Hi everybody - I know that the topic of migrating the Tor Browser on
Tails from AdBlock Plus (ABP) to a faster and more modern plugin comes
up regularly, so i'll keep this short and get to why Adblock Plus
should be replaced with uBlock Origin (uBO) and why it's ready now:
1. uBO is now in Debian packages:
https://packages.qa.debian.org/u/ublock-origin.html#
In previous threads this was the largest obstacle.
2. gorhill, the original developer of uBO (and the original uBlock) is
willing to help out however he can to see the integration into Tails
happen - he is on this mailing list now.
To run through previous discussion points again:
3. uBO isn't compromised by a business model that allows some
advertisers to 'pay for play' and bypass blocking (altho this is
disabled in Tails)
4. uBO is faster, a lot faster, and a lot more memory efficient:
uBO doesn't insert or alter DOM elements like ad blockers do, so the
per-tab memory footprint is smaller than the original site:
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/10-ad-blocking-extensions-tested-for-best-performance/view-all/
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-vs.-ABP:-efficiency-compared
5. It is not just an ad blocker - advanced mode with dynamic filtering
can implement NoScript (with website scopes, so if you approve
cloudflare.com on one domain it won't globally approve it), same with
Request Policy like rules, and implementing HTTPSEverywhere in rules
(or similar redirects to take users to .onion versions of websites).
Dynamic filtering would allow a default block mode for all third-party
resources and all scripts while allowing a whitelist of sites where
non-third-party javascript could be enabled:
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering
Example default deny ruleset:
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-default-deny:-useful-rulesets
I'm familiar with the "whitelists can be fingerprinted" argument, but
it is resolved here as a third-party site can't check what the user
has blocked or allowed because of the rule scopes.
uBO has an emphasis on supporting and loading privacy and tracking
oriented rulelists, along with malware rules - so it is more suited to
a privacy-oriented browser and operating system than a simple ad
blocker.
I think this issue, which talks about ABP being replaced with uBO
should be reopened:
https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/9833
We can put together what the integration would look like and how it
should behave by default. I also plan on advocating that Tor Browser
should switch to uBO (and away from NoScript and HTTPS-Everywhere),
which is successful would bring the browser fingerprints between Tails
and Tor Browser back together.
Thanks
Nik
