reason for creation?

Everything about using Adblock Plus on Google Chrome
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fanboy
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reason for creation?

Post by fanboy »

Not to sound nasty, but what was the point of creating this forum? we've never offered support for chrome, then I see this forum.. not sure whats going on..
lewisje
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Re: reason for creation?

Post by lewisje »

fanboy wrote:Not to sound nasty, but what was the point of creating this forum? we've never offered support for chrome, then I see this forum.. not sure whats going on..
AdThwart is being taken over by Wladimir Palant after its creator got tired of maintaining it: http://qux.us/adthwart/
He shall christen it "Adblock Plus for Google Chrome": blog/adblock-plus-for-google-chrome-to-be-released-soon
I still prefer Gundlach's extension and won't switch unless and until Palant makes the case for it.
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Hubird
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Re: reason for creation?

Post by Hubird »

I've got a nasty feeling that this will inevitability lead to the development of the existing ABP suffering. Time that would have otherwise been spent on the Firefox version will be spent on the chrome version (and this can work both ways, meaning that neither version will get the attention is deserves / needs).
vasa1
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Re: reason for creation?

Post by vasa1 »

I'm quite happy to see that Chrome is being supported. I, as a simple user, look forward eagerly to the progress that will surely come.
tiik

Re: reason for creation?

Post by tiik »

as chrome gain 11% of users, adblock should aware this growing monster. I am here with chrome os cr48 :)

@hubrid
IMHO, if adp is able to extract its js core from xulrunner ui, it will be able to port to chrome, safari, opera, and mozilla jetpack.

they all use js and html as main UI, using few browser-specific api. Since chrome is getting popular, it is a good step leaving firefox.


before: firefox --> abp

after: abp(independent) --> firefox, chrome, .... all browsers!
Wladimir Palant

Re: reason for creation?

Post by Wladimir Palant »

@fanboy: I hope that now that we do offer an Adblock Plus for Chrome there will be newcomers to the community that actually use it (hopefully many of them). It's up to them to make this forum area helpful.

@Hubird: In the short term - yes, you are right, I'll have to spend time on Chrome that would otherwise be spent on Firefox. We clearly have a resources issue in the project here and neither the contribution of Tom Joseph (who has little time) nor reusing of the same code for Firefox and Chrome will solve it completely. The only real solution will be getting more developers to work on Adblock Plus. Given that we never got too many volunteer contributions, we are currently looking into hiring somebody who could take over some of the work.
lewisje
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Re: reason for creation?

Post by lewisje »

Another good idea may be asking Gundlach whether he's willing to join the party, he should be especially helpful in porting this extension into "Adblock Plus for Safari"; also tiik, it's not as simple as you think, like both Joseph and Gundlach used some of the codebase and yet came up with extensions very different from ABP, and Opera doesn't even have a sufficiently robust extension API!

In case anyone is wondering about Konqueror and IE, Konqueror has long had an ad-blocker built in that accepts ABP lists (but does not auto-update), while I just found another developer's extension for IE6 and above that uses EasyList and claims to block content (or so I've heard): http://simple-adblock.com/
You can also try some hackery involving InPrivate Filtering in IE8+ on Vista and later, making a filter list from EasyList without element-hiding rules: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpo ... stcount=51
...in XP, the method to make InPrivate Filtering lists auto-update doesn't work, so it's manual all the way.
Epidomis
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Re: reason for creation?

Post by Epidomis »

Hubird wrote:I've got a nasty feeling that this will inevitability lead to the development of the existing ABP suffering. Time that would have otherwise been spent on the Firefox version will be spent on the chrome version (and this can work both ways, meaning that neither version will get the attention is deserves / needs).
I never thought about it like that. I am getting mixed feelings now. Even though I do use Chrome with Firefox, I primarily use Firefox. So I am happy Chrome is finally getting a proper adblock under Mr. Palant's direction, but I worry about Firefox because I have been spoiled by how good Adlbock Plus is on Firefox never really taking into account the effort required to make and keep it so.
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Hubird
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Re: reason for creation?

Post by Hubird »

Wladimir Palant wrote:@fanboy: I hope that now that we do offer an Adblock Plus for Chrome there will be newcomers to the community that actually use it (hopefully many of them). It's up to them to make this forum area helpful.
What led to the change of heart ? You said in no uncertain terms, on more than one occasion the you did not want to port it to non Gecko based browsers. It seems like a strange decision to spend effort creating an ad blocker for a browser that requires (what sounds to me like) dirty hacks to get things to work. :?
Wladimir Palant

Re: reason for creation?

