uBlock

uBlock

uBlock extension icon and main menu
Developer(s)	Current Raymond Hill: uBlock Origin Chris Aljoudi: uBlock (Safari, Chrome) Alex Vallat: uBlock (Firefox), Past: Deathamns (cross-platform)
Initial release	23 June 2014 (2014-06-23)[1]
Development status	Active
Written in	JavaScript
Operating system	Cross-platform
Available in	25[2] languages
Type	Mozilla extension Extension for Chromium-based browsers Safari extension
License	GPL 3
Website	chrismatic.io/ublock/

uBlock (pronounced you-block /ˈjuːˌblɒk/) is a free and open source, cross-platform browser extension for content-filtering, including ad-blocking. It is available for several browsers, including Chromium, Firefox, and Safari.^[3] The extension has received praise from technology websites for ostensibly lighter resource usage in comparison to rival extensions^[4][5] as well as support as an alternative to them.^[6][7]

Raymond Hill, the original author of the extension continues to work on the extension under the name uBlock Origin.^[8]

uBlock's stated purpose is to give users the means to enforce their own (content-filtering) choices.^[9]

Supported platforms and statistics

uBlock is available for three major platforms:^{[3][10][11][12]}

Chromium

• Google Chrome (desktop; uBlock and uBlock Origin)
• Opera (desktop; uBlock Origin)

WebKit

• Safari (desktop; uBlock)

Gecko

• Firefox (desktop, version 29 and later; uBlock and uBlock Origin)^{[note 1]}
• Firefox for Android (mobile; uBlock and uBlock Origin)^{[note 2]}

As of April 2015, the uBlock Origin Chrome extension had over 850,000 active users while the uBlock Firefox extension had over 100,000 active users.^[13][14]

Background

uBlock was developed from the code base of HTTP Switchboard by Raymond Hill (gorhill) from Canada. Hill adapted the new extension to utilize community maintained block lists.^[11]

uBlock's support for Safari and Firefox (by Deathamns)^[15] was publicly introduced with versions 0.8.5.4 and 0.8.5.5.^[3]

In April 2015, lead development of the project was transferred to Chris Aljoudi.^[16] Firefox responsibility was transferred to Alex Vallat. At the time, both of the original authors of the Chrome and Firefox extensions (Hill and Deathamns) requested their names to be removed from the list of collaborators to the project.^[17]

Raymond Hill continues development of a fork called uBlock Origin.^[18]

In April 2015, the developer of Adblock Edge, a popular fork of Adblock Plus, announced the extension would discontinue in June 2015 as a result of the efficiency of uBlock and similar lack of whitelist.^[19]

Features

Blocking and filtering

uBlock supports the majority of Adblock Plus's filter syntax, and includes Adblock Plus list subscriptions. The popular filter lists EasyList and EasyPrivacy are enabled as default subscriptions in uBlock. The extension is 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 list and Malware Domains are also enabled as default.

Some additional features include iframes, and a tool for webpage element hiding. As of version 0.8.7.0, dynamic filtering in uBlock can act as a complete replacement of RequestPolicy, or similar add-ons.^[20] Site specific switches to toggle the blocking of pop-ups, strict blocking and cosmetic filters were added in recent releases of uBlock Origin. ^[21]

Performance

Technology websites and user reviews for uBlock have regarded the extension as less resource intensive in comparison with extensions that provide similar feature sets such as Adblock Plus.^[12] Fabian Wosar, developer for Emsisoft GmbH, has explained that uBlock surveys what style resources are required for an individual web page rather than reliance on a universal style sheet.^[22]

The extension takes a snapshot of the filters the user has enabled. This contributes to accelerated browser start-up speed when compared to retrieving filters from cache every time.^[23]

Notable release milestones

uBlock

Version	Release date	Notable Changes[note 3]
0.1.0.0	June 23, 2014	Initial release
0.2.0.0	Jul 13, 2014	Interactive element picker enhancement
0.2.3.4	Jul 22, 2014	Privacy lists feature added
0.4.0.0	Aug 14, 2014	Element hiding performance
0.6.0.0	Sep 10, 2014	Snapshot performance enhancement; Purge of filter caches feature added
0.7.0.0	Oct 7, 2014	Dynamic filtering added; Backup and restore feature added
0.8.5.4-beta.0	Jan 15, 2015	Firefox beta build released; Deathamns
0.8.5.5	Jan 17, 2015	Safari version released; Chris Aljoudi, Deathamns
0.8.7.0	Feb 8, 2015	Enhanced default deny rule feature
0.8.8.0	Feb 15, 2015	Enhanced loading of block lists; dynamic rules temporary by default
0.8.9.0	Feb 27, 2015	Launch speed enhancement
0.9.0.0	Mar 7, 2015	Element picker wildcard support and filter labeling; backup and restore timestamps
0.9.1.0	Mar 13, 2015	Firefox for Android version released; Alex Vallat, Cheng Sun, Deathamns
0.9.3.0	April 1, 2015	Per-site switches feature added, popups and strict blocking; Lead project development transferred to Chris Aljoudi
0.9.3.5	April 19, 2015	Cosmetic filtering integration with Web Inspector (Firefox), UI changes include elimination of font based icons; per-site switches and strict domain blocking removed

uBlock Origin

Version	Release date	Notable Changes
0.9.4.0	April 11, 2015	Manual editing of per-site switches and cosmetic per-site switch features added.
0.9.4.4	April 18, 2015	gnuzilla.org privacy list added.
0.9.5.0	April 24, 2015	Color-blind mode added.
0.9.6.0	April 29, 2015	Logging enhancements include addition of cosmetic filters; gnuzilla.org privacy list removed

Footnotes

See also

• AdBlock
• Adblock Plus
• NoScript

References