[Ext] Adblock Plus 0.5.11.4

[edbro]

Yeah, "cult following" is definitely an exaggeration but I think you get my point. FF will never get the market share it deserves because of this. I have no problem with it but it isn't something I could recommend to my elderly parents if they needed extensions.

[********]

Surely all you guys can put your heads together and agree a better working relationship than this? Do we really need three Adblock variants? Is it going to take one almighty Adblock variant to crush the others, or can you figure out how to collaborate on one version and get something good released?

As I see it now, we have:

1. The official Adblock - it's dating a bit, but development is continuing towards a new release. I don't know any details about what's coming.

2. Adblock Plus 0.5 - it's been holding the torch for a while. Same as Adblock minus some issues, plus some features. This is still my preference.

3. Adblock Plus 0.6 - a good effort at doing something different, but it's no better than Adblock or Adblock Plus 0.5 in terms of interface, so I'm not sure what it's trying to accomplish. If the back-end code is cleaner, that's great... but I could take or leave the UI.

...

I think I'm done, hopefully this is interpreted as constructive...

I totally agree with you, Cusser.

The irony is that, with Wladimir's "Adblock Plus 0.6", you wish came true.
Behold the first comment to this thread:

Whitelisting! You just made my day. I'm guessing this stuff will go into 0.6 official, right? If so, fantastic.

Anyways, i think it would be great if mcm_ham and trev2 (wladimir) could collborate to create the ultimate Adblock which equals Adblock Plus 0.5.11.2 combined with wladimir's Adblock sidebar once it's polished and combined with Wladimir's code un-bloatifying and cleaning and fixing, etc.

(and i think the Adblock++ 0.5.11.2 would be a good name change, if this craziness doesn't end)

[scatterbrain]

my brain hurts

[Thumper]

This is ridiculous.

It's crap like this that keeps Firefox in the "cult following" regime. Most people complain about extensions during upgrades and keeping the extensions themselves updated. This mess is a poster child for that whole argument.

Armchair punditry like this wasn't even intelligent commentary in 2002 when Phoenix 1.0 was released. I can only assume that it's just incredibly compelling to make such comments now and then regardless of how many normal people use Firefox.

Long live Adblock Plus 0.5.11.2 (from mcm_ham)

Mature.

Wladimir tried to hijack the official Adblock project, demanding exclusive mozdev+AMO access -- or else he would "fork". After discussion with various people on our team, and at mozilla.org, it was decided to let him go. Really, he had only contributed to the project for a 2-month span, back in 2003.

I'm glad you did that, or official Adblock development wouldn't have been so tremendously rapid since 2003.

As for the development: I quite like div blocking but I can live without it if it's a hack, so if the code is cleaner for its removal then I'd be happy to switch to the "unofficial" (christ) Plus so long as filterset updating and whitelisting work. I'm more interested in a UI rewrite which would make the thing more bearable to work with, to be honest.

- Chris

[paulfox]

This is ridiculous.

I'm glad you did that, or official Adblock development wouldn't have been so tremendously rapid since 2003.

As for the development: I quite like div blocking but I can live without it if it's a hack, so if the code is cleaner for its removal then I'd be happy to switch to the "unofficial" (christ) Plus so long as filterset updating and whitelisting work. I'm more interested in a UI rewrite which would make the thing more bearable to work with, to be honest.

- Chris

RIGHT! Dead on. It is ridiculous, and ridicule filled, since I don't think many have even TRIED the new one, which is fast, efficient, 1/3 the size and BLOCKS ADS. That's kinda the idea of AdBlock. It's no secret I think the sun shines out of mcm - but this fellow has made a 26k extension (vs 75-155k) , which unfolds into a 160k folder (vs 400-800k) that does the job, has editable filters, a mouse gesture for on/off and more improvements coming as soon as 12-24 HOURS from now. There are more developments coming, and good ones. In the meantime running AdBlock has returned to a "background" process as opposed to almost having a 2nd browser running. It's invisible and I can't make it foul up.

