Thanks for your suggestion, I followed the advice, but it doesn't work.

Regarding restarting multiple times: I believe this is due to people starting the browser too fast again. Perhaps one needs to wait till browser and browserd are both really closed down. So thats what I do for now, although I still restarted multiple times tho.

I had no /home/user/.mozilla/microb/adblockplus/ either, and don't have old patterns.ini. I made both, now my patterns.ini is:
# Adblock Plus preferences

[User patterns]

[Subscription]
url=~il~

[Subscription]
url=~wl~

[Subscription]
url=~fl~

[Subscription]
url=~eh~

Gave them permissions 755 & user.users as you suggested.

Whenever I try to install or remove Adblock from the components list the whole browser crashes. This even happens on a fresh ~/.mozilla

$ pwd && echo NAME && grep em:version `ls -H */install.rdf` && echo VERSION && grep em:name `ls -H */install.rdf`
/home/user/.mozilla/microb/extensions
NAME
{3d7eb24f-2740-49df-8937-200b1cc08f8a}/install.rdf: <em:version>1.5.6a based</em:version>
{c4dc572a-3295-40eb-b30f-b54aa4cdc4b7}/install.rdf: <em:version>0.7.18</em:version>
components-installer@extensions.mozilla.org/install.rdf: <em:version>1.9a6pre</em:version>
{d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}/install.rdf: <em:version>0.7.5.3 based</em:version>
{e4a8a97b-f2ed-450b-b12d-ee082ba24781}/install.rdf: <em:version>0.7.20070607.0 based</em:version>
en-GB@dictionaries.addons.mozilla.org/install.rdf: <em:version>1.19</em:version>
nl-NL@dictionaries.addons.mozilla.org/install.rdf: <em:version>2.0.0</em:version>
nl_NL@opentaal.org/install.rdf: <em:version>1.00G</em:version>
VERSION
{3d7eb24f-2740-49df-8937-200b1cc08f8a}/install.rdf: <em:name>Flashblock port for MicroB</em:name>
{c4dc572a-3295-40eb-b30f-b54aa4cdc4b7}/install.rdf: <em:name>wmlbrowser</em:name>
components-installer@extensions.mozilla.org/install.rdf: <em:name>components-installer</em:name>
{d10d0bf8-f5b5-c8b4-a8b2-2b9879e08c5d}/install.rdf: <em:name>Adblock Plus port for MicroB</em:name>
{e4a8a97b-f2ed-450b-b12d-ee082ba24781}/install.rdf: <em:name>Greasemonkey port for MicroB</em:name>
en-GB@dictionaries.addons.mozilla.org/install.rdf: <em:name>British English Dictionary</em:name>
nl-NL@dictionaries.addons.mozilla.org/install.rdf: <em:name>Woordenboek Nederlands</em:name>
nl_NL@opentaal.org/install.rdf: <em:name>OpenTaal woordenlijst</em:name>

Even with all the dictionaries, greasemonkey removed & purged, and adblockplus removed and installed, it still simply doesn't work.

BTW, using 'check updates' finds a new adblockplus version using this one, or not, doesn't make any difference.

Edit: for some reason it works now, no idea why...