24 ms·

Adblock filter rule list modified politically in Finland

378 points by Maakuth 8y ago

occamrazor 8y ago
Adblocking list should be what their name says: lists that match ads (and advertising-related trackers). There is no place in such a list for politically motivated blacklists. Content based blacklists have their place too. Users are of course free to create hate-speech-block, union-block, trump-block, liberal-block, nazi-block or any-other-category-block, but if these lists are distributed through an adblocker they should be off by default and clearly labeled.
- VMG 8y ago
  I really wish the internet would be client-side filtered by default, instead of centrally moderated. We'll end up with filter bubbles either way.
  - afarrell 8y ago
    The advantage to your proposal is that I can unfilter when I actually have the focus to meaningfully engage with public policy questions, rather than when I first wake up and am too tired to question my biases.
    - stochastic_monk 8y ago
      I learn things of value when reading materials from opposing points of view, even if the opinion or spin is extreme. I think it’s a valuable and important exercise, but, as you say, probably best when you have your wits about you. As needed filtering is certainly best.
  - Cyclone_ 8y ago
    Adblock plus is a client side plugin, the issue was that the blacklist was maintained by someone who wanted to block more than ads. Perhaps there needs to be reviewers from multiple sources for when changes are made to these sort of lists.
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
      Requiring a review before release requires a rather large change to how the current system works, adding more centralization, and slows down how quickly new threats can be blocked. This event took two days to notice and be changed, and that's for a list with a relatively low amount of users. The current method seems fine.
  - Fuxy 8y ago
    I've been telling all the snowflakes since forever "you have a block button use it!". Seriously the internet should stay true to free speech and allow any content regardless how objectionable it may be to the vocal minority pushing agendas all the time. If a person gets triggered by something they are free to block the content for themselves and live in their cosy little bubble it's their right but once they start imposing that on others I take offence.
    - vertex-four 8y ago
      The issue is when companies build platforms which are literally designed to allow people to force their views (and often threats) into other people's faces because that "drives engagement" or improves some other bullshit statistic. If companies were to stop doing that, there'd be much less of a push for moderation of those platforms. Of course, luckily, there's now federated systems like Mastodon which are designed to avoid doing that and to provide the tools for communities to self-organise, meaning one group can have their neofascist server and another their tankie server and the two can block each other and be relatively happy.
    - wlll 8y ago
      It seems you've been triggered. Perhaps as a vocal minority pushing an agenda, apparently all the time ("since forever"), who has taken offence at someone elses free speech you should just use the block button that you have.
      - Fuxy 8y ago
        You don't see me throwing piss in people’s faces or crashing and trying to ban talks in universities just because they express views and opinions that contradict mine do you? I don't need to block anyone with contradicting opinion because I'm open to changing my mind if someone comes out with solid research data and facts to prove their view. But nice try ;) There's a fine line between expressing one's views and trying to silence others you seem to have problems seeing the difference. I didn't think being against censorship is such a controversial stance here on HN my how we have fallen...
  - xte 8y ago
    Internet != web. It's time IMVHO to start "filter out" actual web from our lives, we have usenet, we have mails, we have spamassassin, killfiles, mail aliases (at least on paid mails), we have (few) modern MUAs like Notmuch, Mutt&forks, Pine&forks, we have slrn, leafnode, ... we can keep up and evolve them.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  Your proposal is for each facet of content you wish to block be an Addon/Extension/Plugin which is completely unnecessary. Today uBlock Origin and other products perfectly handle multiple lists pulled from different maintainers simultaneously. There is no one central block list, out of the box uBlock Origin uses something like 9 or 10 different lists and the interface has ~50 to choose from. It also has the ability for you to import your own lists form custom sources and to maintain your own.
TekMol 8y ago
I found that for me a whitelist makes more sense then a blacklist. I use umatrix with these two default rules: * * * block * 1st-party * allow So by default a site can load whatever it wants from its own domain and nothing from 3rd party domains. Then I add rules as needed. The Umatrix interface makes this super easy.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  Except most sites use a CDN to serve static content, so this will block a lot of files And it's "its own domain"
  - majewsky 8y ago
