Adblock Plus

I find myself using Yahoo Maps a lot and they've got a flash ad in the lower left corner that I can't seem to get rid of.

I've used Flashblock for a while, which takes care of that particular ad, but it's inconvenient to click on the screen itself each time I look at a map - the entire Yahoo Maps product is itself a Flash movie. Last night I disabled Flashblock and installed Adblock Plus hoping that it would be able to control that left-corner-ad. I can't find a way to make it work.

When I list the Blockable Items, I see there there are "loader" and "history" flash objects. Blocking the Loader objects whites out the entire Maps workspace and blocking the History objects doesn't appear to do anything.

It occurs to me that the image displayed in the browser could be a composite of several different flash objects put together by the Loader object and Adblock sees it as a single image. If this is the case, Adblock can't help, I guess.

Does anyone have any insights? Are there any Flash people reading this who understand how this image is put together or how Adblock perceives it?

Thanks!

Bob

*sigh* - link please.

@chewey: http://maps.yahoo.com/

@Bob W: This image is part of the map object, you cannot block it without blocking the map itself

The data for this ad is loaded via XMLHttpRequest from http://xml1.maps.yahoo.com/flashAds.xml, however XMLHttpRequest doesn't go through content policies so it isn't caught by Adblock Plus. Maybe it is time to change this...

Edit: bug 371123

Slightly off topic, but Ad Muncher blocks all of the ads at this yahoo site.

No need to flame me, just try it yourselves.

Just added
*Ad*Muncher*
to the EasyList. (only kidding)

But seriously, "Media Man", constantly trying to sell a similar product on another's 'for free' product forum is totally classless, dude. If you aren't getting the sales that you need, it may be time to close your shop.

Maybe I should go to the admuncher forum and start posting things like "Why would Mozilla users want to pay for an adblocker that may or may not block some things better or worse on this or that website?"

Do you spend all of your time going around to different forms trying to "hawk" this product under different names? Every plug for this product seems to be under different names on different forums but they all have the same writing style.

Why don't you just take it to an IE forum where they have nothing to use at all and stay out of here. You're obviously in here just to get information for that product and to try to sell it. This is as annoying as the ads we are trying to block ... it's like some really annoying AdMuncher ad!

*EDIT 2:

I noticed that if a string is in the standard list and a user wants to disable that string, that there is no way to do it in AdMuncher. That being coupled with the fact that some items cannot be whitelisted makes for a very poor user interface. you can't turn it off AND you can't override it.

ps: Also, "Bugs" and "Page Damage" seem to be the most active topics on that forum.

I am stupid. I didn't even check whether this Flash movie really uses XMLHttpRequest. So bug 371123 is fixed but this XML file still doesn't appear in the list of blockable items - it comes out Flash uses plugin API to request it. Long live bug 375435!

Bug 375435 has been fixed, in the next trunk nightly (2007040504) you will be able to block these ads: Now the question is whether we can get it into Firefox 2.0.0.4.

Edit: The new nightly build is there now and it works. Now you see everything loaded on maps.yahoo.com in the list of blockable items - and it is a lot.

Yay! Both bugs have been granted approval for Gecko 1.8 branch meaning that Firefox 2.0.0.4 will come out with these bugs fixed.

That is great news!

IceDogg wrote:That is great news!

Really great news. Anyone running Firefox 2.0.0.4 RC?

If you are, NOW go to Yahoo maps (at least with the Easylist). Notice anything?

Pfff, that's old news

I'm a regular branch nightly user (mostly SeaMonkey though), it works there for a couple of weeks already.

Gotta love the "other" items.

Oh, ok "Mr. Nightly"

Take the wind out of my sails
(But I know something that you don't know)

Damn, now you got me!

How did you know I'm very curious?
(*jumping up and down*) What is it, what is it?

rick752 wrote:Anyone running Firefox 2.0.0.4 RC?
If you are, NOW go to Yahoo maps (at least with the Easylist). Notice anything?

Nope, still no ads. Let me switch to the broadband version... Golly gee! No more flash ads! Thanks, Rick. Good work.

@ Alan:

Don't thank me ... my filters already had that stuff blocked but was hidden from ABP. You will notice there that there are new entries there in ABP's 'blockable items' that say "other". The new Firefox now allows these.

You can thank Wladimir for providing the bug info to Mozilla that was fixed in Firefox 2.0.0.4. ABP already had the capability to block those.