8 ms·

µBlock dynamic filtering: default deny

141 points by Xylemon 12y ago

jug5 12y ago
So like noscript?
_asummers 12y ago
I can't quite tell: is this a complementary or overlapping feature to µMatrix, from the same developer? As an aside, I have noticed much better browser performance with the µ plugins as opposed to things like ABP. Keep up the good work!
- Afforess 12y ago
  I was under the impression µBlock was a fork of uMatrix, made simpler for users.
  - itsame 12y ago
    µBlock and µMatrix are parallel offshoots of gorhill's earlier HTTP Switchboard. They're refactored forms of HTTP Switchboard, where each extension focuses on different forms of blocking (µBlock for pattern-based filtering, µMatrix for matrix-based filtering). See: https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/wiki/Changes-from-HTTP-Switchboard https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/wiki/Changes-from-HTTP-Sw... https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/wiki/Using-%C2%B5Block-with-%C2%B5Matrix https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/wiki/Using-%C2%B5Block-wi...
unknownian 12y ago
The question is: is it more resource-efficient than RequestPolicy?
- codygman 12y ago
  Probably? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018229
- beagle3 12y ago
  Policeman is like RequestPolicy, only much better (and it imports RequestPolicy's rules). I haven't tried uBlock/uMatrix yet, but if you like RequestPolicy do give Policeman a try.
  - mobiuscog 12y ago
    Policeman is awesome and is now replacing RequestPolicy for me - thanks for mentioning it. I can't see it available for Chrome yet, which means I have to stick to HTTPSwitchboard I guess.
p4bl0 12y ago
I don't know RequestPolicy but I've been using μBlock instead of ABP + Ghostery for a few weeks and I'm quite satisfied.
wnevets 12y ago
I still havent figured out how to unblock resources with ublock.
- mbil 12y ago
  In the "options" page for the Chrome extension there's a whitelist tab.
  - wnevets 12y ago
    Does that whitelist the entire host? I would like to block everything but a specific JavaScript file on specific host. This is very easy to do with ghostery
    - kachnuv_ocasek 12y ago
      Perhaps, you should just switch to µMatrix.
      - unicornporn 12y ago
        µMatrix is sadly not available for Firefox.
    - gorhill 12y ago
      > a specific JavaScript on specific host. This is very easy to do with ghostery I don't see any feature to accomplish this with Ghostery. You can block hosts from its pre-built library of hosts, not more, and not at a higher granular level then whole hosts. uBlock will report all hosts encountered on a page, not just those part of an internal database.
- gorhill 12y ago
  "unblock resources" is too vague, can't provide an accurate answer.
- quadrangle 12y ago
  You need to turn on advanced features if you want to do more than unblock everything from a site.
randomuserhello 12y ago
still not able to block youtube ads, thanks, but no thanks. I´ll stick with adblock edge.
- Xylemon 12y ago
  Did you enable the 3rd Party Filters?
- skrause 12y ago
  I have never seen a single YouTube ad with uBlock and Chrome.
  - bdcs 12y ago
    IME, youtube ads seem to come on dynamically, with dynamic amount of "forcible viewing" time, eg 5sec, 30sec, 60sec, etc. It does a pretty damn good job of showing me the most ad without my walking away in disgust. For example, I was on a binge of science videos and the ads went from 0 sec, to 15, to 30, in lock-step with my curiosity.
    - nyolfen 12y ago
      for me i've noticed they only show up on embedded videos on 3rd party sites
- gorhill 12y ago
  I believe Safari/Youtube/Flash won't block ads. But Safari/Youtube/HTML5 does. Reference: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/706#issuecomment-73316012 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/706#issuecomment-73...
- quadrangle 12y ago
  You must be missing some of the block lists (or just speculating). The amount of stuff that uBlock handles is the same as Adblock Edge.
- Nexxxeh 12y ago
  >I´ll stick with adblock edge. Well, you can use what you want. We have no vested interest. >still not able to block youtube ads, thanks, but no thanks. But you're wrong, of course. And you've not given enough information for people to accurately help you, if they wanted to do so despite your tone. On both Chrome and on Opera, with uBlock I don't get YouTube adverts. (Albeit with some more filter tickboxes ticked, which may or may not make a difference.) If you want to try and get uBlock blocking your YouTube adverts, I'm sure lots of us would be willing assist. More so if you weren't an ass about it. Edit: I'm using HTML5 instead of Flash, that could be the key difference.
bhouston 12y ago
Does ublock still block crash reporters like newrelic and self hosted party statistics like piwik? PS, I had major issues on two mainstream travel sites with ublock. It made then unusable with ublocksl's default settings.
- bsilvereagle 12y ago
  Piwki would be fine if it was hosted on a subdomain of the first party domain. If you visit test.com, piwki.test.com would work. However, piwik.not-test.com would be blocked.
  - bhouston 12y ago
    Last time I check piwik is always blocked no matter the host.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - bsilvereagle 12y ago
      Yeah, you're right. In the latest release, piwik is blocked. I hadn't tried it recently.
- username223 12y ago
  Do you want it to block first-party trackers? I am much more tolerant of trackers (and ads) if they are per-site rather than being run by a few huge data-gatherers, as there's much less privacy impact that way.
  - bhouston 12y ago
    I don't but last time I checked ublock blocks all instances of piwik no matter where.
