The procedural cosmetic filtering code has been split from
the content script code injected unconditionally and will
from now on be injected only when it is needed, i.e. when
there are procedural cosmetic filters to enforce.
The motivation for this is:
https://www.debugbear.com/blog/2020-chrome-extension-performance-report#what-can-extension-developers-do-to-keep-their-extensions-fast
Though uBO's content script injected unconditionally in all
pages/frames is relatively small, I still wanted to further
reduce the amount of content script code injected
unconditionally: The procedural cosmetic filtering code
represents roughly 14KB of code the browser won't have to
parse/execute unconditionally unless there exists procedural
cosmetic filters to enforce for a page or frame.
At the time the above article was published, the total
size of unconditional content scripts injected by uBO was
~101 KB, while after this commit, the total size will be
~57 KB (keeping in mind uBO does not minify and does not
remove comments from its JavaScript code).
Additionally, some refactoring on how user stylesheets are
injected so as to ensure that `:style`-based procedural
filters which are essentially declarative are injected
earlier along with plain, non-procedural cosmetic filters.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/210
Additionally, a small (experimental) widget has been added
to emphasize/de-emphasize rows which have 3rd-party
scripts/frames, so as to more easily identify which rows
are "affected" by 3rd-party scripts and/or frames.
Tooltip localization for the new widget is not available
yet as I want wait for the feature to be fully settled.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1480
Forward compatiblity was broken due to `externalLists`
being converted into an Array from a string, i.e.
downgrading to uBO 1.32.4 was completely breaking uBO.
This commit restores `externalLists` as a string which
is what older versions of uBO expect.
A new property `importedLists` has been created to
hold the imported lists as an array, while
`externalLists` will be kept around for a while until
it is completely removed in some future.
The managed `userSettings` entry is an array of entries,
where each entry is a name/value pair encoded into an array
of strings.
The first item in the entry array is the name of a setting,
and the second item is the stringified value for the
setting.
This is a more convenient way for administrators to set
specific user settings. The settings set through
`userSettings` policy will always be set at uBO launch
time.
Content scripts can't properly look up effective context
for sandboxed frames. This commit add ability to extract
effective context from already existing store of frames
used for each tab.
The entry `toOverwrite.filterLists` is an array of
string, where each string is a token identifying a
stock filter list, or a URL for an external filter
list.
This new entry is to make it easier for an
administrator to centrally configure uBO with a
custom set of filter lists.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/1744
A new context menu entry, "Block element in frame...", will
be present when right-clicking on a frame element. When
this entry is clicked, uBO's element picker will be
launched from within the embedded frame and function the
same way as when launched from within the page.
The auto-complete feature in the _"My filters"_ pane will
use hostname/domain from the set of opened tabs to assist
in entering values for `domain=` option. This also works
for the implict `domain=` option ṗrepending static extended
filters.
Notably, make `queryprune` option available only
to filter list authors, until there are guards
against bad filters in some future and until the
option syntax and behavior is fully settled.
Instances of `queryprune` in filter lists will be
compiled, however instances of `queryprune` in
_"My filters"_ will be ignored unless users
indicated they are a filter list author.
Reported internally by @gwarser.
In rare occasion, a timing issue could cause uBO to redirect
to a web accessible resource meant to be used for another
network request. This is a regression introduced with the
following commit:
- 2e5d32e967
Additionally, I identified another issue which would cause
cached redirection to fail when a cache entry with redirection
to a web accessible resource was being reused, an issue which
could especially affect pages which are generated dynamically
(i.e. without full page reload).
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/760
The purpose of this new network filter option is to remove
query parameters form the URL of network requests.
The name `queryprune` has been picked over `querystrip`
since the purpose of the option is to remove some
parameters from the URL rather than all parameters.
`queryprune` is a modifier option (like `csp`) in that it
does not cause a network request to be blocked but rather
modified before being emitted.
`queryprune` must be assigned a value, which value will
determine which parameters from a query string will be
removed. The syntax for the value is that of regular
expression *except* for the following rules:
- do not wrap the regex directive between `/`
- do not use regex special values `^` and `$`
- do not use literal comma character in the value,
though you can use hex-encoded version, `\x2c`
- to match the start of a query parameter, prepend `|`
- to match the end of a query parameter, append `|`
`queryprune` regex-like values will be tested against each
key-value parameter pair as `[key]=[value]` string. This
way you can prune according to either the key, the value,
or both.
This commit introduces the concept of modifier filter
options, which as of now are:
- `csp=`
- `queryprune=`
They both work in similar way when used with `important`
option or when used in exception filters. Modifier
options can apply to any network requests, hence the
logger reports the type of the network requests, and no
longer use the modifier as the type, i.e. `csp` filters
are no longer reported as requests of type `csp`.
