363471 - Tracking bug for Adblock extension for Firefox 3

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Extension Compatibility, defect)

Description

[Biju]

Tracking bug for Adblock extension for Firefox 3
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/10/

Adblock fails to load/function on 
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20061210 Minefield/3.0a1

Comment 1

[-fullmetaljacket-]

all of a sudden adblock is now working on

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9a2pre) Gecko/20061219 Minefield/3.0a2pre ID:2006121919 [cairo]

Comment 2

[-fullmetaljacket-]

seems to be fixed by checkin of fix for bug# 361785

Comment 3

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

Is this bug needed at all?

Comment 4

[Wladimir Palant]

Not that I know of. Adblock is very dead, and Adblock Plus has its own bug database (and none of the relevant Mozilla bugs have been tracked here).

Comment 5

[Alex Polvi]

Reopening because Adblock has ~700,000 users even though Adblock Plus has deprecated it. Maybe we should figure out a way to migrate users? 

Comment 6

[Wladimir Palant]

Even then, with an extension that is no longer being developed this bug doesn't make much sense. Adblock is not compatible to Firefox 3 (not even marked compatible to Firefox 2 actually), and simply changing the compatibility info in AMO will probably not do it this time. But one cannot assume that these ~700,000 users will go out looking for a more current extension once Firefox 3 is released, if they didn't do it so far they are probably more likely to stick with Firefox 2. I would very much like a fake "Adblock update" that would explain the situation and offer installing Adblock Plus (especially since Adblock Plus will still import all Adblock settings) - but can we do that?

Comment 7

[Alex Polvi]

(In reply to comment #6)
> I would very much like a fake "Adblock update" that would
> explain the situation and offer installing Adblock Plus (especially since
> Adblock Plus will still import all Adblock settings) - but can we do that?

mfinkle, do you know if this is possible? We would probably want to offer to update them to Adblock Plus.

Comment 8

[Biju]

I am an old Adblock user, now switched to Adblock Plus.
One feature of Adblock I miss now is its ability to automatically block Flash.
ie, all flash contents need a click to start.
on Adblock Plus it is the other way ie, user needed to manually disable it.  

Wladimir, is it possible to bring "click to start flash content" feature to Adblock Plus?

Comment 9

[Wladimir Palant]

Biju, you are talking about FlashBlock, Adblock never had this feature.

Comment 10

[Alex Polvi]

So our options for this are to try to figure out a mock update to migrate users to ABP. Or just let it die and hope users figure it out. Ideally we would go with the former, but we need someone to help. Anyone?

Comment 11

[Ngamer01]

Well developers do have the option to present a Privacy Policy.  Couldn't an AMO admin just update the AdBlock pages to contain a Privacy Policy and on this privacy page explicitly state that AdBlock has been discontinued and will not be updated for Firefox 3.  And below that, offer a link to AdBlock Plus with a quick summary (to entice people to look into it).

Backup suggestion if the first one doesn't sound good:  The AMO team declares AdBlock officially abandoned and relegate it to the Sandbox with a modified description explicitly stating that the add-on is abandoned and offer a link to AdBlock Plus with a quick summary.

Comment 12

[alreiten]

It looks like there was some discussion on this topic of offering an update from the old Adblock to Adblock Plus in the Mozilla Forums: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=2410925&sid=d03547292d2f403e2ba3a82d7e91caa6 

See especially the comments by mcm_ham who was maintaining the old version.  Of course, if the old Adblock will not be compatible with Firefox 3.0, the need for the update would be greatly increased.

Comment 13

[Wladimir Palant]

(In reply to comment #12)
> It looks like there was some discussion on this topic of offering an update
> from the old Adblock to Adblock Plus in the Mozilla Forums:

No, that's unrelated - Adblock Plus 0.5 still has a maintainer and not the same as Adblock (though we will probably migrate Adblock Plus 0.5 users as well with the next major Adblock Plus release).

Comment 14

[Andrew Conkling]

I am one of those 700,000 (until recently), mostly because I generally sided with leaner extensions in the past and then just stuck with AdBlock until it stopped working. So I sought a new ad-blocking program when I began testing Minefield, but then again, I would say I'm not just an average user.

(In reply to comment #10)
> So our options for this are to try to figure out a mock update to migrate users
> to ABP. Or just let it die and hope users figure it out. Ideally we would go
> with the former, but we need someone to help. Anyone?

This certainly seems like an easy choice to me too. I'm no extension developer (mostly just an interested user), but I'd be willing to help. Ngamer01 has an interesting idea in comment #11, but automatic installation of ABP would be preferable, IMO.

Comment 15

[RNicoletto]

I agree with Wladimir Palant: this bug should be CLOSED.