- gorhill 12y ago
  Using EasyPrivacy results in piwik being blocked, yes, regardless whether EasyPrivacy is used in uBlock, ABP, or whatever other blocker. I suggested you to bring the issue to EasyPrivacy maintainers if you think it's wrong[1], but by all appearances your grudge is solely aimed at uBlock. [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/564#issuecomment-70850179 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/564#issuecomment-70...
username223 12y ago
Denying 3rd-party resources by default is nice, but definitely experts-only. Pages will break in weird ways when half their rat's nests of JavaScript are missing, and it will take some coding knowledge to figure out which parts are necessary. I may switch to this myself, but I think I'll keep telling friends and family to use Ghostery
- gorhill 12y ago
  The feature is available only to those enabling "I am an advanced user".
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- kmfrk 12y ago
  Ghostery breaks so much stuff, I don't know how people can bother. I've found that Privacy Badger does a great job of blocking third-party tools in a way that rarely breaks anything - in which case it's easy to turn off. That and Ad Muncher for Windows.
  - artlogic 12y ago
    I've been using Privacy Badger for 6 months and I can't recommend it enough for non-technical people (or technical people that don't want to debug websites all day long). The one problem I've found is that certain services that use a bookmark/iframe combo (instapaper, for instance), create problems because you want to whitelist instapaper, but aren't given a chance. For that, I recently found: https://tsibley.net/provoke-the-privacy-badger/ https://tsibley.net/provoke-the-privacy-badger/
    - unicornporn 12y ago
      But it's based on AdBlock code. I started using uBlock instead of AdBlock Plus in order to save some resources. It seems that adding Privacy Badger would introduce that performance hit to the equation again.
lawl 12y ago
Okay, I'm probably stupid. This would allow me to throw away NoScript, Disconnect and Adblock. But I can't figure out how to enable deny by default mode?! (Yes I have advanced mode enabled)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- maxerickson 12y ago
  There's a tiny little + by the "Requests Blocked" label on the Button panel. Click that. Then red the left side of the top five boxes (images and scripts and the like). If I understand correctly, it's not really a mode, it's just several broad filters. 0.8.5.7 on Firefox doesn't have an 'all' that I can see.
  - lawl 12y ago
    Oh, I see. I was under the assumption that these settings were still site specific, got it, thanks! Edit: Would be nice to be able to set those global settings once and not have them pop up on every page. And/or have a visual distinction between global and site specific rules, right now there is no option to globally disable images and then whitelist on a per site basis, right? I can just whitelist a domain which will then load everything? My initial impression wasthat I could globally blacklist everything I don't want per default and then enable it on a (sub)domain basis. I'll certainly give this a shot though. My firefox is really slow with ~20ish addons.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      If you go into the settings and look at "My Rules", you can get a pretty good sense of the scope of the rules you have running.
    - gorhill 12y ago
      > right now there is no option to globally disable images and then whitelist on a per site basis, right Yes you can, it's in the quick guide[1]: > First column: what is to be dynamically filtered > Second column: global dynamic filtering rules > Third column: local dynamic filtering rules [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-quick-guide https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-qu...
tomc1985 12y ago
Does this affect sites that use CDNs for hosting their frameworks (as in jquery/etc)?
bourbon 12y ago
So with this, I no longer need Ghost and Adblock?
- clarkm 12y ago
  Yep, I just switched. I initially made the jump solely because of uBlock's performance claims, but I have to say, it already seems much better overall than the haphazard Ghostery + Adblock combination I had before.
- owly 12y ago
  Just did this. µBlock does seem faster than the ghostery/adblock combo. I've also enabled Spam404 and Dan Pollock's hosts and everything is perfect so far.
webwanderings 12y ago
µBlock or Ghostery, whoever comes up with the tool to block garbage on mobile devices (preferably Chrome), will be a winner!
- mintplant 12y ago
  Ghostery supports Firefox for Android [1]. For µBlock, there are two tickets open on GitHub [2,3] about Firefox for Android support. Unfortunately, Chrome for Android doesn't support extensions [4]. But if you have a rooted device, you can block ads/trackers/etc. across all apps via AdAway [5], which manages a custom HOSTS file for you. [1] https://www.ghostery.com/en/download https://www.ghostery.com/en/download [2] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/524 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/524 [3] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/556 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/556 [4] https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/faq https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/faq [5] https://sufficientlysecure.org/index.php/adaway/ https://sufficientlysecure.org/index.php/adaway/
  - bmcd87 12y ago
    (Disclaimer: I'm a Ghostery developer) In addition to the extension working on Firefox for Android, Ghostery has it's own browser: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ghostery.android.ghostery https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ghostery.a... It's pretty new and has some key features that are still in development, but it's getting there.