    When you add Decentraleyes and add its ruleset to uMatrix, a lot of things start working. Context: Decentraleyes is an extension that bundles a lot of those CDN-served JS frameworks and serves the locally stored version when it intercepts a matching HTTP request to fetch from those CDNs.
    - dTal 8y ago
      I've had that installed for about a week now and the counter is still stuck at zero...
      - DavideNL 8y ago
        If you're using a Chromium based browser it might be an issue with the 'HTTPS Everywhere' extension: https://git.synz.io/Synzvato/decentraleyes/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#why-am-i-receiving-https-everywhere-related-warnings-on-chrome-or-chromium https://git.synz.io/Synzvato/decentraleyes/wikis/Frequently-... Basically, another extension can intercept the request before Decentraleyes can get to it. "The race is always won by the most recently installed extension." To fix: https://decentraleyes.org/configure-https-everywhere/ https://decentraleyes.org/configure-https-everywhere/
  - TekMol 8y ago
sharpneli 8y ago
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 doesn't have to pay you but they also must allow you to come back to work without repercussions when you decide. It's basically unlimited unpaid holiday. Or alternatively keeping the employer hostage in order to affect the behavior of an unrelated third party. So obviously we as a country are bit torn on the issue as what can the employer do about it? Go to white house and take Trump as hostage so that he would change his decision? It is also questionable from democratic perspective. Why should a subset of population have more saying than the rest. Shouldn't everyone have a single vote and based on that decisions are made. Instead of a minority having a vote + a veto right. Similar overreactions like this adblock may come as right now bunch of major unions are protesting against government and that has brought political strikes back into limelight.
- jarcane 8y ago
  > So obviously we as a country are bit torn on the issue as what can the employer do about it? Go to white house and take Trump as hostage so that he would change his decision? Given how cozy the ruling coalition are with business interests, this is hardly some one sided thing over which only one party has control. Sipilä isn't just pulling this shit for fun, that's not how Finnish business or politics works. Everyone knows everyone, and the PM himself has personal business interests even. The rule serves as a check against the collusion of the state and capital. As a card-carrying union member, I quite happily support any and all attempts to block this coalition's relentless attacks on workers' rights.
  - sharpneli 8y ago
    It depends. The card carrying union members in our company are protesting the strike. They want the union to focus on their contracts and not go against government some of the members potentially voted for. So it’s a bit more complex issue. I just wanted to tell HN readers that there even is such a thing as a political strike.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
nzuna 8y ago
Kill all libertarians in Minecraft
TorKlingberg 8y ago
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 some somebody I can trust. Unfortunately the only way to turn ad-blocking into a business is to charge advertisers to un-block them. That defeats the whole purpose of ad blocking, and is basically blackmail.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  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.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    I know Firefox uses Disconnect.me's filter lists, which do have a company backing them. I trust gorhill to make the right decisions when it comes to uBlock Origin and the filter lists it uses, based on his previous track record, his stance on Adblock's "acceptable ads" and his refusal to take donations from anyone. I don't necessarily trust the individual list maintainers[1], but I do trust that gorhill will quickly purge any filter lists that try to put in shady changes. [1] I do trust the maintainer of the DNK list. He's a former colleague of mine, and I know how strictly principled he is in regards to ads and tracking.
    - fjsolwmv 8y ago
      How much is gorhill paid, and by whom, and for how long can he be expected to be The One?
      - KozmoNau7 8y ago
stevenjohns 8y ago
It's crazy that the maintainer of that list thought this would be a good idea. This is a huge breach of trust.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Just practically, anything that's going to have a political effect seems like it would stand out and get your meddling noticed.
- Klover 8y ago
  I would say it’s normal; bound to happen at some point. That, or a mistake. That’s why we have peer reviews even for maintainers of mature open source projects.
lolc 8y ago
A volunteer abusing their position? You get that in the best of projects. > Remove FIN-0 list due to breach of trust Looks like u-block is handling this well.
jarcane 8y ago
That was fast. Not only has the list been yanked from hosting, but Juvander Consulting, who was responsible for it, has deleted the Facebook page for the list, and all mention of it from their site, even scrubbing old blog entries about it.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  I guess they're not familiar with Barbra Streisand?
