Block Ads on Desktop With uBlock Origin

An ad isn't just an image you scroll past. It's a request to a third-party server that logs who you are, what you're reading and where you came from, then sells that to the next bidder. Blocking ads is less about tidier pages and more about cutting the cord that feeds the tracking economy. Cleaner pages and faster loads are a side effect.

The tool for the job is uBlock Origin (uBO), a free, open-source content blocker that's been doing this since 2014, or its Manifest V3 sibling uBO Lite (uBOL). Which one you use depends on your browser.

1. Pick the right extension

Chrome has retired the older extension system (Manifest V2) that uBO is built on, and Edge is following. There is no Manifest V3 version of uBO, so on Chromium browsers the project offers uBO Lite instead: a pared-down, fully declarative blocker. It won't replace uBO automatically; you have to choose it.

From GitHub. Both projects publish every build on GitHub: uBlock Origin releases and uBO Lite releases. These are installed by hand, and the uBO project notes its Chromium builds usually won't auto-update. Use the stores unless you have a reason not to.

Self-install on Chromium-based browsers

No store listing, or you'd rather control updates yourself? Load the extension straight from the official release files. These steps follow the project's own install guide.

1. Download the .chromium.zip from the uBO or uBO Lite releases page. Take the zip file, not the .crx.
2. Unzip it into a folder with a stable name, like ublock, somewhere permanent. The uBO zip contains a uBlock0.chromium folder; rename that one. The uBO Lite zip has its files at the top level, so extract it into a new empty folder. Either way, the folder you keep must have manifest.json directly inside it. The browser loads the extension from that folder every time it starts, so don't delete or move it.
3. Open the extensions page: chrome://extensions (Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi), edge://extensions (Edge) or opera://extensions (Opera).
4. Turn on Developer mode (top right).
5. Click Load unpacked and select the ublock folder.

The extension appears in the toolbar. Pin it from the puzzle-piece menu.

ublock/            ← select this folder, the one containing manifest.json
├── manifest.json
├── js/
└── ...

Updating is on you. Self-installed extensions never update automatically. When a new release comes out, download it and replace the contents of the ublock folder with the new files, keeping the folder itself in the same place. As long as the extension loads from the same path, your settings and filters survive. Then hit the reload icon on the extension's card. The upside is that you decide when to update, and rolling back to the previous version is just swapping the files back.

Only download from the two GitHub release pages above. A zip from anywhere else is an unreviewed program with access to every page you visit.

Android / Google Play. Neither project publishes an app on Google Play. Anything there calling itself "uBlock" isn't official. On Android, install Firefox from Google Play, then add uBlock Origin from Firefox's add-ons menu.

Only install from the links above. uBlock Origin is completely unrelated to the website ublock.org, and lookalike extensions with similar names are common. And run one blocker, not several: the uBO project warns that other content blockers can stop its privacy and anti-blocker features from working properly.

2. uBlock Origin: the defaults are good

Out of the box, uBO runs in what its wiki calls easy mode: uBO's own filters, EasyList (ads), EasyPrivacy (trackers), Peter Lowe's ad server list and the Online Malicious URL Blocklist. For most people, installing it is the whole job.

You can add more lists under Dashboard → Filter lists (the Annoyances lists handle cookie banners and social widgets, for example). Go easy. The wiki is blunt: the chance of page breakage goes up with every list you add, and overlapping lists interfere with each other. Keep uBlock filters enabled; it's tuned for uBO.

3. The popup, decoded

Click the toolbar icon on any page:

• Power button — turns uBO off for the whole site and adds it to Trusted sites. Ctrl/Cmd-click turns it off for this page only.
• Counters — requests blocked on this page, total since install, and domains connected. That last number is your privacy exposure; lower is better.
• Zapper (lightning bolt) — removes an element right now. Gone until you reload.
• Element picker (eyedropper) — removes an element permanently by writing a filter to My filters. Click the element, use the sliders to widen or narrow what's matched, preview, then Create.
• Logger — every request, cosmetic filter and script injection on the page, live. The place to find out why something broke.

4. Per-site switches

The row of icons in the popup flips behavior for the current site. Changes are temporary until you click the padlock (or hold Ctrl/Cmd while toggling).

• No popups — closes every popup the site opens.
• No large media — holds back big images, video and audio, and stops autoplay. Click a placeholder to load it.
• No cosmetic filtering — shows elements uBO was hiding. Useful when a site breaks.
• No remote fonts — stops web fonts from downloading (fonts are a fingerprinting and tracking vector).
• No scripting — kills JavaScript on the site entirely. Blunt, effective, and it overrides everything else.

Each one can be made the default everywhere in Dashboard → Settings, then switched back per site.

5. Your own filters

Dashboard → My filters takes standard filter syntax, one per line:

! hide an element on one site
example.com##.promo-banner

! block every third-party web font, everywhere
*$font,third-party

Lines starting with ! are comments. The element picker writes into this same pane, so you can review or delete anything it created.

6. Going further: medium mode

For people willing to fix sites occasionally, the wiki's medium mode blocks all third-party scripts and frames by default, then lets you allow them site by site. Turn on I am an advanced user in Settings, then add to My rules:

* * 3p-script block
* * 3p-frame block

Pages load significantly faster and far fewer domains see you. Some sites will break; the popup's grid lets you allow what each one needs and padlock it. Once your usual sites are sorted, you rarely touch it again. Don't jump straight to hard mode (blocking all third-party requests); the wiki warns it means fixing most websites.

7. uBO Lite: four modes, one slider

uBOL doesn't run a background process; the browser enforces its rules. You get one control: a filtering mode slider in the popup, set per site or as a default in Settings.

Things worth knowing:

• Grant the "read and change data on all sites" permission. Without it, uBOL falls back to Basic.
• If a site detects your blocker in Complete, drop that site to Optimal.
• Filter lists are compiled into the extension and only update when the extension updates. uBOL itself makes no network requests to remote servers.
• The popup has a remove-element tool (temporary) and a create a custom filter tool (permanent, listed under Custom filters in the dashboard).
• Missing compared to uBO: dynamic filtering, dynamic URL filtering and per-site no large media, plus some advanced filter types. That's the price of Manifest V3.

8. When something breaks

Turn off cosmetic filtering for the site, or lower uBOL's mode for it. If that fixes it, report the site through the popup's chat icon, which goes straight to the people who maintain the filters. Disabling the blocker everywhere because one site complained is the outcome the ad industry is counting on.

An ad blocker reduces signal; it doesn't make you invisible. Pair it with a hardened browser and less of you leaks out.