uBlock Origin vs Adblock Plus - Difference Between Them

Ad blocker is a vital part of everyone's online privacy. uBlock Origin, a powerful Ad Blocker that is often used by many Twitch users to skip the annoying ads before the video playing, now has a serious competitor – Adblock Plus, which is also great in blocking Ads on popular browsers. Both as professional Ad Blockers, uBlock Origin vs. Adblock Plus, which one is better? What are the differences between them? If you want to know more about them, just read on.

Part 1: What is uBlock Origin vs. Adblock Plus?

Ad blockers act as a package of antivirus and VPN. Many people think the ad-blockers only function to thwart pop-up ads such as those ads that interrupt YouTube videos, yet not many acknowledge that it can also eliminate ads in free software. Ad blockers can help increase performance on your computer by stopping ads from loading, hence there are fewer scripts to load and less bandwidth is needed, stopping the waste of valuable space in RAM and CPU cycles. Ad blockers sometimes can even act as security tools to filter malicious domains. As two popular ad blockers, uBlock Origin vs. Adblock Plus is often the comparison. Released in 2014, uBlock Origin is much newer than Adblock Plus. Originally only available for Google Chrome, Adblock Plus wasn't released until 2010 and made itself adapt to other browsers as well.

Both are compatible with mainstream browsers, they can cover the important basis and accommodate the vast majority of users. To be more specific in features, uBlock Origin is easy to use with its one-click button to enable or disable the extension. It can read and create filters from host files, including those by default, EasyList, Peter Lowe's Ad server list, Easy Privacy, and a list of malware domains. It takes up very little space of memory and CPU. Adblock Plus can help protect privacy by blocking undesirable social media updates and alerts, in addition to the primary function of blocking ads. More importantly, it can even be used to prevent Facebook message recipients from knowing you have "seen" the message. Malware and malicious domains can be blocked with Adblock Plus, too.

Part 2: Difference Between uBlock Origin vs Adblock Plus

Both ranked as the powerful ad blocker on the market, there are some fundamental differences between uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus in terms of features.

Feature

Adblock Plus indeed blocks ads, but sometimes it allows some ads to be seen. This is because some companies paid for the privilege of ad visibility. They are mostly acceptable ads and meet certain criteria. When it comes to uBlock Origin, it simply blocks every ad available indiscriminately.

Platform

Adblock Plus is more versatile than uBlock Origin, as it supports more browsers. Adblock Plus is available on Firefox, Chrome, Android, Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari, Yandex, Maxthon, and Microsoft Edge, while uBlock Origin supports mainstream browsers only, such as Chrome, Chromium, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Safari.

System Usage

Adblock Plus tends to have a heavier use on your system resources and it's quite obvious when you are blocking ads on a large scale at the same time. uBlock Origin, on the other hand, while you can experience the same slowdown, it's less noticeable. This is because uBlock Origin takes up less system RAM and CPU than Adblock Plus.

Additional Features

Adblock Plus can be applied in blocking unpleasant social media updates and alerts as well as disable social media buttons on websites. It can also block malware and malicious domains based on your blacklist. uBlock Origin will block all the preinstalled lists of websites, which are lists of malware domains that could infect your computer.

Part 3: Similarity Between uBlock Origin vs Adblock Plus

While uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus can be easily distinguished from each other, they do share some similarities when uBlock Origin vs Adblock Plus. Here's a look into the similarities between the two programs.

Interface

Pricing & Mode

uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus are both open source utilities supported by contributions from users, just like Wikipedia. They function as browser extensions to prevent annoying ads from running. If you want them to keep functioning well and helping you to block ads and malware, you can contribute to either browser extension.

Filter Options

When it comes to the filter options, both programs will allow users to import as many third-party lists for ad-blocking as they like, and users can write their lists as well. Although uBlock Origin comes with more built-in lists than Adblock Plus, it's not a big deal here. Both programs are pretty good in customizability.

Part 4: Detailed Comparison & Conclusion

If you are still a bit confused about the differences and similarities when it comes to uBlock Origin vs Adblock Plus, here's a detailed comparison for further clarification.