I used to use uMatrix, but stopped when @gorhill stopped recommending its use. The way I figure, if I'm gonna trust the guy, then I'm gonna trust the guy.
this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
76 points (97.5% liked)
Privacy
50695 readers
786 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
Around 2020 I asked for advice, about something better than Adblock Plus and everybody said ublock, everybody.
I did for a long time but Ray stopped maintaining it so I stopped using it.
i mean it still works. it has no external dependencies, it has no known bugs afaik, it just trucks along. no maintenance necessary.
normalize software being "done".
A fair opinion. I simply try to avoid building a personal dependency on something that isn’t maintained so I’m less impacted if it suddenly breaks or there’s a vulnerability.
It’s a great tool though. One of the best security extensions bar noscript.
normalize software being "done".
If only that were a thing. At some point an integration change in the browser or os will cause it to break.
But let's normalize maintenance without new features.
normalise compiling software instead of using the browser
Used to love uMatrix, but it has been archived now for five years, not safe to use ay more.
i use numatrix, it's a fork of nutensor whichbwas a fork of umatrix. it's regularly updated and available on firefox AMO
unlike nutensor/umatrix or even ublock origin it even has keyboard shortcut feature, so paired with vimfx i almost never have to touch the mouse
Before and update uBlock wasn't able to do as much stuff as it does today, once that happened I stopped using uMatrix since it became redundant.
uBlock Origin can do so much beside blocking ads, like replace extensions (like Consent-OMatic or the many small ones I sued to use to protect my privacy) or block specific parts on any webpage.
I use uBlock Origin + uMatrix at the same time. The default blocked stuff from both works for me fine. uMatrix has great flexibility to allow certain stuff. And uBlock has ability to block additional stuff with the element picker, either temporary or permanent. Both tools have additional settings that the other might not cover. So what I usually do:
- let uBlock block ads and some other stuff
- block some stuff manually with uBlock
- let uMatrix block additional stuff but allow me to finetune easily
- allow certain domains or categories in uMatrix one by one for certain sites when I need to
I do this too. I've heard uBlock has the capabilities of uMatrix but I never got around to learn how to use it that way, to me it's not as straight forward as uMatrix (I'm also very lazy)
I use it and love it. Without it, I feel naked browsing. It shows which sites load what from where.
I used to use it but I gave up on it earlier this year. Honestly I don’t miss every website being broken and having to reload a website a dozen times just to get checkout and payment working.
Also iFrames just never worked. They remained blocked despite explicitly allowing them (which was prolly because the ext was unmaintained so long).
Not being able to block JS and Cookies on a domain level is a bit of a bummer but all in all I’d consider it an upgrade.
I love uMatrix, and I continued to use it even after gorhill archived it and recommended people stop because there wasn't a good direct replacement. I did finally choose to not reinstall it with my latest build, but I do still miss it. uBlock Origin does have some of the functionality, but it isn't as advanced or fine grained and it is semi-hidden in the UI.
No, I use Adnausem and Consent-o-matic so ads are silently 'clicked' in the background to mess with my advertising profiles and cookie popups are actively opted out of not just hidden.
I always thought that ublock origin in advanced mode was a suitable replacement? Maybe I'm off base with that.