    - webwanderings 12y ago
      Hey, I'm like millions of those lay users who do not have rooted mobile devices. WRT Firefox, it does not play nicely with Google services, like Gmail. WRT, browsers...I have tried many of them under the sun and all of them have a consistent disadvantage over Google, that is, speed. I've got many lay users friends who still look for an Ad blocker out of the box, for their mobile devices. I have hope from Ghostery and uBlock makers, fingers crossed.
    - unicornporn 12y ago
cantlin 12y ago
As the author was kind enough to pick us as an example, here's some background on what some of those requests are doing. hits.theguardian.com points to our Omniture implementation, which is the main tracking suite used for macro-level reporting (like when we say we have X unique monthly browsers, or whatever). So if you want to be invisible to that, leave it blocked. ophan.theguardian.com points to our own analytics tool, Ophan, which does things like tracks whether you "read" the article. It's for journalists to work out if people like their stuff. All the views of the data are aggregated, but if an analyst really wanted to they could go write some SQL to look at the behavior of individual cookies. So if you want to be invisible to that, leave it blocked. A quick Google [0] will turn up lots more about Ophan and how it works. Our only calls out to Facebook and Twitter are to retrieve share counts for the current URL (besides articles with embedded tweets, for now). These are probably relatively safe to unblock, but if that information doesn't interest you they're equally safe to block. api.nextgen.guardianapps.co.uk is handling most Guardian stuff that gets ajaxed onto the page, like suggestions for what to read next. It's pretty harmless and required for a bunch of functionality. All the guim stuff is obviously just static assets. It would be cute if there was some way of us hinting to the plugin which domains were needed to not break the site, though likely impractical in the real world. [0] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ophan%20guardian https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ophan%20guardian
- mintplant 12y ago
  > Our only calls out to Facebook and Twitter are to retrieve share counts for the current URL... These are probably relatively safe to unblock Wouldn't this expose you to tracking by Facebook and Twitter? I would think people are more interested in blocking third-party tracking than first-party. Thanks for the detailed explanation either way!
- gorhill 12y ago
  > some way of us hinting to the plugin which domains were needed to not break the site: I had collated this so far to mostly un-break the site -- for viewing at least: www.theguardian.com guardianapps.co.uk * noop www.theguardian.com guim.co.uk * noop www.theguardian.com theguardian.tv * noop Whenever I un-break myself a site, I add the proper rules in there: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-default-deny:-useful-rulesets https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-de... There were 16 3rd-party root domains I found were not needed [1]. Probably fonts.googleapis.com would make the site looks better, but it's up to users whether they want to let Google know they have been visiting what article on the Guardian. [1] adnxs.com criteo.com doubleclick.net fonts.googleapis.com google.com googleadservices.com googlesyndication.com googletagservices.com gstatic.com imrworldwide.com krxd.net mathtag.com moatads.com ophan.co.uk outbrain.com revsci.net scorecardresearch.com
imthatgirl_08 12y ago
Please someome help me! I figured out that through my internet/WiFi my boyfriends laptop has full rights over my phone, cable and the WiFi. All my app versions are version 1 basically and tons of 3rd party restrictions. My bing,Google,Facebook,yahoo,comcast, Microsoft,Outlook and whatever you can name redirects all websites and emails I've figured out everything but not 100 prevent how to get it off completely. I know why he did this "late night get it in sessions" I don't really care I can't even get email through Comcast sending me my bill I can't use my phone this sucks someone please help me I'll do anything just please email me @ sarajoannbedrocks11@gmail.com thank you
- Max_Mustermann 12y ago
  This kind of questions are not really expected or wished for on Hacker News, AFAIK. I would try the subreddit /r/techsupport : http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport
imthatgirl_08 12y ago
Please someome help me! I figured out that through my internet/WiFi my boyfriends laptop has full rights over my phone, cable and the WiFi. All my app versions are version 1 basically and tons of 3rd party restrictions. My bing,Google,Facebook,yahoo,comcast, Microsoft,Outlook and whatever you can name redirects all websites and emails I've figured out everything but not 100 prevent how to get it off completely. I know why he did this "late night get it in sessions" I don't really care I can't even get email through Comcast sending me my bill I can't use my phone this sucks someone please help me I'll do anything just please email me @ sarajoannbedrocks11@gmail.com thank you
mmebane 12y ago
Does uBlock provide any way to write shims/surrogates? Sites often break because they just can't deal with certain JS libraries being missing, but there are many cases where it looks like just providing a stub implementation would be enough.
MindTooth 12y ago
Enabled default to deny last night. And I actually think it works great! Yes, some sites, are broken, but with some tinkering around, it works. This will be my default setup from now on..

