uBlock Origin

uBlock Origin (/ˈjuːblɒk/; "YOO-block"^[5]) is a free and open-source browser extension for content filtering, including ad blocking. The extension is available for Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Firefox, Opera, Pale Moon, as well as versions of Safari prior to 13.^[6] uBlock Origin has received praise from technology websites and is reported to be much less memory-intensive than other extensions^[7][8] with similar functionality.^[9][10] uBlock Origin's stated purpose is to give users the means to enforce their own (content-filtering) choices.^[11][12]

uBlock Origin

uBlock Origin pop-up interface
Original author(s)	Raymond Hill (gorhill)
Developer(s)	Current: Raymond Hill Past: Deathamns, Chris Aljoudi, Alex Vallat^[1]
Initial release	June 23, 2014; 9 years ago (2014-06-23)^[2]
Stable release	1.53.0^[3] / 31 October 2023; 9 days ago (31 October 2023)
Repository	github.com/gorhill/uBlock
Written in	JavaScript
Operating system	Cross-platform
Available in	70^[4] languages
Type	Browser extension
License	GPLv3
Website	github.com/gorhill/uBlock

uBlock Origin is 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.^[13] uBlock was developed by Raymond Hill to use community-maintained block lists,^[14] while adding features and raising the code quality to release standards.^[15] 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^[16] by original developer Raymond Hill in April 2015, due to frustration of dealing with requests. However, Hill immediately self-forked it^[17] and continued the effort there. This version was later renamed uBlock Origin and it has been completely divorced from Aljoudi's uBlock.^[18] 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."^[6] The development of uBlock stopped in August 2015 and it has been sporadically updated since January 2017.^[19] In July 2018, ublock.org was acquired by AdBlock,^[20] and since February 2019, uBlock began allowing users to participate in "Acceptable Ads",^[21][22] a program run by Adblock Plus that allows some ads which are deemed "acceptable", and for which the larger publishers pay a fee.^[23]

uBlock Origin remains independent and does not allow ads for payment.^[24]

uBlock Origin

Raymond Hill, the founder and original author of uBlock, as of 2015^[update], continued to work on the extension under the name uBlock Origin, sometimes stylized as uBlock₀,^[25] and abbreviated as uBO.^[26]

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.^[27] The report attributed the growth to the desire of users for pure blockers outside the "acceptable advertising" program.^[28]

In January 2016, uBlock Origin was added to the repositories for Debian 9 and Ubuntu 16.04.^[29][30] The extension was awarded "Pick of the Month" by Mozilla for May 2016.^[31]

On December 11, 2016, Nik Rolls released a fork of uBlock Origin for the Microsoft Edge browser (now known as Microsoft Edge Legacy).^[32] In April 2020, this fork was deprecated as Microsoft replaced Microsoft Edge Legacy with a Chromium-based Edge.^[33]

As of January 2021^[update], the uBlock Origin Chrome extension had over 10 million active users and the Firefox version had 5 million active users.^[34][35]

The project specifically refuses donations and instead advises supporters to donate to maintainers of block lists.^[6][36]

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.^{[citation needed]}

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 (this feature was removed in version 1.38 on all platforms except Android, as most browsers are no longer vulnerable^[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.^[14][42][47]

Currently supported

• Blink
  • Google Chrome/Chromium (desktop)
  • Opera (desktop)
  • Microsoft Edge (Chromium) (desktop)
  • Kiwi (mobile)^[48]
• Gecko
  • Firefox (desktop: 0.85.5 and later)^{[note 1]}
  • Firefox for Android (mobile: 0.9.1.0 and later)
  • Thunderbird (desktop: 1.3.0 and later)
  • SeaMonkey

Previously supported

• WebKit
  • Safari (desktop: uBlock Origin 1.10.0 and later (Beta)).^{[49][note 2]} Stopped working with macOS 10.15 Catalina and Safari 13.^[50][51]
• EdgeHTML
  • Microsoft Edge (legacy) (uBlock Origin is available on the Windows Store in beta from 1.10.0).^{[52][53][note 3]}

See also

•  Free and open-source software portal
•  Internet portal

• AdBlock
• Adblock Plus
• AdGuard
• Ghostery
• NoScript
• Privacy Badger

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.

