uBlock Origin gets a dark theme for its interface

The open source ad blocking extension uBlock Origin now has a dark theme for its interface. This had been one of the most requested features by users.

uBlock Origin adds support for a dark theme

Dark mode was initially tested in the development version of the extension, before moving to the stable version.

Once you have updated to uBlock Origin 1.41.0, you can open the Dashboard, switch to the Settings panel, to find a new section called Appearance. It has a dropdown menu that allows you to switch to dark theme, light theme, or set it to change theme automatically based on your browser settings.

The extension also supports custom accent colors that you can choose from the color palette.

Other fixes in uBlock Origin 1.41.0

In December 2021, I wrote that uBlock Origin introduced a fix that prevented YouTube ads from bypassing the plugin’s filters, right after the user launched the browser. The problem was that Chromium-based browsers were sending network requests to servers to resume tab activity from the previous session. The latest version of the extension introduces a setting that fixes the problem. It prevents all network activity when the browser starts and waits for the plugin’s filter lists to load to block ads, after which the tabs load with the appropriate ad filtering. The new option is enabled by default and can be toggled from the Filter Lists tab. It’s labeled “Suspend network activity until all filter lists are loaded.”

The new version of the extension will not use background images on web pages as the best candidate in Element Picker mode. This will allow users to choose foreground elements of web pages, for example an annoying banner that asks you to accept the site’s cookies before you can click on other elements on the page.

According to reports, websites that implemented FingerprintJS V3 did not allow video playback after detecting the extension. An ad blocker code compromise fixes this issue. The uBlock Origin 1.41.0 update also resolves a conflict with the Protect WebRTC extension. The minimum requirements for uBlock Origin have been increased, and you will need to have Firefox 68, Chromium 66, or Opera 53 to use the latest version of the ad blocker. The version increase was made to remove support for the classic popup panel; in fact, the legacy UI was deprecated when the extension was updated to 1.27.0.

uBlock Origin 1.41.0 has already shipped on Firefox MASTER, Chrome Web Store, Microsoft Store, and Opera Addons. The latest version has not yet been approved, but will be available as an automatic update soon.

I don’t recommend it, but if you want to try the dark theme right now, you can do so by installing the development build of the plugin from GitHub. These builds are not signed like the store builds, so use them at your own discretion. Firefox users can fallback to the browser’s nightly build and set the value of the following preference to False in the about:config page. xpinstall.signatures.required.

This will allow you to change the appearance of uBlock Origin to the dark theme, as described earlier in this article.

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