uBlock Origin adblocker now available for Microsoft Edge via the Store

A few months back we reported that uBlock Origin was coming to Microsoft Edge. The popular alternative to Ad Block and Ad Block Plus used less CPU and memory and was ported by Nik Rolls as an open source side project.

During its development uBlock Origin for Edge was a GitHub project where users had to sideload the extension. This task required manual updates and a constant re-enabling making the extension a lot of work for users. Microsoft later contacted Nik about bringing it to the Store officially and with their assistance the project has finally reached its goal.

Starting last night, uBlock Origin is now available to all with a simple one-click in the Store. The Edge version shares 95% of the same code as the Firefox and Chrome versions. Nik gives Microsoft credit saying "the Edge team have done a great job of matching compatibility with Chrome's APIs."

Not all is perfect, as Nik still has some fixes he still needs to get out and hopes some of you can help via the app's Feedback Hub. He also asks devs for assistance at the fork's depot. You can read more about Nik's experience with the extension at his blog.

Pro Tip: If you choose to use uBlock Origin on our site at least disable EasyList in the settings as the service incorrectly block elements that will interfere with logging in, posting and viewing of some items on our site. Of course, you could also whitelist our site and not hurt our revenue stream that pays our writers.

Overall, it's great to see uBlock Origin arrive. Not only do big label apps get support but Microsoft did well here in reaching out to Nik to get this done.

Download uBlock Origin from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been here covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, Microsoft Surface, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics and ran the projectors at movie theaters, which has done absolutely nothing for his career.

78 Comments

Great news! Good hurry up and install that! Hope the Edge plugins keep improving and they make big leaps with the Creator's Update because I'd like to go full-time with Edge and drop Opera, because they've been especially careless about their compatibility with Bing (previously, not offering it as a search engine option. Now, the webpage never completely loads).
Opera didn't include Bing as a search engine option? The #2 search engine in the world? Further, doesn't Opera use Webkit now? Is it their own fork of Webkit? Last time I checked, Bing is good with coding to W3C standards. Any Webkit rendered browser shouldn't have any problem with pulling up Bing. That is really surprising.
I use Opera and Bing, no issues here. You can set it as default, although after an update they revert it to Google.
And the EU just lets that slip by? Imposing a search-engine even when the user has actively changed it during an upgrade?
Well to be fair the same did Microsoft with the default browser on Win10. And the difference is that Google is not a product from the guys behind opera
I use Opera too, and Bing is default search engine. And always stays default after update. But not showing bing.com as other browsers. Not without UserAgent switcher. Even then, its not same. I use bing.com/?cc=us to show me US version of Bing. For example, this Holydays theme not shown on Opera.
To be fair, so far in 2 years. I never had any major issue with bing. I open the google.com when i need it in any case but why change the search engine?
Bing works very well in Opera...
We need ad blocker on mobile
Sadly, this is true. Ad and analytics JavaScript is out of control. It is bad on desktop but it is horrendous on mobile. Sites regularly run cross-site scripting for everything imaginable. The state of the web is depressing.
As soon as Edge for Mobile gets extensions, I'll be working on uBlock Origin for it :)
Eheeeee! Big thanks Nik!
oooo its you :)!!! thanks dude for the support
I can't test it now, is Ublock affective blocking ads on the Hulu app?
I'm not sure, sorry; Hulu isn't available in New Zealand. Perhaps someone else could test for me?
You are awesome! Thank you so much for your work, it is much apperciated.
Already installed but not showing any number of block request on any pages i visited. Btw, it's working great! (^_~)
+100
For sure. It's super annoying when ads decide to go full screen with no easy to close out the timer stops counting down and the control doesn't appear. I'm sure some of that is Edge but I'm equally sure its bad web design.
When on mobile?
Don't use the travesty that is Edge, but installed int anyways, there are still horribly coded apps that force Edge/IE and rather have it than not
The ads on Windows Central are toxic from a performance perspective. That is my #1 complaint about this site. If you want to make sure that your CPU fan is working, just open up Windows Central without an ad blocker running. Run the F12 dev tools and just watch the errors pile up. Fix the site and I would have no problem with white listing it.
It's not our site, it's the ads. We don't program the ads an external company does. Proof? You said it yourself, once you block the ads the site loads just fine. It's something we work with but the ad providers are garbage, not us.
To be fair, it's still kind of your responsibility to choose your partners, the ads are part of your site. Don't associate your business with what you yourself call garbage if you don't want your business to get tainted.
Would you forgive McDonalds for selling you a burger with expired meat just because they didn't run the farm but bought it from a 3rd party?

