UBlock Origin

History

uBlock Origin was initially named "μBlock". The name was later changed to "uBlock" to avoid confusion how 'µ' in "µBlock" should be pronounced. Development started forking from the codebase of HTTP Switchboard along with another blocking extension called uMatrix, designed for advanced users. uBlock Origin was developed to leverage community maintained block lists, while adding features and raising the code quality to release standards. First released in June 2014 as a Chrome and Opera extension, by winter of 2015, the extension had expanded to alternative browsers.

Through April and May 2015, the uBlock project evolved into two extensions represented by separate repositories. uBlock was subsequently represented by ublock.org and uBlock Origin reflected the continuing effort by the original developer.

uBlock Origin

Raymond Hill, the founder and original author of uBlock, continues to work on the extension under the name uBlock Origin, sometimes stylized as uBlock₀. As of February 2017, the uBlock Origin Chrome extension has 7.8 million active users, and the Firefox version has 3.2 million active users.

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

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

Nik Rolls officially released uBlock Origin for the Microsoft Edge browser on December 11, 2016.

Ellis Tsung (e1lt) released a beta version of uBlock Origin for Safari on December 9th, 2016.

The project specifically refuses donations.

uBlock (ublock.org)

Shortly after the project division, Chris Aljoudi created ublock.org to host uBlock, promote the extension and request donations. In response, uBlock founder Raymond Hill stated that "the donations sought by ublock.org are not benefiting any of those who contributed most to create uBlock Origin."

Prior to the division, Safari and Firefox support was publicly introduced with versions 0.8.5.4 and 0.8.5.5 by the developer "Deathamns" who since left the project along with founder Raymond Hill. Firefox responsibility was transferred to developer Alex Vallat at Hill's request. Vallat has subsequently contributed code to uBlock Origin as well.

In October 2015, Aljoudi announced uBlock was no longer under development.

The last source code for the project was committed in August 2015. The security certificate of the website expired in May 2016 and was renewed on June 30, 2016.

Blocking and filtering

uBlock Origin and uBlock support the majority of Adblock Plus's filter syntax. The popular filter lists EasyList and EasyPrivacy are enabled as default subscriptions. 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 list and Malware Domains are also enabled as default. Some additional features include dynamic filtering of scripts and 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.

uBlock Origin includes a growing list of features not available in uBlock, including a new mode to assist those with color vision deficiency, a new dynamic URL filtering feature, new logging functionality and interface enhancements including a DOM inspector, new privacy-oriented options to block link prefetching, hyperlink auditing, and IP address leaks via WebRTC. Site-specific switches to toggle the blocking of pop-ups, strict domain blocking, cosmetic filters and fonts were also added in recent releases of uBlock Origin. The Firefox version of uBlock Origin has an extra feature which helps to foil attempts by web sites to circumvent blockers.

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. A benchmark test, conducted in August 2015 with ten blocking extensions, showed uBlock Origin as the most resource efficient among extensions tested.

uBlock surveys what style resources are required for an individual web page rather than reliance on a universal style sheet. 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.

Supported platforms

uBlock Origin is actively developed for applications based on 3 major engines. uBlock for Safari is no longer under development.

Release history

Notable release milestones

uBlock Origin