Products · Product
uBlock Origin
Raised as a usability problem by 102 people on Hacker News over 13 years (2014–2026), in 90 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
- 1
- 2
- 3
Every issue, all time, most people first
Sites break when enabled, forcing disable and reloadUnreviewed
20142026- Sites break: missing content, no scrolling, page cannot be interacted with2026-08-15
- Sites behave strangely until the user remembers to disable uBlock and accept cookies2025-07-01
- Sites break when uBlock Origin is enabled, forcing disable and reload2022-05-28
Cryptic icons make the interface hard to decipherUnreviewed
20142026- Cryptic icons make the interface hard to decipher2022-06-10
- Icon-only buttons with unclear names like zapper and picker are hard to understand2021-09-04
- Icons are non-obvious and settings icon is hard to find; settings overwhelm non-technical users2016-03-04
Blocking an element takes many steps, and the picker opens the wrong tabUnreviewed
20142026- No visible element picker UI, so users cannot click to block page elements2026-08-16
- Element picker only removes one item at a time and overwrites selectors2023-06-26
- Many steps to block an element, and picker opens the wrong tab2023-01-16
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- No easy one-click way to turn it off, must disable extension in browser settings2026-09-29
- Store page screenshots don't clearly show how to reach the advanced element picker2026-08-17
- No visible element picker UI, so users cannot click to block page elements2026-08-16
- Sites break: missing content, no scrolling, page cannot be interacted with2026-08-15
- Without the ad blocker, the web feels unusable and assaulting2026-08-15
- The web is unusable without an ad blocker, so people need it to browse normally2026-06-10
- Doing per-site connection permissions requires writing rules by hand, too much work2026-05-16
- Some people can't figure out the few steps needed to use the ad blocker2026-02-14
- Double tap sometimes not registered when tapping too fast2025-11-07
- Ad blocking breaks work SaaS apps and users don't know to toggle it off2025-10-16
- Hides cookie walls, leaving websites non-functional until blockers are disabled and re-enabled2025-08-05
- Unintuitive interface for setting features; interferes with Safari's hide distracting items2025-08-05
- User must manually trigger sync in settings, and it doesn't work in Firefox2025-07-23
- Commenter can't figure out how to replicate uMatrix's rules in uBlock Origin; its UI is too complicated2025-07-05
- Sites behave strangely until the user remembers to disable uBlock and accept cookies2025-07-01
- Settings page won't open after the first time; the menu button does nothing2025-06-26
- Can't easily whitelist a domain; the option was removed and the hidden shortcut is undiscoverable2024-09-16
- Writing filters for such sites requires reverse engineering page JavaScript, which is very hard2024-09-09
- Websites hang during payment when blocked tracker scripts fail to load2024-09-08
- Element filters are brittle, need many lines, and often break when sites change2024-03-31
- User can't tell where to click to toggle JavaScript for a site2024-02-19
- Websites become unusable without an ad blocker running2023-11-27
- Hidden functionality behind an unrelated toggle; matrix UI confusing with no explanation2023-11-09
- Can't find how to use the element blocking feature in the menu2023-11-01
- Donation popup interrupts browsing and provides a poor user experience2023-10-29
- UBlock's UI doesn't make granular per-resource blocking per domain easy to set up2023-09-23
- Phone app crashes and becomes unresponsive2023-09-20
- Commenter finds uBlock Origin's user experience poor for their needs2023-09-12
- Sites sometimes break and require disabling the ad blocker to finish a task2023-07-26
- Scriptlets are cached, so edits need a workaround to take effect2023-07-04
- Element picker only removes one item at a time and overwrites selectors2023-06-26
- Cookie and subscribe banners must be dismissed manually on every site2023-06-07
- Cookie popups half-blocked, leaving the page unscrollable and uninteractable until filters are disabled2023-05-18
- Hard to realize the ad blocker is the cause when something breaks2023-03-21
- Hosts file won't import into uBlock2023-02-08
- Many steps to block an element, and picker opens the wrong tab2023-01-16
- Blocking CSS, images and scripts separately is harder to do than in uMatrix2022-12-14
- Users can't understand how to use the mini-matrix; it lacks explanatory columns2022-09-08
- Author never understood the overview, and +/- counters look like clickable controls2022-09-08
- Blocking elements now requires repeated clicking and reloading, taking minutes instead of seconds2022-09-08
- Element selection is imprecise on touchscreens, making the zapper unusable on Firefox Android2022-08-30
- Cryptic icons make the interface hard to decipher2022-06-10
- Sites break when uBlock Origin is enabled, forcing disable and reload2022-05-28
- After blocking popups, the hidden scrollbar makes some sites impossible to scroll2022-03-21
- Per-site JavaScript toggle is hidden behind repeated clicks on a 'more' button2022-03-11
- Per-site allowing and blocking of third-party resources feels clunkier than other blockers2022-03-11
- Blocks checkout, leaving order stuck pending payment after charge and needing support2022-02-10
- Per-site font unblocking requires many clicks and repeated refreshes2022-01-30
- Enabling annoyance filter lists breaks sign-up pages and traps users in cookie modals2021-12-18
- You have to assemble and manage filter building blocks yourself2021-12-14