin is completely unrelated to the web site ublock.org". github.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  18. ^ "uBlockAdmin/uBlock". github.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  19. ^ "An update on uBlock". ublock.org. July 13, 2018. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  20. ^ "uBlock Incorporates Acceptable Ads". February 23, 2019. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  21. ^ "uBlock 0.9.5.13". February 13, 2019. Retrieved June 26, 2020.
  22. ^ "About Adblock Plus". adblockplus.org. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  23. ^ "MANIFESTO.md". github.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  24. ^ "Official uBlock Origin add-on lands for Firefox". Retrieved April 25, 2015.
  25. ^ "uAssets". github.com. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
  26. ^ Levine, Barry. "The Ad Blocker Landscape: What You Need To Know Today". Marketing Land. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
  27. ^ "The state of ad blocking - September 2015". Sourcepoint and comScore. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
  28. ^ "Debian Sid - uBlock Origin". Retrieved January 21, 2016.
  29. ^ "Ubuntu - uBlock Origin". Retrieved January 21, 2016.
  30. ^ DeVaney, Scott (May 2, 2016). "May 2016 Featured Add-ons". Mozilla Add-ons Blog. Retrieved May 28, 2016.
  31. ^ Rubino, Daniel. "uBlock Origin adblocker now available for Microsoft Edge via the Store". Windows Central. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  32. ^ Rolls, Nik (June 12, 2021), nikrolls/uBlock-Edge, retrieved July 9, 2021
  33. ^ "uBlock Origin Chrome". chrome.google.com. Retrieved January 28, 2021.
  34. ^ "uBlock Origin Firefox". addons.mozilla.org. Retrieved January 28, 2021.
  35. ^ "Why don't you accept donations?". Retrieved January 20, 2020.
  36. ^ Hill, Raymond (July 15, 2017). "uBO-Extra: A companion extension to uBlock Origin". Retrieved July 18, 2017 – via GitHub.
  37. ^ "uBO-Extra README".
  38. ^ "uBlock wiki". GitHub. Retrieved June 13, 2015.
  39. ^ "Inline script tag filtering – Overwiew". GitHub, gorhill/uBlock. Retrieved March 20, 2017.
  40. ^ "uBlock Origin Now Blocks Sneaky First-Party Trackers in Firefox". BleepingComputer. Retrieved February 26, 2020.
  41. ^ "uBlock Origin 1.25 Now Blocks Cloaked First-Party Scripts, Firefox Only". BleepingComputer. Retrieved February 26, 2020.
  42. ^ Jump up to: a b "uBlock ad blocker added to Mozilla's extensions site". Jim Lynch, Technology and Other Musings. Archived from the original on June 9, 2015. Retrieved February 17, 2015.
  43. ^ Kesari, Varun. "Adblock Plus vs uBlock Origin | Which one to Choose In 2017? | RMG". rootmygalaxy.net. Retrieved October 28, 2017.
  44. ^ Harper, Christopher (May 2, 2015). "uBlock Origin - Better Than AdBlock Plus? - Make Tech Easier". Make Tech Easier. Retrieved May 27, 2017.
  45. ^ "10 Ad Blocking Extensions Tested for Best Performance". Raymond Tech Resources. Retrieved August 26, 2015.
  46. ^ "Notes on memory benchmarks, selfies". uBlock GitHub documentation. Retrieved February 17, 2015.
  47. ^ "Apple - Safari - Safari Extensions Gallery". Apple. Retrieved February 19, 2015.
  48. ^ "el1t/uBlock-Safari". github.com. Retrieved January 19, 2017.
  49. ^ "Catalina compatibility · Issue #156 · el1t/uBlock-Safari". github.com. Retrieved August 18, 2019.
  50. ^ "Explanation of the state of uBlock Origin (and other blockers) for Safari".
  51. ^ "nikrolls/uBlock-Edge". github.com.
  52. ^ Rubino, Daniel. "uBlock Origin adblocker now available for Microsoft Edge via the Store". Windows Central. Retrieved December 12, 2016.

External links[]

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