Though modifier options can apply to any network requests,
for the time being the `csp=` modifier option still apply
only to top or embedded (frame) documents, just as before.
In some future we may want to apply `csp=` directives to
network requests of type script, to control the behavior
of service workers for example.
A new built-in filter expression has been added to the
logger: "modified", which allow to see all the network
requests which were modified before being emitted. The
translation work for this new option will be available
in a future commit.
Additionally, add a button in the About pane
to launch benchmark sessions. The button will
be available only when advanced setting
`benchmarkDatasetURL` is set and pointing to
a valid dataset.
Related issues:
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/1390
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/2334
The deadline to interactively load a specific media
element has been extended from 2sec to 5sec.
Clicking over a blocked large media element will cause
uBO to lookup and handle all potentially blocked large
elements at the cursor position. This should take care
of being able to unblock media elements hidden under
other DOM object.
The CSS style applied to blocked large media elements
has been fine tuned to improve interactivity.
uBO will now remember the specific media elements which
were unblocked and keep them exempted from being
further blocked. This would be an issue when unblocking
a video and then a bit later seeking to another point
in the video, in which case uBO would again block
network requests for that video.
Additionally, as a requirement to support click-to-load
feature, redirected resources will from now on no
longer be collapsed.
Related issues:
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/2688
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/3619
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/1899
This new feature should considered in its draft
stage and it needs to be fine-tuned as per
feedback.
Important: Only embedded frames can be converted
into click-to-load widgets, as only these can be
properly shieded from access by page content.
Examples of usage:
||youtube.com/embed/$3p,frame,redirect=clicktoload
||scribd.com/embeds/$3p,frame,redirect=clicktoload
||player.vimeo.com/video/$3p,frame,redirect=clicktoload
Related feedback:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/401#issuecomment-703075797
Name: `uiTheme`
Default: `unset`
Values:
- `unset`: uBO will pick the theme according to
browser's `prefers-color-scheme`
- `light`: force light scheme
- `dark`: force dark theme
This advanced setting is not to be documented yet as
it has not been decided this is a long term solution.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/763
Changes:
From now on, uBO will allow click-to-subscribe on only
a few select domains, currently:
- https://filterlists.com/
- https://github.com/
- https://github.io/
More domains can be added if and only the demonstration
is made that more than a marginal number of filter lists
can be subscribed from those domains.
The browser alert box is no longer used to confirm
subscription to a filter list. Instead, the asset
viewer has been expanded to serve that purpose. This
way, users can peruse at the content of a filter list
before subscribing to it.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1226
Related commit:
- 9eb455ab5e
In the previous commit, the element picker dialog was
isolated from the page content. This commit is to also
isolate the svg layers from the page content.
With this commit, there is no longer a need for an anonymous
iframe and the isolated world iframe is now directly
embedded in the page.
As a result, pages are now unable to interfere with any
of the element picker user interface. Pages can now only
see an iframe, but are unable to see the content of that
iframe. The styles applied to the iframe are from a user
stylesheet, so as to ensure pages can't override the
iframe's style properties set by uBO.
Cloud storage is a limited resource, and thus it
makes sense to support data compression before
sending the data to cloud storage.
A new hidden setting allows to toggle on
cloud storage compression:
name: cloudStorageCompression
default: false
By default, this hidden setting is `false`, and a
user must set it to `true` to enable compression
of cloud storage items.
This hidden setting will eventually be toggled
to `true` by default, when there is good confidence
a majority of users are using a version of uBO
which can properly handle compressed cloud storage
items.
A cursory assessment shows that compressed items
are roughly 40-50% smaller in size.
Auto-completion will work only for uBO's own
tokens, compatibility-related tokens[1] will not be
taken into account for auto-completion.
The reason is to not have the compatibility-related
tokens get in the way of auto-completion in order
to not inconvenience uBO's filter list maintainers.
[1] `adguard_ext_chromium`, `adguard_ext_firefox`,
etc.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1134
Invalid values for `!#if ...` will be highlighted as errors.
Auto completion is now supported for both the directives
themselves and the valid values for `!#if ...`.
For examples, when pressing ctrl-space:
- `!#e` will auto-complete to `!#endif`
- `!#i` will offer to choose between `!#if ` or `!#include `
- `!#if fir` will auto-complete to `!#if env_firefox`
Additionally, support for some of AdGuard preparsing
directives, i.e. `!#if adguard` is now a valid and will be
honoured -- it always evaluate to `false` in uBO.
This commit adds CodeMirror's auto-completion capability
to the _My filters_ pane.
