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uBlock for Chrome is a resource-friendly adblocker by the HTTP Switchboard author

Adblockers have become essential tools for many users on the Internet. As a user, I can understand the necessity of blocking distracting or heavy advertisement on the Internet as it can be really annoying.

As a webmaster who earns his living from ads, I trust the readers of this site to make the right decision and whitelist it so that its few ads are displayed and I can continue to run this site.

Adblockers come in all sizes and shapes, and like other add-ons, differ significantly when it comes to resource usage, performance, features and what is being blocked and what not.

Adblock Plus, probably the most popular blocker extension of them all, came under fire recently when it was revealed that it could drive up memory usage in Firefox by a lot under certain circumstances.

The author of HTTP Switchboard, an advanced blocker extension for Google Chrome that is probably the best right now when it comes to that, has released uBlock yesterday for the browser.

UBlock offers much what HTTP Switchboard offers, but in a straightforward manner without all the nice to have features of its bigger sibling.

adblocker  memory consumption

The first thing you will notice is that it uses less memory than HTTP Switchboard and a lot less than Adblock Plus. Keep in mind that this is in idle state of the browser. With pages loaded, consumption goes up but it stays below that of the other two extensions.

What you will notice right away after installation that the interface is rather minimalistic. While it displays the number of blocked elements in its icon, and some stats about what it blocked on the page and overall, it does not display the domain listing that HTTP Switchboard uses.

While that may be a turn off for some users, others may appreciate it as they don't have to deal with these information.

ublock

The on this page feature seems broken right now

As far as options are concerned: you can load filters from various lists, EasyList is for instance supported as are more than two dozen other lists, add your own filters to the list which are enabled then by default as well, and even host names that you can load using the third-party filter listing or by adding them to your own custom filter listing.

Filters can be imported if they are in the right format or edited right away if you open the your filters page of the options.

The extension's main appeal is its ease of use and its low resource usage. If you run Chrome on a low to mid-end device and notice slow downs while running Adblock Plus or another adblocker of choice, you may want to give this a try to see if it improves the situation for you.

This article was first seen on ComTek's "TekBits" Technology News

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