Remember you're actively forcing people to run ad-blockers when visiting your site just to be able to actually read the content without crashes. Less advertising revenues might be better than no advertising revenues at all because all your followers ended up blocking your ads for technical reasons.
Yeah not to rock the boat here but its probably Mobile Nations that impose the add provider on Rubino's site, but still the ads on the site are excessive and cripple even the more top spec system. Gone are the days of 'can it run crysis' but 'can it run Windows Central with ads' lol. I just use the ad block or the desktop/mobile apps.
Windows Central is one of my top five sites and probably the most reliable. There are others I go to if I want more "gossip". And another one if I want more "anger". However I always access the content through the apps because the site is miserable to access in a browser. I believe people should be compensated for their efforts and I almost feel guilty enough that I want them to put adds in their apps. I know they have a store, but the offerings don't often line up with my needs.
Correct, it's not the site's code, it's the ads. I've gone to plenty of sites with a good amount of ads and the page loads fine. One of the issues I see is the total request count when loading the ads. So far, on one page load of your main page with no adblock enabled, it has 554 requests. I see multiple Bootstrap references from weird sources, etc. I would look into the ad netowrk you are using, because the ones you are are loading a ton of dependencies and weird scripts. And to be honest, that in of itself is scary to me and warrants a adblock, let alone the performance of loading >500 requests for one page. So yes, while the programming of this is out of your control, you can of course make steps to choose a good ad network, look at how you are embedding the ads in the page, how many are loading, etc.
I assume that the ad providers have a partnership with Mobile Nations and by proxy, Windows Central. But in the end, they have a profound effect on performance and ultimately, that is adversely affecting your revenue. The rest is up to you.
I agree with the others, Windows Central is unusable on my SP3 without the ad blocker, Edge just locks up most of the time. I think it's been said that the advertising is beyond your control but you need to take control if you want people to stop using ad blockers. I'd turn mine off if I actually could use the site that way.
Agree. Same here.
I'd love to support WC with no ad blocker, but it's almost undoable with no ad blocker.
Same here. I have a pretty decent machine, but Edge without adblock is just impossible to use. Everything slows down to a crawl and freezes because some multimedia-rich garbage ad tries to load and run, causing my laptop to start sounding like a jet engine. Not having uBlock was the main reason why I still mainly used FF and Chrome (ABP is trash). But as soon as I installed uBlock on Edge, EVERYTHING runs SO much faster: Windows Central, SFGate, CNN, etc. No more lags, no more freezes, no more jet engine laptop. I'm not against ads, and I'd turn off adblocking if they're done right, but very few websites on the Internet have acceptable ads.
I'd happily pay £5 a month to have ad free access to Windows Central. I don't use ad blockers at all but because of the crazy amount of ads on WC I rarely ever log in and just read articles on the app, that leaves me out of forums and some articles because the app is not quite there yet.
Held to ransom by the ad companies. That's a downer!
But it *is* your site. We go to windowscentral.com, not pagefullofadds.com. The ads don't appear on the site without your people linking to them. We used to be able to come here without needing to run ad blockers. I'm sure we'd all like you to get your ad impressions and make millions of dollars, but that's getting increasingly difficult.
I'd like to support Windows Central (and all the mobile nations sites) beause I like the content. But the mobile nations sites are easily the worst sites I regularly visit when it comes to the ads ruining performance. I have to use an ad blocker if I want to visit your site. Like others have said, you (mobile nations) have chosen the ad network. You need to choose to use a different one.
Agreed! This happens with all browsers. There's definitely been something wonky with this site for the past few months with the ads. WC is damn near unusable without adblocking.
It is noticeable when you open the mobile version.
The struggle is real while scrolling.
Absolutely! Windows Central ads are abominations. I need to enable my Adguard at the router plus run the Adguard plugin to make the site useable.
Extensions are disabled when browsing with InPrivate mode in Edge.
That's my biggest complaint. Atleast give users the choice.
As much as I would like to use Microsoft Edge, the multiprocess model it uses is the bane of my existence, and is also why I don't use Chrome either.
Just curious. What issue do you take with the multiprocess model?
I've been waiting for this day for some time. This was the only thing holding me back from uninstalling Chrome! Installed already and migrated all my favourites from Chrome and so far Edge has been fantastic.
In the article it's stated that we should disable the Easylist filter list, because it causes issues with the windows central website. I haven't disabled the list and I still can login and post in the forums. What exactly wouldn't work?
It was a problem for a while, seems the EL filter has been tweaked...
Was having all manner of issues a while back with ABP & uBlock Origin, no matter the browser used.
There were issues with various site elements (most notably the comments section). Easylist got updated to work around these issues recently (which were caused by an overreaction to the "Ad blockers make us sad" thing that's been running on the site).
I know adblockers have seriously hurt my website. The problem is that sites see the dropping ad revenue, and then use more extreme advertising. Some balance needs to be reached before most sites throw up a paywall, or just give up.
Great news! If the addition of a full spectrum blocker like this fixes the occasional crashes and Grey Screen of Dumb I'll switch from Firefox to Edge in a heartbeat.
