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Add uBlock Origin to Tor Browser Bundle

Read before closing as wontfix: I am familiar with the Tor Browser design philosophy of not relying on filters for security. This request, unlike ticket:15279, has nothing to do with possible security benefits of uBlock Origin.

I think that Tor browser bundle would benefit from including uBlock Origin as an adblocker by default. Consider the benefits:

  1. Ads waste bandwidth. To see just how much I ran tests using Tor Browser at medium security level on two major news organizations' sites: the Economist and the New York Times. The results were striking: without uBlock Origin, the Economist's website loaded 12.6 MB with 135 requests and the New York Times' website loaded 7.6 MB with 235 requests. With uBlock Origin, the Economist's website loaded 5.8 MB with 443 requests and the New York Times' website loaded 5.0 MB with 85 requests. uBlock Origin reduced the page size by 54% for The Economist and 34% for the New York Times. Granted, newspapers are particularly bad offenders when it comes to bloating the page with ads, but, however we slice it, we still stand to save considerable amounts of bandwidth.

  2. It makes TBB more usable. Blocking that many MB of ads can only make the webpage load faster and gives an overall nicer user experience (does anybody really want to see those ads?) which, in turn, helps encourage more people use TBB.

  3. It makes TBB and TAILS browser fingerprint look more alike.

Now, I did see the section of the Tor Browser design philosophy that opposed adblockers in TBB. However, consider the objections

  1. Damages TBB's reputation to provide non-filter-based security. I think this is no longer true - TBB has been around for long enough and its reputation well-established enough that I doubt users will be confused - especially that the truth is readily findable by anyone who cares to look. Moreover, TAILS browser has been shipping with uBlock Origin for quite a while now and it caters to an even-more security-conscious crowd than just TBB.

  2. Makes ad-supported websites dislike TBB. Currently, over 1/4 of internet users use an adblocker (see here). If websites dislike adblockers, they have a lot more problems than just TBB. In any case, the fraction of sites that will dislike TBB for using an adblocker will be small compared to the fraction of sites that dislike TBB just for using Tor.

Therefore, Tor browser bundle should follow TAILS' example and add uBlock Origin to the browser by default.

Trac:
Username: tremvonk