Ideally, everything would be fully initialized/ready before the browser enters normal operation. However, perhaps we should accept as fact that some items can delay availability for longer than is desired by some users in some contexts. Plus, there are items which by nature only operate after the browser has loaded a page, including those that are very infrequently used (by some users anyway). IOW, the overall application would seem to call for both "critical" and "non-critical" startup items. The nature of ABP, ABE, and similar extensions is such that they would fall in the "critical" category. Yet, we'd all likely agree that an option to make it "non-critical" would be attractive to some users. I'm not aware of Firefox directly supporting this type of switch and perhaps that is one angle that is worth pursuing. On the other hand, extension developers obviously have a significant level of control over where/when they yield or otherwise delay their own startup and other operations.
I figure it would have already been available by now if it was planned. Edge isn't exactly a new kid on the block, it's been around a good amount of time. You could try out the AdGuard extension in the meantime. It seems to work pretty well from what I can tell so far. I do wish they would make the lists viewable though. I believe they are close to the same as the ABP lists though, for better or worse.
The extension is free, yes. I'm not certain as to whether anything is missing from the extension that is available in the paid program, but it seems to be blocking things rather well. That's another reason I wish users could view the entries in the lists, I'd like to know just what 3rd party trackers are covered since they usually aren't visible on a site. I believe the FF version is either in Alpha testing or soon to be.
AdblockEdge 2.1.4 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/ Version info is at the pulldown menu of the AMO link.
Those exception rules are usually there in order to un-break the affected websites. You can deactivate those rules if you want.
try adblocking via hosts files compared to ABP. the former usually leads to broken sites, especially multimedia content sites, the latter breaks very little. On a forum I use for my router custom firmware someone made a guide on how to apply hosts files to the router itself so affects all lan which is a good idea, the problem was the 3 hosts files he provided one of them is what it seems very careless, it was listing various domains that are mainstream companies such as bet365.com, I raised the point on the forum and the guy didn't care. Blocking reduced in its value if you stopping your ability to do stuff you want. That's why ABP has whitelists.
Yes, hosts files are good to block (sub-)domains but they have 2 big disadvantages: 1. If they break some websites/if there are false positives, it's not possible to define exception rules as in Adblock. 2. They block (sub-)domains but they are unable to block something like: Code: http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adxrun.html?jsonp ... http://graphics8.nytimes.com/bi/js/analytics/comscore.js http://graphics8.nytimes.com/bi/js/analytics/webtrends.js The first example is blocked by the Adblock filter .com/adx/ the second and third examples are blocked by the Adblock filter /js/analytics/ This is simply impossible with hosts files. You would need to block the complete www.nytimes.com and graphics8.nytimes.com sites - that's most probably not what you want EDIT: I forgot a third big disadvantage of hosts files: They do not support wildcards. An entry like 0.0.0.0 *.doubleclick.net is invalid. And an entry like 0.0.0.0 doubleclick.net does not block, e.g., 2196503.fls.doubleclick.net 3ad.doubleclick.net ad.br.doubleclick.net ad-emea.doubleclick.net and so forth. The need to add all relevant subdomains is the reasons why those publicly available hosts files are that huge.
Since Adblock Edge is officially abandoned, or to exact quote: Discontinued in favor of uBlock, a general purpose blocker, that not only outperforms Adblock Edge but is also available on other browsers and, of course, without "Acceptable Ads Whitelist". Since Wilders attracts many well informed ears; I wonder, has anyone expressed desire of plan to continue ABE project? Also, those of you who have favored ABE to ABP or ublock, what are your plans now? I have temporary placed ABP, as for ublock, I had some reservations before so not quite clear at the moment. Ublock Origin is tempting but... really sad that ABE is no more.