
An update on uBlock - mattbit
https://www.ublock.org/announcement/
======
newscracker
Anyone who wants a low overhead and trusted ad blocker should use uBlock
Origin. The developer even refuses to take any donations (for some good
reasons).

For those who want a lot more control and a content blocker, uMatrix would
help.

Anything named as “Adblock” or “Adblock Plus” or similar is just a way for
advertisers to decide what ads users see and don’t see, depending on how much
they’re willing to pay and be held hostage to such extensions.

~~~
IntelMiner
+1 to uBlock Origin

Amusingly, trying to load the uBlock website was initially blocked by uBlock
Origin!

~~~
tmikaeld
Still blocked for me

~~~
detaro
I guess the parent meant "until I confirmed I want to look at the page".
There's no reason for uBlock origin to remove the block.

------
rlabrecque
[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-is-
comp...](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-is-completely-
unrelated-to-the-web-site-ublock.org)

~~~
AH4oFVbPT4f8
Why doesn't ublock origin change its name to something else to avoid this
confusion?

~~~
hk__2
uBlock Origin shouldn’t change its name just because someone made a scammy
website off its name. The issue is the website, not uBlock Origin.

~~~
ripdog
That's not what happened. uBlock Origin was originally (heh) uBlock. Gorhill,
the developer, got sick of endless hordes of people posting github issues
about unblocked ads (an issue which should be directed at blocklist
maintainers), so he gave the uBlock project away to some teenager.

It turned out that the kid didn't have the skills to continue the project. He
basically ported the addon to Safari and put a donation beg message up on the
website. Gorhill soon returned to the project, but was unable to get the
rights to it back, so forked it as uBlock Origin. IIRC this was in 2015 or so.
Ever since, Origin has been the only adblocker worth using.

~~~
hk__2
> He basically ported the addon to Safari and put a donation beg message up on
> the website.

No, he _created_ the website. That’s why I wrote “scammy website”. The domain
name was registrated on April 18, 2015 [1]. The homepage has since changed,
but at that time, it was begging for donations [2]. It had a donorbox campain,
since taken down, that asked for ridiculous amounts such as "$25: Covers
hosting the uBlock website for one week".

[1]: [http://www.whois-raynette.fr/whois/ublock.org](http://www.whois-
raynette.fr/whois/ublock.org)

[2]:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150601002655/https://www.ubloc...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150601002655/https://www.ublock.org/)

[3]:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150601002729/https://donorbox....](https://web.archive.org/web/20150601002729/https://donorbox.org/ublock)

------
michaelhoffman
I'm using uBlock Origin and get

    
    
        uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading:
        
        https://www.ublock.org/announcement/
        
        Because of the following filter
        
        ||ublock.org^$document
        Found in: uBlock filters – Badware risks

~~~
Frenchgeek
Confirmed. I non longer use uBlock Origin.

~~~
deskamess
Isn't ublock origin the 'good one'?

~~~
hendersoon
Yes, that is correct.

------
ad1ttya
From Ublock Origin's
github([https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock)):
uBlock Origin is (and has always been) COMPLETELY UNRELATED to the web site
ublock.org.

edit: and here is a commit blocking the site ublock.org -
[https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/commit/82067d1ef3370...](https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/commit/82067d1ef33702fd1abd12fd31a0336bac28c41d)

------
echelon
There appears to be so much confusion in this thread about whether or not this
involves the open source uBlock Origin. uBlock Origin should seriously
consider rebranding to distance itself from the commercial uBlock.

------
subway
Heh:

uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading:

[https://www.ublock.org/announcement/](https://www.ublock.org/announcement/)

Because of the following filter

||ublock.org^$document

------
mattbit
It seems like they are just trying to steal the name of uBlock. AdBlock CEO
says they “do love the name” [0] and are "investing heavily" into the product,
but the commits in the repo [1] are just cosmetic changes and rebranding.
Oddly enough, the only active committer is anonymous.

I wonder if this will cause legal troubles to the true uBlock Origin.

