The devastating effects of ad blocking · 2010-03-08 14:08 by Wladimir Palant
A few years ago I used to blog about some of the more ridiculous claims that ad blocking opponents make and take them apart. Fortunately, I no longer have to. Other people do this now and they are much more successful expressing their opinions. So I don’t really need to write about the recent article at Ars Technica on the effects of ad blocking. I do so mostly to link to the responses so that I can find them again.
Linux New Media Award for Adblock Plus · 2010-03-04 22:49 by Wladimir Palant
I was at CeBIT today, collecting the Linux Media Award for the best open source Firefox extension. I just want to repeat what I said there: I really didn’t expect to come that far. After all, initially I only intended to quickly improve Adblock and find somebody to maintain the new codebase. And now, four years later, I am still continuing to improve Adblock Plus and there is much more work to be done. This is largely the “fault” of the passionate community who has been a great motivator. So: everybody who helped me and supported the project in all these years (you know who you are and I cannot possibly mention everybody) — thank you!
How are supported applications chosen for Adblock Plus? · 2010-02-11 18:30 by Wladimir Palant
It is time to formalize how I choose which applications/application versions to support in Adblock Plus. There are several categories here:
- Applications with very high user numbers (particularly with high numbers of users testing Adblock Plus development builds): that’s currently only Firefox. Supporting multiple application versions is possible, bugs will usually be caught by the community before an Adblock Plus release. Still, once a Firefox version gets close to end-of-life (Mozilla will no longer ship security updates) its user numbers drop considerably and it gets harder to get Adblock Plus properly tested there. Which is one reason why I am targeting mostly the versions supported by Mozilla (currently Firefox 3.5 and 3.6) and drop support for outdated versions eventually (Firefox 3.0 support is currently being phased out).
Major changes to the "Show tabs on Flash and Java" feature · 2010-02-03 04:39 by Wladimir Palant
The current Adblock Plus development build (1.1.3+.2010020302) brings major changes to the “Show tabs on Flash and Java” feature. While the tab displayed on Flash and Java content should mostly look the same as before, it is implemented in an entirely different way now.
About.com Reader's Choice Awards - Adblock Plus needs your vote! · 2010-02-02 09:00 by Wladimir Palant
Don’t have enough polls to participate in? Good news for you: About.com started its Reader’s Choice Awards program and you might know some of the finalists. Now it all depends on your vote. Head over to the poll page, page 4 is particularly interesting — it lists Adblock Plus as one of the finalists in the “Best Overall Add-On” category. You certainly want to go to page 2 as well and vote for Firefox in the “Best Major Desktop Browser” category. If you already had a chance to use Firefox Mobile (Fennec), maybe even with Adblock Plus installed, page 3 is where you can vote for it.
Adblock Plus 1.1.3 released · 2010-01-07 10:36 by Wladimir Palant
This is a bugfix release with minimal changes.
Changes
- Adblock Plus 1.1.2 regression fixed: Filter hits are counted in private browsing mode
- Fixed: Subscription dialog comes up on each update in Fennec, regardless of existing subscriptions
- Updated compatibility range for Songbird, 1.4.0 to 1.7.0a supported now
Adblock Plus 1.1.3 coming up · 2010-01-05 03:49 by Wladimir Palant
I messed up: private browsing integration no longer works in Adblock Plus 1.1.2, hits will be counted regardless of whether the user is in private browsing mode. This should be fixed in the current development build (1.1.2+.2010010502). I would be grateful if some people could confirm that things are working correctly now — I want to release Adblock Plus 1.1.3 from branch soon with this change only (other changes like subscription UI rework are still scheduled for Adblock Plus 1.2).
Subscription-related user interface parts reworked · 2009-12-27 02:53 by Wladimir Palant
The current development build (Adblock Plus 1.1.2+.2009122702) features many changes to the subscription-related user interface parts (mostly post-install subscription selection and “Add filter subscription” from Adblock Plus preferences):
- Less/simpler text
- User is immediately presented with the subscription suggestion matching his browser locale, other recommended subscriptions are available in dropdown list.
- A warning is shown if the user closes the post-install page without adding a subscription.
- Adding a different subscription no longer happens in a separate dialog window.
- No longer necessary to go to the webpage for the full list of subscriptions, when you choose to add a different subscription the full list is loaded automatically. A subscription can be selected with one click, subscriptions matching your browser locale are emphasized.
- Subscriptions are offered by languages rather than regions now.
- Việt Nam List is back as a recommendation.
These changes can be discussed in the corresponding forum topic. Older changes since Adblock Plus 1.1.2 release:
- HTML5 audio and video can now be blocked via context menu
- Toolbar icon tooltip shows more information (number of filters/subscriptions in use, number of whitelisted items and matching element hiding rules)
More extension signing adventures · 2009-12-21 10:22 by Wladimir Palant
Things got significantly better since the last time I tried to sign Adblock Plus. Firefox 3.5.6 will now show my name instead of “Author not verified” even if the organization field of the certificate is empty (thanks, Boris). And StartCom certificates are accepted by all main applications that Adblock Plus needs to support (meaning Firefox 3.0 starting with 3.0.12, Firefox 3.5/3.6/3.7, SeaMonkey 2.0 and Thunderbird 3.0). So I started signing development builds again and even released Adblock Plus 1.1.2 as a signed XPI a little more than a week ago.
Adblock Plus 1.1.2 released · 2009-12-12 09:30 by Wladimir Palant
Major changes
- Minimal Fennec 1.0 support (at least Beta 6 required)
- Made subscription downloads support load balancing, downloads can be distributed to several servers now
- Subscription downloads no longer fail if network.http.redirection-limit preference is misconfigured
- List of filter subscriptions no longer offered only on first installation, also offered on update if the user has neither filter subscriptions nor own filters
- Improved recognition of document source for $domain option in the filters