Browser Extension uMatrix Ends Active Development (ghacks.net) 38
Slashdot reader Hmmmmmm quotes Ghacks: Raymond Hill, known online as gorhill, has set the status of the uMatrix GitHub repository to archived; this means that it is read-only at the time and that no updates will become available.
The uMatrix extension is available for several browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, and most Firefox and Chromium-based browsers. It is a privacy and security extensions for advanced users that provides firewall-like capabilities when it is installed...
Hill suggests that developers could fork the extension to continue development under a new name. There is also the chance that Hill might resume development in the future but there is no guarantee that this is going to happen.
For now, uMatrix is no longer in active development.
The uMatrix extension is available for several browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, and most Firefox and Chromium-based browsers. It is a privacy and security extensions for advanced users that provides firewall-like capabilities when it is installed...
Hill suggests that developers could fork the extension to continue development under a new name. There is also the chance that Hill might resume development in the future but there is no guarantee that this is going to happen.
For now, uMatrix is no longer in active development.
Noo... (Score:5, Interesting)
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What sort of stuff does it do that uBlock doesn't with the advanced mode turned on?
Re:Noo... (Score:4, Informative)
uMatrix is more granular. You can allow/deny cookies/css/images/media/scripts/xhr/frames per subdomain.
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Ah, thanks, looking at it uBlock doesn't have quiet as much fine control with Dynamic Filtering as uMatrix allows for. You can do a lot of that stuff with it but not quite everything.
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It is shocking that you still don't know, it has been explained numerous times just in slashdot comments, and all over the web.
If you don't know what it does, that means you allow cross-site scripting all the time, by everybody.
The good news is, it doesn't need active development, it is already complete. If the browsers break it, a fork with minor fixes will be needed.
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It's one of my most used extensions too and certainly my most interacted with extension since I have everything but first party resources (minus cookies) blocked by default, so there are usually a few things I need to enable for each new site I visit. I don't really see a problem in development being halted though as it's already complete and has been for some time.
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I agree. It doesn't need active development when it does everything it needs to do.
The only feature request I would add is cloud stored configuration, so my devices stay in sync.
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Indeed, and uMatrix blows Request Policy out of the water.
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Same. Not sure what I’ll fall back to. I already have uBlock Origin for easier rules about specific DOM elements. I guess I’ll have to do my best to transcribe my filter settings from uMatrix into it, since I currently block everything by default except for first-party content.
noooo (Score:4)
I love this extension, it's the only one I know of that can do what it does. Being able to block per resource type and domain is critical.
Alternatives? (Score:1)
Re:Alternatives? (Score:5, Informative)
If I were a user (personally, I'm not motivated enough to go beyond uBlock Origins, though perhaps I should've, at least for my most heavily-visited websites), I'd continue to stick with uMatrix and hope someone forks it at some point. Assuming it wasn't discontinued due to imminent compatibility issues--and it didn't sound like it was--I'd assume it would continue to work for at least a few more years. And regarding security bugs, I doubt its attack vector potential is very high, especially vs. the security gains its offers.
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Yeah well, uMatrix is great because you don't need a thousand different rules to maintain security. A single set of primary domain rules will block 99% of what you want blocked, then you just set a handful of exceptions to allow some things so the site in question becomes less broken.
My favorite! (Score:3)
uMatrix does everything I used to need a fleet of addons to do in one convenient interface, if I could only have one Firefox addon, this would be it.
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Billionaires tend to be financially hurt by ad blocking and loss of central control that uMatrix and its siblings provide.
Why is it important? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure why it's important the uMatrix is updated. The software works and is stable, there hasn't been a real update since 2019 (Since then all that happened was shifting the default list feed and adding autoupdate functionality to Firefox.). .
Basically, this is people bemoaning the lack of new shineys in something that works and doesn't need them.
As long as security isn't at risk and no browser updates force compatibility issues, it should continue to work, and need updates, just as often under this new no-maintenance plan as otherwise.
Re:Why is it important? (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, Mozilla has been cavalier about breaking extensions in the past and there could be bugs (security or otherwise) moving forward. Bit rot is a thing. It's not an immediate threat, but it is a long term threat.
Re:Why is it important? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure why it's important the uMatrix is updated.
Perhaps, for instance, because it stopped working for mobile Firefox after the last major update?
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I'm not sure why it's important the uMatrix is updated.
Perhaps, for instance, because it stopped working for mobile Firefox after the last major update?
There is little gorhill can do about this. The new mobile firefox has a hardcoded allowlist for addons. The only way to get on to show up is to convince Mozilla to gracefully allow you to install it.
I think this change goes against everything Firefox has ever stood for and I would gladly switch to a different browser, if there was one.
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I still use uMatrix on google chrome, but I switched to Brave as my main browser. It just gets rid of the vast bulk of ads without having to tweak much of anything. It's chrome based, and seems to release about as frequently as chrome.
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I'm not sure why it's important the uMatrix is updated.
Because it had bugs, as all software does (until all the users are dead). Because web standards change and new attack vectors against our privacy or security emerge, while others are mitigated to the point of becoming irrelevant. Because browser internals change, requiring addons to adjust. Because a site that doesn't work with your addon suddenly becomes popular and requires a bit of tweaking.
In short, because bit rot [wikipedia.org] is a real thing and the only defense against it is maintenance.
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I'm not sure why it's important the uMatrix is updated.
Because we live in an era where stable APIs are a joke and things are broken all the time just for the hell of it.
I'm sick to death of having to spend days of my time fixing stuff after every software update. Think about why many of these browser extensions exist in the first place.
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That hasn't really been the case since Firefox Aurora (2017) ended. I didn't notice much-if-any extension breakages in the interim during the run of Firefox Dev.
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I'm not sure why it's important the uMatrix is updated.
It's important because as FireFox and Chrome pump out useless updates attempting to break the internet, it will need to be adapted to counter these efforts.
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Too bad... (Score:3)
That these extentions have to exist because even big reputable companies can't be trusted to not abuse their users in every which way possible.
Yes, "trusted", the same guys that expect us to let them hold all of the keys. The only one I trust is myself, and I view anyone who tries to usurp my control and force me to "trust" them as a hostile threat.
"Trust" has been perverted and twisted into "We are in control, not you".
Re: Too bad... (Score:2)
reputable - forgot the 's around that word.
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"Trusted" is a technical term in security. It means something like "has the potential to harm you".
Why did he quit? (Score:2)
Must have extension (Score:2)
Its a must have extension, how can people browse the web without it?
First, it replaces the likes of noscript, you can do that, but not just scripts... It lets you control: cookies, css, image, media, script, XHR, frame, other. For each page or group of pages, you can use it white/black list style, and also customize every site.
This is not an ad blocker, you should use it in addition to ublock origin. What this does is make the web sane. Say goodbye to gazillion trackers and endless font servers. Need to deb