diff --git a/js/pagestore.js b/js/pagestore.js
index 130215571..b4afe5bfc 100644
--- a/js/pagestore.js
+++ b/js/pagestore.js
@@ -109,7 +109,11 @@ PageStore.prototype.init = function(tabId, pageURL) {
     this.previousPageURL = '';
     this.pageURL = pageURL;
     this.pageHostname = µb.URI.hostnameFromURI(pageURL);
-    this.pageDomain = µb.URI.domainFromHostname(this.pageHostname);
+
+    // https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/185
+    // Use hostname if no domain can be extracted
+    this.pageDomain = µb.URI.domainFromHostname(this.pageHostname) || this.pageHostname;
+
     this.frames = disposeFrameStores(this.frames);
     this.netFiltering = true;
     this.netFilteringReadTime = 0;
diff --git a/js/ublock.js b/js/ublock.js
index fe158ba62..44723a29a 100644
--- a/js/ublock.js
+++ b/js/ublock.js
@@ -30,11 +30,14 @@
 
     // The caller may provide an already known domain -- convenient to reduce
     // overhead of extracting a domain from the url
-    if ( domain === undefined ) {
+    if ( typeof domain !== 'string' ) {
         domain = this.URI.domainFromHostname(keyHostname);
     }
-    if ( !domain ) {
-        return true;
+
+    // https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/185
+    // Use hostname if no domain can be extracted
+    if ( domain === '' ) {
+        domain = keyHostname;
     }
 
     var exceptions = this.netWhitelist[domain];
@@ -73,8 +76,11 @@
     // The caller may provide an already known domain -- convenient to reduce
     // overhead of extracting a domain from `key`
     var domain = this.URI.domainFromHostname(keyHostname);
-    if ( !domain ) {
-        return false;
+
+    // https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/185
+    // Use hostname if no domain can be extracted
+    if ( domain === '' ) {
+        domain = keyHostname;
     }
 
     var currentState = this.getNetFilteringSwitch(url, domain);
@@ -153,14 +159,15 @@
 µBlock.whitelistFromString = function(s) {
     var exceptions = {};
     var lines = s.split(/[\n\r]+/);
-    var line, domain, bucket;
+    var line, hostname, domain, bucket;
     for ( var i = 0; i < lines.length; i++ ) {
         line = lines[i].trim();
-        domain = line.indexOf('/') !== -1 ?
-            this.URI.domainFromURI(line) :
-            this.URI.domainFromHostname(line);
-        if ( !domain ) {
-            continue;
+        hostname = line.indexOf('/') !== -1 ? this.URI.hostnameFromURI(line) : line;
+        domain = this.URI.domainFromHostname(hostname);
+        // https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/185
+        // Use hostname if no domain can be extracted
+        if ( domain === '' ) {
+            domain = hostname;
         }
         bucket = exceptions[domain];
         if ( bucket === undefined ) {