this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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[–] Chadus_Maximus@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What's the difference between uBlock origin and uMatrix?

[–] Crul@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I cannot answer that properly, I don't really understand them enough. I will add some copy-pasted answer on bottom. But, from a user perspective my experience is:

  • uBlock origin: blocks a lot of (but not all) unwanted stuff without breaking (almost) anything. When some page does not work, tt's very uncommon that uBlock origin is the cause.
  • uMatrix: blocks (almost) all unwanted stuff, but it breaks many pages by default. If a page does not work, the first thing I look at is uMatrix.
  • NoScript (and similar): It's been some time since I used it (so those who are more familiar, please correct me if I'm wrong). What I remember is that it was even more strict than uMatrix. Something like uMatrix allows by default everything from the same domain as the URL but NoScript does not.

So I would recommend uBlock origin always and uMatrix only if you are ok with some micro-management page-by-page.

Here it's a copy-paste of the answer from the first link in the google search ublock umatrix differences:

Chris's Wiki :: blog/web/UBlockOriginAndUMatrix

While it's true that uMatrix and uBlock Origin have overlapping functionality (and are written by the same person), they have different purposes and focuses. uBlock Origin's focus is blocking ads and other undesired things as an out of the box experience with little configuration needed. uMatrix's focus is on exerting tight and highly specific control over what resources a page is allowed to load and use, including Javascript and cookies (and requires a lot of configuration).

[–] sovietknuckles@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People still use uMatrix? gorhill archived the uMatrix repo/stopped maintaining it in 2021.

[–] Crul@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Oh, I had forgotten, I'm going to add a warning to my comment thanks for noticing!

When I was aware of that, I expected it to break at some point. But I didn't find a proper replacement... and it still seems to be working fine.