Concept
uBlock Origin (ˈjuːblɒk; "" ) is a free and open-source browser extension for content filtering, including ad blocking. The extension is available for Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Firefox, Opera, Pale Moon, as well as versions of Safari prior to 13. uBlock Origin has received praise from technology websites and is reported to be much less memory-intensive than other extensions with similar functionality. uBlock Origin's stated purpose is to give users the means to enforce their own (content-filtering) choices. uBlock Origin is actively developed and maintained by its creator and lead developer Raymond Hill. uBlock was initially named "μBlock" but the name was later changed to "uBlock" to avoid confusion as to how the Greek letter μ (Mu/Micro) in "μBlock" should be pronounced. Development started by forking from the codebase of HTTP Switchboard along with another blocking extension called uMatrix, designed for advanced users. uBlock was developed by Raymond Hill to use community-maintained block lists, while adding features and raising the code quality to release standards. First released in June 2014 as a Chrome and Opera extension, by winter 2015, the extension had expanded to other browsers. The uBlock project official repository was transferred to Chris Aljoudi by original developer Raymond Hill in April 2015, due to frustration of dealing with requests. However, Hill immediately self-forked it and continued the effort there. This version was later renamed uBlock Origin and it has been completely divorced from Aljoudi's uBlock. Aljoudi created ublock.org to host and promote uBlock and to request donations. In response, uBlock's founder Raymond Hill stated that "the donations sought by ublock.org are not benefiting any of those who contributed most to create uBlock Origin." The development of uBlock stopped in August 2015 and it has been sporadically updated since January 2017. In July 2018, ublock.
