Ad blocking add-ons in Pale Moon 25

[app103]

Users of the Pale Moon browser recently discovered, upon upgrading to Pale Moon 25, that 2 popular add-ons for blocking ads (Adblock Plus & Adblock Edge) no longer worked properly. The main complaint was the disappearance of the toolbar icon.

This issue was the result of a decision of the Pale Moon developers to stop identifying the browser as Firefox variant, and for Pale Moon to have its own unique application GUID.

In most cases this caused no issues with regards to add-on compatibility, since Pale Moon does accept add-ons with a Firefox GUID, as well as those with a Pale Moon GUID.

But with regards to Adblock Plus and Adblock Edge, there will be a need going forward for both add-ons to officially support Pale Moon, or they will not work.

You can read more about it here:

• Extensions and Pale Moon 25
• Changes to Pale Moon GUID and XUL Overlay Adjustments

Unless and/or until both add-ons begin officially supporting Pale Moon, you will either have to find other means for blocking ads, or use this edited Adblock Plus add-on, from the Pale Moon site. Please be sure to remove Adblock Plus/Adblock Edge from your browser before installing this version:

• Adblock Plus (Pseudo-Static)

After installing this version you will notice the return of your toolbar icon and that the add-on functions as it should.

[TaoPhoenix]

Looks like good info.

But it's complicated. What does that mean in bigger terms?

[app103]

What it means is that unless and until the developers of both Adblock Plus and Adblock Edge decide to officially support Pale Moon, you will not be able to use the official versions of those add-ons and will have to rely the one I linked to, instead.

[TaoPhoenix]

What it means is that unless and until the developers of both Adblock Plus and Adblock Edge decide to officially support Pale Moon, you will not be able to use the official versions of those add-ons and will have to rely the one I linked to, instead.

-app103 (October 17, 2014, 08:02 PM)

Well, it's "just" Adblock, not more serious anti-virus software. I already have Adblock 2.1.5 on my copy of Palemoon 24.5, so I guess I will stay here for a while.

Sigh. It used to be "common wisdom" to update early and often. Now it seems like there's way more strange marketing politics going on than the good ol' days of Web 1.0
: (

[app103]

I already have Adblock 2.1.5 on my copy of Palemoon 24.5, so I guess I will stay here for a while.

-TaoPhoenix (October 17, 2014, 09:30 PM)

You can and should upgrade Pale Moon to v25, for security reasons.

Just replace your current ABP with the edited one I linked to. Once either ABP or ABE releases their own version that officially supports Pale Moon, everything will be back to normal. 

It's not politics in this case. The decision to drop the info labeling Pale Moon as a variant of Firefox was for the users, so they would stop getting crap from sites about running an outdated version of Firefox. It's not outdated. The GUI may be based on Firefox 24, but the backend is very much matched to the current release of Firefox.

The issue with ABP & ABE is more related to them catching up with the changes, and hopefully they will. Otherwise someone may have to keep editing the official releases of ABP to work with Pale Moon.

I am also hoping Google gets with it, catches up, and stops treating Pale Moon as an unknown browser that needs to use the old versions of their pages. I am having to use User Agent Switcher with the Pale Moon 24 user agent to get the newer toolbar with the G+ alerts and the newer Google Images UI. Without the mention of Firefox in the user agent, they are treating Pale Moon as if it were IE 6 or some kind of crap that can't handle their newer UI. 

[4wd]

Google Maps now appears to honour Pale Moon's GUID - it no longer tells me I'm using an outdated browser and it displays the newer Maps interface.

[4wd]

Moonchild Productions now has AdBlock Latitude - a replacement for AdBlock+ and AdBlock Edge that works with the Pale Moon browser.

About this extension

Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser.

Adblock Latitude is designed to be a drop in replacement for ABP and will utilize all your exsisting settings. However, ABL is more than that. It intends to also replace Adblock Edge by removing the hard coded Acceptable Ads feature.

Adblock Latitude can be installed over the previously available Pseudo-Static version of Adblock Plus but you will have to uninstall the Pseudo-Static of Adblock Edge as these will conflict as will the orginal versions of ABP and ABE. Likewise, if you were an ABE user you will have to setup ABL to your previous settings.

Compatibility

Adblock Latitude version 3.0.2 works with Pale Moon 25.*

[TaoPhoenix]

Heh since I was doing all the cleanup today, I finally upgraded!
(I'm almost as fast as ice age cycles!)

