uBlock Origin performance improvements thanks to WASM (Firefox only, for now)

Martin Brinkmann
Dec 3, 2018
Internet
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The most recent version of the content blocking extension uBlock Origin uses WebAssembly (WASM) code to improve the performance of the extension.

The new uBlock Origin 1.17.4 is already available on the GitHub project website and Google and Mozilla web stores for extensions.

The new versions get pushed out to users in a rolled released which means that you may not get it immediately. Chrome and Firefox users may enforce the update. Chrome users may want to read how to update Chrome extensions manually for information on how that is done, Firefox users may check this guide instead.

Raymond Hill (gorhill) notes that the new code is only active in the Firefox extension and not in the extension for Google Chrome. The reason for that is that Google Chrome does not allow wasm "without adding 'unsafe-eval' to the extension's own Content Security Policy in its manifest" which Raymond considers unsafe for use).

firefox bechmark wasm ublock

Firefox users who run the latest version of the extension already can run a benchmark to find out how well it performs in comparison to the algorithm that does not use WASM.

Open the benchmark in the browser and select Lookup to find out how well it performs. Compare the last two lines for that. The example above shows that the WASM version runs about a 1000 operations per second more than the previous version of the algorithm.

Gorhill plans to introduce WebAssembly versions of "key portions of code" if it is of benefit to the extension. Expect uBlock Origin to perform better in browsers that support it; whether the performance gains are large enough to be noticeable by users remains to be seen but they could certainly make the difference in some scenarios.

You can find out more about WebAssembly on the official project website. It is supported by Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Microsoft Edge (and browsers based on code of those four). The code that uBlock Origin uses is available here.

Now You: Which content blocker do you use, and why?

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uBlock Origin performance improvements thanks to WASM (Firefox only, for now)
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uBlock Origin performance improvements thanks to WASM (Firefox only, for now)
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The most recent version of the content blocking extension uBlock Origin uses WebAssembly (WASM) code to improve the performance of the extension.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
    Reply

    Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 4, 2012 at 7:57 pm
      Reply

      Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.

    2. Leonidas Burton said on September 4, 2023 at 4:51 am
      Reply

      I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
      http://www.google.com/saved

  2. VioletMoon said on August 16, 2023 at 5:26 pm
    Reply

    @Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!

  3. Karl said on August 17, 2023 at 10:36 pm
    Reply

    @Martin

    The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
    https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/

    Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.

  4. Anonymous said on August 25, 2023 at 11:44 am
    Reply

    Omg a badge!!!
    Some tangible reward lmao.

    It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.

  5. Scroogled said on August 25, 2023 at 10:57 pm
    Reply

    With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.

    1. lollmaoeven said on August 27, 2023 at 6:24 am
      Reply

      This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)

  6. El Duderino said on August 25, 2023 at 11:14 pm
    Reply

    Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.

    And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.

  7. John G. said on August 26, 2023 at 1:29 am
    Reply

    First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm

    For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[

  8. Kalmly said on August 26, 2023 at 4:42 pm
    Reply

    Yes. Please. Fix the comments.

  9. Kim Schmidt said on September 3, 2023 at 3:42 pm
    Reply

    With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.

    Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.

    The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.

    If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.

    And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.

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