Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1513
Prior to this commit, the ability to enable/disable the
uncloaking of canonical names was only available to advanced
users. This commit make it so that the setting can be
toggled from the _Settings_ pane.
The setting is enabled by default. The documentation should
be clear that the setting should not be disabled unless it
actually solves serious network issues, for example:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1694404
Also, as a result, the advanced setting `cnameUncloak` is no
longer available from within the advanced settings editor.
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.
This should improve usability of uBO's hard-mode
and "relax blocking mode" operations. This is the
new default behavior.
The previous behavior of forcing a reload of the
page can be re-enabled by simply setting the `3p`
bit of the advanced setting `blockingProfiles`
to 1.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1365
This commit adds the compiled magic version number to the
compiled data itself, and consequently this allows uBO
to no longer require that any given compiled list with a
mismatched format to be detected and discarded at launch
time.
Given this change, uBO no longer needs to rely on the
deletion of cached data at launch time to ensure it
won't use no longer valid compiled lists.
Related discussions:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1356#issuecomment-732411286
- https://github.com/AdguardTeam/CoreLibs/issues/1384
Changes:
Negation character is `~` (instead of `!`).
Drop special anchor character `|` -- leading `|`
will be supported until no such filter is present
in uBO's own filter lists. For example, instance
of `queryprune=|ad` will have to be replaced with
`queryprune=/^ad/` (or `queryprune=ad` if the name
of the parameter to remove is exactly `ad`).
Align semantic with that of AdGuard's `removeparam=`,
except that specifying multiple `|`-separated names
is not supported.
`match-case`
------------
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/8280#issuecomment-735245452
The new filter option `match-case` can be used only for
regex-based filters. Using `match-case` with any other
sort of filters will cause uBO to discard the filter.
`redirect=`
-----------
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1366
`redirect=` filters with unresolvable resource token at
runtime will be discarded.
Additionally, the implicit priority is now set to 1
(was 0). The idea is to allow custom `redirect=` filters
to be used strictly as fallback `redirect=` filters in case
another `redirect=` filter is not picked up.
For example, one might create a `redirect=click2load.html:0`
filter, to be taken if and only if the blocked resource is
not already being redirected by another "official" filter
in one of the enabled filter lists.
New filter options
==================
Strict partyness: `1P`, `3P`
----------------------------
The current options 1p/3p are meant to "weakly" match partyness, i.e. a
network request is considered 1st-party to its context as long as both the
context and the request share the same base domain.
The new partyness options are meant to check for strict partyness, i.e. a
network request will be considered 1st-party if and only if both the context
and the request share the same hostname.
For examples:
- context: `www.example.org`
- request: `www.example.org`
- `1p`: yes, `1P`: yes
- `3p`: no, `3P`: no
- context: `www.example.org`
- request: `subdomain.example.org`
- `1p`: yes, `1P`: no
- `3p`: no, `3P`: yes
- context: `www.example.org`
- request: `www.example.com`
- `1p`: no, `1P`: no
- `3p`: yes, `3P`: yes
The strict partyness options will be visually emphasized in the editor so as
to prevent mistakenly using `1P` or `3P` where weak partyness is meant to be
used.
Filter on response headers: `header=`
-------------------------------------
Currently experimental and under evaluation. Disabled by default, enable by
toggling `filterOnHeaders` to `true` in advanced settings.
Ability to filter network requests according to whether a specific response
header is present and whether it matches or does not match a specific value.
For example:
*$1p,3P,script,header=via:1\.1\s+google
The above filter is meant to block network requests which fullfill all the
following conditions:
- is weakly 1st-party to the context
- is not strictly 1st-party to the context
- is of type `script`
- has a response HTTP header named `via`, which value matches the regular
expression `1\.1\s+google`.
The matches are always performed in a case-insensitive manner.