Does anyone know how to clear the storage used by uBlock Origin? Is there a way to reset that to 0 without reinstalling the extension?
uBlock Origin on Edge currently manages storage slightly differently than other browsers (though that may change after the Creators Update). Non-essential data (basically, third-party lists and caches that are ok to be lost because they will automatically fix themselves) are stored in a database, whereas your settings and first-party lists are stored in your browser storage. I'm unable to efficiently calculate how much space the database is using, so I can't report it in uBlock's settings. However you can clear it by clearing your browser's temporary files. For most people this sits at a few megabytes, at most 7-8MB. The Storage Used figure is the space taken up by your settings and first-party rules; these can be cleared in uBlock Origin using the "Reset to default settings" button. It's likely that in the Creators Update we will be able to store third-party lists in browser storage and then the Storage Used figure can be completely accurate.
Not enough extensions are making it onto edge, i know there's an approval process but the extensions are coming in at a snails pace. Plus... Are ad blocking apps going to be for edge what weather apps are for windows mobile
Extension Support is probably the single largest feature The Edge team have had to build since the launch of Windows 10, especially since they started from scratch. They want to make sure it's a great experience for developers when they go public and I respect that. I'm lucky that I was one of the ones they let in early and I have given them feedback on the experience that they can take on board.
Yeah, i see what you're saying
AdBlock Plus causes problems on Youtube's website. Thumbnails won't load and other things, like search dropdowns, are broken until the extension is disabled. Does uBlock Origin suffer from similar problems?
An issue that sounds exactly like this was one of the major things we wanted to fix before going to preview. I worked with the Edge team to help them find the issue. They are fixing it on the browser side, and I managed to find a way to fix it on the extension side. The upshot is that you can use uBlock Origin now with full YouTube functionality, and then when they release the update for Edge (provided AdBlock Plus' issue has the same cause) it will be fixed there as well.
The need to disable AdBlock Plus on YouTube was extremely frustrating. I gave uBlock a shot, and it's awesome! YouTube works great, and other sites are way cleaner than what AdBlock Plus accomplished! I'll definitely stick with this. You've done a great job! :D
Thank you so much for your hard work. It's much appreciated.
Rubino, I figured you would throw the plug in about whitelisting your site haha
Run ad block , ad block plus and ublock at the same. Hasn't caused me issues and blocks almost every ad ever. Some sites now won't even let you on with an ad blocker installed. That's life! I just don't go on the site.
yessssssss, thanks for the note about the one messing up the site. I was getting that on firefox.... maybe I'll try whitelisting windows central for a bit.
Easylist got an update to work around the site functionality issues. They were caused by an overreaction to the "Ad blockers make us sad" script that's been running on the site.
Awesome!! Goodbye AdBlock/AdBlock+, you won't be missed you on my Surface Pro.
finally a good ab block plugin . edge works noticeably faster now vs the other 2, at least for me
Just went though my list of favorite sites with uBlock installed and guess what no EDGE hangs like ABP has in it's current version. Good job guys. I hope with competition in the extension space both products will get better.
While this is good news, I switched back to Chrome a week ago. I started using Edge ever since the Anniversary Update in July added extensions to Edge but in all those months Edge still crashed frequently and wouldn't load some parts of web pages. I gave Edge a chance for so many months but it is still not as capable as Chrome. Edge needs some serious reliability and performance improvements.
I hate Chrome. Well hate is a bad word. I won't use Chrome. Edge seems to work better if you continue to use it. It used to do oddball stuff but I kept using it and now, its fine.
Nice. And it actually blocks ads on youtube too. Just installed and ditched abp.
Great news! Hands down, it's the best adblocker out there. Thanks Nik!
Fantastic! So glad a developer had provided a real effective solution. Thanks Nik!
Waiting for idm plugin. Drag a link to new tab still not working in Edge.
This is great! Much prefer uBlock!😍
Excellent addition!!
Very nice. Can actually view Windows Central in Edge now. "http://windowscentral.com is not responding" "Search for a solution for this problem"... (Close tab on unreadable site, Open in firefox with adblock+, click link for uBlock, install uBlock, load article in Edge, post comment). If your site is such a dog that it can't be viewed on most machines due to all the ads, you're doing it wrong. I've even started seeing "sponsored" articles (ads) in the app. At the rate you're going with that, we'll need an adblocker that works in the windows central app, too.
It seems faster than AdBlock Plus...
Its about time
Sunspider benchmark hangs with uBlock origin installed. Other than that, it works well so far. Thank you for bringing my favorite ad blocker to Edge.
As an Opera user with 36 pinned websites at start dial, I will switch to Edge when i will be able to do this, till now EDGE is limited to 8, gave them feedback for more pinned sites but they choose to ignore this, guess a huge empty start up page is more important than having your most used sites right up front.
I find IE11 + TPLs to run faster and ramp my fan up much less than Edge. Also, when is Microsoft going to give edge a Full Screen mode. It already has half an inch less screen real estate than IE when browsing the web due to the bloated UI elements. It completely lacks IE's full screen Mode, which I use all the time... Never had an issue logging in here with both EasyList TPLs enabled on IE, and it blocks all the Ads.
Could Microsoft please invigorate their cooperation with Enpass to get a proper extension in the Store?

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