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uBlock-LLC
uBlock
JavaScript2015–2021
uBlock-LLC / uBlock · Archived

uBlock

uBlock: a fast, lightweight, and lean blocker for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

Web DevelopmentSecurity & Privacy
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
34Distinct people
38Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
8.3KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

uBlock: a fast, lightweight, and lean blocker for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year38 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2015-04-02 03:07:00 UTC to 2021-02-17 02:02:41 UTC.

05101520252015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 25 mentions; 2 submissions, 23 comments20152016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 0 submissions, 6 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20182019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2021

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC25223
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC606
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 12, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
Future releases of uBlock will be made available on our website at https://ublock.org uBlock: an efficient blocker extension for your browser. Fast, potent, and lean. Getting Started & Installation Performance & Benchmarks Tips FAQ About Getting started Installation: Chrome: available on the Chrome Web Store or for manual installation. Safari: available to install from the homepage. MacOS App: available for install from the homepage or from the App Store. Firefox: available on the Firefox Add-ons site, or for manual installation. Opera: Opera shares Chrome's underlying engine, so you can install uBlock simply by grabbing the latest release for Chrome. uBlock has tooltips throughout its UI to help you along. But just in case you need it, here's a quick guide for basic usage. Performance Memory On average, uBlock really does make your browser run leaner. [1] Chrome Safari Firefox [1] An overview of the benchmark is available at this wiki page. CPU uBlock is also CPU-efficient Details of the benchmark available in this LibreOffice spreadsheet. Blocking Being lean and efficient doesn't mean blocking less For details of benchmark, see uBlock and others: Blocking ads, trackers, malwares. Some quick tests: These tests are by no means complete or comprehensive, but do remain helpful. Index Web page components Popups Tips To benefit from uBlock's higher efficiency, it's advised that you don't use other blockers at the same time (such as AdBlock or Adblock Plus). uBlock will do as well or better than most popular ad blockers. It's important to note that blocking ads is not theft. Don't fall for this creepy idea. The ultimate logical consequence of blocking = theft is the criminalisation of the inalienable right to privacy. EasyList, Acceptable Ads, ABP Anti-Circumvention Filter List‎ and Cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) Mining Protection List‎ are enabled by default when you install uBlock. Many more lists are readily available to block trackers, analytics, and more. Hosts files are also supported. Once you install uBlock, you can easily un-select any of the pre-selected filter lists if you think uBlock blocks too much. For reference, Adblock Plus installs with only EasyList enabled by default. Feel free to read about the extension's required permissions. About uBlock Some users might want to check out uBlock Origin: a noteworthy personal fork of uBlock from @gorhill with a slightly different featureset. uBlock is a general-purpose content blocker, which means it can be used to block ads as well as other forms of content on webpages. uBlock can also be used to help users neutralize privacy-invading trackers. uBlock blocks ads through its support of the Adblock Plus filter syntax. uBlock extends the syntax and is designed to work with custom rules and filters. ** Please note recent news about the status of the uBlock project as of June 22, 2018.** Acknowledgment: uBlock comes with several filter lists ready to use out-of-the-box (including but not limited to: EasyList, Peter Lowe's, several malware filter lists). We deeply appreciate the people working hard to maintain those lists which are available to use by all for free. License GPLv3.
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

