The .gif that won't go away.

MS · Post by MS » Sun Jun 10, 2007 10:51 pm

So, in addition to all the ad blocking, I use ABP to hide the avatars that I find annoying, distracted, or am just tired off on a BBS forum I frequent. ABP makes it real easy: write-click, ad-block, click... and it goes away.

Until the animated avatar on this page...

http://boards.cityofvillains.com/showth ... age=0&vc=1

When I right click it and choose adblock... it doesn't 'see' the correct item I'm clicking. So, I view page source to get the address of the .gif which is...

http://www.ece.utexas.edu/~desimone/groove1.gif

So, I put that into the filter... and nothing. I try just the name of the .gif: groove1.gif| and nothing. So, I try putting in the filter for the utexas.edu and nothing.

When I right click and 'view image', firefox knows what I'm clicking on and gives me a page with the image which interestingly has this address...

http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~desimone/groove1.gif

Notice that www is replaced by users. But still the 'groove1' filter should be filtering it but it isn't. Anyone know why either I'm a idiot and am missing something simple or why this is a .gif from hell?

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 2:36 am

I don't see any avatars. Do I need to login to see them?

IceDogg · Post by **IceDogg** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 2:39 am

I didn't see it at the first url either, but if you visit the 2nd and 3rd urls I see the avatar and it doesn't show up in the blockable items list.

chewey · Post by **chewey** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 2:59 am

Of course not - because they are the .gif itself and not embedded in a document,
therefore it has no blockable items.

You won't see the HTML file of a normal web page in this list either - nor will you
ever see an image in this list, if it is directly displayed without being embedded in
a document.

MS · Post by MS » Mon Jun 11, 2007 3:26 am

Hmmm... You don't need to be logged in to read the forums and see the avatars. How about this link?

http://boards.cityofvillains.com/showfl ... page=&vc=1

Do a search for Redlynne since it's her avatar I can't block.

Thanks for taking a look.

IceDogg · Post by **IceDogg** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:02 am

Thanks chewey, I did not know that. I thought flash was that way, but I didn't know everything was like that.

MS, I did see and was able to block her avatar just fine on that page. No problems here.

Code: Select all

http://www.ece.utexas.edu/~desimone/groove1.gif

Is what I used and it seemed to work fine.

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:07 am

MS wrote:Thanks for taking a look.

No. Thank you! That's a hot little gif. (But maybe I'm just sheltered.) I use the Anidisable extension and block avatars in all of my forums, so I rarely see anything like that.

That said, right-click, add to filters, apply, reload -> the gif is gone. Do you maybe have a whitelist which is overriding your filter?
--
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Adblock Plus 0.7.5.1

rick752 · Post by **rick752** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:16 am

Try this and see if it works:

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boards.cityofheroes.com#img(width=80)(height=80)

MS · Post by MS » Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:32 am

Whitelist, eh? Hmmm.... Here it is...

@@/\.(edu|gov(\.\w{2})?|mil)//

It's from the Filterset.G list. Apparently if something is from a *.edu site, it *must* be educational.

Anyway, now I have new questions: I can't seem to delete that line from the Filterset.G list without also deleting the entire Filterset.G list. And even if I deleted it, a sync would refresh it. Is there anyway of overwriting it? Or forcing a specific blacklist to overwrite (have higher priority) than a general whitelist?

Thanks for all your help!

MS · Post by MS » Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:34 am

Oh, BTW, I don't want to exclude all avatars, I could easily do that with the "turn off avatar" button on the forum control panel.

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:07 am

MS, instead of Filterset.G, I finally started using the newer filter lists designed to take full advantage of Wladimir Palant's implementation of Adblock Plus. I recommend using one or more of the http://adblockplus.org/en/subscriptions. Personally I use EasyList, EasyElement, and ABP Tracking Filter. They work great and are easier to maintain than Filterset.G.

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:13 am

MS wrote:Oh, BTW, I don't want to exclude all avatars, I could easily do that with the "turn off avatar" button on the forum control panel.

A button which this forum doesn't seem to have. I've gotten so I find all avatars distracting. Fortunately my generic avatar filter,

Code: Select all

/[^A-Za-z]avatar/

seems to clean them all up on this forum -- with no false positives that I've noticed yet.