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Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

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Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#51

Post by vbezhenar »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #38
TorKlingberg wrote: post #26

The fundamental problem is that these filter lists are maintained by random volunteers, who everyone just assumes are trustworthy. The browser makers avoid the issues by having ad-blockers be third-party extensions. The extension makers don't make the filter lists either, they just import from EasyList and similar. It's surprising there arent't more cases of corruption and broken trust. I wish I could get ad-blocking…

I'm not familiar with it but aren't Apple doing things with built-in adblocking these days? As an aside (but still relating to your comment) I tend to trust my adblocker based on the "many eyeballs" theory and I think the OP and ensuing discussion here is proof that the system mostly works.

I didn't know Apple blocks something? I know that they developed API which allows third-party apps to block anything including apps (if we're talking about iOS).

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#52

Post by Jolter »

ahje wrote: post #9
sharpneli wrote: post #5

This is not precisely about the filter list but the whole shenanigans that led to it. Persons from other countries might be interested in this little quirk of Finland. Especially as it relates to workers rights in general. In Finland, unique among Nordic countries, political strikes are allowed. What does this mean? Let's say you're not happy about a decision made by Trump you can go to a strike. Sure the company doe…

The fact that people are abusing tools for ad-blocking to achieve political goals is a major breach of trust. This is the main issue. For the record, political strikes happen in the other Nordic countries as well. According to a quick search on the Internet, the only Nordic citizens who are _not_ allowed to partake in a political strike are public servants in Sweden.

Correction on that: any employee in Sweden is forbidden from striking if they are currently bound by a collective bargaining agreement. This means strikes are only legally recognized as strikes in the period between the expiry of an agreement, and the signing of the next one. This is generally every three years.

In other words, political strikes are effectively banned i Sweden.

I'm not aware of any exception to this rule for public servants but I could be wrong.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#53

Post by aembleton »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #26

The fundamental problem is that these filter lists are maintained by random volunteers, who everyone just assumes are trustworthy. The browser makers avoid the issues by having ad-blockers be third-party extensions. The extension makers don't make the filter lists either, they just import from EasyList and similar. It's surprising there arent't more cases of corruption and broken trust. I wish I could get ad-blocking…

Just block third party JS and Cookies using uMatrix. Then use uBlock origin to remove select divs that are annoying.

No need to rely upon third party lists.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#54

Post by nikbackm »

simias wrote: post #49
TekMol wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't run uBlock. Only umatrix. So my situation is different then yours. As I said, I don't blacklist specific hosts. I blacklist everything. And then whitelist specific hosts.

I'm asking about the whitelisting process: when something breaks how do you figure out what you have to whitelist? Many websites load dozens of external resources, how do you figure out what does what?

Nothing else than the name to go by really.

Domains that include "assets", "cdn", "static" and similar will probably be needed, at least if you want scripts to run and css to be included.

Anything with "ad" in the name you should probably not enable.

Other than that, basically trial and error. After a while it'll hopefully be easier to tell, but it will still be somewhat tedious each time you encounter a new site.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#55

Post by lima »

aembleton wrote: post #53
TorKlingberg wrote: post #26

The fundamental problem is that these filter lists are maintained by random volunteers, who everyone just assumes are trustworthy. The browser makers avoid the issues by having ad-blockers be third-party extensions. The extension makers don't make the filter lists either, they just import from EasyList and similar. It's surprising there arent't more cases of corruption and broken trust. I wish I could get ad-blocking…

Just block third party JS and Cookies using uMatrix. Then use uBlock origin to remove select divs that are annoying. No need to rely upon third party lists.

How much manual effort is required to whitelist legitimate third party JS?

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#56

Post by TorKlingberg »

aembleton wrote: post #53
TorKlingberg wrote: post #26

The fundamental problem is that these filter lists are maintained by random volunteers, who everyone just assumes are trustworthy. The browser makers avoid the issues by having ad-blockers be third-party extensions. The extension makers don't make the filter lists either, they just import from EasyList and similar. It's surprising there arent't more cases of corruption and broken trust. I wish I could get ad-blocking…

Just block third party JS and Cookies using uMatrix. Then use uBlock origin to remove select divs that are annoying. No need to rely upon third party lists.

I have tried that. Every other time I tried to book a flight, hotel or buy something I enter my credit card info and got a blank page or an endless spinner. Now I don't know if I have been charged and whether the purchase has gone through. I do not have time to deal with that. Also I ended up white-listing so much garbage just to do basic browsing that it defeated to whole purpose.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#57

Post by Jolter »

Jolter wrote: post #52
ahje wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that people are abusing tools for ad-blocking to achieve political goals is a major breach of trust. This is the main issue. For the record, political strikes happen in the other Nordic countries as well. According to a quick search on the Internet, the only Nordic citizens who are _not_ allowed to partake in a political strike are public servants in Sweden.

Correction on that: any employee in Sweden is forbidden from striking if they are currently bound by a collective bargaining agreement. This means strikes are only legally recognized as strikes in the period between the expiry of an agreement, and the signing of the next one. This is generally every three years. In other words, political strikes are effectively banned i Sweden. I'm not aware of any exception to this…

Partially correcting myself here:

The Nordic countries all have certain restrictions on striking for some groups of public servants. The groups vary and the restrictions do, too. If I read my book correctly, Sweden forbids key officials (those who have certain positions of authority) from participating in solidarity strikes (strikes in support of others), unless those others are also public servants.

https://books.google.se/books?id=IYx2GZdMA7AC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA...

The purpose of the law is to prevent certain tempting corrupt practices.

As far as I know, this law has never been used, but I feel like it is sensible.

Note: 99% of the time, like all Swedish workers, those officials have a binding collective bargaining agreement, so are forbidden from striking anyway. (I e if they go on strike, they may be legally fired.)

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#58

Post by ahje »

Jolter wrote: post #52
ahje wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that people are abusing tools for ad-blocking to achieve political goals is a major breach of trust. This is the main issue. For the record, political strikes happen in the other Nordic countries as well. According to a quick search on the Internet, the only Nordic citizens who are _not_ allowed to partake in a political strike are public servants in Sweden.

Correction on that: any employee in Sweden is forbidden from striking if they are currently bound by a collective bargaining agreement. This means strikes are only legally recognized as strikes in the period between the expiry of an agreement, and the signing of the next one. This is generally every three years. In other words, political strikes are effectively banned i Sweden. I'm not aware of any exception to this…

Fair enough. I'll stick to talking about our own laws instead of the Swedish ones. :)

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#59

Post by patd »

Shameless plug: I'm building BlockedBy.com, a tool to monitor adblock rules that start blocking your content. Adding them is very quick but removing them isn't and you start getting a lot of complains from your users.

I've had the issue at one of my projects where an overly broad rule blocked all my images.

Re: Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

#60

Post by TekMol »

simias wrote: post #49
TekMol wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't run uBlock. Only umatrix. So my situation is different then yours. As I said, I don't blacklist specific hosts. I blacklist everything. And then whitelist specific hosts.

I'm asking about the whitelisting process: when something breaks how do you figure out what you have to whitelist? Many websites load dozens of external resources, how do you figure out what does what?

I usually hit the right one on the first or second try. The hostname usually tells you what it does.

Say the images of users on github.com are broken. I open umatrix and think 'Hmm.. which host could they load them from?'. I enable 'githubusercontent.com' and voila! The user images appear.

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