ABP Clashes With Netflix Website

Everything about using Adblock Plus on Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey
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DoctorQ9
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri May 19, 2017 10:11 pm

ABP Clashes With Netflix Website

Post by DoctorQ9 »

ABP is really screwing up the Netflix website. I am running:
Firefox 53.0.3
Windows 10 (latest build as of today - MAY 19, 2017)

I reported it to the Mozilla - Bugzilla forum and they state that they contacted ABP to let them know that the bug is within ABP and NOT Firefox.
Mark12547
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri May 19, 2017 10:07 pm

Re: ABP Clashes With Netflix Website

Post by Mark12547 »

Are you using the Malware Domain Blocklist as one of your filters? If so, delete it, restart Firefox, and see if the problem persists.

That's what I ended up doing and, while it still takes a bit of time to load a movie, at least on my machine it now loads and plays in Firefox.

In my case, I am using Firefox 53.0.3 (64-bit) running on Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit). I have a bunch of e10s-compatible extensions active, and my AdBlock Plus subscription lists are:
  • EasyList
  • Adblock Warning Removal List
  • Malware Domains - now removed
Sorry, we still have a performance issue, which I'll tack on, and may be related to this issue.
Mark12547
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri May 19, 2017 10:07 pm

Re: ABP Clashes With Netflix Website

Post by Mark12547 »

There appears to be a performance issue when accessing https://www.netflix.com/browse when AdBlock Plus is installed and the about:addons shows AdBlock Plus as enabled.

System:
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)
AMD A6-3620 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics 2.20 GHz
RAM: 8 GB

Browser:
Firefox 53.0.3 (64-bit)
multi-processing is enabled.
Extensions: AdBlock Plus 2.8.2
Adblock Plus subscriptions:
  • EasyList
  • Adblock Warning Removal List
[x] Allow some non-intrusive advertising

To reproduce

Start with a brand new profile. Dismiss the page about logging on to Mozilla.

In about:addons, add an add-on called "AdBlock Plus". Verify that lists "AdBlock Warning Removal List" and "EasyList" are present in the Filter Preferences.

Navigate to any simple page, such as www.hotboots.com. No issues.

Navigate to https://www.netflix.com and logon as needed (will be needed the first time for a new profile). When redirected to https://www.netflix.com/browse the page will freeze, the CPU will hit 25% or slightly more (equivalent of saturating a core of this 4-core CPU), and will stay there between 32 and 53 seconds. Then the page will become responsive. Do a page refresh, and the page will be frozen for another 32 to 53 seconds.

If I open another tab, and key in about:performance, the performance page shows that when https://www.netflix.com/browse refreshes that the Adblock Plus is using 61% of the CPU and the about:performance tab is using 20%. (which is odd; 61% + 20% = the 35% that Windows Task Manager is showing me?) Then after whatever it is that is grabbing the CPU cycles and the page has finished refreshing, Adblock Plus settles down to 1% of the CPU.

This is a typical report after one such session:
https://reports.adblockplus.org/b24eab9 ... 6231844be4

If I click on the AdBlock Plus icon and disable on netflix.com, then navigate to https://www.netflix.com I still get the CPU load for about the same amount of time. This is a typical report with AdBlock Plus configured to be disabled on netflix.com:
https://reports.adblockplus.org/b046166 ... f02477afd3

For what it's worth, when using Chrome 58.0.3029.110 (64-bit) with AdBlock Plus the CPU is pegged a bit north of 25% for only about 5 seconds, and the Chrome Task Manager shows AdBlock Plus peaking at 2.7% (when AdBlock Plus is set to "disable on netflix.com") and the tab for Netflix peaking at about 32%. These numbers are probably reasonable, considering the amount of junk https://www.netflix.com/browse drags in to produce all those customized suggestions.
Mark12547
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri May 19, 2017 10:07 pm

Re: ABP Clashes With Netflix Website

Post by Mark12547 »

PS: the about:performance page should be taken with a grain of salt. I also have a bug at Bugzilla about the about:performance page. When the rendering process is saturating the CPU, it becomes unresponsive to the parent process, so the tab using that process disappears from the about:performance page.
mariusica77
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2016 8:21 am

Re: ABP Clashes With Netflix Website

Post by mariusica77 »

I have the same problem for about a week now. Last stable FF. Made sure I enabled multiprocess in Firefox by disabling incompatible addons.
Netflix and its related domains are whitelisted in ABP, but it doesn't help.
All works fine in Chrome with ABP. Any links for a Firefox bug where they say it's 100% ABP related? For me the site is very slow in safe mode too.
Mark12547
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri May 19, 2017 10:07 pm

Re: ABP Clashes With Netflix Website

Post by Mark12547 »

For completeness (for those who find this thread from doing a search), at least for the (streaming side of) Netflix slowdown, I'll reference this issue so others know that it is something the developers are aware of:

ABP causes big lags and makes Mozilla Firefox 53 very slow
https://issues.adblockplus.org/ticket/5284
mariusica77
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2016 8:21 am

Re: ABP Clashes With Netflix Website

Post by mariusica77 »

The bugfix helped with all other sites, but netflix.com is still mostly unusable (with last stable FF, multiprocess). Same as before: scrolling is slow, the tab affects other tabs, sometimes the message about slowdown appears.
User avatar
mapx
Posts: 21940
Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2011 2:01 pm

Re: ABP Clashes With Netflix Website

Post by mapx »

try using uBo, see if netflix still in trouble
mariusica77
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2016 8:21 am

Re: ABP Clashes With Netflix Website

Post by mariusica77 »

It's not in trouble with uBo, because I actually use both and only with ABP active Netflix is almost unusable.
mariusica77
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Nov 25, 2016 8:21 am

Anyone else still having performance issues on netflix.com?

Post by mariusica77 »

Although it's better then before turning off "Count hits" in 2.9.1, browsing any page on netflix.com is very, very slow and most times blocks the whole browser causing the "slow" message to appear.
I have to use Chrome just to be able to browse Netflix! And all for about 2 months now.
Reference: forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=52577

Anyone else?
I want to see if I should open another issue on https://issues.adblockplus.org or give up (on ABP or Mozilla)
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