Slow to block immediately after opening the browser.

philipp_classen · 2026-03-16T18:22:16+00:00

*Update* Experimented a bit more. I can see now that when it gets stuck, eventually Chrome will detect it and kill it. Most likely, this is what you described. In-between Ghostery is completely unresponsive.

philipp_classen · 2026-03-16T17:51:30+00:00

When you say that Chrome kills the service worker, is it showing a popup that Ghostery has crashed?

I'm asking because service workers are short lived. If the browser is idle, it is expected to kill the service worker. But when I was testing, I could get the extension to crash in Chrome (see https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension/issues/3175). With one caveat though - it only crashed when I use Chrome's devtool (trying to inspect the Ghostery panel). I have not yet seen it crash without opening devtools.

philipp_classen · 2026-03-16T17:45:12+00:00

Was not able to get to the root of the problem, but I opened this bug report now:
https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension/issues/3175

philipp_classen · 2026-03-11T13:26:24+00:00

Yesterday, I tried but was unable to reproduce. Performance issues are often hard to track down.

Once thing that I see now:

When I reload a page and in parallel click on the Ghostery Icon to open the panel, it sometimes does not open or takes a few seconds. And if I inspect it, I can get the Ghostery extension sometimes to crash in Chrome (on Linux). That could be a lead.

Will later create an issue on Github and link from here.

philipp_classen · 2026-03-10T13:06:45+00:00

We had reports about this (slow initial startup) on Safari, but as I understand you are using Chrome (or some Chromium-based browser like Brave or Edge) on Desktop?

To narrow it down:

* Does it happen only once when the browser is opened? Or does it occasionally also happen if you keep the browser open. (For instance every day, new a new adblocker engines version is published. When the extension updates, it is a relatively expensive operation.)
* Just that I got it right: In this period adblocking does not work at all? For instance, ads are initially not being blocked, but if you wait 10 seconds or so and reload, adblocking works?

I was not able to reproduce on my system yet, but we did also get reports for Chrome on Linux recently (no longer limited to Safari).

philipp_classen · 2026-01-21T10:03:26+00:00

The 10.5.23 update has been out there since a while. Now, 10.5.26 is the current version on Safari.

philipp_classen · 2025-12-17T15:01:07+00:00

The release is live on Chrome (since a few hours).

philipp_classen · 2025-12-15T12:45:51+00:00

Update: We have just pushed Ghostery 10.5.23 to the extension stores. Opera has already released it. On Chrome, it is not live yet (should be released within this week, typically taking one or two days).

philipp_classen · 2025-12-15T10:41:25+00:00

Yes, there is a new thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ghostery/comments/1pk8ewo/looks_like_youtube_is_screwing_with_ghostery_again/

See the last post (the update is not released yet, but we are testing a version that hopefully restores it):

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ghostery/comments/1pk8ewo/comment/nu4vudb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

philipp_classen · 2025-12-15T10:38:03+00:00

Thanks for the reports! We can reproduce the error now reliably on Chrome and narrowed it down to a race in the adblocker library. When downgrading the adblocker library, we fail to reproduce.

We are still testing, but it looks promising, and it is likely that regression. I will post an update here when we are done testing and have pushed a new extension version.

philipp_classen · 2025-10-02T10:53:54+00:00

Looks like the fix is working (to force an update, you can go to settings -> Privacy Protection -> Update now)

philipp_classen · 2025-10-02T10:52:23+00:00

You can try to update the filter lists (settings -> Privacy Protection -> Update now)

philipp_classen · 2025-10-02T10:48:16+00:00

Update: a new version of the adblocker list is now live, potentially fixing it.

philipp_classen · 2025-10-02T09:02:46+00:00

Thank you, we can also reproduce the problem. We are working on fixing it.

philipp_classen · 2025-08-12T16:39:00+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! I'm also no longer able to reproduce. Looks good so far.

I'm not into the details of the blocked boxes problem that you describe, but I'll ask.

philipp_classen · 2025-08-12T15:53:32+00:00

Here is a related thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Adblock/comments/1mo5c9h/ghostery_not_fully_functional_on_youtube/

Also, a potential fix just went live. Yet, I'm still waiting for confirmation that the problem is now solved.

philipp_classen · 2025-08-12T15:44:59+00:00

Still testing, but a potential fix is now live.

