Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1204
Not much can be done beside reporting to tabless network
requests to all tabs for which the context is a match.
A short term local cache is used to avoid having to iterate
through all existing tabs for each tabless network request
just to find and report to the matching ones -- users
reporting having a lot of opened tabs at once is not so
uncommon.
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=`
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 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.
The redirectable resource has been renamed
`click2load.html`, so as to avoid uses of dash
characters and to also allow for future different
click-to-load resources.
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 issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/1004
The fix is trivial enough that I feel confident to make
it part of current RC cycle. There are many reports of
block page at launch on Chromium.
The fix is to let the platform pick it's natural suspend
state rather than force it. Once advanced settings are
read, the suspend state will for toggled only if
`suspendTabsUntilReady` is either `yes` or `no`. This
there should no longer be blocked page on Chromium at
launch when using default settings.
Related feedback:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/gac2h8/
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
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/759
If for some reasons the launch code throws, uBO could
find itself in permanent suspend mode, thus preventing
web pages from loading in Firefox.
Though uBO should not have exceptions thrown during
it's initialization code, this commit will ensure
uBO complete its initialization process should it
ever happen for whatever reason.
Related issues:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/761
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/528
The previous bidi-trie code could only hold filters which
are plain pattern, i.e. no wildcard characters, and which
had no origin option (`domain=`), right and/or left anchor,
and no `csp=` option.
Example of filters that could be moved into a bidi-trie
data structure:
&ad_box_
/w/d/capu.php?z=$script,third-party
||liveonlinetv247.com/images/muvixx-150x50-watch-now-in-hd-play-btn.gif
Examples of filters that could NOT be moved to a bidi-trie:
-adap.$domain=~l-adap.org
/tsc.php?*&ses=
||ibsrv.net/*forumsponsor$domain=[...]
@@||imgspice.com/jquery.cookie.js|$script
||view.atdmt.com^*/iview/$third-party
||postimg.cc/image/$csp=[...]
Ideally the filters above should be able to be moved to a
bidi-trie since they are basically plain patterns, or at
least partially moved to a bidi-trie when there is only a
single wildcard (i.e. made of two plain patterns).
Also, there were two distinct bidi-tries in which
plain-pattern filters can be moved to: one for patterns
without hostname anchoring and another one for patterns
with hostname-anchoring. This was required because the
hostname-anchored patterns have an extra condition which
is outside the bidi-trie knowledge.
This commit expands the number of filters which can be
stored in the bidi-trie, and also remove the need to
use two distinct bidi-tries.
- Added ability to associate a pattern with an integer
in the bidi-trie [1].
- The bidi-trie match code passes this externally
provided integer when calling an externally
provided method used for testing extra conditions
that may be present for a plain pattern found to
be matching in the bidi-trie.
- Decomposed existing filters into smaller logical units:
- FilterPlainLeftAnchored =>
FilterPatternPlain +
FilterAnchorLeft
- FilterPlainRightAnchored =>
FilterPatternPlain +
FilterAnchorRight
- FilterExactMatch =>
FilterPatternPlain +
FilterAnchorLeft +
FilterAnchorRight
- FilterPlainHnAnchored =>
FilterPatternPlain +
FilterAnchorHn
- FilterWildcard1 =>
FilterPatternPlain + [
FilterPatternLeft or
FilterPatternRight
]
- FilterWildcard1HnAnchored =>
FilterPatternPlain + [
FilterPatternLeft or
FilterPatternRight
] +
FilterAnchorHn
- FilterGenericHnAnchored =>
FilterPatternGeneric +
FilterAnchorHn
- FilterGenericHnAndRightAnchored =>
FilterPatternGeneric +
FilterAnchorRight +
FilterAnchorHn
- FilterOriginMixedSet =>
FilterOriginMissSet +
FilterOriginHitSet
- Instances of FilterOrigin[...], FilterDataHolder
can also be added to a composite filter to
represent `domain=` and `csp=` options.
- Added a new filter class, FilterComposite, for
filters which are a combination of two or more
logical units. A FilterComposite instance is a
match when *all* filters composing it are a
match.
Since filters are now encoded into combination of
smaller units, it becomes possible to extract the
FilterPatternPlain component and store it in the
bidi-trie, and use the integer as a handle for the
remaining extra conditions, if any.
Since a single pattern in the bidi-trie may be a
component for different filters, the associated
integer points to a sequence of extra conditions,
and a match occurs as soon as one of the extra
conditions (which may itself be a sequence of
conditions) is fulfilled.
Decomposing filters which are currently single
instance into sequences of smaller logical filters
means increasing the storage and CPU overhead when
evaluating such filters. The CPU overhead is
compensated by the fact that more filters can now
moved into the bidi-trie, where the first match is
efficiently evaluated. The extra conditions have to
be evaluated if and only if there is a match in the
bidi-trie.
