Adblock Plus starts late, impacting initial page

Everything about using Adblock Plus on Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey
guessst

Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by guessst »

Guest13713 wrote:The dev (Wladimir) said somewhere that the change in how/when the disc read is being made even (partially?) was in 2.5.1 but this is nothing I have noticed.(Not tested with latest version of Firefox, so it might have changed) and he have not elaborated on that part.
According to the blog the problem was introduced shortly after 2.5.1 was released, so I'll try 2.5.1 for now and see if it works.
ant wrote:OK, I saw a Flash ad (had Flash plugin blocker to prompt) that wasn't blocked on betanews.com a few minutes ago after I exited and restarted SeaMonkey. It is still better than nothing.
Sure is, but being better than nothing isn't exactly the point. It used to work just fine, but now it has gotten worse. Seeing the occational ad isn't the problem, it's the security and privacy implications of loading potential malware served through ads, tracking, etc.
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Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by ant »

guessst wrote:
Guest13713 wrote:The dev (Wladimir) said somewhere that the change in how/when the disc read is being made even (partially?) was in 2.5.1 but this is nothing I have noticed.(Not tested with latest version of Firefox, so it might have changed) and he have not elaborated on that part.
According to the blog the problem was introduced shortly after 2.5.1 was released, so I'll try 2.5.1 for now and see if it works.
ant wrote:OK, I saw a Flash ad (had Flash plugin blocker to prompt) that wasn't blocked on betanews.com a few minutes ago after I exited and restarted SeaMonkey. It is still better than nothing.
Sure is, but being better than nothing isn't exactly the point. It used to work just fine, but now it has gotten worse. Seeing the occational ad isn't the problem, it's the security and privacy implications of loading potential malware served through ads, tracking, etc.
Yeah, I know. I wonder why they can't fix it/undo this bug.
Ant @ The Ant Farm (http://antfarm.ma.cx) and Ant's Quality Foraged Links (http://aqfl.net).
guest123

Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by guest123 »

ant wrote:Yeah, I know. I wonder why they can't fix it/undo this bug.
They can, but they don't want to. Waiting for ABP to load slows down Firefox startup, and startup speed is considered more important than security or privacy.
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Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by ant »

guest123 wrote:
ant wrote:Yeah, I know. I wonder why they can't fix it/undo this bug.
They can, but they don't want to. Waiting for ABP to load slows down Firefox startup, and startup speed is considered more important than security or privacy.
[sighs] Make it a GUI option then. Let the user decide which one they want. They still have to fix the bugs like I saw with Flash ads.
Ant @ The Ant Farm (http://antfarm.ma.cx) and Ant's Quality Foraged Links (http://aqfl.net).
guessst

Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by guessst »

Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately the current hidden "kill startup performance" option doesn't work. :) No idea why they can't fix THAT.
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Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by ant »

guessst wrote:Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately the current hidden "kill startup performance" option doesn't work. :) No idea why they can't fix THAT.
It works mostly OK for me. It's not perfect like the old versions. :(
Ant @ The Ant Farm (http://antfarm.ma.cx) and Ant's Quality Foraged Links (http://aqfl.net).
PeterW

Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by PeterW »

yes v 2.63 needs to be updated ASAP as it starts slowly with many versions of firefox!!
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Re: Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by ant »

Anonym wrote:Given this is the byproduct of an intentional change, I think the real question is "Will this be fixed" / "Can we have an option not to behave like this and make Firefox wait for ABP filtering before showing the first page"?

On behalf of those that use ABP as a tool for privacy (with lists such as EasyPrivacy), I have to say this really wasn't a well thought-out "intentional change" for all of us...
Ditto. :(
Ant @ The Ant Farm (http://antfarm.ma.cx) and Ant's Quality Foraged Links (http://aqfl.net).
pytbtvms
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Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by pytbtvms »

I want to voice a complaint that this is a privacy issue.

Adblock Plus says it protects your privacy:
en/features
but with Adblock Plus you can easily disable all tracking, and browse the web truly anonymously
That's a lie. Late start means tracking cookies get set on your browser and tracking beacons ping back to servers.

A sarcastically named option "extensions.adblockplus.please_kill_startup_performance" was added which still allows tracking.

A new option should be added "extensions.adblockplus.please_really_block_all"
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Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by ant »

It looks like extensions.adblockplus.please_kill_startup_performance is broken in ABP v2.6.5? I am seeing tons of ads. :(
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lakrsrool
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Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by lakrsrool »

The setting adblockplus.please_kill_startup_performance to "yes" as mentioned in the above post didn't help in my case either. This is due in part because in the event FF is using cache to load the initial startup page the load for the more recent versions of FF has become too fast for ABP.

