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Comment by whizzkid | Hacker News Reader

I have been using µBlock for 3 weeks now.(previously adblock plus). There is one irritating thing it has that almost makes me go back to adblock again.

It is often blocking the false positives.

So if developer has named one of their assets file with social media names like "twitter/facebook/etc", it blocks the file right away. Since it does not have custom configuration options for each site, you can either disable µBlock or go with the crashed site.

Not all the sites are written professionally by experts, and this becomes an issue when you are trying to purchase stuff from small online shops. (to support local sellers)

I am too busy for a pull request these days, but maybe this will be fixed soon by someone else. My point for µBlock is for now 5/10.

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> It is often blocking the false positives

It's the filter lists. Use the same filter lists with any other blockers which support ABP-filter syntax, and you will get the same result.

> named one of their assets file with social media names like "twitter/facebook/etc", it blocks the file right away

I have removed Fanboy's Social Blocking list from the pre-selected lists since a while now.[1]

I have to say that I had assumed -- wrongly obviously -- that all users knew that what is blocked or not depends completely on what filter lists are selected. So in your case it would have been a matter of un-selecting Fanboy's Social Blocking list.

[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/commit/ce04053ae3054ff287a...

I wonder what would happen if you defaulted to 0 rules active, with a huge mention in as many places as possible that rules needed to be configured (and perhaps a short list of recommendations).

I expect you would get more complaints, saying it was stupid and didn't work. But it would be interesting to see the outcome.

Didn't realise I could do that. Thanks for mentioning :)

That's an issue with the filter lists you choose, not uBlock. Also uBlock does allow you to disable on a domain or subdomain, so this is easily worked around.

uBlock is a bit more of a power user blocker than AdBlock and its variants, but I find it to be far better, both in customisability of filters, and resource utilisation.

µBlock enables Fanboy's social blocking list by default. If you want your Twitter/FB buttons and so forth back, you can turn it off in the subscription options.

The problem is that it doesn't just block the buttons, it blocks assets that just happen to have those names that are unrelated to the buttons as well.

It hasn't blocked them by default for a while now. It used to though.

Both the Chrome and Opera versions did for me, and quite recently too: only switched on Chrome about a month ago at most, and I've only even had Opera installed for about a week.

Just installed on Firefox and it looks like Fanboy's social is no longer in the default list.

You should file an issue on github at least. The developer is responsive and friendly.

I thought this was one of those "used it for <x> <y>s and everything is super duper" and wanted to add my "+1". Anyway, I've been using it for 1-2 months and it's been smooth sailing so far. Faster than AdBlock and 99.9% of the coverage coverage (usually some obscure popup ads usually – they did get fixed pretty fast though). And no false positives for me at all.

> Since it does not have custom configuration options for each site

What's the purpose of such tool really? It might sound weird, but I was happiest with opt-in (ad) blocking. Every single blocked content was (semi)manually entered by me. I really don't care if I see ads on a site I visit once in a lifetime.

You can fined tune (almost like uMatrix) the blocking in the latest version by enabling "Advanced user feature".

Same here. I only use it because it has lower resources consumption but it annoys me when it blocks Disqus even though I have added their domains to the white list.

Embedded Disqus works fine from here. If you have a URL where there is a problem, enter an issue on Github [0] -- and enumerate which filter lists you have selected.

Usually it all comes down to the filter lists, in which case I redirect to EasyList forum [1].

[0] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues

[1] https://forums.lanik.us/viewforum.php?f=64

I had this issue on Adblock too. It was down to one of the pre-installed blacklists - I can't remember which one. Try unchecking them one at a time

Similarly, it blocks all FB, Twitter buttons across all websites and there seems to be no way to white list those across all websites. Am I missing something?

Well, this in itself seems like a good reason for me to install it.

Go To Preferences, Third-party filters, and uncheck "Easy Privacy" list. It should bring back the social buttons (everywhere).

In its options, select 3rd-party filters, and under Social, uncheck Fanboy's Social Blocking List.

Have to downvote.

You have powerful editing rules, so you could certainly tune all rules and lists to your liking: " List of your dynamic filtering rules.

Rule syntax: source destination type action. " followed by a GitHub wiki link to the doc.

It's possible in theory. I have customized my ABP rules a ton, switching off rules I didn't want (impossible in uBlock), adding targeted rules for anything from annoying animated avatars to slow domains or bloated mastheads you can't scroll past (shit's almost as bad as modal pop-ups), and I've been unable to do any of it in uBlock because it's way, way too much hassle.

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