Meanwhile, something seems to be going on in AdBlock world.
It seems like Wladimir Palant is more in the scene of both Adblock Edge (where the about screen has a confusing double-credit but lists him first), and then AdBlock Plus seems to have fresh versions this month. So since then that all those months passed, does AdBlock officially support Pale Moon now? Did stuff change since this original info thread?

Though per 4wd's note above, I like this spirit of Adblock Latitude (from their page)

"Adblock Latitude is a direct fork of Adblock Plus made specifically for the Pale Moon browser.

Adblock Latitude is designed to be a drop in replacement for ABP and will utilize all your exsisting settings. However, ABL is more than that. It intends to also replace Adblock Edge by removing the hard coded Acceptable Ads feature."

So I'm going to go do that.

[f0dder]

This seems like silly politics to me - if the rendering engine and internals are from mainline Firefox, just identify as that, regardless of using an old UI...

Adblock Latitude is designed to be a drop in replacement for ABP and will utilize all your exsisting settings. However, ABL is more than that. It intends to also replace Adblock Edge by removing the hard coded Acceptable Ads feature."

-TaoPhoenix (April 07, 2015, 03:28 PM)

Huh, isn't the removal of Acceptable Ads one of the things that Adblock Edge is all about, and why it was forked from Adblock Plus?

[TaoPhoenix]

This seems like silly politics to me - if the rendering engine and internals are from mainline Firefox, just identify as that, regardless of using an old UI...

Adblock Latitude is designed to be a drop in replacement for ABP and will utilize all your exsisting settings. However, ABL is more than that. It intends to also replace Adblock Edge by removing the hard coded Acceptable Ads feature."

-TaoPhoenix (April 07, 2015, 03:28 PM)

Huh, isn't the removal of Acceptable Ads one of the things that Adblock Edge is all about, and why it was forked from Adblock Plus?

-f0dder (April 08, 2015, 03:24 AM)

Hence some of my notes!

1. The engines are "sorta" from Firefox - they're supposed to be stripped slightly to run a hair faster on Windows, though I never really traced any of that. I just kept seeing less Mozilla experimentation, and stayed here. See App's note from the fall about how slight differences (identifiers, and whatever else) began to affect actual usage.

2. Again, I just got lost with all of the "Sporking" of AdBlock ____, so I just posted my note again and responded as much to the above as anything, and news reporters are like magpies - they only post parts 1,3 and 7 of an 8 part story, so when I saw the owner switch-back, as I noted above, I was just as confused as you were, installed them both and decided to toggle them on and off as I desired, and left it at that. There's no reason you can't have both copies of the add-on "in the wings".

Plus, I swear just now I saw diffs in trying to adblock avatar images from here, starting with app's cat. Adblock Plus was not taking it at first, Adblock Latitude just did, and now it's hidden from both.

Bleh!

[f0dder]

TaoPhoenix: ABP certainly has "show acceptable ads", but as an option, and not hardcoded. I'm OK with that (it's optional, the ads are unobtrusive, and it might be good for the overall balance... I'm still using ABE, though). ABE is supposed to not have any of that :-s

Anyway, looking forward to µblock is ready for firefox... and oh, after a quick check just now, it seems that it's in preliminary stages.

[Innuendo]

Just decided to check out Adblock Latitude and it is perfect. The "show acceptable ads" toggle has been removed, but....and I quote..."Can still show acceptable ads if you wish it and wish to support the Internet economy, by enabling the relevant filter (under subscriptions) manually."

Now the user can edit the filter and decide for oneself what is and is not an acceptable ad rather than using an all-or-nothing dummy toggle or having to worry about an unscrupulous company buying their way on to the acceptable ad list.

[f0dder]

Just decided to check out Adblock Latitude and it is perfect. The "show acceptable ads" toggle has been removed, but....and I quote..."Can still show acceptable ads if you wish it and wish to support the Internet economy, by enabling the relevant filter (under subscriptions) manually."

-Innuendo (April 18, 2015, 11:59 AM)

That's still the old AdBlock engine though, isn't it? The advantage of ublock is it's new engine with higher performance and lower memory footprint - not a mostly irrelevant "show acceptable ads" checkbox :-)

(ublock seems to work in Pale Moon, but doesn't show up on the toolbar... so you can't use the pick-and-block functionality, and will be limited to using existing filter files).

[Innuendo]

Yes, still uses the same old Adblock engine. I have my eyes on ublock, but I'm waiting for full functionality to be available in Pale Moon before trying it out. Also would be nice for some of that ublock drama to die down as well.

[f0dder]

Also would be nice for some of that ublock drama to die down as well.

-Innuendo (April 19, 2015, 09:59 AM)

Yes, indeed