38 sources
gorhill·Feb 17, 2021
I want to clarify a few points in the article re. uBlock Origin, they might be seen as minor details but to me they matter. > Raymond Hill, after (you guessed it) he transferred ownership of uBlock to a new, untrustworthy maintainer Only the GitHub repo was transferred, I never transferred the extension in the Chrome Store, and Opera Store.[1] The Firefox version was published by a contributor, and he chose to stay with the new maintainer, and as a result I created a new publication for uBlock Origin in Firefox store. All this was nearly 6 years ago. > Aljoudi began reducing blocking features, eventually choosing to permit certain ads via the "acceptable ads" program "Acceptable Ads" was added to "uBlock" in February 2019 by the new owner, BetaFish Inc. (maker of AdBlock).[2] BetaFish Inc. was itself sold circa October 2015 to an (still)
Read the rest
anonymous buyer.[3] > Hill created a fork, now called uBlock Origin, which reverted the changes I didn't revert any change, I forked while I was still controlling the GitHub repo.[4] If you look at the project timeline, it shows that I have been in charge since the first commit in June 2014.[5] > Nano Defender and its 200,000+ users, upon their recent acquisition, immediately began having their personal data mined. Note that the malware did not require the blocking ability of the webRequest API to collect the data, it needed only the observational ability, which is not deprecated by Manifest v3.[6] ** [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/57 [2] https://github.com/uBlock-LLC/uBlock/releases/tag/0.9.5.13 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10318200 [4] This was the first release following the split, nothing had to be reverted: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases/tag/0.9.3.0 [5] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/graphs/contributors [6] https://github.com/NanoAdblocker/NanoCore/issues/362#issueco...
In Malware in open-source web extensions
Aengeuad·Sep 20, 2020
The wiki link somewhat explains the situation but to reiterate it for HN: gorhill no longer wanted to work on uBlock full time so he transferred the project to chrisaljoudi who immediately registered ublock.org in order to solicit donations under the valuable uBlock branding. Development on uBlock all but stopped and the project died, some 3 years later chrisaljoudi sold the project to AdBlock who are essentially an advertising company. Meanwhile gorhill continued development at a slower pace on his personal fork, uBlock Origin, which is still maintained to this day. Contribution graph for the original uBlock project during this time frame: https://github.com/uBlock-LLC/uBlock/graphs/contributors?fro... and now compare to the 'personal fork' that is uBlock Origin: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/graphs/contributors?from=2... So if '
Read the rest
squatting' the name of your own OSS project is considered 'user hostile' then let this be a lesson to people considering giving up their project: the person you give it to may abuse your trust and the trust of the community in order to further their own agenda, in this situation it was all just pretty harmless petty drama but it might not always work out so well. Random Github projects aren't organisations with funding and staff with rules and responsibilities to keep the project running, it's okay to archive the project and let the community decide what to do, giving the project to the first person who asks may end up achieving the same thing as archiving the project or it may come back to bite you in the arse damaging your reputation in the process.
In uMatrix has been archived
mattbit·Jul 28, 2018
It seems like they are just trying to steal the name of uBlock. AdBlock CEO says they “do love the name” [0] and are "investing heavily" into the product, but the commits in the repo [1] are just cosmetic changes and rebranding. Oddly enough, the only active committer is anonymous. I wonder if this will cause legal troubles to the true uBlock Origin. [0]: https://twitter.com/judemaier/status/1020034358558670848 [1]: https://github.com/uBlock-LLC/uBlock/commits/master
In An update on uBlock
1centHistorian·Jul 28, 2018
https://www.reddit.com/r/ublock/comments/32mos6/ublock_vs_ub... https://github.com/uBlock-LLC/uBlock/issues/1706 Basically what AdBlock bought is the technical right to say "this extension is the original uBlock project" which is a part of narrative on https://www.ublock.org/announcement/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock/epcnnfbjfcg... but as far as community is concerned it died when it was transferred over and resurrected shortly after under a new repo on Gorhils account
In An update on uBlock
shpx·Nov 5, 2017
/etc/hosts will never block all ads[0]. uBlock Origin can use host files. They aren't on by default because they aren't needed but Dan Pollock's and MVPS lists are already there, you just have to click a check box in Options→"3rd-party filters". The lists are auto updated[1]. uBlock Origin is open source[2] and made by a great[3], hardworking[4], ideological[5] guy. He writes uBlock Origin, which loads in lists of url + css-selector pairs compiled by other people[6][7]. I prefer the term "content blocker" because they're more general than just ads. You can block anything you can write a css-selector for (and because of the arms races[0][8][9], other things like websocket connections too). For example, I hide sticky header bars (thanks web designers), youtube comments, everything that isn't the article on news sites and the menu that comes
Read the rest
up when you right click on Medium. There are also pre-compiled lists of annoyances and a list to block social share buttons. uBlock Origin is the only ad blocker that should exist, arguably every single one of the others is fake. There's plain "uBlock" which is the original project that was effectively abandoned in 2015[10]. There's "Adblock Plus" which is a rent-seeking operation[11] that employs 100 people[12]. There's "Ghostery" which is closed source[13] and up until February 2017 was owned by an advertising company[14]. uBlock Origin is the one you want. [0] https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/846781439890853893 I'm reminded of anti-bacterial soap [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dashboard:-3rd-party-... periodically updating files is for cron jobs, not humans [2] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gorhill [4] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/commits?author=gorhill [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=gorhill seriously, thanks man [6] https://github.com/easylist/easylist [7] https://github.com/ryanbr/fanboy-adblock fanboy also deserves a lot of thanks [8] https://issues.adblockplus.org/ticket/1727 [9] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/08/a-new-way-to-control-th... [10] https://github.com/chrisaljoudi/uBlock/commits/master [11] https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads http://www.businessinsider.com/google-microsoft-amazon-taboo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking [12] https://eyeo.com/en/team [13] https://github.com/jonpierce/ghostery [14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidon,_Inc. the problem in my original comment has been known since June, and some of these extensions phone home https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/898574880773484545 these are probably for "market research"
In Fake WhatsApp update from “WhatsApp Inc.” with Unicode whitespace: 1M downloads
hackernews2000·Sep 13, 2016
It's worth noting that it all started on APRIL FOOL'S DAY (2015). That was the convenient day the author of the project decided to say in the comments for a random Github commit "hey, anybody wants to take this over? I'm out", without any previous discussion or announcement. Users assumed it was a joke but it was for real. Literally the first person to reply took over the entire project, and when the developer who was the real responsible for the Firefox and Safari port saw it, he stopped contributing instantly. However, it's not that "the original author wasn't able to get it back". He is too proud of himself to admit the big mistake it was to give up the project to a random greedy teenager (who after the drama offered to give it back), so he decided to stay with the Origin name. The result of this is that said teenager still makes a pro
Read the rest
fit off the brand name (see ublock.org). People see that page and happily give him money thinking that they are helping the world. By the way, it's also worth noting that the greedy teenager inflated his Github commits with minor changes and by hijacking the authorship of some commits, so that people would think that he did more than he actually have done (he can't really do much), and donate more to him. Eventually he just stopped making commits at all (https://github.com/chrisaljoudi/uBlock/graphs/contributors), since people will still donate just for thinking that his domain is legit. The moral of the story is that uBlock Origin is a good extension, but its developer, despite being talented, can't be trusted to be here tomorrow. He can just have a tantrum and delete the entire project or give it up to some other random teenager again.
In Adblock Plus now sells ads

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