141 points by Xylemon 12y ago

jug5 12y ago

So like noscript?

I can't quite tell: is this a complementary or overlapping feature to µMatrix, from the same developer? As an aside, I have noticed much better browser performance with the µ plugins as opposed to things like ABP. Keep up the good work!

Afforess 12y ago
I was under the impression µBlock was a fork of uMatrix, made simpler for users.
- itsame 12y ago
  µBlock and µMatrix are parallel offshoots of gorhill's earlier HTTP Switchboard. They're refactored forms of HTTP Switchboard, where each extension focuses on different forms of blocking (µBlock for pattern-based filtering, µMatrix for matrix-based filtering). See: https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/wiki/Changes-from-HTTP-Switchboard https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/wiki/Changes-from-HTTP-Sw... https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/wiki/Using-%C2%B5Block-with-%C2%B5Matrix https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/wiki/Using-%C2%B5Block-wi...

unknownian 12y ago

The question is: is it more resource-efficient than RequestPolicy?

codygman 12y ago
Probably? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018229
beagle3 12y ago
Policeman is like RequestPolicy, only much better (and it imports RequestPolicy's rules). I haven't tried uBlock/uMatrix yet, but if you like RequestPolicy do give Policeman a try.
- mobiuscog 12y ago
  Policeman is awesome and is now replacing RequestPolicy for me - thanks for mentioning it. I can't see it available for Chrome yet, which means I have to stick to HTTPSwitchboard I guess.

p4bl0 12y ago

I don't know RequestPolicy but I've been using μBlock instead of ABP + Ghostery for a few weeks and I'm quite satisfied.

wnevets 12y ago

I still havent figured out how to unblock resources with ublock.

