Today we updated Adblock Plus for Chrome, Opera and Safari to version 1.9. The update includes a series of bug fixes, some improvements in performance and a new feature that will allow network administrators to suppress the first run page in Chrome (coming soon to Firefox). This last element is very important, because it is the next step in a project we’re calling Adblock Plus for administrators that is intended to allow administrators of large networks to seamlessly download Adblock Plus across entire networks.
For a more detailed rundown of the changes see my colleague Sebastian’s post. And don’t worry: Adblock Plus always updates automatically, so you don’t have to run an update to take advantage of these new features.
Adblock Plus for administrators
For some time now, we’ve been working on what we’ve been jokingly referring to as the LSD project (for Large Scale Deployment, of course) with network administrators in mind. These IT administrators, who take care of substantial networks at universities, businesses or organizations, often want to install Adblock Plus to cut down on distraction, save bandwidth and keep their networks safe from threats like “malvertising.”
With Adblock Plus 1.9 system administrators will now be able to suppress the first run page. The first run page is the web page that appears after you install Adblock Plus, giving you immediate customization options that are valuable for individual users. But if you’re trying to install Adblock Plus on thousands of computers at once, you might prefer to skip this page. Now you can! We are still optimizing large scale deployments, so stay tuned for more updates soon.
Performance boost
The biggest benefit in 1.9 is better performance. For instance, certain request blocking filters were hindering performance on all websites – this was improved. In addition, we optimized checks for whitelisted pages and improved page load times by deferring blocking code.