Currently, auto-completion is available for scriptlet
tokens: pressing ctrl-space while the text cursor is
positioned where a scriptlet token should appear will
cause auto-completion to kick-in. In case of ambiguity,
CodeMirror's widget to pick a specific scriptlet will
appear.
This commit moves some of the parsing logic of static
extended filtering into the static filtering parser; this
allows better syntax highlighting and creation-time
error-catching for cosmetic, HTML, and scriptlet filters.
There have been too many examples out there of users
opting-in to "I am an advanced user" and yet still misusing
dynamic filtering by creating _allow_ rules where _noop_
rules should be used.
Creating _allow_ rules has serious consequences as these
override blocking static filters and can potentially
disable other advanced filtering ability such as
HTML filtering and scriptlet injection -- often used
to deal with anti-blocker mechanisms.
The ability to point-and-click to create _allow_ rules
from the popup panel is no longer allowed by default.
An new advanced setting has been added to enable
the ability to create _allow_ rules from the popup
panel, `popupPanelGodMode`, which default to `false`.
Set to `true` to restore ability to set _allow_ rules
from popup panel.
Since the creation of _allow_ rules is especially useful
to filter list authors, to diagnose and narrow down site
breakage as a result of problematic blocking filter,
the creation of _allow_ rules will still be available
when the advanced setting `filterAuthorMode` is `true`.
This change is probably going to be problematic to all
those users who were misusing dynamic filtering by
creating _allow_ rules instead of _noop_ rules -- but
the breakage is going to bring their misusing to their
attention, a positive outcome.
Default to `unset`.
To allow users to bypass uBO's default CSS styles in
case they are causing issues to specific users. It is
the responsibility of the user to ensure the value of
`uiStyles` contains valid CSS property declarations.
uBO will assign the value to `document.body.style.cssText`.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1044
For example, in the case of the issue above, one could
set `uiStyles` to `font-family: sans-serif` to force uBO
to the system font for its user interface.
The old "classic" popup panel will still be used
when at least one of the following is true:
- advanced setting `uiFlavor` is set to `classic`; or
- the browser is Chromium 65 or older; or
- the browser is Firefox 67 or older
The default configuration of the new popup panel
at installation time is to show the power button,
statistics and the basic tool icons, i.e. access
to dashboard, logger, pickers.
For existing installations, the new popup panel
will be configured by respecting the existing
configuration of the classic one.
The new popup panel is currently already in use
on Firefox for Android, and the visual redesign
was made according to suggestions and feedback
from <https://github.com/brampitoyo> to be
optimal for Firefox for Android.
The new popup panel will allow closing the following
pending issues:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/255
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/178
This commit specifically address bringing the
desktop version of the new popup panel's look
and feel more inline with the classic one:
- Hide tool captions on desktop
- Bring back no-popups switch on desktop
- Bring back tooltips on desktop (though they
are now rendered natively by the browser)
- Use the Photon icons suggested by @brampitoyo
for the no-popups and no-remote-fonts
switches
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/974
Related feedback:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/fuscia/
The race condition was that a content script could
query the main process to retrieve cosmetic filters
while the cosmetic filters had not been yet fully
loaded into memory. The fix ensure that an already
injected content script will re-query once the
cosmetic filters are fully loaded in memory at
browser launch time.
This concerns the static network filtering engine.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/943
* * *
New static network filter type: `cname`
By default, network requests which are result of
resolving a canonical name are subject to filtering.
This filtering can be bypassed by creating exception
filters using the `cname` option. For example:
@@*$cname
The filter above tells the network filtering engine
to except network requests which fulfill all the
following conditions:
- network request is blocked
- network request is that of an unaliased hostname
Filter list authors are discouraged from using
exception filters of `cname` type, unless there no
other practical solution such that maintenance
burden become the greater issue. Of course, such
exception filters should be as narrow as possible,
i.e. apply to specific domain, etc.
* * *
New static network filter option: `denyallow`
The purpose of `denyallow` is bring
default-deny/allow-exceptionally ability into static
network filtering arsenal. Example of usage:
*$3p,script, \
denyallow=x.com|y.com \
domain=a.com|b.com
The above filter tells the network filtering engine that
when the context is `a.com` or `b.com`, block all
3rd-party scripts except those from `x.com` and `y.com`.
Essentially, the new `denyallow` option makes it easier
to implement default-deny/allow-exceptionally in static
filter lists, whereas before this had to be done with
unwieldy regular expressions[1], or through the mix of
broadly blocking filters along with exception filters[2].
[1] https://hg.adblockplus.org/ruadlist/rev/f362910bc9a0
[2] Typically filters which pattern are of the
form `|http*://`
