So, what caused all this extra work that slowed down
page loads? The majority of the work came from
JavaScript that the Brave browser injected into every
page to help its adblocker. Specifically, it was the
cosmetic filter — a component responsible for adjusting
page layouts to correct for breakages caused by
adblocking. Brave’s developers didn’t need to work on
the script to improve its performance; they needed to
delete it.
For those using uBlock Origin, you can control cosmetic filtering with the "Parse and enforce cosmetic filters" and "Ignore generic cosmetic filters" options on the "Filter lists" tab of the extension settings. The uBlock Origin toolbar button also lets you enable or disable cosmetic filtering on a per-domain basis. Disabling this may improve performance on slower/older devices, but I don't notice the speed difference with uBlock Origin's implementation on most recent devices.
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