Popular Adblock Plus fork Adblock Edge to be discontinued

[timster]

Adblock Plus is by far the most popular adblocker available for the Firefox web browser. If you check stats on Mozilla's website you will notice that it has almost ten times the users as second placed NoScript Security Suite (21.4 million to 2.2 million).

 

Add-ons for Adblock Plus are more popular than any other adblocking extension for Firefox including Adblock Edge or uBlock.

Adblock Edge, a fork of Adblock Plus, works just like Adblock Plus in most regards but with the notable exception that it does not ship with an acceptable list of sites and advertisers.

 

The acceptable ads feature is enabled by default but can be disabled in the program preferences. The makers of the extension have been criticized for it ever since it was introduced by them as some companies pay for inclusion on the list.

While that is the case, their ads still have to adhere to the acceptable ads policy.

 

Adblock Edge was designed to do away with acceptable ads without sacrificing any other feature of Adblock Plus.

If you visit the Adblock Edge website on Mozilla right now, you will notice an announcement on it that the extension will be discontinued in June 2015.

You find the reason for the decision in the description:

Discontinued in favor of uBlock, a general purpose blocker, that not only outperforms Adblock Edge but is also available on other browsers and, of course, without "Acceptable Ads Whitelist".

It is unclear what discontinued means at this point in time as it is not explained on the page. The author could abandon the add-on or pull it from Mozilla's add-on repository.

 

It is unclear if the decision was at least partially impacted by Mozilla's decision to require add-ons to be signed.

 

The author of Adblock Edge recommends that users switch to uBlock, a popular up and coming adblocking extension that is not only available for Firefox but also other browsers such as Google Chrome.

 

The recommended extension is not without issues as well on the other hand. Gorhill, its creator recently left the project only to create a new fork of it. For Firefox users, it is easy enough however as there is only one uBlock extension available for the browser at the time of writing. Until that changes, it should be the one used by users of the web browser.

 

As far as Adblock Edge is concerned, it is unlikely that the discontinuation affects existing users of the extension immediately. In the long run however, it is recommended to switch to another add-on for the purpose as it won't receive updates anymore after June 2015.

[tompkin]

I use uBlock and like it a lot. It's lightweight and seems to do the job. One caution I have is that I found that it was not really easy to find uBlock in the Play Store or Amazon extensions. It's there but it take a little bit to find. Also, there is another one that tries to appear to be uBlock but that's not it. uBlock is it.

 

EDIT: I just looked and there is now one called uBlock Origin and another called uBlock. I'm not sure but I'm sure that I used the uBlock. They both look the same in the screen shots so I'm not sure. 

 

EDIT2: ok, I think I see. I just upgraded my Chrome browser a day or so ago to 42.0.2311.90 m. It now says 'uBlock Origin' in my extensions list and has a slightly different icon shield next to my address bar that I didn't notice before. 

[Psion7]

I use uBlock and like it a lot. It's lightweight and seems to do the job. One caution I have is that I found that it was not really easy to find uBlock in the Play Store or Amazon extensions. It's there but it take a little bit to find. Also, there is another one that tries to appear to be uBlock but that's not it. uBlock is it.

 

EDIT: I just looked and there is now one called uBlock Origin and another called uBlock. I'm not sure but I'm sure that I used the uBlock. They both look the same in the screen shots so I'm not sure. 

 

The original dev of uBlock handed the project over to someone else however a few days later he changed his mind in part due to the new dev asking for donations but rather than take uBlock back he forked it and called it uBlock Origin.

 

At the moment they are pretty much the same thing with different names and different devs however they will diverge over time.

 

The original dev who is now working on uBlock Origin is a bit odd though and keeps changing his mind about things so I am sticking with the new dev even if he is asking for donations to help fund his work on it.

[+Red King Subscriber²]

The is uBlock and uBlock0 now... ehhh....

[Max Norris]

uBlock's (or whatever it's being called now) was pretty decent, doesn't have the flexibility that ABP has though, for example the bottom pane that lists every blockable item and so on.  That said, personally ditched them all for a system level blocker, covers all browsers at once and doesn't slow them down in the process, Firefox especially.

[Psion7]

uBlock's (or whatever it's being called now) was pretty decent, doesn't have the flexibility that ABP has though, for example the bottom pane that lists every blockable item and so on.  That said, personally ditched them all for a system level blocker, covers all browsers at once and doesn't slow them down in the process, Firefox especially.

 

Did you enable the advanced options? It has a pretty powerful system similar to uMatrix.