This is simple progress - on top of mcm's making AB possible for 1.5 AT ALL, this is a new "fork" that I tried yesterday and stuck with and enjoy a LOT. It's GOOD, folks. This talk of "cult following" is silly -- as far as I'm concerned the "cult" controlled an outdated, non upgraded and problematic extension that's now been freed of wasteful code crap and bloat and just WORKS. The choice to be made is either mcm's 0.5.11.2 (or later, if he develops it further & hopefully he will) for DIV stuff and a great interface, or a bare bones efficient remake which I've chosen.

Badmouthing a leaner version of something, especially without having seen the benefits of it, are silly. The DIV thing may well come as a SEPARATE extension later - use mcm's in the mantime if you need it. I never cared for the slowness or problems it brought and don't and won't miss it. This 0.6 blocks ads - but the changelog cites many improvements (and cutting of bloat):
http://adblockplus.mozdev.org/changelog-0.6.html
http://adblockplus.mozdev.org/changelog-0.6.0.1.html

[XerBlade]

I don't really understand what's going on with Adblock and Adblock Plus, it makes no sense at all. Adblock has some great developers but seems to never actually get released, hence the reason for Adblock Plus to exist. So far, Adblock Plus has been an enhancement of Adblock, adding some features and whatnot. Now it seems that it's turning into a different (but not better) extension.

Surely all you guys can put your heads together and agree a better working relationship than this? Do we really need three Adblock variants? Is it going to take one almighty Adblock variant to crush the others, or can you figure out how to collaborate on one version and get something good released?

As I see it now, we have:

1. The official Adblock - it's dating a bit, but development is continuing towards a new release. I don't know any details about what's coming.

2. Adblock Plus 0.5 - it's been holding the torch for a while. Same as Adblock minus some issues, plus some features. This is still my preference.

3. Adblock Plus 0.6 - a good effort at doing something different, but it's no better than Adblock or Adblock Plus 0.5 in terms of interface, so I'm not sure what it's trying to accomplish. If the back-end code is cleaner, that's great... but I could take or leave the UI.

I don't like to raise criticisms too often, but I don't really think that any Adblock variant has good UI. It'd be a lot better if the key developers (even if they're maintaining their separate forks) got together and discussed user requirements. Things I can think of that come immediately to mind as being difficult with Adblock are:

1. Toggling Adblock on/off. Sometimes Adblock can trash a page (due to filters) and I just don't want to spend time fixing my filters at that point. I want to quickly disable it and view the page. There's a status-bar item, why no popup menu?

2. Unblocking. In Adblock / Adblock Plus 0.5, clicking the status-bar item launches the "Adblock-able Items" dialog. Why can't we also unblock from this? If you have 100 lines of filters, it's non-trivial to go back and remove something you added by mistake or that is screwing up the current page layout.

3. Filter search. If you have 100 lines of filters and want to change one, it's non-trivial to locate the correct filter.

While I'm at it, it'd be lovely if the filters weren't stored in the prefs. Using XML would make so much less of a mess of prefs.js.

I think I'm done, hopefully this is interpreted as constructive...

Here's an idea on 2.... As well as listing blockable items, list items that are being blocked, along with which filter is blocking it, and give the option to either remove that filter or to whitelist that item.
I never make my suggestions easy lately, apparently.

This is ridiculous.

I'm glad you did that, or official Adblock development wouldn't have been so tremendously rapid since 2003.

As for the development: I quite like div blocking but I can live without it if it's a hack, so if the code is cleaner for its removal then I'd be happy to switch to the "unofficial" (christ) Plus so long as filterset updating and whitelisting work. I'm more interested in a UI rewrite which would make the thing more bearable to work with, to be honest.

- Chris

RIGHT! Dead on. It is ridiculous, and ridicule filled, since I don't think many have even TRIED the new one, which is fast, efficient, 1/3 the size and BLOCKS ADS. That's kinda the idea of AdBlock. It's no secret I think the sun shines out of mcm - but this fellow has made a 26k extension (vs 75-155k) , which unfolds into a 160k folder (vs 400-800k) that does the job, has editable filters, a mouse gesture for on/off and more improvements coming as soon as 12-24 HOURS from now. There are more developments coming, and good ones. In the meantime running AdBlock has returned to a "background" process as opposed to almost having a 2nd browser running. It's invisible and I can't make it foul up.

