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µBlock dynamic filtering: default deny

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Re: µBlock dynamic filtering: default deny

#51

Post by Nexxxeh »

randomuserhello wrote: post #10

still not able to block youtube ads, thanks, but no thanks. I´ll stick with adblock edge.

>I´ll stick with adblock edge.

Well, you can use what you want. We have no vested interest.

>still not able to block youtube ads, thanks, but no thanks.

But you're wrong, of course. And you've not given enough information for people to accurately help you, if they wanted to do so despite your tone.

On both Chrome and on Opera, with uBlock I don't get YouTube adverts. (Albeit with some more filter tickboxes ticked, which may or may not make a difference.)

If you want to try and get uBlock blocking your YouTube adverts, I'm sure lots of us would be willing assist. More so if you weren't an ass about it.

Edit: I'm using HTML5 instead of Flash, that could be the key difference.

Re: µBlock dynamic filtering: default deny

#53

Post by cantlin »

As the author was kind enough to pick us as an example, here's some background on what some of those requests are doing.

hits.theguardian.com points to our Omniture implementation, which is the main tracking suite used for macro-level reporting (like when we say we have X unique monthly browsers, or whatever). So if you want to be invisible to that, leave it blocked.

ophan.theguardian.com points to our own analytics tool, Ophan, which does things like tracks whether you "read" the article. It's for journalists to work out if people like their stuff. All the views of the data are aggregated, but if an analyst really wanted to they could go write some SQL to look at the behavior of individual cookies. So if you want to be invisible to that, leave it blocked. A quick Google [0] will turn up lots more about Ophan and how it works.

Our only calls out to Facebook and Twitter are to retrieve share counts for the current URL (besides articles with embedded tweets, for now). These are probably relatively safe to unblock, but if that information doesn't interest you they're equally safe to block.

api.nextgen.guardianapps.co.uk is handling most Guardian stuff that gets ajaxed onto the page, like suggestions for what to read next. It's pretty harmless and required for a bunch of functionality. All the guim stuff is obviously just static assets.

It would be cute if there was some way of us hinting to the plugin which domains were needed to not break the site, though likely impractical in the real world.

[0] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ophan%20guardian

Re: µBlock dynamic filtering: default deny

#54

Post by clarkm »

bourbon wrote: post #40

So with this, I no longer need Ghost and Adblock?

Yep, I just switched. I initially made the jump solely because of uBlock's performance claims, but I have to say, it already seems much better overall than the haphazard Ghostery + Adblock combination I had before.

Re: µBlock dynamic filtering: default deny

#55

Post by mintplant »

cantlin wrote: post #53

As the author was kind enough to pick us as an example, here's some background on what some of those requests are doing. hits.theguardian.com points to our Omniture implementation, which is the main tracking suite used for macro-level reporting (like when we say we have X unique monthly browsers, or whatever). So if you want to be invisible to that, leave it blocked. ophan.theguardian.com points to our own analytics…

> Our only calls out to Facebook and Twitter are to retrieve share counts for the current URL... These are probably relatively safe to unblock

Wouldn't this expose you to tracking by Facebook and Twitter? I would think people are more interested in blocking third-party tracking than first-party.

Thanks for the detailed explanation either way!

Re: µBlock dynamic filtering: default deny

#56

Post by mintplant »

webwanderings wrote: post #52

µBlock or Ghostery, whoever comes up with the tool to block garbage on mobile devices (preferably Chrome), will be a winner!

Ghostery supports Firefox for Android [1]. For µBlock, there are two tickets open on GitHub [2,3] about Firefox for Android support.

Unfortunately, Chrome for Android doesn't support extensions [4]. But if you have a rooted device, you can block ads/trackers/etc. across all apps via AdAway [5], which manages a custom HOSTS file for you.

[1] https://www.ghostery.com/en/download

[2] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/524

[3] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/556

[4] https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/faq

[5] https://sufficientlysecure.org/index.php/adaway/

Re: µBlock dynamic filtering: default deny

#57

Post by gorhill »

cantlin wrote: post #53

As the author was kind enough to pick us as an example, here's some background on what some of those requests are doing. hits.theguardian.com points to our Omniture implementation, which is the main tracking suite used for macro-level reporting (like when we say we have X unique monthly browsers, or whatever). So if you want to be invisible to that, leave it blocked. ophan.theguardian.com points to our own analytics…

> some way of us hinting to the plugin which domains were needed to not break the site:

I had collated this so far to mostly un-break the site -- for viewing at least:

    www.theguardian.com guardianapps.co.uk * noop
    www.theguardian.com guim.co.uk * noop
    www.theguardian.com theguardian.tv * noop
Whenever I un-break myself a site, I add the proper rules in there: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-de...

There were 16 3rd-party root domains I found were not needed [1]. Probably fonts.googleapis.com would make the site looks better, but it's up to users whether they want to let Google know they have been visiting what article on the Guardian.

[1] adnxs.com criteo.com doubleclick.net fonts.googleapis.com google.com googleadservices.com googlesyndication.com googletagservices.com gstatic.com imrworldwide.com krxd.net mathtag.com moatads.com ophan.co.uk outbrain.com revsci.net scorecardresearch.com

Re: µBlock dynamic filtering: default deny

#58

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

gorhill wrote: post #26
bhouston wrote: post #13

Does ublock still block crash reporters like newrelic and self hosted party statistics like piwik? PS, I had major issues on two mainstream travel sites with ublock. It made then unusable with ublocksl's default settings.

Using EasyPrivacy results in piwik being blocked, yes, regardless whether EasyPrivacy is used in uBlock, ABP, or whatever other blocker. I suggested you to bring the issue to EasyPrivacy maintainers if you think it's wrong[1], but by all appearances your grudge is solely aimed at uBlock. [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/564#issuecomment-70...

Easy privacy also blocks pusher.com which is used by thousands of sites for realtime stuff. It's far too aggressive and should not be on by default.

Re: µBlock dynamic filtering: default deny

#59

Post by gorhill »

Nexxxeh wrote: post #51
randomuserhello wrote: post #10

still not able to block youtube ads, thanks, but no thanks. I´ll stick with adblock edge.

>I´ll stick with adblock edge. Well, you can use what you want. We have no vested interest. >still not able to block youtube ads, thanks, but no thanks. But you're wrong, of course. And you've not given enough information for people to accurately help you, if they wanted to do so despite your tone. On both Chrome and on Opera, with uBlock I don't get YouTube adverts. (Albeit with some more filter tickboxes ticked, wh…

> I'm using HTML5 instead of Flash, that could be the key difference.

The ads with Flash is only a problem on Safari, due to API limitation on Safari (Chromium/Firefox can block ads with Flash).

As for the filter lists, I think only _EasyList_ is needed for Youtube ads.

Re: µBlock dynamic filtering: default deny

#60

Post by StavrosK »

bmcd87 wrote: post #49
kmfrk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ghostery breaks so much stuff, I don't know how people can bother. I've found that Privacy Badger does a great job of blocking third-party tools in a way that rarely breaks anything - in which case it's easy to turn off. That and Ad Muncher for Windows.

Ghostery developer here. As someone else pointed out, it's usually analytics tied to certain events like button presses, ads that trigger the main content to load after it shows, or fonts loaded from a 3rd party like Adobe that break sites. When we block the javascript and the developer didn't use a try/catch around that analytics/ad call, it breaks. Most of the time there's no way around that breakage except by allo…

I've been using Ghostery for a year or so now (and prefer its UI over μBlock), and I've had minimal issues. If something breaks, I paste the URL in am incognito window. If it works there, I know it's a Ghostery issue.
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