References

1. "Contributors to gorhill/uBlock". GitHub. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
2. "Changelog for the first versions". GitHub. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
3. "Release 1.53.0". Retrieved October 31, 2023.
4. "Completed translations". Crowdin.com. Retrieved November 23, 2022.
5. "uBlock Origin: README.md". uBlock GitHub Repository. December 25, 2022 – via GitHub. pronounced you-block origin (/ˈjuːblɒk/)
6. "uBlock / README.md". GitHub. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
7. Henry, Alan (January 27, 2015). "uBlock, the Memory-Friendly Ad-Blocker, Is Now Available for Firefox". Retrieved December 4, 2019.
8. Brinkmann, Martin (October 10, 2014). "How to add custom filters to Chrome ad-blocking extension μBlock". Retrieved December 4, 2019.
9. Schofield, Jack (January 29, 2015). "Are there any trustworthy sources for downloading software?". TheGuardian.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
10. Whitwam, Ryan (February 12, 2015). . ExtremeTech.com. Archived from the original on March 24, 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
11. "uBlock". github.com. GitHub. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
12. Gardiner, Michael (November 5, 2015). . International Business Times. Archived from the original on July 22, 2017. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
13. "uMatrix". GitHub. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
14. Brinkmann, Martin (June 24, 2014). "uBlock for Chrome is a resource-friendly adblocker by the HTTP Switchboard author". ghacks.net. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
15. Hill, Raymond. "Changes from HTTP Switchboard". GitHub. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
16. Hill, Raymond. "Please clarify uBlock₀ vs. uBlock". Github.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
17. . GitHub. April 27, 2015. Archived from the original on April 27, 2015. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
18. Hill, Raymond (October 21, 2017). "uBlock Origin is completely unrelated to the web site ublock.org". github.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
19. "uBlockAdmin/uBlock". github.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
20. "An update on uBlock". ublock.org. July 13, 2018. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
21. . February 23, 2019. Archived from the original on November 30, 2019. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
22. "uBlock 0.9.5.13". GitHub. February 13, 2019. Retrieved June 26, 2020.
23. "About Adblock Plus". adblockplus.org. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
24. "MANIFESTO.md". github.com. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
25. "Official uBlock Origin add-on lands for Firefox". April 25, 2015. Retrieved April 25, 2015.
26. "uAssets". github.com. Retrieved October 2, 2022. Resources for uBlock Origin (uBO) [...]
27. Levine, Barry (October 14, 2015). "The Ad Blocker Landscape: What You Need To Know Today". Marketing Land. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
28. "The state of ad blocking - September 2015". Sourcepoint and comScore. September 16, 2015. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
29. "Debian Sid - uBlock Origin". Retrieved January 21, 2016.
30. "Ubuntu - uBlock Origin". Retrieved January 21, 2016.
31. DeVaney, Scott (May 2, 2016). "May 2016 Featured Add-ons". Mozilla Add-ons Blog. Retrieved May 28, 2016.
32. Rubino, Daniel (December 11, 2016). "uBlock Origin adblocker now available for Microsoft Edge via the Store". Windows Central. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
33. Rolls, Nik (June 12, 2021), nikrolls/uBlock-Edge, retrieved July 9, 2021
34. "uBlock Origin Chrome". chrome.google.com. Retrieved January 28, 2021.
35. "uBlock Origin Firefox". addons.mozilla.org. Retrieved January 28, 2021.
36. "Why don't you accept donations?". GitHub. Retrieved January 20, 2020.
37. "Prevent WebRTC from leaking local IP address". GitHub, gorhill/uBlock. Retrieved May 5, 2023.
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. "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 (October 28, 2017). "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. August 26, 2015. Retrieved August 26, 2015.
46. "Notes on memory benchmarks, selfies". uBlock GitHub documentation. Retrieved February 17, 2015.
47. . Apple. Archived from the original on March 10, 2016. Retrieved February 19, 2015.
48. "What is Kiwi Browser about ?". Kiwi Browser. September 22, 2019.
49. "el1t/uBlock-Safari". github.com. Retrieved January 19, 2017.
50. "Catalina compatibility · Issue #156 · el1t/uBlock-Safari". github.com. Retrieved August 18, 2019.
51. "Explanation of the state of uBlock Origin (and other blockers) for Safari". GitHub.
52. "nikrolls/uBlock-Edge". github.com. September 23, 2022.
53. Rubino, Daniel (December 11, 2016). "uBlock Origin adblocker now available for Microsoft Edge via the Store". Windows Central. Retrieved December 12, 2016.

External links

• Official website
• uBlock Origin on the Chrome Webstore