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Guidelines

1. Prevent overblocking by applying the law of diminishing returns (always blocking more ≠ better blocking experience).
2. Aim for efficiency without sacrificing quality (use sane, quality resources).
3. Implement the minimum number of useful lists (avoid redundancy and bloat when possible).

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Recommended Filters for uBlock Origin

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Content

1. Custom Filters
   1. Privacy
   2. Annoyances
   3. Security
   4. All-Purpose
2. Setup Examples
   1. Enhanced
   2. Pro
   3. Optimized
3. Block Content with Fewer Rules
   1. Selectively Disable Cosmetic Filters
   2. Optimized Lists
4. Advanced Settings
5. FAQ
6. Additional Reading
7. Mentions

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Custom Filters

How to import custom filters into uBlock Origin (uBO):

1. Choose a project from the list below.
2. Click add and copy the URL from the address bar (or right click add and select Copy link from the context menu).
3. Under Filter Lists > Custom in uBO, paste the linked URL to the Import box.
4. Click Apply Changes.

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Privacy

1. ⭐ Privacy Essentials (1k rules) | add
   A curated list for advanced hardening. Includes my click2load filterlist^{^what is this?} and blocks requests like connect.facebook.com and more that are not covered by uBO's default settings or in Annoyance lists. ⚠️ This list breaks third-party logins.

2. ⭐ Hagezi's Personal DNS Blocklist (48k domains) | add
   Hagezi's manually maintained blocklist includes ad and tracker domains seen on the top website lists (Umbrella/Tranco/Statvoo) and extracted domains from his DNS wildcard rules. This is the core of Hagezi’s five primary DNS blocklists, which are much larger and more appropriate for DNS-level blocking.

3. yokoffing's click2load filters (47 rules) | add
   (optional: Included in Privacy Essentials) Turns many third-party audio and video players into click-to-load placeholders which only load once a user clicks on it. This list speeds up page load, uses less bandwidth and browser resources, and reduces privacy exposure (by contacting fewer domains during page load). The player will load by clicking on the placeholder.

4. Privacy Extended (17k rules) | add
   As a fork of AdGuard Tracking Protection, this list eliminates extra allowlisting caused by different methods between uBO and AdGuard, and resolves issues faster if the problems are inconsistent between the two. Privacy Extended also removes redundant filters found in EasyPrivacy.

URL Tracking Parameters

Add the functionality of ClearURLs to uBO. If you find websites with tracking parameters or experience breakage, you can submit those here.

1. ⭐ Actually Legitimate URL Shortener Tool (2k rules) | add
   This list also includes all entries from AdGuard's URL Tracking Protection as of October 2022.

2. ClearURLs for uBO (700 rules) | add
   (optional: This list may break websites and may contain problematic rules. There is not much the maintainers can do, as this list is just the ClearURLs rules converted into a filterlist.)

Fonts

1. Block third-party fonts (70 rules) | add
   (optional: This will break the "look and feel" of some sites.) A successor to Fanboy's Anti-thirdparty Fonts, this option blocks all web fonts from third-party providers but allows the browser to download fonts from first-party domains. I prefer this method because it avoids third-party domains (speed and privacy benefit), and I trust the first-party site to download a font from them.¹

Annoyances

1. ⭐ yokoffing's Annoyance List (1k rules) | add
   A curated list that captures nuisances missed by other maintainers. It also cleans up the clutter around many sites (e.g., related articles, "read more", etc.).

2. Browse websites without logging in (370 rules) | add
   This list attempts to bypass forced logins on sites.

3. YouTube Clear View (17 rules) | add
   Cleans up some of the clutter on YouTube.

Paywalls

⚠️ To bypass paywalls effectively, you should use the Bypass Paywalls Clean extenstion for Chrome or Firefox. These lists are limited in what they can do and are therefore optional:

1. Bypass Paywalls Clean filter (960 rules) | add
   The Bypass Paywalls Clean (BPC) filter is from the same developer as the add-on implementation. You do not need this filterlist if you use the extension.

2. Anti-paywall filters (2k rules) | add
   This list blocks additional third-party requests and annoyances that are not covered in the Bypass Paywalls Clean filterlist.

