How to block ads using Ublock Origin.

This is a tutorial about Ublock Origin, a popular browser extension software used for blocking ads. The source code of this application is found in https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

In this tutorial I will show how to block online advertisements using the chrome extension Ublock Origin. This chrome extension can be downloaded from Chrome Web Store.

After visiting the link, click on the button in the top left corner to add the extension to the browser. I have featured that in the screenshot shown above.

After the extension is installed, it will show up in the address bar. The arrow mark in the screen below points to the its icon shown in the address bar.

Clicking on the icon shows the following options:

If the icon is blue like in the screenshot, it means ublock is active in that page.

Hovering on the button will show what it does. As it says, clicking on it will disable the adblocker. In the disabled state, the button looks like the following:

There are a few more buttons in the popup that have been highlighted in boxes of different colors below:

The button in the red box is used to hide any element of a page. The button in the green box is the element picker. It is used to block elements. The button in the black box opens the logger which shows what elements were blocked in the page. The button in blue box is for dashboard. I have shown the functions of them in the gif image below.

There are a few more button at the end of the interface:

They are used to block various elements. The first button blocks popups. The second blocks large media elements. The third button, that is, the button that looks like an eye, enables or disables cosmic filtering. Fourth button disables remote fonts.

You may choose to add custom ad blocking filters in the settings page of ublock by clicking the dashboard button. The settings page shows various filters you may add to the blocking list. All sites listed on those lists will be blocked.

In the ads section, click on the filters you want to keep. The EasyList filter is one of the biggest ads filters available. Make sure to keep it checked if you want to block all ads. You may choose all the filters but that will make uBlock consume more memory and CPU. Choose what is best for you and close the options menu. Now, all online ads listed in the filters will be blocked for you when you browse any website.

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