It was a feature that many users had been asking for several years. While others had hoped it would never be allowed to find a place in the software. However, there came a definitive answer when the popular ad-blocking extension announced its plans to introduce its latest feature which will allow users to cache popular libraries suing JavaScript locally on their computers.
As of right now, the newly announced feature is only available for the AdBlock Chrom extension. However, an AdBlock spokesperson has made it public that the extension will be making n its way to Firefox and then hopefully across all platforms as well.
The feature can only be used by users that have the latest version of the AdBlock extension installed. Those willing to enable this feature must go to the extension’s setting panel and enable the “Enable local content caching for popular website libraries”.
Before this update, the app was capable of intercepting all the web traffic and blocking all content that the user or the program by default believed was related to marketing or advertising domains. The new feature simply aims to add on that existing ability by looking for the popular JavaScript libraries through the online Website’s source code, skipping the loading remote library in favor of the load from local folder.
Content-Delivery Networks have had a rather controversial place in the modern technological age. Online it has divided corporations on the pros and cons of it. AdBlock has recently provided its reasons for opting for this feature. It argues that moving away from the Content Delivery Networks (CDN) and towards the local folder option will allow sites to load faster. The second reason is something that resonates with users a lot more. It has stated that it provides a heightened sense of security to the users as it has greater mechanism to protect their privacy.
An AdBlock spokesperson added that even tech giants like Facebook, Google and Microsoft use CDNs. They use these CDNs possibly in away to track them pack individually to each user. AdBlcok hopes to end this cycle by keeping copies of popular Java Script libraries on a local folder eliminating the role of an additional tracking behavior.
The feature is still in beta. However, positive feedback as well as performance could see it become a regular part of the popular app.