This is simple progress - on top of mcm's making AB possible for 1.5 AT ALL, this is a new "fork" that I tried yesterday and stuck with and enjoy a LOT. It's GOOD, folks. This talk of "cult following" is silly -- as far as I'm concerned the "cult" controlled an outdated, non upgraded and problematic extension that's now been freed of wasteful code crap and bloat and just WORKS. The choice to be made is either mcm's 0.5.11.2 (or later, if he develops it further & hopefully he will) for DIV stuff and a great interface, or a bare bones efficient remake which I've chosen.

Badmouthing a leaner version of something, especially without having seen the benefits of it, are silly. The DIV thing may well come as a SEPARATE extension later - use mcm's in the mantime if you need it. I never cared for the slowness or problems it brought and don't and won't miss it. This 0.6 blocks ads - but the changelog cites many improvements (and cutting of bloat):
http://adblockplus.mozdev.org/changelog-0.6.html
http://adblockplus.mozdev.org/changelog-0.6.0.1.html

I tried and tested it as fully as I do any extensions, and I still, for now (I never really said any one of them was perfect, I just go where my needs go), prefer MCM's last build. It contains a couple of features which neither the official Adblock nor AP 0.6 contains, which fixes a real annoyance to me (oh, and, by the way, I have gotten the Filterset.G Updater to work with Adblock Plus 0.6, as much good as that does, considering you could always just do what we all did before that extension and update it manually, but anyway, a lot of these people apparently didn't try very hard, at all). I do, however, think 0.6's "Adblock Plus" a misnomer. It isn't exactly "Plus" so much as different at this point. A plus would be if you took the original and added stuff to it (like the one here). A total rewrite, IMO, should have a different name from Plus. There are plenty of extensions out there that are rewrites of each other's functionality which have different names rather than naming themselves a Plus version of the other.
P.S. To you personally: You should really read the posts you are semi-flaming for some reason. The "cult following" comment was not directly related to this "argument" actually, and it was not supposed to be a "cult following" of MCM's 0.5 versions.

[ourasi]

I have tested this "Plus" (stupid name) version now one day.

"Enabling/disabling Adblock with a drag gesture on the status bar"

How this gesture works? I cannot find any information about that. I have tested this tens of times, with no luck.

Mozilla/5.0 (Win; U; Win NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1 - Build ID: 2006011112

[paulfox]

ourasi: Easily done, tested it for Wladimir yesterday:

1. Hover your mouse over the AdBlock 0.6 button in Status Bar,
2. Press and hold left click button, while suspended over the AdBlock button.
3. Move slightly to the left about 1/4 of an inch. AB will be disabled.
4. Move it again, same way, to re-enable.

This does not conflict with AllInOne Gestures by the way.

[paulfox]

I just go where my needs go, prefer MCM's last build. . . .

Exactly, XerBlade. If someone comes out with a 20k version tomorrow, I'll probably try it. It's as simple as personal choice, no matter how many versions.

Point well taken on the "cult" thing.

It's crap like this that keeps Firefox in the "cult following" regime. Most people complain about extensions during upgrades and keeping the extensions themselves updated. This mess is a poster child for that whole argument.

You could interpret that in several ways. What "crap/mess/poster child or argument?" Personally, I was as suspicious (see earlier posts this thread) on "who's Wladimir," and but it IS a good extension and after months and months of NON development (mcm notwithstanding) , AdBlock is going somewhere now, and folks can pick which version they like. There's nothing "cult" about it -- pick one you like (as you did), install and have fun. It shouldn't have been mentioned in the first place, nor mentioned again by me. Thanks; I'll read them closer before "going off" but my term "badmouthing" referred to people giving an extension ONE DAY old blistering criticism on its mozilla page. I'd rather be discussing merits and benefits of AdBlock than any sidetracking issues anyway.

The FiltersetG Update concern is a frustrating non-event to me; first of all it hasn't been updated in nearly 6 weeks, you can download the text file and install it( as you mentioned), I and many others don't use it, and the Updater "function" of 0.6 is being worked on. I'm glad you got it to work with 0.6 - you could help others who are listing that as a major "obstacle." Cheers.

[foghorn]

It is ridiculous, and ridicule filled, since I don't think many have even TRIED the new one, which is fast, efficient, 1/3 the size and BLOCKS ADS.

