uBlock Origin Suggested Settings

107 thoughts on “uBlock Origin Suggested Settings”

1. Hi
   Regarding Cname: I got the setting: “Uncloak canonical names” enabled; but I’m not quite sure whether I’m actually protected by cname-tracking or whether ublock “just” detects this kind of tracking and leave further action of how to deal with this up to me. The cname is not blocked=green, and when I open the logger no blocking here either as far as I can see.

   Reply to 'Jane'

   1. i’m not 100% certain and i don’t have time to look into it at the moment, but i’m fairly sure that when you enable uncloaking you can prevent the tracking because, when you enable the setting, you’ll see hosts in the uBO pop-up interface that are colored blue and those are the ones that cname uncloaking exposes and therefore they can be blocked

      Reply to '12Bytes'

      1. Thank you
         Best regards/Jane

         Reply to 'Jane'

2. Another useful link I forgot to post earlier: https://github.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/discussions/163
   It seems uB0 dev also recommends this filter list.

   Reply to 'tiger_man'

3. I use the ClearURLs addon but I just discovered this filter list: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DandelionSprout/adfilt/master/LegitimateURLShortener.txt
   Seems to be working pretty well, what do you think? I’m all for 1 addon installed less….

   Reply to 'tiger_man'

   1. very interesting – thanks for sharing!
      it’s very new and reading through the uBO issue you linked to, i’m not sure how well versed the author is in RegEx, so personally i think i’ll let the project bake a while before kicking the tires but, yeah, i too am all for dumping as many extensions as possible

      Reply to '12Bytes'

      1. I don’t know if it’s the author being inexperienced as you said or the fact that it’s a filter list and not an extension like ClearURLs but after using it for a whole day I can agree with you that it needs some serious polishing as I noticed it removes parameters for sites that have no tracking parameters in their urls thus rendering them almost unusable. I’ll stick with ClearURLs for now.

         Reply to 'tiger_man'

         1. thanks for the update – i don’t think i’ve ever had anything break with ClearURLs so i don’t mind sticking with it

            Reply to '12Bytes'

4. The “Fanboy’s Enhanced Tracking List​” filter got moved from the Privacy group to Custom, dunno what that means for the grand scheme of things though.

   Reply to 'tiger_man'

   1. thanks for letting me know – i addressed the change and made a few other small edits

      Reply to '12Bytes'

      1. No problem. I’m not sure about this but if you fresh install uB0 will the Fanboy’s Enhanced Tracking List even be in the Custom group though?

         Reply to 'tiger_man'

         1. glad you brought that up, i should’ve known better – no, it is not available by default on a fresh install – i removed it from the guide – also see: Removing Fanboy Enhanced Tracking

            Reply to '12Bytes'

5. How do i block the pop up when visiting google (‘Before you continue…’ & youtube (sign-in) popup through uBlock?

   Reply to 'Dave'

   1. by reading the uBO manual :)

      Reply to '12Bytes'

      1. I tried and no luck..also followed your write ups, no luck. I probably need to try the uMatrix route

         Reply to 'Dave'

         1. i don’t use gaagle directly so i don’t know what pop-up you’re referring to, nor do i log on to ThemTube

            Firefox has a built-in pop-up blocker and you could also use CSS if you know how – i use basically the same config as outlined in the advanced guide, less uMatrix (i’m testing without it), and i never see any pop-ups anywhere – i do see stupid CSS-styled overlays on occasion, but i destroy them with CSS

            uBO also has an element hider function you might find useful

            Reply to '12Bytes'

            1. Sorry I should have linked it.

               https://www.ghacks.net/2020/09/27/how-to-deal-with-googles-and-youtubes-aggressive-popups-before-you-continue-sign-in/

               The add to my filter list method didn’t work in uBO
               I’ll play around with the settings.

               Reply to 'Dave'

               1. if you’ve set up uBO according to my guide, check that ‘element hiding’ is not disabled – uncheck ‘Disable cosmetic filtering’ in settings and on the filter lists tab, check “Parse and enforce cosmetic filters”

                  Reply to '12Bytes'

                  1. didnt still help, i’ll keep trying. Thanks

                     Reply to 'Dave'

                     1. what doesn’t work? you can’t hide the pop-up, or the element hider in uBO doesn’t work?