The header value is assumed to be a literal regular expression, except for
the following special characters:
- to anchor to start of string, use leading `|`, not `^`
- to anchor to end of string, use trailing `|`, not `$`
- to invert the test, use a leading `!`
To block a network request if it merely contains a specific HTTP header is
just a matter of specifying the header name without a header value:
*$1p,3P,script,header=via
Generic exception filters can be used to disable specific block `header=`
filters, i.e. `@@*$1p,3P,script,header` will override the block `header=`
filters given as example above.
Dynamic filtering's `allow` rules override block `headers=` filters.
Important: It is key that filter authors use as many narrowing filter options
as possible when using the `header=` option, and the `header=` option should
be used ONLY when other filter options are not sufficient.
More documentation justifying the purpose of `header=` option will be
provided eventually if ever it is decided to move it from experimental to
stable status.
To be decided: to restrict usage of this filter option to only uBO's own
filter lists or "My filters".
Changes
=======
Fine tuning `queryprune=`
-------------------------
The following changes have been implemented:
The special value `*` (i.e. `queryprune=*`) means "remove all query
parameters".
If the `queryprune=` value is made only of alphanumeric characters
(including `_`), the value will be internally converted to regex equivalent
`^value=`. This ensures a better future compatibility with AdGuard's
`removeparam=`.
If the `queryprune=` value starts with `!`, the test will be inverted. This
can be used to remove all query parameters EXCEPT those who match the
specified value.
Other
-----
The legacy code to test for spurious CSP reports has been removed. This
is no longer an issue ever since uBO redirects to local resources through
web accessible resources.
Notes
=====
The following new and recently added filter options are not compatible with
Chromium's manifest v3 changes:
- `queryprune=`
- `1P`
- `3P`
- `header=`
Performance-related work.
There is a fair number of filters which can't be tokenized
in uBO's own filter lists. Majority of those filters also
declare a `domain=` option, examples:
*$script,redirect-rule=noopjs,domain=...
*$script,3p,domain=...,denyallow=...
*$frame,3p,domain=...
Such filters can be found in uBO's asset viewer using the
following search expression:
/^\*?\$[^\n]*?domain=/
Some filter buckets will contain many of those filters, for
instance one of the bucket holding untokenizable `redirect=`
filters has over 170 entries, which must be all visited when
collating all matching `redirect=` filters.
When a bucket contains many such filters, I found that it's
worth to extract all the non-negated hostname values from
`domain=` options into a single hntrie and perform a pre-test
at match() time to find out whether the current origin of a
network request matches any one of the collected hostnames,
so as to avoid iterating through all the filters.
Since there is rarely a match() for vast majority of network
requests with `domain=` option, this pre-test saves a good
amount of work, and this is measurable with the built-in
benchmark.
This commit moves the parsing, compiling and enforcement
of the `redirect=` and `redirect-rule=` network filter
options into the static network filtering engine as
modifier options -- just like `csp=` and `queryprune=`.
This solves the two following issues:
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/3590
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1008#issuecomment-716164214
Additionally, `redirect=` option is not longer afflicted
by static network filtering syntax quirks, `redirect=`
filters can be used with any other static filtering
modifier options, can be excepted using `@@` and can be
badfilter-ed.
Since more than one `redirect=` directives could be found
to apply to a single network request, the concept of
redirect priority is introduced.
By default, `redirect=` directives have an implicit
priority of 0. Filter authors can declare an explicit
priority by appending `:[integer]` to the token of the
`redirect=` option, for example:
||example.com/*.js$1p,script,redirect=noopjs:100
The priority dictates which redirect token out of many
will be ultimately used. Cases of multiple `redirect=`
directives applying to a single blocked network request
are expected to be rather unlikely.
Explicit redirect priority should be used if and only if
there is a case of redirect ambiguity to solve.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/760
The purpose of this new network filter option is to remove
query parameters form the URL of network requests.
The name `queryprune` has been picked over `querystrip`
since the purpose of the option is to remove some
parameters from the URL rather than all parameters.
`queryprune` is a modifier option (like `csp`) in that it
does not cause a network request to be blocked but rather
modified before being emitted.
`queryprune` must be assigned a value, which value will
determine which parameters from a query string will be
removed. The syntax for the value is that of regular
expression *except* for the following rules:
- do not wrap the regex directive between `/`
- do not use regex special values `^` and `$`
- 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.
