By Damilola Emmanuel, who makes Tabmoat. Updated .
With no blocker, these 43 sites opened 17 ad tabs, sent the browser to another site 21 times and made 19,156 requests to ad and tracker servers. With Tabmoat, 2 tabs and 4 redirects were left, none of which went to an ad, and no ad requests got through. uBlock Origin Lite came out almost the same: it let one redirect and 2 ad requests through that Tabmoat stopped. The few tabs and redirects left for both went to the sites' own other addresses or a Google sign-in.
How did I test it?
I wrote a script that opens each site in a visible Chromium window (the open-source browser Chrome is built on), waits for it to load, then clicks the page and its video player four times, the way you would. It loads every site with no blocker and then with Tabmoat 1.0.0, and does the same again for uBlock Origin Lite 2026.1021.1354 on its default settings. It records:
- every new tab a click opened,
- every time the page moved to a different site,
- every request to an ad or tracker server that reached the network.
I tried 45 sites: free movie, anime and sports streaming, torrents, game and software downloads, file hosts, link shorteners, and some busy news and tool sites. 2 of them showed a “verify you are human” page to the test browser, so they are left out. That leaves 43.
What were the results?
| On 43 sites | No blocker | Tabmoat | uBlock Origin Lite |
|---|---|---|---|
| New tabs opened | 17 | 2 | 2 |
| Moved to another site | 21 | 4 | 5 |
| Ad and tracker requests | 19,156 | 0 | 2 |
What still got through?
The 2 tabs and 4 redirects left with Tabmoat were the same ones uBlock Origin Lite let through. Going by where each one went: a movie site opening its own mirror, another movie site moving to a copy of itself, an anime and a manga site moving to their newer addresses, a news site moving to its .com edition, and a Google sign-in window. None of them went to an ad.
The differences were small. On a game download site, uBlock Origin Lite let the page move to another site, which Tabmoat stopped. On a weather site, it let 2 requests to an ad server through.
How did it do on each type of site?
New tabs plus moves to another site, added together:
| Type of site | Sites | No blocker | Tabmoat | uBlock Origin Lite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| News | 12 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| Streaming | 8 | 23 | 2 | 2 |
| Torrents | 6 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Anime | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Manga | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Downloads | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| Sports | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Shortener | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| File host | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tools | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
What doesn't this test show?
- It's one run per blocker on one day. These sites change their ads all the time, and with no blocker the same sites opened 17 tabs in one run and 24 in the other.
- An ad request counts if it's on the public EasyList and EasyPrivacy lists. Tabmoat and uBlock Origin Lite both block from lists like these, so this measures how well each one applies them more than who has better lists.
- It doesn't test YouTube ads, “disable your adblocker” boxes or fake “sign up to keep watching” walls. Tabmoat handles those, but this script doesn't measure them.
- Sites that blocked the test browser aren't in it, so this says nothing about how either blocker does on them.
Why aren't the sites named?
Most of them are piracy and download sites, and some send people to scams. I don't want this page sending them visitors. If you write about ad blockers and want the full list and the raw results, email support@middledott.com.