                        Reply to '12Bytes'

                        1. Ah you mean to use use element hider. Yes that does work

                           Reply to 'Dave'

                        2. your recommendations (and settings) do work for for example for translate.google com or maps.google com, but they don’t work for youtube.com. one still gets the “sign in to youtube” popup

                           Reply to 'EC'

                           1. i’m using uBO in advanced mode without uM and i never see a log-on pop-up – are you allowing ‘accounts.google.com’? if so, that may be why

                              if you don’t see that domain in the uBO pop-up, click the ‘+all’ label

                        3. the problem with youtube/google exists only if the users IP is in EU and while using Firefox.

                           using Brave browser there is no need to turn on uBlock at all as well as turn on built into the browser trackers&ads blocking or fingerprints blocking.

                           Reply to 'EC'

                           1. i don’t know what the YT pop-up looks like – if it’s a DIV layer, you can easily kill it with CSS – if it’s a page that forwards, you can possibly use a redirect

                              whatever the case, more people need to stop using the platform

6. please relax ;) this is not a new issue. Just a big Thank You for all your good work and guidance.
   Merry Christmas

   Reply to 'Jane'

   1. thank you Jane – same to you and yours :)

      Reply to '12Bytes'

7. Hi
   It puzzles me, that the filterlists in UblockOrigin do not update automatically, even though auto-update is enabled. I noticed a while ago, but I don’t know for how long this has been the case. at one point after a manual update, I discovered 3 cookies set by some of these filterlists. I don’t recall which. normally I only allow cookies, if necessary. Any suggestions to why this happens and how to solve it?
   Best Regards

   Reply to 'Jane'

   1. odd, in my case the filter lists are auto-updating as they should

      regarding cookies being set by a filter list, i didn’t even know that was possible – can you provide more detail, such as how you knew they were set by a filter list and perhaps their name(s)?

      Reply to '12Bytes'

      1. to see which cookies are being set by filter lists purge all caches then update list then look under Options-Privacy&Security-Manage Data… sorting it by Last Used

         Reply to 'EC'

         1. hmmm… not sure what to think of that – for the lists i use, cookies were set by…

            fanboy.co.cz
            adtidy.org
            easylist.to

            i tried looking at these cookies with the browser console and i’m not seeing anything that looks nefarious to me – i suspect they are probably set in order to establish the time that the client last updated the lists, perhaps to avoid unnecessary concurrent downloads from the same client – that’s just a guess though and, frankly, i’m not concerned enough to look into it deeper, but if you do, let us know

            thanks for reporting this

            Reply to '12Bytes'

            1. exactly the same cookies as mentioned by you, are set in my browser too.
               Besides: am I supposed to activate “purge all caches” once in a while, given the fact that these filterlists do not auto-update? I’m not quite sure what the term means/involves in regards of UblockOrigin settings

               Reply to 'Jane'

               1. you should not ever have to purge the filter lists cache and they should update automatically

                  i think the purge thing is for when you want to disable a list where purging will remove it from memory

                  when you purge, are you able to manually update this lists? and are you sure they are actually updated? – to test, disable your network connection, purge a list, click the ‘eye’ looking icon (view content) for the list and make sure the list is empty, then enable your connection and manually update and check the list again

                  also…

                  enable the ‘I am an advanced user’ setting and you’ll see a gear icon appear right after that option – click that and then press Ctrl+F and enter:

                  asset

                  and check those settings – here’s mine:

                  assetFetchTimeout 30
autoUpdateAssetFetchPeriod 120
manualUpdateAssetFetchPeriod 500
updateAssetBypassBrowserCache false

                  also check…
                  autoUpdateDelayAfterLaunch 180

                  on a side note, try setting uiTheme to dark … pretty cool

                  don’t forget to disable advanced mode

                  if that doesn’t straighten things out, let me know and we’ll dig deeper

                  Reply to '12Bytes'

                  1. I found all the mentioned asset settings as well as autoUpdateDelayAfterLaunch and with the same numbers. I think things might work as they should by now: when I hover over the clock-symbol all lists have been automatically updated after the date of my manual update.
                     I feel a bit uneasy about the cache purge action: it is not clear to me how to purge one list without disabling all the others. I will leave it be and cross my fingers for the update problem to be solved.
                     I searched for how to change theme color but couldn’t find where to do this. Is it the colorblind- help out -option in the settings?