[0]:
[https://twitter.com/judemaier/status/1020034358558670848](https://twitter.com/judemaier/status/1020034358558670848)
[1]: [https://github.com/uBlock-
LLC/uBlock/commits/master](https://github.com/uBlock-
LLC/uBlock/commits/master)

------
trash_panda
A good solution I've found for ad blocking is using the following hosts file:

[https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts)

Which sinkholes every known ad/malicious domain. It's been pretty useful, and
it hasn't broken nothing important yet.

~~~
__s
I've been using
[http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm](http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm)
anyone know how they compare?

(reading github description, seems it includes this as a source, but also
others)

~~~
trash_panda
A quick line count shows that the file from your link has 14354 entries, while
the one on the github repo has 65357.

~~~
dghughes
My brain read that as 65537.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Well, people like nice, round numbers:)

------
eric24234
Was a user of "Adblock plus". They partnered with ad agencies and started to
whitelist ads. That defeted the whole purpose and also it became clear the for
profit organizations can not fight against the ad agencies as they have to
partner if they want to make profit.

Ublock origin is so much awesome.Its free software and also very easy to use
and its actually much more than adblocker.

------
hk__2
> If you’ve noticed recent updates to the product, that’s because uBlock has
> been acquired by the team responsible for AdBlock. We will be investing
> heavily into uBlock to help it deliver on the promise of being one of the
> best ad blockers available.

Why would they invest "heavily into uBlock" instead of improving AdBlock? It
doesn’t make sense to maintain two different ad blockers.

~~~
timbit42
Because they are more interested in profits and more subscribers than blocking
ads. Also, Adblock is more memory and CPU intensive, so perhaps they are
looking to fix those issues in Adblock.

------
propogandist
a crowd-fundraising round to help uBlock's actual founder may help him fend
off competition from AdBlock, using his own (uBlock) brand name

------
Tiki
Self-hosted DNS solution with an easy setup and a nice web GUI to manage it.

[https://pi-hole.net/](https://pi-hole.net/)

[https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole](https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole)

~~~
tw04
Pi-hole has made some pretty poor blocking choices in the past, so use at your
own risk.

For instance, they randomly decided to block *.microsoft.com - you can imagine
the chaos that caused.

~~~
driverdan
Only chaos if you run Windows. I wouldn't even notice if it was blocked.

~~~
gruez
>Only chaos if you run Windows

so breaking 80+% (being a bit conservative here) of people's computers is
okay?

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
The relevant question is whether it's 80% of people who are using pihole; that
number is probably still pretty high, but lower than the average population I
expect.

------
squarefoot
I think this Soylent News article summarizes the situation pretty well.

[https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/05/17/028245](https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/05/17/028245)

tl;dr: the real one is Ublock Origin, get it here:
[https://github.com/gorhill/ublock](https://github.com/gorhill/ublock)

From the same author I would also suggest uMatrix, sort of a NoScript on
steroids which allows a much finer filtering literally ripping pages of a
great deal of their junk more selectively, but be aware that it requires
"training" (telling it this can be loaded, that cannot) which for some non
technical people could be annoying.

~~~
nasredin
Nope.

Ublock & umatrix still don't block autoplaying videos. You should still use
NoScript.

IMHO if you push small cosmetic changes in the UI in every update, like
Gorhill does, there's a problem.

He has a poor attitide IMHO.

~~~
makecheck
So you’re saying that someone investing tons of free time in software that
greatly benefits countless people, and then gives it away for free, has
problems because of a minor update you don’t like and have absolutely zero
right to complain about?

------
se7entime
Found in: uBlock filters – Badware risks

By uBlock Origin

~~~
mosselman
I know what you mean because I have gotten te same screen, but if I hadn't I
would have no idea what you mean by your comment. If it is your intention to
be understood, try to add some context and full sentences.

------
myf01d
Wasn't this the same asshole who hijacked gorhill's work 4 years ago and even
asked for money for others' work? now he sold others' work? what a scumbag!

~~~
visualphoenix
Yup

------
visualphoenix
deleted

~~~
maxerickson
Your phrasing is a bit awkward. Just to avoid confusion, Raymond Hill is the
original developer, some other fellow took over the uBlock project.

~~~
gruez
chris aljoudi, to be exact. he's also the author of the Purify adblocker on
iOS.

------
3ds
Time for a new fork!

~~~
ripdog
There's no need for a new fork. uBlock Origin is the good adblocker, and it is
not related to this announcement. It's still as fantastic as ever, and has not
changed hands.

------
wallabie
Cue the YouTube video of Michael Scott saying "No God, please no. Noooo!"

uBlock was the AdBlock when AdBlock sold out. Now who will be the uBlock now
that uBlock has sold out? And this is separate to uBlock Origin, right?

~~~
daxterspeed
uBlock Origin is _the_ uBlock.

A few years ago, back when uBlock Origin was just uBlock, gorhill (it's sole
developer at the time) entrusted the uBlock development to what was supposed
to be a community effort. Instead a single developer took over and essentially
did nothing with the extension except place donation links to himself in the
extension and on the website.

It didn't take long until gorhill himself noticed and decided to pick
development back up - under the new name of uBlock Origin. To this date uBlock
has barely seen any development while uBlock Origin is actively maintained.

You can find gorhill's reaction on Twitter
[https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1019975271443771392](https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1019975271443771392)