- JdeBP 8y ago
  In fairness, Ilpo Juvander's web log stopped getting AdBlock entries in 2015, the same time as xyr Twitter account stopped getting entries, and the web log ceased getting any entries at all in 2017.
  - jarcane 8y ago
    True, but that makes it all the more weird that they'd delete them in the first place. It's like they wanted to remove any evidence they were involved at all. The only remaining indication is the domain, and their iOS app that's still up on the App Store.
vbezhenar 8y ago
Adblock broke websites more than once for me. `.btn.btn-primary { display: none }` and similar things. They are fixed relatively fast, but if user uses adblock, he must be aware that this addon can and will broke websites, so he must know how to disable it if something doesn't work. Not saying that politics has place in adblock, of course, but worse things happened.
patd 8y ago
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.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  That's technologically cool, but isn't "switch from adblock to uMatrix" a more direct and comprehensive solution?
  - patd 8y ago
    The target audience is website owners. If my users are all using list based blockers (adblock, uBlock, mobiles, proxies, ...) and those lists block my content, I'd like to know quickly so I can appeal to the list maintainers.
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
      Even in the rare instance you convince a list maintainer, forking a list is trivial. If your content is being blocked, stop tracking your users.
      - yorwba 8y ago
        What if it's a false positive due to overly-broad heuristics? For example, try looking at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ads https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ads with Adblock enabled. It shows a blank page for me. (Actually I just wanted to see whether "ads" might have a different meaning in another language.)
        fivefive55 8y ago
        I've been noticing this a lot more lately. Lots of websites have broken elements from my adblocker. I have to turn it off and reload the page to get those elements to load. A lot of the time they aren't even close to ads, it's like a drop down menu or button that doesn't render.
islandowl 8y ago
I run a Raspberry Pi/Pi-hole along with uBlock Origin w/ all filters enabled, Decentraleyes, Privacy Badger, Webmail Ad Block, Tracking Token Stipper, Neat URL, and No Coin. I also have about:config set to disallow referers, fingerprinting, sites reading history, no geo location, etc. Works a treat.
teknologist 8y ago
I’m eagerly waiting for the Brave AI-based blocking to be rolled out. That will hopefully be a start to the end of unwieldy and hard to maintain filter lists in general. I know there are lot of good people who put time into these things, but the blacklisting techniques these extensions use seem rather outdated in 2018.
- cirenehc 8y ago
  ML is not magic, it's just statistics.
  - teknologist 8y ago
    Thanks for that input. Fully aware of that. Just saying that using a statistical model would be much better than huge lists of URLs.
AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
This isn't the first time bad-faith alterations have been made to filter rule lists. The maintainer of a popular porn site (can't remember off the top of my head which one) famously requested a special exemption for the ads on his site.
ezoe 8y ago
I am becoming to doubt the value of adblock and the mindset of filter maintainers these days. It cause a lot of issues on their side but the customer blame the server. I've heard a story that web-based game not working for some people for no apparent reason. The developer used their psychic power and change the file name of image files which was something like "foo_ads_bar.png"(the user supplied error log indicated they faild to fetch that resources which shouldn't happen) to not contains the "ads". And he got less bug report. The image file was not AD but a essential resource for the web-based game. Blocking that, you break the game implementation. Blanket blocking based on partial three-letter string match on client side? Fine do what you want. It's your computer after all. But don't come toward us crying for help because it's non of our problem.
- sucrose 8y ago
  Similar situation: The company I work for uses the word "ads" in their website's asset filenames, for all images. When uBo is enabled, their website is basically text-only. They were oblivious until my first day when I mentioned I reviewed their website from home.
xte 8y ago
IMVHO this is the umpteenth sign that WE MUST GO NOW for distributed or if not actually possible for decentralized tech. NOW. Sorry for the caps. It go nice with https://lwn.net/Articles/768483/ https://lwn.net/Articles/768483/ in FOSS world we must understand actual IT evolution path and know how we work freely in the past. So please reconsider Usenet, advertise it, enforce email instead of ANY actual "communication platform" from WhatsApp to Slack passing trough Reddit, StackExchange etc. We know that finding past information on usenet for newcomers it's not as easy as these modern platform, but we have wiki's, blog's for that. We need to act now us all, anybody who understand because tomorrow it will be too late.