                     Reply to 'Jane'

                     1. you can’t purge a single list apparently – sorry, i didn’t realize that

                        to change the theme color, enable advanced mode and in the advanced settings change the value of uiTheme – i didn’t look up what the possible values are, but i found that ‘dark’ works

                        Reply to '12Bytes'

                        1. regarding uiTheme, it says: unset.
                           am I to manually delete these 5 letters and afterwards type: dark?

                           Reply to 'Jane'

                           1. if you want to change the theme, yes, replace ‘unset’ with ‘dark’ – 3 possible values are ‘light’ ‘dark’ and ‘unset’

                           2. ps: don’t forget to disable advanced mode if you weren’t already using it

8. Hello. I tried looking at the uBO wiki but couldn’t find an answer (at least in plain view, I’m still a newbie) so I ask you: what does “no-large-media: behind-the-scene true” do and should I set it to true if I have the “Block media elements larger than …” option enabled?
   Thank you and keep up the good work.

   Reply to 'Mick Foley'

   1. from the wiki…

      Behind the scene network requests

      This wiki page is out of date and in need of revision. When this documentation was created, the behind-the-scene network requests uBlock Origin was able to see and filter originated from many places, such as those from other extensions or from various browser operations (ex.: real-time search suggestions).

      Since then things have changed: uBO no longer can see network requests from other extensions, and behind-the-scene network requests are now quite less frequent. Furthermore, the webRequest API now provides more context to event listeners, such that it is often possible to still filter properly even when it’s not possible to know from which exact tab a network request originates.

      Because of this (and other reasons which will eventually come to light – the “Who Left Open The Cookie Jar?” vulnerability), starting with uBO 1.15.20, the behind-the-scene scope will no longer be on the Trusted sites list by default, meaning network requests from the behind-the-scene scope will be subject to filtering by default.

      […]

      The filtering of behind-the-scene network request is available to advanced users.

      What are behind-the-scene network requests

      Behind-the-scene network requests are network requests which uBlock cannot associate with a specific tab in your browser: these requests come from somewhere, but uBlock is missing information to report exactly from where.

      All network requests without a specific origin are classified as behind-the-scene.

      i’m really not sure how to advise regarding this setting – i have it set to ‘false’ for potentially less breakage, but that may not be necessary

      behind-the-scene stuff is, as it says, requests that uBO can’t associate with a tab (doesn’t know where the request originated) – the ‘Block media elements larger than’ option is for media elements that CAN be associated with a tab – this sets the default for the per-site switch on the main pop-up, ‘click to block large media elements for this site’ – so if you don’t want media elements larger than ‘x’ to be loaded for a given site, you can specify a size and then use the per-site switch

      personalty, i wouldn’t bother unless you need to conserve bandwidth – most all this stuff will be blocked by default anyway if you have blocked JS globally (which you should) – then you can allow JS per-site or certain JS (such as for youtube) globally

      also see…

      No large media elements

      Reply to '12Bytes'

      1. Actually I have it enabled not for bandwidth saving but because I have an 11 years old laptop running Win7 (can’t install a Linux distro on it thanks to the graphic chip…) with only 4gb of ram and I thought that would help in terms of performance. Dunno if this assumption is correct though.
         I guess I’ll have to start getting used to disable js and whitelist sites I uses regularly.

         Another thing: I dumped LocalCDN because I read it’s basically redundant with the arkenfox user.js (and also because like I said the less stuff I have installed the better) but I noticed I have to whitelist a lot more stuff in uBO now to make sites work (Cloudfare mostly), so do you think I should go back to it or keep whitelisting them as I use said sites?