mbil 12y ago
In the "options" page for the Chrome extension there's a whitelist tab.
- wnevets 12y ago
  Does that whitelist the entire host? I would like to block everything but a specific JavaScript file on specific host. This is very easy to do with ghostery
  - kachnuv_ocasek 12y ago
    Perhaps, you should just switch to µMatrix.
    - unicornporn 12y ago
      µMatrix is sadly not available for Firefox.
  - gorhill 12y ago
    > a specific JavaScript on specific host. This is very easy to do with ghostery I don't see any feature to accomplish this with Ghostery. You can block hosts from its pre-built library of hosts, not more, and not at a higher granular level then whole hosts. uBlock will report all hosts encountered on a page, not just those part of an internal database.
gorhill 12y ago
"unblock resources" is too vague, can't provide an accurate answer.
quadrangle 12y ago
You need to turn on advanced features if you want to do more than unblock everything from a site.

randomuserhello 12y ago

still not able to block youtube ads, thanks, but no thanks. I´ll stick with adblock edge.

Xylemon 12y ago
Did you enable the 3rd Party Filters?
skrause 12y ago
I have never seen a single YouTube ad with uBlock and Chrome.
- bdcs 12y ago
  IME, youtube ads seem to come on dynamically, with dynamic amount of "forcible viewing" time, eg 5sec, 30sec, 60sec, etc. It does a pretty damn good job of showing me the most ad without my walking away in disgust. For example, I was on a binge of science videos and the ads went from 0 sec, to 15, to 30, in lock-step with my curiosity.
  - nyolfen 12y ago
    for me i've noticed they only show up on embedded videos on 3rd party sites
gorhill 12y ago
I believe Safari/Youtube/Flash won't block ads. But Safari/Youtube/HTML5 does. Reference: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/706#issuecomment-73316012 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/706#issuecomment-73...
quadrangle 12y ago
You must be missing some of the block lists (or just speculating). The amount of stuff that uBlock handles is the same as Adblock Edge.
Nexxxeh 12y ago
>I´ll stick with adblock edge. Well, you can use what you want. We have no vested interest. >still not able to block youtube ads, thanks, but no thanks. But you're wrong, of course. And you've not given enough information for people to accurately help you, if they wanted to do so despite your tone. On both Chrome and on Opera, with uBlock I don't get YouTube adverts. (Albeit with some more filter tickboxes ticked, which may or may not make a difference.) If you want to try and get uBlock blocking your YouTube adverts, I'm sure lots of us would be willing assist. More so if you weren't an ass about it. Edit: I'm using HTML5 instead of Flash, that could be the key difference.

bhouston 12y ago

Does ublock still block crash reporters like newrelic and self hosted party statistics like piwik? PS, I had major issues on two mainstream travel sites with ublock. It made then unusable with ublocksl's default settings.

bsilvereagle 12y ago
Piwki would be fine if it was hosted on a subdomain of the first party domain. If you visit test.com, piwki.test.com would work. However, piwik.not-test.com would be blocked.
- bhouston 12y ago
  Last time I check piwik is always blocked no matter the host.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - bsilvereagle 12y ago
    Yeah, you're right. In the latest release, piwik is blocked. I hadn't tried it recently.
username223 12y ago
Do you want it to block first-party trackers? I am much more tolerant of trackers (and ads) if they are per-site rather than being run by a few huge data-gatherers, as there's much less privacy impact that way.
- bhouston 12y ago
  I don't but last time I checked ublock blocks all instances of piwik no matter where.
gorhill 12y ago
Using EasyPrivacy results in piwik being blocked, yes, regardless whether EasyPrivacy is used in uBlock, ABP, or whatever other blocker. I suggested you to bring the issue to EasyPrivacy maintainers if you think it's wrong[1], but by all appearances your grudge is solely aimed at uBlock. [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/564#issuecomment-70850179 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/564#issuecomment-70...

