Retiring Adblock Latitude

[Moonchild]

I'll be retiring Adblock Latitude.

With the modern web interfering more and more with ABL's method of blocking content, there are irreconcilable issues for the extension's effectiveness and especially performance.
In addition, I have no time to work on this extension to improve it or extend its support for more extensive blocking rules, and there has been no interest by someone else to take over and further develop it.

Since there are better alternatives (ηMatrix/eMatrix, ublock Origin, etc.) the logical choice is to retire it.
I'll be removing it from the add-ons site and archive the source repo shortly.

I recommend anyone using it to research the alternatives and pick the one that works best for them.

[andyprough]

Any non-Chrome/Edge/Safari browser that is increasing in market share (basically any browser that doesn't come pre-installed on popular hardware) seems to have a strong built-in ad and tracking blocker, or a strong connection to a pre-installed modern version of uBlock.

Would it be possible for some development efforts to go into helping UCyborg to bring the legacy uBlock up to more modern capabilities? I'm just talking in terms of prioritizing a small bit of development time from the overall dev team. I'm not aware of how you devs parcel out your time, but it does seem that this is important and that any modern browser project will probably ultimately fail if this isn't some type of priority.

[Lucio Chiappetti]

I'll be retiring Adblock Latitude.
With the modern web interfering more and more with ABL's method of blocking content ...
Since there are better alternatives (ηMatrix/eMatrix, ublock Origin, etc.) the logical choice is to retire it.

It is a pity, but it understandable.
I see it was not updated (at least on my installation since 2022) ... though the filters are still updated (even yesterday or today) ... and I suppose will continue to be updated for a while.
I would like to ask other more knowledgeable users on the forum to post (in this or another dedicated thread) directions for a replacement, a sort of migration guide, ideally one which would not require actions by the users running after the various "offending" sites. In my ABL I have Lunar Blocklist, Allow nointrusive adveristing, Adbblock warning removal, EasyListItaly+EasyList, I don't care about cookies ... then there a few custom filters which I'm not aware how they were created (possibly from ABL menu)
In the latter case I guess I could do a select all, copy and past in a file, and scan the sites which are still interesting and disable whichever new ad blocker on them.

[Moonchild]

Maybe I wasn't clear enough (not sure how else to say it) but the issue isn't that blocklists aren't updated or that it doesn't do its work the way it can based on the blocklists, but that the way the extension works internally is increasingly incompatible with modern websites (especially the element hiding rules) - it's because of adblock plus's core design that we're building on.
If it still works for you, great, keep using it - but people shouldn't make new installs of it.

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Pardon my ignorance ... are the lists used by ABL (and I presume other AB*) compatible with uBlock and/or eMatrix or will they need different lists ?
I do not want to waste your (MC's) time. I was soliciting others to suggests a migration route.

What "works" for me is the fact the lists called by ABL seem to autoupdate.
I'm ready to migrate to other adblockers (within 2-3 months) insofar ABL with the current lists continues to work for such period.
I cannot tell whether the combination of ABL+lists is effectively working on all sites.
On most sites I do not get ads.
However on several sites I still get the "anti-adblocker" popups. Sometimes I can get rid of them with "remove overlay" and "reload", one other I don't ... either I disable
ABL on the site ... or I quit the site.
There are also a few cases of site without real ads where I disable ABL to disable the IDCAC filter (I prefer to use the filter and not IDCAC itself because sometimes this makes impossible a working login on some sites. e.g. Trenitalia train operator) also for internal login (e.g. our local transit operator ATM).

Some sites (very few) run a reasonable ad approach. On a weather forecast site, I receive once in a while a popup which presents couples of ad categories, some disabled by default and some considered "pertinent" but which can be turned off. Once I turn them off, this remains valid even after a switch off (restoring the saved session) except in case of hard Pale Moon resets (by hard I mean those when this forum and other phpBB forums require me to login again). If all were like those ...

[BenFenner]

It is a pity, but it understandable.

Yes, my thoughts as well. ABL was my preferred ad blocker because of how it loaded itself first, before any web content, and then applied its rules, making sure no ads slipped through via race conditions. Something I believe all other ad blockers suffer from (in theory).
However, ABL became ineffective for me ~5 years ago (ads on YouTube and others slipping through) so I've been using uBO (slightly begrudgingly) since then.

With no resources to bring ABL up to speed, as it were, I can completely understand sunsetting it. I'd love something like it to be available maybe some day again in the future, but for now there certainly are workable alternatives.

[moonbat]

are the lists used by ABL (and I presume other AB*) compatible with uBlock and/or eMatrix or will they need different lists

They need different lists, uBO uses a different syntax as does eMatrix. You'll find the popular lists like Fanboy, EasyList etc all have uBO compatible versions. You can find more lists here, and search for them based on compatibility with uBlock or eMatrix.
uBO comes with several built in lists of its own including EasyList and Fanboy - at the very basic level these should suffice. You can find others at the link above for other use cases like blocking GDPR cookie notices or newsletter subscription popups, and country/region specific block lists.