EasyList is in trouble and so are many ad blockers

> There’s an open source Android browser (now seemingly abandoned) that implements ad-blocking functionality

> The problem is that this browser has a very serious flaw. It tries to download filters updates on every startup, and on Android it may happen lots of times per day. It can even happen when the browser is running in the background

EasyList should be offered as a version-controlled copy you grab once, that then gets bundled with an app, rather than offering a download to be called from an app: https://easylist.to/easylist/easylist.txt (Currently down as of writing).

The only caveat is such a list needs to be updated, so then a version system should be implemented for EasyList and you periodically bundle the new version via app updates. It would save a lot of bandwidth doing this.

If I recall correctly there was some image on wikipedia that was getting billions of downloads a day or something, all from India, because some smart phone had made it a default "hello" image and hot linked it.

Unfortunately, I can't find a reference to it anymore.

A lazy/bad developer ruining something so many people depend on is incredibly annoying.

This sucks. I hope they can reach the app authors and get it fixed the source.

Meanwhile perhaps some other CDN provider wants to create some goodwill if Cloudflare isn't willing?

You can use firefox on android and install ad block on it as a plugin