username223 12y ago

Denying 3rd-party resources by default is nice, but definitely experts-only. Pages will break in weird ways when half their rat's nests of JavaScript are missing, and it will take some coding knowledge to figure out which parts are necessary. I may switch to this myself, but I think I'll keep telling friends and family to use Ghostery

gorhill 12y ago
The feature is available only to those enabling "I am an advanced user".
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
kmfrk 12y ago
Ghostery breaks so much stuff, I don't know how people can bother. I've found that Privacy Badger does a great job of blocking third-party tools in a way that rarely breaks anything - in which case it's easy to turn off. That and Ad Muncher for Windows.
- artlogic 12y ago
  I've been using Privacy Badger for 6 months and I can't recommend it enough for non-technical people (or technical people that don't want to debug websites all day long). The one problem I've found is that certain services that use a bookmark/iframe combo (instapaper, for instance), create problems because you want to whitelist instapaper, but aren't given a chance. For that, I recently found: https://tsibley.net/provoke-the-privacy-badger/ https://tsibley.net/provoke-the-privacy-badger/
  - unicornporn 12y ago
    But it's based on AdBlock code. I started using uBlock instead of AdBlock Plus in order to save some resources. It seems that adding Privacy Badger would introduce that performance hit to the equation again.

lawl 12y ago

Okay, I'm probably stupid. This would allow me to throw away NoScript, Disconnect and Adblock. But I can't figure out how to enable deny by default mode?! (Yes I have advanced mode enabled)

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
maxerickson 12y ago
There's a tiny little + by the "Requests Blocked" label on the Button panel. Click that. Then red the left side of the top five boxes (images and scripts and the like). If I understand correctly, it's not really a mode, it's just several broad filters. 0.8.5.7 on Firefox doesn't have an 'all' that I can see.
- lawl 12y ago
  Oh, I see. I was under the assumption that these settings were still site specific, got it, thanks! Edit: Would be nice to be able to set those global settings once and not have them pop up on every page. And/or have a visual distinction between global and site specific rules, right now there is no option to globally disable images and then whitelist on a per site basis, right? I can just whitelist a domain which will then load everything? My initial impression wasthat I could globally blacklist everything I don't want per default and then enable it on a (sub)domain basis. I'll certainly give this a shot though. My firefox is really slow with ~20ish addons.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    If you go into the settings and look at "My Rules", you can get a pretty good sense of the scope of the rules you have running.
  - gorhill 12y ago
    > right now there is no option to globally disable images and then whitelist on a per site basis, right Yes you can, it's in the quick guide[1]: > First column: what is to be dynamically filtered > Second column: global dynamic filtering rules > Third column: local dynamic filtering rules [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-quick-guide https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-qu...

tomc1985 12y ago

Does this affect sites that use CDNs for hosting their frameworks (as in jquery/etc)?

bourbon 12y ago

So with this, I no longer need Ghost and Adblock?

clarkm 12y ago
Yep, I just switched. I initially made the jump solely because of uBlock's performance claims, but I have to say, it already seems much better overall than the haphazard Ghostery + Adblock combination I had before.
owly 12y ago
Just did this. µBlock does seem faster than the ghostery/adblock combo. I've also enabled Spam404 and Dan Pollock's hosts and everything is perfect so far.

webwanderings 12y ago

µBlock or Ghostery, whoever comes up with the tool to block garbage on mobile devices (preferably Chrome), will be a winner!

mintplant 12y ago
Ghostery supports Firefox for Android [1]. For µBlock, there are two tickets open on GitHub [2,3] about Firefox for Android support. Unfortunately, Chrome for Android doesn't support extensions [4]. But if you have a rooted device, you can block ads/trackers/etc. across all apps via AdAway [5], which manages a custom HOSTS file for you. [1] https://www.ghostery.com/en/download https://www.ghostery.com/en/download [2] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/524 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/524 [3] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/556 https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/556 [4] https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/faq https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/faq [5] https://sufficientlysecure.org/index.php/adaway/ https://sufficientlysecure.org/index.php/adaway/
- bmcd87 12y ago
  (Disclaimer: I'm a Ghostery developer) In addition to the extension working on Firefox for Android, Ghostery has it's own browser: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ghostery.android.ghostery https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ghostery.a... It's pretty new and has some key features that are still in development, but it's getting there.
  - webwanderings 12y ago
    Hey, I'm like millions of those lay users who do not have rooted mobile devices. WRT Firefox, it does not play nicely with Google services, like Gmail. WRT, browsers...I have tried many of them under the sun and all of them have a consistent disadvantage over Google, that is, speed. I've got many lay users friends who still look for an Ad blocker out of the box, for their mobile devices. I have hope from Ghostery and uBlock makers, fingers crossed.
  - unicornporn 12y ago