Security

High-risk sites can expose your device to threats. These lists can prevent that by warning you before navigation or limiting what you can access.

1. Most Abused TLDs (206 rules) | add
   Displays a warning before navigating to a site with an abused TLD. Allows exceptions for legitimate sites. Merged from my own Enhanced website protection list, Dandelion Sprout's Anti-Malware List, LennyFox's Block non-Latin TLDs list, and Spamhaus statistics.

2. Dandelion Sprout's Anti-Malware List (42k rules) | add
   This list blocks domains with high abuse rates and their search results. It also blocks domains involved in malware redirects, domain parking, and Windows PUP ads. It has many other subcategories that distinguish it from similar lists.

3. The malicious website blocklist (38k rules) | add
   This version includes author comments, vxvault.net's list, the anti-PUP list, and additional rules for uBO.

All-Purpose

1. uBlock combo list (81k rules) | add
   (optional: You may not want all these sub-filters, or you may prefer to use the separate lists) This list filters URL tracking parameters as well as malware, scams, and phishing. It combines the following lists: Dandelion Sprout's Anti-Malware List, Actually Legitimate URL Shortener Tool, The malicious website blocklist, and the anti-typo list.

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Setup Examples

I've provided three setup guides: Enhanced, Pro, and Optimized.

Enhanced

Features

• Demonstrates the power of uBO
• Blocks most cookie pop-ups, site notifications, and anti-adblock notices
• Adds additional privacy protections against URL tracking and third-party domains
• Adds security protections from known badware domains (optional)
• You have a low threshold for site breakage

Built-in lists

In addition to the default lists, you should also enable:

1. EasyList - Cookie Notices
2. EasyList - Notifications (if you don't already have these disabled in your browser)
3. EasyList - Social Widgets (if they bother you)
4. uBlock filters - Annoyances (anti-adblock messages)

Custom lists

1. Hagezi's Personal DNS Blocklist
2. yokoffing's click2load filters
3. Actually Legitimate URL Shortener Tool
4. The Security lists (if you browse high-risk categories like torrents, piracy, and third-party streaming sites, or want more peace of mind, etc.)

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Pro

Features

• Get the most value from customizing uBO
• Blocks more annoyances
• Adds significant privacy protection
• Adds security protection against abused TLDs
• You should be comfortable troubleshooting issues and reporting site breakage, though it should be rare

Built-in lists

In addition to the default lists, you should also enable:

1. Block Outsider Instrusion into LAN
2. AdGuard – Popup Overlays (newsletter pop-ups)
3. EasyList - Annoyances (all lists)
4. uBlock filters - Annoyances

Custom lists

1. Privacy Essentials
2. Hagezi's Personal DNS Blocklist
3. Privacy Extended
4. Actually Legitimate URL Shortener Tool
5. yokoffing's Annoyance List (+ any of the other Annoyance lists)
6. Most Abused TLDs

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Optimized

• Ideal for mobile or older devices, or users who really enjoy efficiency
• Thorough blocking with reduced rule count

Replace one-for-one with Optimized Lists.

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Block Content with Fewer Rules

Selectively Disable Cosmetic Filters

One way to improve performance without compromising security or privacy is to disable cosmetic filtering. Cosmetic filtering (aka element hiding) stops ads and other nuisances on the page; it only affects how the website looks. Toggling it off when you don't need it will reduce the workload on your device while still blocking unwanted network requests.

For sites where uBO seems unnecessary (e.g., pages with no ads), turn off cosmetic filtering for the site. This will still protect you from security and privacy risks (network requests) but reduce overhead to page load.

Optimized Lists

uBO can handle 300k+ filters, but you might not need that many rules to block unwanted content effectively. You can use some alternative lists that have fewer rules than the built-in ones if you want to save CPU and memory on your device.

AdGuard provides filters that are optimized by removing rules that are rarely used. These lists are designed to be lighter and faster but still maintain high standards for content blocking. The optimization process relies on the statistics of how often AdGuard users apply different rules, which they opt-in to share.

⚠️ By the very nature of these filterlists, they may not block 100% of what their original format blocks. This is obvious, but it's worth remembering for when you're trying to debug lack of coverage.

