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Ask HN: Has anyone read the AdBlockPlus source code to check for integrity?
One of the reasons I don't have ABP installed on my main browser is that it requests for access to a lot of data, including all the content of all pages I browse on my browser. I tend to be overly paranoid about things like these. (I only have it installed on a secondary browser (Firefox) for testing how sites look with adblock)
I know ABP is open source, but its source code is also large and unwieldy. Has anyone (3rd party, outside of ABP devs) actually read through ABP's source code and know for sure there is no malicious activity of any kind, that none of our browsing data is sent to some server ABP has, or anything like that?
- erkose 10y agoABP can't do it's job unless it has access to the content of all the pages you browse.
- godot 10y agoOh, I'm fully aware. I'm not objecting to it. As I mentioned in my question, I'm more wondering if anyone has actually taken the time to read through their source code to see if they are doing anything funny.
- viraptor 10y ago> including all the content of all pages I browse on my browser How else would an adblocker with DOM filters work? > I tend to be overly paranoid about things like these. So you've analysed the risk and prefer to trust all the advertisement companies in the world not to spread malware over one vendor of browser extension? > Has anyone (3rd party, outside of ABP devs) actually read through ABP's source code Most likely yes. Unless you mean an actual audit? Then no, I'm not aware of anything done publicly.
- godot 10y agoAs I mentioned in the original post and the other comment thread, I am not objecting to it, I am fully aware that an ad blocker has to have access to it to work at all. Yes, I am asking about an actual audit.
- viraptor 10y agoThey haven't paid anyone to do an audit. But people who read the code anyway are unlikely to report no issues with it. It would be a "I checked this source and found nothing interesting" post - and that's not interesting.
- godot 10y agoFair answer. I was hoping there was some well-known blog posts on a major blog about this that I didn't know about.