4 ms·

Just installed the extension and it seems great. Particularly like the matrix UI for allowing/blocking things. However, I definitely don't want to micromanage

by rane 12y ago

Just installed the extension and it seems great. Particularly like the matrix UI for allowing/blocking things. However, I definitely don't want to micromanage things like accepting scripts and cookies for certain sites I use. Is there a way to make it work essentially the same way as AdBlock does? Tried to look in the wiki but didn't find anything.

gorhill 12y ago
You can select a "scope" (top-left cell in the popup) which will tells where the rules apply. You can set it to automatically create a temporary domain-level scope when landing on a web page (in Settings tab), and if you select this, I suggest you also select "Auto-delete temporary scopes". Now any rules will apply only to that scope. For web sites you use regularly, just lock down these rules for that scope, and they will be remembered every time you visit that particular domain. This is actually the preferred way to use the extension, but I did not make it the default currently.
- rane 12y ago
  Thanks. But this is exactly what I meant by micromanagement. Plus I'm afraid that strict settings will break sites I haven't visited before without me knowing they're somehow broken. Is there a way to configure the extension to just block ads?
  - gorhill 12y ago
    Ok, I just created a setup file which you can restore from the About page which focus can be said to be "ad blocking": https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/blob/master/stuff/httpsb-abp-like-setup.txt https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/blob/master/stuff... I selected the following preset lists: - hosts-file.net/ad-servers - someonewhocares.org/hosts/hosts - easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylist.txt Note though that this will work best with the upcoming v 0.9.2.0 which supports almost all net request-based ABP filters (my benchmark on github was updated yesterday for that version). In the above setup, HTTPSB has been set to work in allow-all/block-exceptionally mode, so nothing is blocked except for what appear in the above files. Keep in mind that HTTPSB doesn't do element hiding (I see this as a separate extension.)
    - ak217 12y ago
      Thank you for putting in the effort to make this more usable out of the box. I will be all over this once the ability to use these filter lists is easy to access.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    I'm with this guy, I don't really want to spend much time filtering/selecting. If I can block 90% of the crap in seconds vs. 99.9% of the crap with several day's investment in customizing the filtering, I'll take 90% please. Thanks for providing the "adblock-like" preset, that was just what I was looking for. Then from here, if/when I run into particularly horrific js, I can block it one-by-one.
kretor 12y ago
This! I would like to have AdBlockPlus' UI with httpSwitchboard's backend. So I filed a request to AdBlockPlus to do that: https://issues.adblockplus.org/ticket/488 https://issues.adblockplus.org/ticket/488
- kretor 12y ago
  ... and AdBlockPlus developers closed the issue. One of the reasons given: "missing features [of HTTPSB] are an issue [...] (filter groups, hit statistics etc.)". One of their devs adds "They don't support element hiding, which is one of the main causes for the high memory consumption when using Adblock Plus. Neither do they support popup blocking. [...] [T]here still might be some parts where we can learn from HTTPSB. But the main reason that it is faster and uses less memory is that HTTPSB is less powerful."
- gorhill 12y ago
  It's not easy to try to fit new code in old code, I empathize completely with that. This is where I was at an advantage, I was writing new code to fit with new code. There are ideas though that were keys to performance breakthrough which they certainly could borrow.

by rane 12y ago

gorhill 12y ago

You can select a "scope" (top-left cell in the popup) which will tells where the rules apply. You can set it to automatically create a temporary domain-level scope when landing on a web page (in Settings tab), and if you select this, I suggest you also select "Auto-delete temporary scopes". Now any rules will apply only to that scope. For web sites you use regularly, just lock down these rules for that scope, and they will be remembered every time you visit that particular domain. This is actually the preferred way to use the extension, but I did not make it the default currently.

rane 12y ago
Thanks. But this is exactly what I meant by micromanagement. Plus I'm afraid that strict settings will break sites I haven't visited before without me knowing they're somehow broken. Is there a way to configure the extension to just block ads?
- gorhill 12y ago
  Ok, I just created a setup file which you can restore from the About page which focus can be said to be "ad blocking": https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/blob/master/stuff/httpsb-abp-like-setup.txt https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/blob/master/stuff... I selected the following preset lists: - hosts-file.net/ad-servers - someonewhocares.org/hosts/hosts - easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylist.txt Note though that this will work best with the upcoming v 0.9.2.0 which supports almost all net request-based ABP filters (my benchmark on github was updated yesterday for that version). In the above setup, HTTPSB has been set to work in allow-all/block-exceptionally mode, so nothing is blocked except for what appear in the above files. Keep in mind that HTTPSB doesn't do element hiding (I see this as a separate extension.)
  - ak217 12y ago
    Thank you for putting in the effort to make this more usable out of the box. I will be all over this once the ability to use these filter lists is easy to access.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  I'm with this guy, I don't really want to spend much time filtering/selecting. If I can block 90% of the crap in seconds vs. 99.9% of the crap with several day's investment in customizing the filtering, I'll take 90% please. Thanks for providing the "adblock-like" preset, that was just what I was looking for. Then from here, if/when I run into particularly horrific js, I can block it one-by-one.

kretor 12y ago

This! I would like to have AdBlockPlus' UI with httpSwitchboard's backend. So I filed a request to AdBlockPlus to do that: https://issues.adblockplus.org/ticket/488 https://issues.adblockplus.org/ticket/488

kretor 12y ago
... and AdBlockPlus developers closed the issue. One of the reasons given: "missing features [of HTTPSB] are an issue [...] (filter groups, hit statistics etc.)". One of their devs adds "They don't support element hiding, which is one of the main causes for the high memory consumption when using Adblock Plus. Neither do they support popup blocking. [...] [T]here still might be some parts where we can learn from HTTPSB. But the main reason that it is faster and uses less memory is that HTTPSB is less powerful."
gorhill 12y ago
It's not easy to try to fit new code in old code, I empathize completely with that. This is where I was at an advantage, I was writing new code to fit with new code. There are ideas though that were keys to performance breakthrough which they certainly could borrow.