The rule counts shown below are when compared to their original list in uBO.

Ads

1. Easylist (Optimized) (24k vs. 67k rules) | add
   EasyList is the primary filter list that removes most adverts from web pages, including unwanted frames, images, and objects. It is the most popular list used by many ad blockers.

2. EasyList + AdGuard Base filter (Optimized) (64k vs. 137k rules combined) | add
   If Easylist (Optimized) is missing too many ads, then use this list, or stick with the built-in Easylist filter.

Annoyances

1. Fanboy Annoyances (Optimized) (35k vs. 91k rules) | add
   Hides website notifications, social media widgets, cookie notices, chat widgets, and some newsletters, thereby substantially decreasing web page loading times and uncluttering them. (Includes EasyList - Cookie Notices and EasyList - Social Widgets)

2. AdGuard Annoyances (Optimized) (40k vs. 68k rules) | add
   Blocks irritating elements on webpages including cookie notices, third-party widgets, and in-page popups. AdGuard claims that this list doesn't duplicate Fanboy Annoyances, so you can use them both together. (Unlike Fanboy's version, this list doesn’t include social media widgets and buttons. To block them, you can use AdGuard Social Media filter separately.)

3. AdGuard Social Media filter (Optimized) (14k vs. 20k rules) | add
   (optional: Redundant with Fanboy Annoyances / EasyList - Social Widgets, in my opinion) If you do not like numerous Like and Tweet buttons on all the popular websites on the Internet, then subscribe to this filter and you will not see them anymore.

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Advanced Settings

Toggle on advanced settings.

🛑 Do not blindly change these values. Read the description for each preference.

Setting	Value	Description
autoUpdateAssetFetchPeriod	5	auto-updater waits 5 seconds before fetching the next asset
autoUpdateDelayAfterLaunch	10	update out-of-date assets 10 seconds after browser startup
autoUpdatePeriod	1	uBO checks for asset updates every hour
cnameMaxTTL	1080	cache CNAME alias for 18 hours
filterAuthorMode	true	enable Dynamic Filtering
updateAssetBypassBrowserCache	true	bypass cache when manually fetching a resource more often than every hour

_{^For older PCs: The first two values may be too aggressive.}

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FAQ

Which browser works best with uBO?

uBlock Origin works best in Mozilla Firefox. The features supported only on Firefox include preventing unwanted DNS requests and CNAME uncloaking.

Should I use a content blocker if I have Pihole, NextDNS, ControlD, etc.?

uBlock Origin can do more compared to when only blocking requests at the DNS-level, like using cosmetic filters to hide first-party ads (e.g., YouTube ads), ad-placeholders, web annoyances, etc.¹

Why should I use these lists?

See here.

Why did you include AdGuard's Optimize lists but not AdBlock Plus' Minified lists?

The Minified lists are part of an Adblock Plus-hosted unofficial project that was hardforked from their source lists in August 2019. They are smaller than AdGuard's Optimized lists but lack quality blocking. Because EL and EP are your primary defenses with content blocking, I wouldn't use the Minified lists.

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Reading

uBO-specific

• How to test filters
  • gorhill's note on adblock test sites
• Toggle on advanced settings
• Dynamic filtering | video
• Medium Mode | video | warning
• Overview of uBlock's network filtering engine (graph)
• Resources Library
  • Empty redirect resources (clicktoload.html)

Filter Creation

• filterAuthorMode
• Introduction to basic filtering syntax
• Static filter syntax
  • !#if !
  • $redirect
  • $denyallow,domain= | 2 | AdGuard
• Syntax Meanings That Are Actually Human Readable
  • How to block div:nth-of-type

Security

• What's Your Cyberscore?

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Mentions

User comments: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Guides

• FMHY: uBlock Filters → yokoffing/filterlists
• knapah/uBlockOrigin-Filterlist
• hagezi/dns-blocklists → Recommendation

Contributions

• Easylist
• AdGuard
• DandelionSprout / Legitimate URL Shortener
• uBlock Origin
• Hagezi DNS Blocklists | Mentions | Analysis
• 1Hosts
• Ghostery extension
• DDG Tracker Radar (Blokada)

23 July 2022