Comparing the standard ad blocker "AdBlock Plus" with the lightweight blocker "uBlock"

ByShawan Zain

Classic of ad blocker type software which hides advertisement of websiteAdblock Plus"Developed by GitHub"UBlock"Performance compared with CPU load and memory consumption is published.

UBlock vs. ABP: efficiency compared · gorhill / uBlock Wiki · GitHub
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-vs.-ABP:-efficiency-compared

This performance comparison is published on GitHub which is developing uBlock. In this comparison, the following four figures are used.

· Memory consumption of software itself
· Increased CPU load due to request transmission to the net
· Increased memory consumption on web page display
· Increased CPU load on web page display

Also, for the test, the machine on which Linux Mint 64 Bit operates is installed on the browser "ChromiumMeasurement was carried out in an environment in which AdBlock Plus and μBlock of extended functions were operated independently, respectively.

◆ Memory consumption of the software itself
Ad blockers are always running as extensions (add-ons, extensions) of the browser, and eliminate unnecessary advertisements by monitoring the user's net connection. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that if the add blocker consumes a lot of resources, it will lead to a decrease in the user's perceived speed. In this test,Reference benchmarkMemory consumption (footprint) in the state where dust on the memory is deleted is measured by clicking the trash can icon of the browser after doing.

The AdBlock Plus footprint is about 112 MB.


For uBlock, you can see that the footprint is very small, 36 MB.


◆ Increased CPU load due to request transmission to the net
The adblocker has a list of URLs to be blocked internally, and advertisement is eliminated by judging whether all requests of the browser are acceptable or not. In the second test, the time taken by each blocker to measure is measured.

The time taken for AdBlock Plus to process is as follows and shows that it consumes 0.421 seconds to 0.425 seconds.


The processing time of uBlock is from 0.129 second to 0.131 second, and here also superiority of uBlock was seen.


◆ Increased memory consumption on web page display
Using a blocker increases the memory consumption of each page and increases the footprint per page. We also know that there is a difference in the extent of increase.

First of all, footprint without using blocker. "12,236 KB" is the standard of this time.


When loading the same page with AdBlock Plus, the footprint has increased to 20,260 KB.


When loading the same page with uBlock, the footprint was 14,068 KB. UBlock seems to be a blocker that does not consume memory.


This trend is said that if it is a page using a frame it will have even greater impact. The following comparison is from the left with no blocker, AdBlock Plus, uBlock in that order, but for AdBlock Plus and uBlock it is about 48 MB and about 25 MB for the original about 18 MB, and AdBlock Plus and uBlock You can see that the opening is bigger.


In addition, the following graph shows uBlock's excellence that it shows "how much memory AdBlock Plus is consuming compared to uBlock" in an easy-to-understand manner. The memory consumption when executing the above benchmark is compared on the time axis, where the vertical axis shows consumption (MB) and the horizontal axis shows time lapse (milliseconds).


◆ Increased CPU load on web page display
Similarly, the CPU load is measured.Sports Illustrated PageAlthough it is said to compare the CPU utilization when displaying it repeatedly ten times, it was said that it was having trouble putting out easy-to-understand numerical values ​​because there were many other noise data. The following figure shows the results of AdBlock Plus on the top and uBlock on the bottom, and when comparing the top numerical value "CPU idle time", uBlock has a longer idle time, that is, processing was light, so idle It is said that time got longer.


Since the results change depending on circumstances and conditions, good or bad for each software, it is impossible to decide superiority or inferiority by only looking at this test, but one showing the superiority of a certain aspect of uBlock There is no mistake.