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Updated Counterarguments (markdown)

gorhill 2014-09-20 08:46:53 -07:00
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Counterarguments.md

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Just a page to collect my counterarguments when I spot something which I believe deserve countering.
#### Who care about efficiency, I have 8 GB
Doing more with less is a virtue in software. For users of µBlock, this means:
- Pages load faster
- Free to use [more filter lists](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Filter-lists:-gorhill):
- For instance, [ABP warns against using too many filter lists](https://adblockplus.org/en/getting_started#subscription): _"It is important to note that you should not add too many filterlists to Adblock Plus"_
- Free to use a blocker on less powerful devices
- For instance: [Reddit: _"ABP was a significant burden on my CPU"_](http://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/298jh1/just_a_tip_try_out_%C2%B5block_for_your_adblocking/)
- Free to use more extensions
Memory and CPU cycles are finite resources. A sure way for a developer to **not** be hired when being interviewed is to dismiss efficiency work because "memory is plentiful" or "CPU nowadays are fast enough".
#### Just use a hosts file
µBlock supports the parsing/enforcing of hosts files, and ships with a couple of them. One of them, _"Peter Lowe’s Ad server list"_ is enabled out of the box.
Using a hosts file at OS level rather than µBlock level is definitely the better solution for lists of malware domain, since these malware-linked domains would be blocked system-wide at OS level, and all applications would benefit from it.
However, for lists of domain linked to ad servers, trackers, analytics, etc., this is not a good solution: **You can't easily un-break web pages with a [hosts file](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file)) at OS level.**
With hosts file under control of µBlock, it is possible to un-break web sites: a user can just disable µBlock for the web site which breaks, or an exception filter can be created to counter the blocking of a specific hostname appearing in a hosts file.
Many of the exception filters in [_"µBlock filters"_](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/assets/ublock/filters.txt) are actually exception filters to counter entries in the hosts files shipped with µBlock.
I want the project to be committed to fully support the hosts files which ship with µBlock, i.e. report any issues arising from using these, and appropriate exception filters will be created.
I personally use all of these hosts files, and so far not much breakage.
#### µBlock is a fork of Adblock Plus code
No. Code is wholly original, it was written from scratch. There are a very few places I borrowed code from elsewhere, and this is clearly identified. For example, for the element picker, I [embedded](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/js/element-picker.js#L27) [CSS.escape](http://mths.be/cssescape) from Mathias Bynens (because Chromium doesn't support yet [CSS.escape](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/CSS.escape)).
#### Adblock Edge is as light as µBlock
Just a page to collect my counterarguments when I spot something which I believe deserve countering.
#### Who care about efficiency, I have 8 GB
Doing more with less is a virtue in software. For users of µBlock, this means:
- Pages load faster
- Free to use [more filter lists](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Filter-lists:-gorhill):
- For instance, [ABP warns against using too many filter lists](https://adblockplus.org/en/getting_started#subscription): _"It is important to note that you should not add too many filterlists to Adblock Plus"_
- Longer battery life: each time unit, however small, in which the CPU is idle rather than churning translates into extended battery life.
- Free to use a blocker on less powerful devices
- For instance: [Reddit: _"ABP was a significant burden on my CPU"_](http://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/298jh1/just_a_tip_try_out_%C2%B5block_for_your_adblocking/)
- Free to use more extensions
Memory and CPU cycles are finite resources. A sure way for a developer to **not** be hired when being interviewed is to dismiss efficiency work because "memory is plentiful" or "CPU nowadays are fast enough".
#### Just use a hosts file
µBlock supports the parsing/enforcing of hosts files, and ships with a couple of them. One of them, _"Peter Lowe’s Ad server list"_ is enabled out of the box.
Using a hosts file at OS level rather than µBlock level is definitely the better solution for lists of malware domain, since these malware-linked domains would be blocked system-wide at OS level, and all applications would benefit from it.
However, for lists of domain linked to ad servers, trackers, analytics, etc., this is not a good solution: **You can't easily un-break web pages with a [hosts file](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file)) at OS level.**
With hosts file under control of µBlock, it is possible to un-break web sites: a user can just disable µBlock for the web site which breaks, or an exception filter can be created to counter the blocking of a specific hostname appearing in a hosts file.
Many of the exception filters in [_"µBlock filters"_](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/assets/ublock/filters.txt) are actually exception filters to counter entries in the hosts files shipped with µBlock.
I want the project to be committed to fully support the hosts files which ship with µBlock, i.e. report any issues arising from using these, and appropriate exception filters will be created.
I personally use all of these hosts files, and so far not much breakage.
#### µBlock is a fork of Adblock Plus code
No. Code is wholly original, it was written from scratch. There are a very few places I borrowed code from elsewhere, and this is clearly identified. For example, for the element picker, I [embedded](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/js/element-picker.js#L27) [CSS.escape](http://mths.be/cssescape) from Mathias Bynens (because Chromium doesn't support yet [CSS.escape](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/CSS.escape)).
#### Adblock Edge is as light as µBlock
No it's not. Adblock Edge is like Adblock Plus, except that notably it doesn't have the _"Acceptable ads"_ exception filters out of the box. See for yourself: [here](https://bitbucket.org/adstomper/adblockedge/diff/lib/filterClasses.js?diff1=f89367e6ddc7&diff2=a642b932365d9521042cf8fec56089caca496a7d&at=default) is a diff of a code change for Adblock Edge, and [here](https://github.com/adblockplus/adblockplus/commit/384cb64c6d3c2aa698b5f15c9d8aaefd22c889aa#diff-3) is the same exact diff for Adblock Plus. The timestamps shows that Adblock Edge pulled code changes from the Adblock Plus project.