Adblock Plus

Hello all,

I am a newly registered user of this forum but have been aware of it for many years. I never actually bothered making an account until now.

The purpose of this thread is to point out continual exploits pertaining to exception filters included in the EasyList subscription package. I’ve used EasyList for quite some time but have grown weary of its more than occasional false-positive “exception rules”. Please note that I don’t allow non-intrusive ads and I don’t allow “acceptable” advertisements to load.

After browsing around I will intermittently encounter an absurdly flashing ad banner or other disgusting/adult themed advert. I will quickly scan through the list of blockable items on the page and identify the source of the advertisement. More likely than not, the source of the advertisement is being ALLOWED TO LOAD from an “exception rule” in the EasyList.

After blocking the aforementioned URL, I will return to the website in several weeks to see that the ad banners have returned and are USING ANOTHER (but entirely different) EXCEPTION RULE from EasyList.

It’s important to point out that these aren’t just occasional false positives. These URLs are used in a timely manner to inject advertisements into the page through scripts or other methods. The fact that they have been purposely allowed to load in the first place is malicious.

It can be concluded that certain sites are manipulating the exception rules in EasyList in order to continue loading their advertisements. After a couple of weeks the site probably updates itself to use a different exception and load its advertisements from that accepted source.

Whether EasyList is knowingly or unknowingly allowing these obviously false exception rules into their list is unclear. However, it is clear that the EasyList rules need to be immediately reevaluated or disabled.

Recent Example: http://imgur.com/a/TEclD

Hi,
i think you've already got an answer more than one time at easylist forum https://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?p=111437#p111437

smed79 wrote:Hi,
i think you've already got an answer more than one time at easylist forum https://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?p=111437#p111437

Yes. It seems that link sums up exactly what I've expected. Thank you for pointing it out.

just report at easylist forum
http://forums.lanik.us/

I like how my first and only thread on this entire forum gets its title hastily rewritten by a moderator.

The original title, “Don’t Trust EasyList”, was meant to infer that there are continual inconsistencies pertaining to EasyList that users should be aware of. It wasn’t meant to mock or harass the makers/users of EasyList or AdBlockPlus and (unless I’m severely mistaken) did not violate the rules of this forum.

Additionally, as smed79 pointed out with his link, simply reporting individual links to the EasyList forum is an ineffective solution to the problem I described in my original post.

And lastly, I would edit my own title back to its original form but my thread would probably get removed and my account banned for essentially nothing. But thank you for making it clear.

There is no other fix. Just reporting back to the easylist authors. All of them are volunteers, doing all this activity in their spare time.
If "don't trust easylist" , well, easylist being the main list ... do you have an alternative ?

ABP (and any other adblocker) = 0 without the filter lists.

mapx wrote:There is no other fix. Just reporting back to the easylist authors. All of them are volunteers, doing all this activity in their spare time.
If "don't trust easylist" , well, easylist being the main list ... do you have an alternative ?

ABP (and any other adblocker) = 0 without the filter lists.

EasyList can, of course, be considered as the “main list” for AdBlockPlus. However, EasyList is not the only list out there. Additionally, if users wish to remain using EasyList (such as myself) it seems that it’s going to be up to the end-users to correct these “mistakes” themselves.

This would require going through the exception rules in EasyList and removing ones that appear to be either outdated or being used to maliciously load advertisements.


And as a last point, inappropriately editing user’s titles based on personal disagreement with the user is not a reason for use of moderator powers. The title, “Don’t Trust EasyList”, means that users should be aware of EasyList. It does not mean, “Don’t Use EasyList” as you implied.

Again: report the wrong filters (or used by some sites for their malicious ads) to easylist forum.