[Taliseian]

uBlock's (or whatever it's being called now) was pretty decent, doesn't have the flexibility that ABP has though, for example the bottom pane that lists every blockable item and so on.  That said, personally ditched them all for a system level blocker, covers all browsers at once and doesn't slow them down in the process, Firefox especially.

 

Curious, what system level blocker do you use?

 

 

T

[Max Norris]

Did you enable the advanced options? It has a pretty powerful system similar to uMatrix.

I did not -- will have to look at that on the systems here that are using it still, must have missed that -- thanks for the tip. The visual "element picker" is handy but sometimes you need a much lower level look, especially when it's not a visual thing you want to block.

 

Curious, what system level blocker do you use?

Went with AdGuard -- not free but works really well and it blocks every browser on the system, using that on a couple Android devices as well as it doesn't require rooting or other such, and it blocks not only wifi but my cellular connection too.

[Psion7]

I did not -- will have to look at that on the systems here that are using it still, must have missed that -- thanks for the tip. The visual "element picker" is handy but sometimes you need a much lower level look, especially when it's not a visual thing you want to block.

 

 

Have a read about it first. https://github.com/chrisaljoudi/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-quick-guide

[+LightEco Subscriber²]

Why not just use Adblock Plus and disable the "allow some ads" option? It even works on IE.

[Psion7]

Why not just use Adblock Plus and disable the "allow some ads" option? It even works on IE.

 

uBlock uses less memory and CPU cycles than ABP.

[Torolol]

heh, instead of browser extension/plugins, I use local proxy to do the ads blocking:

 

I use proxomitron.

Its use RegEx to filter html/js,

its only use memory & CPU during text filtering process,

once the html/js filtering done the CPU & memory resources are freed.

 

Its works for any browser that support proxy settings.

[Anibal P]

Why not just use Adblock Plus and disable the "allow some ads" option? It even works on IE.

 

Because they had deals with certain ad companies and would display ads no matter what your settings were 

[Psion7]

heh, instead of browser extension/plugins, I use local proxy to do the ads blocking:

 

I use proxomitron.

Its use RegEx to filter html/js,

its only use memory & CPU during text filtering process,

once the html/js filtering done the CPU & memory resources are freed.

 

Its works for any browser that support proxy settings.

 

How does it deal with HTTPS?

[Boo Berry]

Went with AdGuard

Same here on Windows, Mac and Android. I got tired of dealing with the limitations of each browser's extensions API and what it could or could not block. One solution for all.

[Psion7]

Same here on Windows, Mac and Android. I got tired of dealing with the limitations of each browser's extensions API and what it could or could not block. One solution for all.

 

I only browse over HTTPS (using HTTPS Everywhere), how does AdGuard deal with secure connections?

[Max Norris]

I only browse over HTTPS (using HTTPS Everywhere), how does AdGuard deal with secure connections?

No issues with it here, again that's the paid standalone service, not the browser extension, only toyed with that briefly but seemed decent too. There's also an exclusion option available just for https as well if the need comes up.

[Psion7]

No issues with it here, again that's the paid standalone service, not the browser extension, only toyed with that briefly but seemed decent too. There's also an exclusion option available just for https as well if the need comes up.

 

I ask because it looks like they install their own certificate and basically do a man-in-the-middle attack. This is a very, very, bad thing to do as it is open to abuse and breaks the security expected when using SSL without informing you what exactly they are doing

[sinetheo]

I want classic adblock so some sites like Neowin.net get paid.

However, I just read Google ad sense served malware on zillow by a hacker with a fake ad who put in cryptolocker. Evil bastards.

What to do? Come on and don't be a freeloader guys. Unless you want Neowin to be $2.99 a month you need to pay them for their services. It ain't free to host this but damn need to be secure too.

Flashbock can help too

[Torolol]

How does it deal with HTTPS?

Proximitron originally developed with not messing with https in mind,

 

but as more annoying stuff began to use https, the need to filter https arise,

how to do this still less than ideal for https.

 

This some way that other creative people deal with it:

more at: http://www.prxbx.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2172

 

[Defcon]

I've been using AdMuncher for years. Paid for it a number of times and now its totally free because the author couldn't deal with the pirates and just gave up, instead of discontinuing it he made it free.

 

Its the original Ad blocker and has been a lifesaver, I'm sure things like Adguard wouldn't exist without it.

[+LightEco Subscriber²]

Because they had deals with certain ad companies and would display ads no matter what your settings were 

 

Not true, they did allow certain sites to be whitelisted, but its all controlled by that user setting.

 

From ABP - "Even the whitelisted ads can still be blocked; users can switch off the Acceptable Ads filter with one click in their Options menu."