Again this is because the issue is that FF, as is the case with any web page first started up, will use cache as long as the cache is saved (retained) which is for the purpose of speeding up the page load.

I've apparently solved my specific issue by setting FF to clear cache on exiting the browser. You do this by going to FF "Options" > "Privacy" tab > Click "Clear history when Firefox closes" to check the box > Click on "Settings" > Click on "Cache" ONLY to check this option and click "OK".

Note: If you haven't cleared cache for sometime it will likely take awhile to finish clearing it out which means FF will run for awhile after exiting hence you'll typically need to wait awhile before launching again as the instance of FF will remain during the time cache is cleared.

This web site Force Firefox to reload from the network on startup provides and example how to do this, but BE SURE AND JUST CHECK THE "CACHE" SELECTION (NOT THE OTHERS as shown in the example) as this is all that needs to be done for the purposes of this topic in the "Settings" option of the "Clear history when Firefox closes" option of the "Privacy" settings for FF.

Now after this change Firefox cannot use cache the first time it loads my startup page after initially launching the browser (cache will be used during the browser session however which is a good thing). An argument can be made that it's a good thing to clear cache now and then to save on memory glut anyway regardless of this specific issue of ABP occasionally failing to block adds due to the load speed of the more recent FF browser versions.

Let me know if this solves the problem as far as ABP occasionally not blocking adds in FF as well. :?:
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Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by ant »

lakrsrool wrote:The setting adblockplus.please_kill_startup_performance to "yes" as mentioned in the above post didn't help in my case either. This is due in part because in the event FF is using cache to load the initial startup page the load for the more recent versions of FF has become too fast for ABP.

Again this is because the issue is that FF, as is the case with any web page first started up, will use cache as long as the cache is saved (retained) which is for the purpose of speeding up the page load.

I've apparently solved my specific issue by setting FF to clear cache on exiting the browser. You do this by going to FF "Options" > "Privacy" tab > Click "Clear history when Firefox closes" to check the box > Click on "Settings" > Click on "Cache" ONLY to check this option and click "OK".

Note: If you haven't cleared cache for sometime it will likely take awhile to finish clearing it out which means FF will run for awhile after exiting hence you'll typically need to wait awhile before launching again as the instance of FF will remain during the time cache is cleared.

This web site Force Firefox to reload from the network on startup provides and example how to do this, but BE SURE AND JUST CHECK THE "CACHE" SELECTION (NOT THE OTHERS as shown in the example) as this is all that needs to be done for the purposes of this topic in the "Settings" option of the "Clear history when Firefox closes" option of the "Privacy" settings for FF.

Now after this change Firefox cannot use cache the first time it loads my startup page after initially launching the browser (cache will be used during the browser session however which is a good thing). An argument can be made that it's a good thing to clear cache now and then to save on memory glut anyway regardless of this specific issue of ABP occasionally failing to block adds due to the load speed of the more recent FF browser versions.

Let me know if this solves the problem as far as ABP occasionally not blocking adds in FF as well. :?:
Ugh, I need caches due to my slow Internet connections. :(
Ant @ The Ant Farm (http://antfarm.ma.cx) and Ant's Quality Foraged Links (http://aqfl.net).
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lakrsrool
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Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by lakrsrool »

guest123 wrote:
ant wrote:Yeah, I know. I wonder why they can't fix it/undo this bug.
They can, but they don't want to. Waiting for ABP to load slows down Firefox startup, and startup speed is considered more important than security or privacy.
It's only a matter of seconds for ABP to load so I don't personally see why people cannot wait just a matter of no more than 2-3 seconds in order to have adds successfully blocked. To me the maximum of 2-3 seconds is worth it.
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lakrsrool
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Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by lakrsrool »

ant wrote:
guessst wrote:Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately the current hidden "kill startup performance" option doesn't work. :) No idea why they can't fix THAT.
It works mostly OK for me. It's not perfect like the old versions. :(
It appears that almost all adds are still blocked successfully actually, it's only a very few that sneak by ABP because of the fact newer FF versions are getting loaded faster apparently.
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Re: [549] Adblock Plus 2.6 starts late, impacting initial page

Post by ant »

lakrsrool wrote:
ant wrote:
guessst wrote:Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately the current hidden "kill startup performance" option doesn't work. :) No idea why they can't fix THAT.
It works mostly OK for me. It's not perfect like the old versions. :(
It appears that almost all adds are still blocked successfully actually, it's only a very few that sneak by ABP because of the fact newer FF versions are getting loaded faster apparently.
Really? It seems to not work anymore with the updated ABP for me. :(
Ant @ The Ant Farm (http://antfarm.ma.cx) and Ant's Quality Foraged Links (http://aqfl.net).
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