Adblock Plus filters explained

Simple blocking rules

Blocking rules determine addresses that Adblock Plus should block.

Example 1: Blocking by address parts

This rule blocks:

• http://example.com/banner/foo/img
• http://example.com/banner/foo/bar/img?param
• http://example.com/banner//img/foo

This rule doesn't block:

• http://example.com/banner/img
• http://example.com/banner/foo/imgraph
• http://example.com/banner/foo/img.gif

Example 2: Blocking by domain name

This rule blocks:

• http://ads.example.com/foo.gif
• http://server1.ads.example.com/foo.gif
• https://ads.example.com:8000/

This rule doesn't block:

• http://ads.example.com.ua/foo.gif
• http://example.com/redirect/http://ads.example.com/

Example 3: Blocking exact address

This rule blocks:

• http://example.com/

This rule doesn't block:

• http://example.com/foo.gif
• http://example.info/redirect/http://example.com/

Options in blocking rules

Blocking rules can have a number of options to fine-tune their behavior.

This rule blocks http://ads.example.com/foo.gif only if the following conditions are met:

• This address is being loaded as a script or an image.
• The page loading it comes from example.com domain (for example example.com itself or subdomain.example.com) but not from foo.example.com or its subdomains.

Exception rules

Exception rules are built the same as blocking rules, they define which addresses should be allowed even if matching blocking rules exists.

Example 1: Exception for particular requests

Example 2: Exception for an entire site

Comments

Filter options

Option	Purpose
Types
script ~script	Include or exclude JavaScript files
image ~image	Include or exclude image files
stylesheet ~stylesheet	Include or exclude stylesheets (CSS files)
object ~object	Include or exclude content handled by browser plug-ins like Flash or Java
subdocument ~subdocument	Include or exclude pages loaded within pages (frames)
xmlhttprequest ~xmlhttprequest	Include or exclude requests started using the XMLHttpRequest object or fetch API
websocket ~websocket	Include or exclude requests initiated via WebSocket object
webrtc ~webrtc	Include or exclude connections opened via RTCPeerConnection instances to ICE servers
popup	Include pages opened in a new tab or window
generichide	Used to prevent applying global element rules on a page (e.g. @@||example.com^$generichide)
genericblock	Used to prevent applying global blocking rules on a page (e.g. @@||example.com^$genericblock)
Exceptions
document	Used to whitelist the page itself (e.g. @@||example.com^$document)
elemhide	Used to prevent element rules from applying on a page (e.g. @@||example.com^$elemhide)
Domains
domain=	Specify a list of domains, separated by bar lines (|), on which a filter should be active. A filter may be prevented from being activated on a domain by preceding the domain name with a tilde (~).
third-party ~third-party	Specify whether a filter should be active on third-party or first domains
Misc

Less frequently used options, including ping, other and match-case are explained in the Writing Adblock Plus Filters documentation.

Element hiding

Example 1: Hiding elements

We want to hide elements with class the advert on example.net, example.com and subdomains.

Example 2: Exception in element hiding

We want to exclude the above hiding rule on exception.example.com.

Domain selection

##selector is used as a placeholder for element selectors.

Example rules	Domain selection
##selector	Active on: All domains, including: http://example.com/ https://example.net/ ftp://example.edu/ Not active on: Not applicable
example.com##selector	Active on, for example: http://example.com/ ftp://subdomain.example.com/ Not active on: All other domains, including http://example.edu/ ftp://example.net/
~example.com##selector	Active on: All other domains, including http://example.edu/ ftp://example.net/ Not active on, for example: http://example.com/ ftp://subdomain.example.com/
example.com,example.edu##selector	Active on, for example: http://example.com/ https://subdomain.example.com/ ftp://example.edu/ Not active on: All other domains, including: http://example.net/
example.com,~mail.example.com##selector	Active on: http://example.com/ https://adverts.example.com/ Not active on: http://mail.example.com/ All other domains

Element selection

Selector	Purpose
###advert	Matches the element with the unique id "advert"
##.advert	Matches elements with the class "advert"
##table[height="100"][width="100"]	Matches a table with a height of 100 and a width of 100
##a[href="http://example.com/"]	Matches links to http://example.com/
##div[style="width:300px;height:250px;"]	Matches div elements that have exactly the style specified
###advert > .link	Matches elements with the class "link" that are enclosed within elements with the id "advert"
###advert + .link	Matches elements with the class "link" that are immediately preceded by elements with the id "advert"
##a[href^="http://example.com/"]	Matches links to any pages hosted on http://example.com/
##div[style^="width:300px;height:250px;"]	Matches div elements that start with the style specified
##div[style$="width:300px;height:250px;"]	Matches div elements that end the style specified
##div[style*="width:300px;height:250px;"]	Matches div elements that containing the style specified

The above filters are examples of valid element hiding rules. Any CSS selector supported by your browser can be used for element hiding.

Extended CSS selectors (Adblock Plus specific)

In some situations standard CSS selectors are not sufficient. For those cases there are extended CSS pseudo-selectors, and the filter syntax differs from the element hiding by using an alternate separator.

Example 1: Hiding element based on their content

Hide div elements that contain a div that contain an image with CSS class advert.

Example 2: Exception for the element hiding

Adblock Plus specific pseudo-selectors

You can use the following Adblock Plus specific pseudo-selectors:

Pseudo-class	Purpose
:-abp-properties()	Select an element if its CSS style properties match what's specified. You can pass a regular expression by surrounding it with "/".
:-abp-has()	Select an element if its content subtree match the selector specified
:-abp-contains()	Select an element if its text content contains the specified string

When writing element hiding filters that make use those you must use the #?# syntax (replace ## with #?#) and take care to specify one or more domains. Some examples:

Selector	Purpose
example.com#?#div:-abp-properties(width:300px;height:250px;)	Matches div elements whose style contain the specified properties
example.com#?#div:-abp-has(> div > img.advert)	Matches div elements that contain as a direct descendant a div element whose direct descendant is an img with the class "advert"
example.com#?#div:-abp-has(> div > img:-abp-properties(width:300px;height:250px;))	Matches div elements that contain as a direct descendant a div element whose direct descendant is an img element whose style properties contain the specified properties, a width of 300 pixels and an height of 250 pixels
example.com#?#div:-abp-has(> div > img:-abp-properties(WidTh:300px;hEigHt:250px;))	Since the CSS properties are matched case-insensitively, this filter matches the same thing as above
example.com#?#div:-abp-has(> span:-abp-contains(Advertisment))	Matches div elements that have a direct descendent span element containing the text "Advertisment"
example.com#?#div > img:-abp-properties(width:*px;height:250px;)	By using a wildcard *, this filter matches an img whose CSS style properties have a width specified in pixels and a height of 250 pixels
example.com#?#div > img:-abp-properties(/width: 3[2-8]px;/)	By using a regular expression, this filter matches an img whose CSS style properties have a width between 32 and 38 pixels

Snippet filters

Snippet filters allow executing snippet scripts.