378 points by Maakuth 8y ago

Adblocking list should be what their name says: lists that match ads (and advertising-related trackers). There is no place in such a list for politically motivated blacklists. Content based blacklists have their place too. Users are of course free to create hate-speech-block, union-block, trump-block, liberal-block, nazi-block or any-other-category-block, but if these lists are distributed through an adblocker they should be off by default and clearly labeled.

VMG 8y ago
I really wish the internet would be client-side filtered by default, instead of centrally moderated. We'll end up with filter bubbles either way.
- afarrell 8y ago
  The advantage to your proposal is that I can unfilter when I actually have the focus to meaningfully engage with public policy questions, rather than when I first wake up and am too tired to question my biases.
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    I learn things of value when reading materials from opposing points of view, even if the opinion or spin is extreme. I think it’s a valuable and important exercise, but, as you say, probably best when you have your wits about you. As needed filtering is certainly best.
- Cyclone_ 8y ago
  Adblock plus is a client side plugin, the issue was that the blacklist was maintained by someone who wanted to block more than ads. Perhaps there needs to be reviewers from multiple sources for when changes are made to these sort of lists.
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    Requiring a review before release requires a rather large change to how the current system works, adding more centralization, and slows down how quickly new threats can be blocked. This event took two days to notice and be changed, and that's for a list with a relatively low amount of users. The current method seems fine.
- Fuxy 8y ago
  I've been telling all the snowflakes since forever "you have a block button use it!". Seriously the internet should stay true to free speech and allow any content regardless how objectionable it may be to the vocal minority pushing agendas all the time. If a person gets triggered by something they are free to block the content for themselves and live in their cosy little bubble it's their right but once they start imposing that on others I take offence.
  - vertex-four 8y ago
    The issue is when companies build platforms which are literally designed to allow people to force their views (and often threats) into other people's faces because that "drives engagement" or improves some other bullshit statistic. If companies were to stop doing that, there'd be much less of a push for moderation of those platforms. Of course, luckily, there's now federated systems like Mastodon which are designed to avoid doing that and to provide the tools for communities to self-organise, meaning one group can have their neofascist server and another their tankie server and the two can block each other and be relatively happy.
  - wlll 8y ago
    It seems you've been triggered. Perhaps as a vocal minority pushing an agenda, apparently all the time ("since forever"), who has taken offence at someone elses free speech you should just use the block button that you have.
    - Fuxy 8y ago
      You don't see me throwing piss in people’s faces or crashing and trying to ban talks in universities just because they express views and opinions that contradict mine do you? I don't need to block anyone with contradicting opinion because I'm open to changing my mind if someone comes out with solid research data and facts to prove their view. But nice try ;) There's a fine line between expressing one's views and trying to silence others you seem to have problems seeing the difference. I didn't think being against censorship is such a controversial stance here on HN my how we have fallen...
- xte 8y ago
  Internet != web. It's time IMVHO to start "filter out" actual web from our lives, we have usenet, we have mails, we have spamassassin, killfiles, mail aliases (at least on paid mails), we have (few) modern MUAs like Notmuch, Mutt&forks, Pine&forks, we have slrn, leafnode, ... we can keep up and evolve them.
cptskippy 8y ago
Your proposal is for each facet of content you wish to block be an Addon/Extension/Plugin which is completely unnecessary. Today uBlock Origin and other products perfectly handle multiple lists pulled from different maintainers simultaneously. There is no one central block list, out of the box uBlock Origin uses something like 9 or 10 different lists and the interface has ~50 to choose from. It also has the ability for you to import your own lists form custom sources and to maintain your own.