I have tested it two days and 1/3 is true, many features are missing.
So is File size so important, if you lose good features like: Overlay Flash, Site Blocking, DIV blocking, Quickblock (useful before taking screenshots), many useful key-shortcuts, Adblock status bar context-menu.
And "List all blockable-elements" -page is now Sidebar and harder to use, (think long URL's), another and only window we now have has dropdown list, not very good also.

Old "List all blockable-elements" -page was so much better, and new Official Adblock has improved that little bit, (blocked item's has edit-button that goes to filter list).
But i'am going to use Mcm:s Adblock Plus, if it's soon gone, then Official Adblock, it also has everything else i need, except DIV blocking.

[paulfox]

Good. You've made a choice too, same as XerBlade and I'm sure others - mcm's is for you! I hope mcm weighs in soon, and continues to develop HIS version. However, for all the reasons you cite, and functions you list as "missing," -- that's why I prefer the newer one. The List all blockable elements portion is being worked on and improved (I too liked mcm's window) and the DIV issue will possibly be addressed as a separate extension.

Unfortunately Wladimir sees no merit in site blocking or Quickblock, and as a mere user, I agree with him. You DO see the merit - which is why 0.5.11.2 hopefully will be maintained by mcm upon his return.

[tonymec]

I don't know about Europe and cult one way or another (though I live in Europe myself). I use Firefox because it's the browser I like best, notwithstanding its many failings; other people's mileage may vary. If someone prefers Internet Explorer, Opera, Konqueror or even Lynx, so much the better for him (or her, as the case may be), I'm not going to think any worse (or better) of them for having made such a choice.

I can testify that "Adblock Plus 0.5.11.2" (as it calls itself) is not (at the moment) saying that a version 0.6 is available when I click "Check for updates" in the Extensions window. From what I read above, I suppose that that's the right thing to do (or rather, not to), since Wladimir's build is a "different" animal (which may, I suppose, be called "better" or "worse" according to the proverbial "eyes of the beholder", and I'm intentionally not taking part in any controversy in that matter).

[********]

Unfortunately Wladimir sees no merit in site blocking or Quickblock, and as a mere user, I agree with him. You DO see the merit - which is why 0.5.11.2 hopefully will be maintained by mcm upon his return.

yep. choice, choice, choice. this isn't a war.
choice is supposed to be good for users.
though there is one thing i would like:
maybe wladimir could help mcm_ham to make adblock plus 0.5.11.2's code cleaner and more efficient without a loss of features.

[ThufirHawat]

I can testify that "Adblock Plus 0.5.11.2" (as it calls itself) is not (at the moment) saying that a version 0.6 is available when I click "Check for updates" in the Extensions window. From what I read above, I suppose that that's the right thing to do (or rather, not to), since Wladimir's build is a "different" animal (which may, I suppose, be called "better" or "worse" according to the proverbial "eyes of the beholder", and I'm intentionally not taking part in any controversy in that matter).

I confirm what Tony says.
After this spectacular fiasco I trust by now we understand why Linus Torvalds sits very tight on the kernel and does not let anybody touch it, unless he has vetted it.
Let us not begin now the useless discussion on "I like that best because …".
We all have made a choice by now.

[paulfox]

yep. choice, choice, choice. this isn't a war.
choice is supposed to be good for users. though there is one thing i would like:
maybe wladimir could help mcm_ham to make adblock plus 0.5.11.2's code cleaner and more efficient without a loss of features.

Yes. You mentioned that earlier and it would be great. This extension came out yesterday. How many months did AdBlock go untouched?
If it weren't for mcm things would have been awful, and HE has apparently released this to Wladimir. Still hoping to run mcm for Governor and it is my extreme fondness for him that is the only reason I would stick with 0.5.11.2. Otherwise I think 0.6 is hands down better, and for the first time makes "AdBlocking" a background low resource process. How many posts have we seen on here by people saying they won't use AdBlock because it slows things down? Not any more!

As for tonymec's observation, the auto update to 0.6 wouldn't work anyway. The install folder is different, 0.6 requires an uninstall of previous versions, and you would double the filterlist in prefs along with a couple of other remnant entries that wouldn't go away. This is why Cusser's suggestion of filters not being kept in prefs is brilliant. MenuEdit doesn't do it - changes are kept in menuedit.rdf in your profile folder. Same with RIP - config file in your RIP extension folder, under "store."