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.
This commit adds concept of "really bad list" to the
badlists infrastructure. Really bad lists won't be
fetched from a remote server, while plain bad list
will be fetched but won't be compiled.
A really bad list is denoted by the `nofetch` token
following the URL.
Really bad lists can cause more serious issues such
as causing undue launch delays because the remote
server where a really bad list is hosted fails to
respond properly and times out.
Such an example of really bad list is hpHosts which
original server no longer exist.
Many filter lists are known to cause serious filtering
issues in uBO and are not meant to be used in uBO.
Unfortunately, unwitting users keep importing these
filter lists and as a result this ends up causing
filtering issues for which the resolution is always
to remove the incompatible filter list.
Example of inconpatible filter lists:
- Reek's Anti-Adblock Killer
- AdBlock Warning Removal List
- ABP anti-circumvention filter list
uBO will use the following resource to know
which filter lists are incompatible:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/blob/master/filters/badlists.txt
Incompatible filter lists can still be imported into
uBO, useful for asset-viewing purpose, but their content
will be discarded at compile time.
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.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1008
This commit adds support entity-matching in the filter
option `domain=`. Example:
pattern$domain=google.*
The `*` above is meant to match any suffix from the Public
Suffix List. The semantic is exactly the same as the
already existing entity-matching support in static
extended filtering:
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Static-filter-syntax#entity
Additionally, in this commit:
Fix cases where "just-origin" filters of the form `|http*://`
were erroneously normalized to `|http://`. The proper
normalization of `|http*://` is `*`.
Add support to store hostname strings into the character
buffer of a hntrie container. As of commit time, there are
5,544 instances of FilterOriginHit, and 732 instances of
FilterOriginMiss, which filters require storing/matching a
single hostname string. Those strings are now stored in the
character buffer of the already existing origin-related
hntrie container. (The same approach is used for plain
patterns which are not part of a bidi-trie.)
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.
FilterPlainHostname, an atomic filter unit, has been
removed and is being replaced with a composite filter
made of a pattern filter and a filter which test
hostname boundaries.
Doing so enables filters formerly being represented
by FilterPlainHostname to be now represented as a
plain pattern, and thus to be potentially stored in
a bidi-trie.
Comparing the new filter histogram with the previous
one:
FilterPatternPlain 24612 26432 1820
FilterComposite 17656 17125 -531
FilterPlainTrie Content 12977 13519 542
FilterPlainHostname 2904 0 -2904
FilterBucket 2121 1961 -160
FilterPlainTrie 1418 1578 160
Which means:
- An extra 542 patterns could be stored in bidi-tries
- There are 531 less composite filters needed
- An extra 160 buckets could be aggregated into 160
bidi-trie
Memory-wise, it's a marginal gain (as per Chromium's
Javascript VM instance figure) -- i.e. not worth
talking about). CPU-wise, no measurable difference.
The benefit is that I consider this conceptually
simplifies slightly the static network filtering
code base.
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.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/911
Since cname-uncloaking is available only on Firefox
at the moment, the fix is relevant only to Firefox.
By default uBO will no longer cname-uncloak when it
detects that network requests are being being proxied.
This default behavior can be overriden by setting the
new advanced setting `cnameUncloakProxied` to `true`.
The new setting default to `false`, i.e. cname-uncloaking
is disabled when uBO detects that a proxy is in use.
This new advanced setting may disappear once the
following Firefox issue is fixed:
- https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1618271
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*://`
New advanced setting: `benchmarkDatasetURL`
Default value: `unset`
To specify a URL from where the benchmark dataset will be
fetched. This allows to launch benchmark operations from
within published versions of uBO, rather than from just
a locally built version.
First draft of changes as discussed with Firefox
Preview people.
In order to allow testing/evaluating these changes,
the new advanced setting `uiFlavor` has been added.
Default to `unset`; and can currently only be set
to `fenix`.
The new setting takes effect at launch only. This
new setting is not to be mentioned in official
documentation for now.