         Reply to 'Mick Foley'

         1. Linux is great for older machines i’ve heard (over and over) – as far as the graphic chip, you *should* be able to use the open source driver at least

            i don’t think (really not sure though) blocking large media will help performance wise, but pages with large media might load faster

            > I dumped LocalCDN because I read it’s basically redundant with the arkenfox user.js …

            true, but sites relying on CDNs will likely take a bit longer to load since that content is no longer loaded locally

            > … do you think I should go back to it or keep whitelisting them as I use said sites?

            totally up to you – personally i still use LocalCDN for speed reasons and because i don’t think the redundant privacy hurts anything

            Reply to '12Bytes'

            1. I reinstalled LocalCDN after all and started getting used to hard blocking mode + JS disabled, it’s actually pretty comfy, pages finally load faster. Sure, the ‘My rules’ panel is loaded with lines now but it can’t be helped I guess.

               Off-topic:

               >Linux is great for older machines i’ve heard (over and over) – as far as the graphic chip, you *should* be able to use the open source driver at least

               I know, I have an even older netbook with Bunsenlabs on it and it goes like a true champ. Unfortunately the laptop I use regularly (and has a bigger screen too) is “infected” with the SiS Mirage 3+ 672 graphic chip and the 2 solutions I found (1: https://gist.github.com/fevangelou/46a2885233c45011ad5c8752f18eac73 , 2: https://linux-sis-driver.weebly.com/linux-ubuntu-distros-and-the-infamous-sis-chips/linux-driver-for-infamous-sis-671-672-771-772-717) don’t work no matter how many times I try… Oh well.

               Reply to 'Mick Foley'

               1. > JS disabled, it’s actually pretty comfy, pages finally load faster.

                  sure do, also most tracking and fingerprinting (and malware, pop-ups, etc.) require JS

                  so you’re using uBO without uMatrix i take it?

                  Reply to '12Bytes'

                  1. >sure do, also most tracking and fingerprinting (and malware, pop-ups, etc.) require JS

                     Well they load faster because there’s nothing left to load most of the times, hahaha

                     >so you’re using uBO without uMatrix i take it?

                     Yeah, I’m still at the stage of constantly learning how to use uBO properly. Also from the little I’ve read uBO can actually do a fair amount of the things uM does, so I feel comfortable using just one right now.

                     A question: have you ever thought of making a uMatrix setup guide just like this one? I know you basically already did in the Freaks Firefox guide but having a separate one would be nice.

                     Reply to 'Mick Foley'

                     1. > uBO can actually do a fair amount of the things uM does

                        it can, but if you want granular control uM is easier to work with IMO – actually i think it’s easier period, but it might be a good thing if you stuck with uBO for a bit and learned how to use it well – the wiki is a great resource and it actually covers some stuff that’s missing in the uM wiki

                        > have you ever thought of making a uMatrix setup guide…

                        i recommend uM in the advanced guide only, so no – i broke out the uBO guide from both config guides only because a lot of the stuff was redundant and i got tired of having to edit both guides every time i changed stuff for uBO in one of them

                        Reply to '12Bytes'

                        1. Fair enough.

                           Last question: what’s the rationale you used on selecting these Filter lists? For example, the uBO wiki recommends the “Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list” enabled for medium blocking mode and higher but you have it disabled in your guide?

                           Reply to 'Mick Foley'

                           1. that’s a hosts file list and they can be problematic for some reason – this is even discussed in one of the wiki’s i think – my choices are based on my experiences and pretty much never give me any trouble

9. Hi!

   I did scan my ~/home dirrectory with clamscan and it find:
   extensions/uBlock0@raymondhill.net.xpi: Urlhaus.Malware.191095-8836388-0 FOUND

   I did remove uBO, clean everything and was okay. After add uBO back there is the same find.

   Thank you.

   Reply to 'fernandel'

   1. as long as you downloaded uBO from AMO or github, i’m sure you can ignore that – it’s almost certainly a false-positive

      also i’m not sure that clam is worth using on a Linux system – at least i was told it wasn’t from people more knowledgeable than myself

      i would also highly recommend NOT using any of the big name A/V’s on Linux either since they essentially are malware, and potentially very dangerous

      Reply to '12Bytes'