uBlock version 0.8.5: many changes - uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues GitHub Wiki

^{[Screenshots are not necessarily up to date: this is tedious work and I rather not re-take all screenshots when there are only trivial changes]}

In uBlock version 0.8.5.0, dynamic filtering has been completely revamped. Summary of what changed:

• An "advanced user mode" setting, disabled by default
• Expanded dynamic filtering to block/allow on a per hostname basis
• A new "My rules" tab in the dashboard, where you can see/edit all your dynamic filtering rules
• A new, more convenient, more efficient network request logger

For a fresh new install of uBlock, this is how the popup UI looks:

This is the "novice user" interface, which is the default when installing for the first time. Notice the difference with the previous version:

• The dynamic filtering widgets are not accessible
  • This is to prevent novice users from tampering with dynamic filters without really understandng what it is all about
• The network request logger (the eye icon) is now always available
  • There is no more setting to enable/disable the network request logger, it will be turned on/off automatically when opening/closing the logger page

To access dynamic filtering, you need to indicate to uBlock that you are an advanced user (mind the "Required reading" link):

By the way, notice that the Statistics tab (the network request log) is now gone from the dashboard.

For advanced users, uBlock's popup UI will show a little + widget aside the prompt "requests blocked":

This little widget allows to expand/collapse the new re-designed dynamic filtering pane. As seen below, just as with previous versions you can still dynamically filter:

• inline scripts
• 1st-party scripts
• 3rd-party scripts
• 3rd-party frames

However, as per issue #282, you can't no longer dynamically filter 1st-party frames -- that was pointless.

Also, I threw in the ability to dynamically filters images (regardless of origin), as I saw this sort of feature requested a couple of places. It's useful for users who wish to save bandwidth, and/or memory resources.

The dynamic filtering consists mainly of three columns. From left to right, they are:

• The name of what is to be dynamically filtered: can be a type of request, or a specific hostname
• The rule to apply everywhere on any site -- i.e. a global rule
• The rule to apply locally on the current site -- useful to override a global rule

Rules color scheme:

• Pale gray: no rule
• Dark red: block rule
  • The requests will be blocked, regardless of whether static exception filters exist
• Dark green: allow rule
  • The requests will be allowed, regardless of whether static block filters exist
• Dark gray: no-op rule
  • To cancel any dynamic filtering, the requests will still be subject to static filtering

Dynamic filtering if very useful to create block/allow rules on the fly, without the overhead of which comes with static filtering.

As seen above, EasyPrivacy does not completely protect your privacy: your are still connecting to ubiquitous remote servers. Dynamic filtering gives you full control of where your browser connect.

An example (below): globally block network requests to ubiquitous googletagservices.com:

So the dynamic filtering rule above says: block network requests to googletagservices.com from anywhere.

Side note: googletagservices.com is not blocked by EasyPrivacy, but it is blocked by Ghostery, this is one of the reason it fared better in privacy exposure benchmarks.