This is ongoing work, not open to external feedback.
Advanced setting `cnameAliasList` has been removed.
New advanced settings:
cnameUncloak:
Boolean
Default value:
true
Description:
Whether to CNAME-uncloak hostnames.
cnameIgnoreExceptions:
Boolean
Default value:
true
Description:
Whether to bypass the uncloaking of network requests
which were excepted by filters/rules. This is
necessary so as to avoid undue breakage by having
exception filters being rendered useless as a result
of CNAME-uncloaking.
For example, `google-analytics.com` uncloaks to
`www-google-analytics.l.google.com` and both hostnames
appear in Peter Lowe's list, which means exception
filters for `google-analytics.com` (to fix site
breakage) would be rendered useless as the uncloaking
would cause the network request to be ultimately
blocked.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/780
Related commit:
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/commit/3a564c199260
This adds two new advanced settings:
- cnameIgnoreRootDocument
- Default to `true`
- Tells uBO to skip CNAME-lookup for root document.
- cnameReplayFullURL
- Default to `false`
- Tells uBO whether to replay the whole URL or just
the origin part of it.
Replaying only the origin part is meant to lower
undue breakage and improve performance by avoiding
repeating the pattern-matching of the whole URL --
which pattern-matching was most likely already
accomplished with the original request.
This commit is meant to explore enabling CNAME-lookup
by default for the next stable release while:
- Eliminating a development burden by removing the
need to create a new filtering syntax to deal with
undesirable CNAME-cloaked hostnames
- Eliminating a filter list maintainer burden by
removing the need to find/deal with all base
domains which engage in undesirable CNAME-cloaked
hostnames
The hope is that the approach implemented in this
commit should require at most a few unbreak rules
with no further need for special filtering syntax
or filter list maintance efforts.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/780
New webext permission added: `dns`, which purpose is
to allow an extension to fetch the DNS record of
specific hostnames, reference documentation:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/dns
The webext API `dns` is available in Firefox 60+ only.
The new API will enable uBO to "uncloak" the actual
hostname used in network requests. The ability is
currently disabled by default for now -- this is only
a first commit related to the above issue to allow
advanced users to immediately use the new ability.
Four advanced settings have been created to control the
uncloaking of actual hostnames:
cnameAliasList: a space-separated list of hostnames.
Default value: unset => empty list.
Special value: * => all hostnames.
A space-separated list of hostnames => this tells uBO
to "uncloak" the hostnames in the list will.
cnameIgnoreList: a space-separated list of hostnames.
Default value: unset => empty list.
Special value: * => all hostnames.
A space-separated list of hostnames => this tells uBO
to NOT re-run the network request through uBO's
filtering engine with the CNAME hostname. This is
useful to exclude commonly used actual hostnames
from being re-run through uBO's filtering engine, so
as to avoid pointless overhead.
cnameIgnore1stParty: boolean.
Default value: true.
Whether uBO should ignore to re-run a network request
through the filtering engine when the CNAME hostname
is 1st-party to the alias hostname.
cnameMaxTTL: number of minutes.
Default value: 120.
This tells uBO to clear its CNAME cache after the
specified time. For efficiency purpose, uBO will
cache alias=>CNAME associations for reuse so as
to reduce calls to `browser.dns.resolve`. All the
associations will be cleared after the specified time
to ensure the map does not grow too large and too
ensure uBO uses up to date CNAME information.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/756
As per various feedbacks:
Added an advanced setting to keep the original behavior,
which can be potentially costly CPU-wise on some sites:
popupCosmeticFilterBadgeSlow
Default to `false`. Set to `true` to restore original
method of surveying the number of elements hidden as
a result of applying cosmetic filtering.
As suggested by <https://github.com/gwarser>, skip
descendant of nodes which have been found to be a
match in order to potentially increase the number
of nodes which can be surveyed in the alloted time.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/759
This commit adds code to rely less on the state of the
cache storage to decide whether filter lists should be
re-compiled or whether the selfie is currently valid
at launch time when a change in compiled/selfie format
is detected.
