uBlock Origin

[7][8] The development of uBlock Origin (uBO) began by forking the codebase of HTTP Switchboard, an extension designed to give users control over browser requests.uMatrix retained much of the user interface from HTTP Switchboard, but significantly expanded its functionality, offering a more granular level of control over web requests.The evolution of these extensions laid the foundation for uBlock, combining elements from both HTTP Switchboard and uMatrix while streamlining the user experience for broader accessibility.[citation needed] uBlock was developed by Raymond Hill to use community-maintained block lists,[22] while adding features and raising the code quality to release standards.[29] On April 3, 2015, Raymond Hill transferred the uBlock project to Chris Aljoudi due to frustrations with managing increasing user requests.I will keep maintaining my version (and share with whoever cares to use it) because it guarantees the tool will match what I want out of it.”[31] On April 6, Hill created his own fork of the project, renaming it uBlock Origin.This change was part of uBlock Origin’s efforts to reduce both requests and bandwidth usage, with the goal of not being ranked among the most bandwidth-intensive projects on jsDelivr, as reflected in public statistics.[54][55] According to a research paper, uBlock Origin was able to reduce web page load times by 28.5%, the highest efficiency compared to other ad blockers like AdBlock Plus and Privacy Badger.The research report also suggests that widespread use of uBlock Origin could have environmental benefits, potentially preventing pollution-related deaths caused by coal-fired power generation used to support the extra energy consumption from ads.[57] The main reason is that uBlock Origin (uBO) faces several technical limitations when used on Chromium-based browsers compared to its performance on Firefox, and as a result, users may experience less effective ad blocking, potential exposure to unwanted content, and slower performance when using uBO on Chromium-based browsers:[58] In November 2019, a uBlock Origin user reported a novel technique used by some sites to bypass third-party tracker blocking.Since the initial URL contained a sub-domain of the current page, it was interpreted by browsers as a first-party request and so was allowed by the filtering rules in uBlock Origin (and in similar extensions).[49][50][51] Numerous studies and scientific papers have examined uBlock Origin’s impact on web performance, privacy, and user experience.