TekMol 8y ago

I found that for me a whitelist makes more sense then a blacklist. I use umatrix with these two default rules: * * * block * 1st-party * allow So by default a site can load whatever it wants from its own domain and nothing from 3rd party domains. Then I add rules as needed. The Umatrix interface makes this super easy.

raverbashing 8y ago
Except most sites use a CDN to serve static content, so this will block a lot of files And it's "its own domain"
- majewsky 8y ago
  When you add Decentraleyes and add its ruleset to uMatrix, a lot of things start working. Context: Decentraleyes is an extension that bundles a lot of those CDN-served JS frameworks and serves the locally stored version when it intercepts a matching HTTP request to fetch from those CDNs.
  - dTal 8y ago
    I've had that installed for about a week now and the counter is still stuck at zero...
    - DavideNL 8y ago
      If you're using a Chromium based browser it might be an issue with the 'HTTPS Everywhere' extension: https://git.synz.io/Synzvato/decentraleyes/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#why-am-i-receiving-https-everywhere-related-warnings-on-chrome-or-chromium https://git.synz.io/Synzvato/decentraleyes/wikis/Frequently-... Basically, another extension can intercept the request before Decentraleyes can get to it. "The race is always won by the most recently installed extension." To fix: https://decentraleyes.org/configure-https-everywhere/ https://decentraleyes.org/configure-https-everywhere/
- TekMol 8y ago

sharpneli 8y ago

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 doesn't have to pay you but they also must allow you to come back to work without repercussions when you decide. It's basically unlimited unpaid holiday. Or alternatively keeping the employer hostage in order to affect the behavior of an unrelated third party. So obviously we as a country are bit torn on the issue as what can the employer do about it? Go to white house and take Trump as hostage so that he would change his decision? It is also questionable from democratic perspective. Why should a subset of population have more saying than the rest. Shouldn't everyone have a single vote and based on that decisions are made. Instead of a minority having a vote + a veto right. Similar overreactions like this adblock may come as right now bunch of major unions are protesting against government and that has brought political strikes back into limelight.

jarcane 8y ago
> So obviously we as a country are bit torn on the issue as what can the employer do about it? Go to white house and take Trump as hostage so that he would change his decision? Given how cozy the ruling coalition are with business interests, this is hardly some one sided thing over which only one party has control. Sipilä isn't just pulling this shit for fun, that's not how Finnish business or politics works. Everyone knows everyone, and the PM himself has personal business interests even. The rule serves as a check against the collusion of the state and capital. As a card-carrying union member, I quite happily support any and all attempts to block this coalition's relentless attacks on workers' rights.
- sharpneli 8y ago
  It depends. The card carrying union members in our company are protesting the strike. They want the union to focus on their contracts and not go against government some of the members potentially voted for. So it’s a bit more complex issue. I just wanted to tell HN readers that there even is such a thing as a political strike.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

nzuna 8y ago

Kill all libertarians in Minecraft

TorKlingberg 8y ago

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 some somebody I can trust. Unfortunately the only way to turn ad-blocking into a business is to charge advertisers to un-block them. That defeats the whole purpose of ad blocking, and is basically blackmail.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
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.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  I know Firefox uses Disconnect.me's filter lists, which do have a company backing them. I trust gorhill to make the right decisions when it comes to uBlock Origin and the filter lists it uses, based on his previous track record, his stance on Adblock's "acceptable ads" and his refusal to take donations from anyone. I don't necessarily trust the individual list maintainers[1], but I do trust that gorhill will quickly purge any filter lists that try to put in shady changes. [1] I do trust the maintainer of the DNK list. He's a former colleague of mine, and I know how strictly principled he is in regards to ads and tracking.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    How much is gorhill paid, and by whom, and for how long can he be expected to be The One?
    - KozmoNau7 8y ago

stevenjohns 8y ago

It's crazy that the maintainer of that list thought this would be a good idea. This is a huge breach of trust.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Just practically, anything that's going to have a political effect seems like it would stand out and get your meddling noticed.
Klover 8y ago
I would say it’s normal; bound to happen at some point. That, or a mistake. That’s why we have peer reviews even for maintainers of mature open source projects.

lolc 8y ago

A volunteer abusing their position? You get that in the best of projects. > Remove FIN-0 list due to breach of trust Looks like u-block is handling this well.

jarcane 8y ago

That was fast. Not only has the list been yanked from hosting, but Juvander Consulting, who was responsible for it, has deleted the Facebook page for the list, and all mention of it from their site, even scrubbing old blog entries about it.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
I guess they're not familiar with Barbra Streisand?
JdeBP 8y ago
In fairness, Ilpo Juvander's web log stopped getting AdBlock entries in 2015, the same time as xyr Twitter account stopped getting entries, and the web log ceased getting any entries at all in 2017.
- jarcane 8y ago
  True, but that makes it all the more weird that they'd delete them in the first place. It's like they wanted to remove any evidence they were involved at all. The only remaining indication is the domain, and their iOS app that's still up on the App Store.

