A question about AdBlock filter lists

Everything about using Adblock Plus on Google Chrome
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liamneson62
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Feb 18, 2021 4:29 pm

A question about AdBlock filter lists

Post by liamneson62 »

So i have been looking through settings in my chrome adblock extension and i saw that in filter lists, not all lists are enabled by default. Why is that? Isnt it smartest to just turn on all filters so it is more effective? What can happen if i enable all of them? Can it use more CPU? Create false positives?
Last edited by liamneson62 on Sat Feb 20, 2021 12:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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greiner
ABP Developer
Posts: 899
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:29 pm
Location: Cologne, Germany

Re: A question about AdBlock filter lists

Post by greiner »

As you correctly pointed out, Adblock Plus only preinstalls the default ad blocking filter list and the most relevant filter list for the language that the browser is configured in. That way it can already block the majority of all ads most users encounter so there should be no need for installing all of them.

If you were to install all available filter lists regardless, it would significantly increase how much memory is being used and the amount of data Adblock Plus has to download on a regular basis to keep them all up-to-date. An increase in CPU usage, slower page loads, battery usage, and other metrics can also occur in addition to that.
Finally, it increases the risk of running into problems due to one filter list interfering with another (incl. create false positives and false negatives).

Therefore we recommend only installing those filter lists that you actually need.
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