Post by Wladimir Palant »

lewisje wrote:Another good idea may be asking Gundlach whether he's willing to join the party
And why do you think that we haven't done that? :)
We actually started talking to Michael Gundlach quite a while ago. However, I'm still unsure whether we will be able to work out conditions for this cooperations that both sides can agree on.
Hubird wrote:It seems like a strange decision to spend effort creating an ad blocker for a browser that requires (what sounds to me like) dirty hacks to get things to work. :?
I guess I've done a bad job explaining this in my blog. Yes, this is the difference between running a hobby project and running a project that needs to achieve a goal. As I said there we need "to bring Adblock Plus into a position where it can influence the web as a whole". We've noticed very clearly that "we have a pretty good market share among Firefox users" isn't a good position if we want to be taken seriously. It also severely limits our options as far as potential partners go. We looked into "joining forces" with other ad blocking projects but this doesn't look very realistic or requires much effort from our side without any guarantee that this effort will ever pay off. So taking over AdThwart is actually the simplest way to become relevant as far as Chrome and Safari users go. And it requires relatively little effort because by now Chrome and Safari evolved to the point where creating a usable ad blocker is possible, and we can also reuse large portions of Adblock Plus/Firefox code (much of the development work will benefit both Firefox and Chrome).

Things look much worse for Internet Explorer of course. It doesn't have anything resembling a decent extension API and its JavaScript engine is really ancient. Maybe IE9 will at least improve the JavaScript engine (not sure about that, anybody who has it installed please type "javascript:alert(Date.now())" into the location bar) but it will take years until old Internet Explorer versions become irrelevant. So it isn't a priority for us right now even though I have an idea that should allow creating viable Internet Explorer support.
IceDogg
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Re: reason for creation?

Post by IceDogg »

Please forgive if this seems outta line and not very understanding of how you are going to do this and the future here, but what about a separate app like admuncher has done? I'm just wondering why that wouldn't be considered or possible. And I sure hope mentioning that app isn't offensive, I'm just wondering about that direction.
tiik

Re: reason for creation?

Post by tiik »

@lewisje
recently, all browsers start to work on plugins, what mozilla has been working on for a while. Unlike xulrunner-powered plugin for firefox, the rest of browsers rely on html5, js, css, and some api to link them together.

opera11(first release version with plugin. dont criticize its limited api.)
chrome and safari(use similar api) chrome has been working on plugin for 3 or 4 versions, and some apis start to make adblocking feature available. safari doc even teaches you how to make an adblocker!

i think chrome adblocker needs lots of crappy hacks because adp filter is based on(written, optimized for) xulrunner, using features such like $xml-request, $obj-subrequest. I doubt that any other browsers will support moz-only features in the future. so, if adblock is planning to support more browsers, a redesigned filter is needed.
Wladimir Palant

Re: reason for creation?

Post by Wladimir Palant »

@IceDogg: Writing this app is being considered. However, it is only an option for browsers that don't have a proper extension API (Internet Explorer, Opera), for other browsers an extension can provide significantly better user experience.
IceDogg
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Re: reason for creation?

Post by IceDogg »

@Wladimir Palant, Yes I understand that, and I was thinking that way as well. Nice to hear. Great news if you ask me. Firefox with ABP EXTENSION (Add-on now) will always be my way unless Firefox falls completely apart, but I don't foresee that. But I have some friends that just won't change away from IE. No matter how destructive it is.
lewisje
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Re: reason for creation?

Post by lewisje »

tiik, the word is "extensions"; plugins are handlers for media types not handled natively by the browser, like Flash, Java, Shockwave, and a PDF plugin (notably, some plugins can be delivered via extensions...)

Also, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and Jetpack for Firefox do not constitute "all browsers"; I don't see IE moving in that direction, its extensions (BHOs) still require a lot of C++ and a lot of hardship...but then again at least since version 8 it has had its own internal content-blocker and it is possible to transform the EasyList (minus element-hiding rules) to work with it. Also I don't remember hearing about extensions for Konqueror at all, but that's much more minor than even Opera.
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