vbezhenar 8y ago

Adblock broke websites more than once for me. `.btn.btn-primary { display: none }` and similar things. They are fixed relatively fast, but if user uses adblock, he must be aware that this addon can and will broke websites, so he must know how to disable it if something doesn't work. Not saying that politics has place in adblock, of course, but worse things happened.

patd 8y ago

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.

fjsolwmv 8y ago
That's technologically cool, but isn't "switch from adblock to uMatrix" a more direct and comprehensive solution?
- patd 8y ago
  The target audience is website owners. If my users are all using list based blockers (adblock, uBlock, mobiles, proxies, ...) and those lists block my content, I'd like to know quickly so I can appeal to the list maintainers.
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    Even in the rare instance you convince a list maintainer, forking a list is trivial. If your content is being blocked, stop tracking your users.
    - yorwba 8y ago
      What if it's a false positive due to overly-broad heuristics? For example, try looking at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ads https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ads with Adblock enabled. It shows a blank page for me. (Actually I just wanted to see whether "ads" might have a different meaning in another language.)
      - fivefive55 8y ago
        I've been noticing this a lot more lately. Lots of websites have broken elements from my adblocker. I have to turn it off and reload the page to get those elements to load. A lot of the time they aren't even close to ads, it's like a drop down menu or button that doesn't render.

islandowl 8y ago

I run a Raspberry Pi/Pi-hole along with uBlock Origin w/ all filters enabled, Decentraleyes, Privacy Badger, Webmail Ad Block, Tracking Token Stipper, Neat URL, and No Coin. I also have about:config set to disallow referers, fingerprinting, sites reading history, no geo location, etc. Works a treat.

teknologist 8y ago

I’m eagerly waiting for the Brave AI-based blocking to be rolled out. That will hopefully be a start to the end of unwieldy and hard to maintain filter lists in general. I know there are lot of good people who put time into these things, but the blacklisting techniques these extensions use seem rather outdated in 2018.

cirenehc 8y ago
ML is not magic, it's just statistics.
- teknologist 8y ago
  Thanks for that input. Fully aware of that. Just saying that using a statistical model would be much better than huge lists of URLs.

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago

This isn't the first time bad-faith alterations have been made to filter rule lists. The maintainer of a popular porn site (can't remember off the top of my head which one) famously requested a special exemption for the ads on his site.

ezoe 8y ago

I am becoming to doubt the value of adblock and the mindset of filter maintainers these days. It cause a lot of issues on their side but the customer blame the server. I've heard a story that web-based game not working for some people for no apparent reason. The developer used their psychic power and change the file name of image files which was something like "foo_ads_bar.png"(the user supplied error log indicated they faild to fetch that resources which shouldn't happen) to not contains the "ads". And he got less bug report. The image file was not AD but a essential resource for the web-based game. Blocking that, you break the game implementation. Blanket blocking based on partial three-letter string match on client side? Fine do what you want. It's your computer after all. But don't come toward us crying for help because it's non of our problem.

sucrose 8y ago
Similar situation: The company I work for uses the word "ads" in their website's asset filenames, for all images. When uBo is enabled, their website is basically text-only. They were oblivious until my first day when I mentioned I reviewed their website from home.

xte 8y ago

IMVHO this is the umpteenth sign that WE MUST GO NOW for distributed or if not actually possible for decentralized tech. NOW. Sorry for the caps. It go nice with https://lwn.net/Articles/768483/ https://lwn.net/Articles/768483/ in FOSS world we must understand actual IT evolution path and know how we work freely in the past. So please reconsider Usenet, advertise it, enforce email instead of ANY actual "communication platform" from WhatsApp to Slack passing trough Reddit, StackExchange etc. We know that finding past information on usenet for newcomers it's not as easy as these modern platform, but we have wiki's, blog's for that. We need to act now us all, anybody who understand because tomorrow it will be too late.