The storage overhead is compensated by the
bidi-trie's intrinsic nature of merging similar
patterns.
Furthermore, the storage overhead is reduced by no
longer using JavaScript array to store collection
of filters (which is what FilterComposite is):
the same technique used in [2] is imported to store
sequences of filters.
A sequence of filters is a sequence of integer pairs
where the first integer is an index to an actual
filter instance stored in a global array of filters
(`filterUnits`), while the second integer is an index
to the next pair in the sequence -- which means all
sequences of filters are encoded in one single array
of integers (`filterSequences` => Uint32Array). As
a result, a sequence of filters can be represented by
one single integer -- an index to the first pair --
regardless of the number of filters in the sequence.
This representation is further leveraged to replace
the use of JavaScript array in FilterBucket [3],
which used a JavaScript array to store collection
of filters. Doing so means there is no more need for
FilterPair [4], which purpose was to be a lightweight
representation when there was only two filters in a
collection.
As a result of the above changes, the map of `token`
(integer) => filter instance (object) used to
associate tokens to filters or collections of filters
is replaced with a more efficient map of `token`
(integer) to filter unit index (integer) to lookup a
filter object from the global `filterUnits` array.
Another consequence of using one single global
array to store all filter instances means we can reuse
existing instances when a logical filter instance is
parameter-less, which is the case for FilterAnchorLeft,
FilterAnchorRight, FilterAnchorHn, the index to these
single instances is reused where needed.
`urlTokenizer` now stores the character codes of the
scanned URL into a bidi-trie buffer, for reuse when
string matching methods are called.
New method: `tokenHistogram()`, used to generate
histograms of occurrences of token extracted from URLs
in built-in benchmark. The top results of the "miss"
histogram are used as "bad tokens", i.e. tokens to
avoid if possible when compiling filter lists.
All plain pattern strings are now stored in the
bidi-trie memory buffer, regardless of whether they
will be used in the trie proper or not.
Three methods have been added to the bidi-trie to test
stored string against the URL which is also stored in
then bidi-trie.
FilterParser is now instanciated on demand and
released when no longer used.
***
[1] 135a45a878/src/js/strie.js (L120)
[2] e94024d350
[3] 135a45a878/src/js/static-net-filtering.js (L1630)
[4] 135a45a878/src/js/static-net-filtering.js (L1566)
This commits make it so that `csp=` filters
are now stored in the same data structures as
all other static network filters rather than
being stored in a separate one.
This internal change is motivated by the wish
to bring session filters to the static network
filtering engine, as has already been done for
the static extended filtering engine in the
following commit:
59c9a34d34
This works only for platforms supporting the return of
Promise by network listeners, i.e. only Firefox at this
point.
When filter lists are reloaded[1], there is a small
time window in which some network requests which should
have normally been blocked are not being blocked
because the static network filtering engine may not
have yet loaded all the filters in memory
This is now addressed by suspending the network request
handler when filter lists are reloaded -- again, this
works only on supported platforms.
[1] Examples: when a filter list update session
completes; when user filters change, when
adding/removing filter lists.
Related issue:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/610
The service worker-related issue affects both
Chromium/Firefox: the type of resources fetched
from a service worker are uniformly set to
`xmlhttprequest`, hence losing a key piece of
information for the purpose of accurate content
filtering.
The motivations for the re-arrangement:
- Reducing the number of entry points:
matchStringExactString() has been removed and
matchString() is simply reused with a modifier parameter
to enable matching variants.
- Presumption that most matches, if any, occur early with
the left-most tokens in a URL. This gives a very small
marginal performance gain as per built-in benchmark.
Relocate workaround to the code responsible to compute filtering context, such
that the workaround will also be applied in other code paths, for example also
for webRequest.onHeadersReceived.
The value of `suspendTabsUntilReady` was disregarded in Firefox and
uBO defaulted to always defer tab loading until it was ready.
This commit allows to disable the deferring of tab loading in
Firefox. The new valid values for `suspendTabsUntilReady` are:
- `unset`: leave it to the platform to pick the optimal
behavior (default)
- `no`: do no suspend tab loading at launch time
- `yes`: suspend tab loading at launch time
Performance-related work: the logger data has been decoupled
from the DOM -- inspired from CodeMirror's way of efficiently
handling large amout of text data.
This decoupling now makes the logger highly efficient CPU- and
memory-wise, and open the way to more possibilities.
Ability to configure some aspect of the logger behavior and
visuals:
- The hard-coded limit of 5000 entries has been
removed and is now replaced with a variety of
user-configurable settings to enforce the discarding of
logger entries.
- Some columns in the logger output can now be hidden.
The filter list look-up feature has been merged into the
existing overlay dialog used to create URL rules or static
filters, as an entry in a new "Details" pane.
Other issues addressed during refactoring:
- https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/280
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/1999
The minimum version supported on Firefox has been bumped
up to 55.0.