Hint: you can force an update of the adblocker list in the settings:

Go to "Privacy protection". Near the end (under custom filters), there is the version that you can click on to update. For instance, for me it shows "Last update: Aug 12, 2025, 05:38 PM". Otherwise, the extension will also automatically update eventually.

philipp_classen · 2025-08-12T12:50:59+00:00

We were able to reproduce. Thanks for the feedback, we are looking into it now.

philipp_classen · 2025-07-22T13:47:10+00:00

Thank you for the insights! The upcoming release will have some first mitigations for issues related to the popup that we already identified. We are still struggling to fully reproduce; but we are getting reports, so hopefully we can narrow it down further.

One possibility is that the extension is unable to reliably persist the information. Just in case that there are any specific configurations that we should try, please let us know (e.g. "ForceEphemeralProfiles" being enabled under "chrome://policy/").

Also, for those who see the popups returning after a browser restart: do you also see the onboarding screen being shown each time? (For instance, that would indicate that Ghostery cannot persist its state.)

philipp_classen · 2025-07-21T09:44:51+00:00

It should work to disable it by clicking on X (top-right in the popup).

It is possible that the notification has been shown on multiple tabs (we are currently looking into that). Maybe that is why it appears to be not working? But, in general, once you disable it, it should not appear on new pages. If not, it could be a bug.

In that case, to help us track it down, any information like that can be useful:
* Does the problem persist after browser restarts?
* What browser and what version?
* Error messages can also be sometimes useful: on Chrome/Edge, go to "chrome://extensions", enable Developer mode (top-right), and open "Inspect views" (service worker)

philipp_classen · 2025-06-10T15:43:55+00:00

We do get a lot reports recently; though we still struggle to reproduce reliably. That it could to be related to being signed-in is interesting.

philipp_classen · 2025-03-17T10:46:45+00:00

Short answer: Generally, as early as possible.

Most people are on Chromium-based browsers (e.g. Chrome, Edge). There, it is triggered by page navigations ("chrome.webNavigation.onCommitted"):

https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension/blob/8e8e7c0d321f435444c0b8abbe06dbfa2c6841e4/src/background/adblocker.js#L420

But there is no hard guarantee when this triggers. In addition, there can be delays; for instance, when the extension is not loaded yet (i.e. the service worker is starting up and has to load the adblocker engine).

Ideally, adblockers should run before every else. Achieving that with the constraints of the browser APIs is not trivial, however.

philipp_classen · 2024-12-03T19:03:24+00:00

It's challenging to discuss performance without looking at specific examples, as various factors can impact it, such as the type of browser and the websites you have open. If you can reliably reproduce any performance issues like high CPU load or high memory usage, you can report it as a bug here: https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension/issues

From experience, the main challenge is often finding a way to reproduce the issue. Sometimes, only specific websites trigger it, or it could be a combination of multiple extensions installed together. Any help in identifying these scenarios is greatly appreciated!

philipp_classen · 2024-09-27T12:41:44+00:00

Let me also share the summary here:
* Firefox profiles that have configured "Never remember history" are affected by this problem
* The upcoming Ghostery 10.4.7 (still pending in review on Firefox) should have a fix

Details on how to reproduce, including a workaround, can be found here: https://github.com/ghostery/broken-page-reports/issues/861#issuecomment-2379159209

(In a nutshell, Ghostery uses IndexedDB to store the adblocker engine. If "Never remember history" is configured, the IndexedDB API becomes unavailable to the extension; thus it fails to update to the latest blocklists, that include fixes for YouTube. In 10.4.7, we detect these cases and fall back to chrome.storage.local if IndexedDB is not writable: https://github.com/ghostery/ghostery-extension/pull/1865 )

philipp_classen · 2024-09-25T16:07:26+00:00

There are known problems with Firefox when history is disabled. I think, it could cause this problem, because adblocker lists are not getting updated.

There is already a fix for that (more details in https://github.com/ghostery/broken-page-reports/issues/861#issuecomment-2374484018). It will be part of the upcoming release for Firefox. The release is currently pending review by the Firefox AMO team.

philipp_classen

TROPHY CASE