cantlin 12y ago

As the author was kind enough to pick us as an example, here's some background on what some of those requests are doing. hits.theguardian.com points to our Omniture implementation, which is the main tracking suite used for macro-level reporting (like when we say we have X unique monthly browsers, or whatever). So if you want to be invisible to that, leave it blocked. ophan.theguardian.com points to our own analytics tool, Ophan, which does things like tracks whether you "read" the article. It's for journalists to work out if people like their stuff. All the views of the data are aggregated, but if an analyst really wanted to they could go write some SQL to look at the behavior of individual cookies. So if you want to be invisible to that, leave it blocked. A quick Google [0] will turn up lots more about Ophan and how it works. Our only calls out to Facebook and Twitter are to retrieve share counts for the current URL (besides articles with embedded tweets, for now). These are probably relatively safe to unblock, but if that information doesn't interest you they're equally safe to block. api.nextgen.guardianapps.co.uk is handling most Guardian stuff that gets ajaxed onto the page, like suggestions for what to read next. It's pretty harmless and required for a bunch of functionality. All the guim stuff is obviously just static assets. It would be cute if there was some way of us hinting to the plugin which domains were needed to not break the site, though likely impractical in the real world. [0] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ophan%20guardian https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ophan%20guardian

mintplant 12y ago
> Our only calls out to Facebook and Twitter are to retrieve share counts for the current URL... These are probably relatively safe to unblock Wouldn't this expose you to tracking by Facebook and Twitter? I would think people are more interested in blocking third-party tracking than first-party. Thanks for the detailed explanation either way!
gorhill 12y ago
> some way of us hinting to the plugin which domains were needed to not break the site: I had collated this so far to mostly un-break the site -- for viewing at least: www.theguardian.com guardianapps.co.uk * noop www.theguardian.com guim.co.uk * noop www.theguardian.com theguardian.tv * noop Whenever I un-break myself a site, I add the proper rules in there: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-default-deny:-useful-rulesets https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-de... There were 16 3rd-party root domains I found were not needed [1]. Probably fonts.googleapis.com would make the site looks better, but it's up to users whether they want to let Google know they have been visiting what article on the Guardian. [1] adnxs.com criteo.com doubleclick.net fonts.googleapis.com google.com googleadservices.com googlesyndication.com googletagservices.com gstatic.com imrworldwide.com krxd.net mathtag.com moatads.com ophan.co.uk outbrain.com revsci.net scorecardresearch.com

imthatgirl_08 12y ago

Please someome help me! I figured out that through my internet/WiFi my boyfriends laptop has full rights over my phone, cable and the WiFi. All my app versions are version 1 basically and tons of 3rd party restrictions. My bing,Google,Facebook,yahoo,comcast, Microsoft,Outlook and whatever you can name redirects all websites and emails I've figured out everything but not 100 prevent how to get it off completely. I know why he did this "late night get it in sessions" I don't really care I can't even get email through Comcast sending me my bill I can't use my phone this sucks someone please help me I'll do anything just please email me @ sarajoannbedrocks11@gmail.com thank you

Max_Mustermann 12y ago
This kind of questions are not really expected or wished for on Hacker News, AFAIK. I would try the subreddit /r/techsupport : http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport

imthatgirl_08 12y ago

mmebane 12y ago

Does uBlock provide any way to write shims/surrogates? Sites often break because they just can't deal with certain JS libraries being missing, but there are many cases where it looks like just providing a stub implementation would be enough.

MindTooth 12y ago

Enabled default to deny last night. And I actually think it works great! Yes, some sites, are broken, but with some tinkering around, it works. This will be my default setup from now on..