5 ms·

I built my personal extension which blocks all the traffic from Dan Pollock's list [1], then blocks all the traffic from major service providers (google analyti

I built my personal extension which blocks all the traffic from Dan Pollock's list [1], then blocks all the traffic from major service providers (google analytics, etc) and social networks (fb, tw, google, etc) when not on their website. Referral and user agent headers removed, I haven't found the need to remove other headers. Currently working on preventing (and manually allowing) all xhr/script/image requests 2 seconds after the main frame has loaded. The internet is a lot faster for me, and the battery appears to last longer. So far, I've only had problems logging into instagram, but once the cookie is set, I can re-enable blocking ads and tracking. I guess I am one of those 'dark traffickers' :P [1] http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

viraptor 12y ago
Do you do anything about plugins sharing your fonts list? I found it to be the least known / most creepy way to identify a big number of users. Unfortunately i don't know of any extensions that would block that information.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Noscript will do that for you. To access the available fonts list you need to run a bit of js. So blocking javascript will take care of this.
troels 12y ago
Sounds interesting - care to share?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
cantlin 12y ago
Looks like that list hasn't been updated since our domain switch. If you really want to block our internal analytics (which are in practice fairly harmless) replace "hits.guardian.co.uk" with "hits.theguardian.com".
- stashpro 12y ago
  nice
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Nominated for the most classy comment of the month. That the product manager of The Guardian would take the time out from his (no doubt) busy day to help a user to block tracking is an amazing display of trust in that the user knows best what is good for them. Thank you.
  - pmoriarty 12y ago
    It's more like he knows that helping one single user like this isn't going to make a dent in the tracking they do on virtually all other users. Now, if they voluntarily stopped tracking all or a significant portion of their users, I would be shocked. Of course, that isn't going to happen.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Of course there is always a way to put a negative slant on just about anything.
- atmosx 12y ago
  I admire the fact that you offer this kind of info :-) thanks mate, always admired the Guardian for his articles, authors & general stance towards privacy.
  - aw3c2 12y ago
    Considering them telling almost 20 other domains about your visit, I would not call that stance on privacy a strong one: 2o7.net, ajax.googleapis.com, chartbeat.com, chartbeat.net, dqwufkbc3sdtr.cloudfront.net, facebook-web-clients.appspot.com, google.com, googleadservices.com, googletagservices.com, imrworldwide.com, mathtag.com, ophan.co.uk, optimizely.com, outbrain.com, scorecardresearch.com, twitter.com, wunderloop.net, www.googleapis.com
- 12y ago
mw6621 12y ago
Very interesting. Please do consider putting the extension up somewhere!
eksith 12y ago
This list is updated more frequently and is what I use : http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm There are a few things to take out to make certain services I like work (E.G. Hulu), so I usually try it in sections to see which services break and comment those.
agumonkey 12y ago
I really wonder how this 10KLines is handled by the network subsystem. Is it compiled into a big regexp ? or another form of compacted runnable logic ? or at which point does it slow local name lookup.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  At a guess, by doing a match first on a substring using a hashtable. That way if something is a 'candidate' you can hit a more expensive datastructure to figure out if you really have a hit without burning a lot of cycles.
  - agumonkey 12y ago
    This kind of long blacklists seems so fitting for Tries. I should grep *nix kernels (I wish I had windows >Xp source too) I guess. Linux (well, glibc, from http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/81979/how-does-etc-hosts-match-work http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/81979/how-does-etc-h...): http://repo.or.cz/w/glibc.git/blob/HEAD:/nss/nss_files/files-hosts.c http://repo.or.cz/w/glibc.git/blob/HEAD:/nss/nss_files/files... Windows : #tbd

viraptor 12y ago

Do you do anything about plugins sharing your fonts list? I found it to be the least known / most creepy way to identify a big number of users. Unfortunately i don't know of any extensions that would block that information.

jacquesm 12y ago
Noscript will do that for you. To access the available fonts list you need to run a bit of js. So blocking javascript will take care of this.

troels 12y ago

Sounds interesting - care to share?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

cantlin 12y ago

Looks like that list hasn't been updated since our domain switch. If you really want to block our internal analytics (which are in practice fairly harmless) replace "hits.guardian.co.uk" with "hits.theguardian.com".

stashpro 12y ago
nice
jacquesm 12y ago
Nominated for the most classy comment of the month. That the product manager of The Guardian would take the time out from his (no doubt) busy day to help a user to block tracking is an amazing display of trust in that the user knows best what is good for them. Thank you.
- pmoriarty 12y ago
  It's more like he knows that helping one single user like this isn't going to make a dent in the tracking they do on virtually all other users. Now, if they voluntarily stopped tracking all or a significant portion of their users, I would be shocked. Of course, that isn't going to happen.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Of course there is always a way to put a negative slant on just about anything.
atmosx 12y ago
I admire the fact that you offer this kind of info :-) thanks mate, always admired the Guardian for his articles, authors & general stance towards privacy.
- aw3c2 12y ago
  Considering them telling almost 20 other domains about your visit, I would not call that stance on privacy a strong one: 2o7.net, ajax.googleapis.com, chartbeat.com, chartbeat.net, dqwufkbc3sdtr.cloudfront.net, facebook-web-clients.appspot.com, google.com, googleadservices.com, googletagservices.com, imrworldwide.com, mathtag.com, ophan.co.uk, optimizely.com, outbrain.com, scorecardresearch.com, twitter.com, wunderloop.net, www.googleapis.com
12y ago

mw6621 12y ago

Very interesting. Please do consider putting the extension up somewhere!

eksith 12y ago

This list is updated more frequently and is what I use : http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm There are a few things to take out to make certain services I like work (E.G. Hulu), so I usually try it in sections to see which services break and comment those.

agumonkey 12y ago

I really wonder how this 10KLines is handled by the network subsystem. Is it compiled into a big regexp ? or another form of compacted runnable logic ? or at which point does it slow local name lookup.

jacquesm 12y ago
At a guess, by doing a match first on a substring using a hashtable. That way if something is a 'candidate' you can hit a more expensive datastructure to figure out if you really have a hit without burning a lot of cycles.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  This kind of long blacklists seems so fitting for Tries. I should grep *nix kernels (I wish I had windows >Xp source too) I guess. Linux (well, glibc, from http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/81979/how-does-etc-hosts-match-work http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/81979/how-does-etc-h...): http://repo.or.cz/w/glibc.git/blob/HEAD:/nss/nss_files/files-hosts.c http://repo.or.cz/w/glibc.git/blob/HEAD:/nss/nss_files/files... Windows : #tbd