I also want to spend more time doing security research again, which should help pay the bills as a side effect. My Easy Passwords extension is a very promising project that definitely needs more of my time, and I would like to contribute to a bunch of open source projects. Instead, I want to get a clear head, and learn new things. Next year I will only get involved in Adblock Plus if my assistance is absolutely required (in other words: most likely not at all). This isn’t a good prerequisite when staying in touch with Mozilla is part of the job description. Consequently, while I see Mozilla’s motivation for their rushed Web Extensions move, I cannot feel positive about it. I also noticed that I’ve grown irrationally attached to XUL and Gecko, as I’ve accumulated lots of knowledge in that area over the years and helped many others learn as well. It’s not merely about being tired of working on the same project. Consequently, my Firefox expertise is barely required any more this was one of the last areas where replacing me would have been problematic. As damaging as this move inevitably was for our extension’s quality and reputation, it had a positive side effect: our original Adblock Plus for Firefox codebase is now legacy code, not to be worked on. And a little more than a month ago we launched the new Adblock Plus 3.0 for Firefox based on the Web Extensions framework. Two years ago Felix Dahlke took over the CTO role from me.

Six years ago we founded eyeo, a company that would put the former hobby project on a more solid foundation. The project’s dependence on me has been on the decline for quite a while already.

After twelve years of working on Adblock Plus, the time seems right for me to take a break.

Adblock plus firefox extension