ABP on Comics.com for Dilbert.com

[felbre]

Hello,

with comics.com the button to dilbert.com does not work: http://www.comics.com/creators/onebighappy/

This is a very tricky button: it fools on any pop up-blockers and opens an extra window for "Smiley Central" (Link)

I am subscribed to the filterlists Easylist, Cédrics Liste (Germany) and Filter von Dr. Evil (Germany). The button to dilbert.com doesn't seem to be filtered by any of those three subscriptions so far. It is linked to "javascript:__utmLinker('http://www.dilbert.com');" which doesn't function any more while my ABP setup is active however. How do my subscribed filterlists have to be updated?

I appreciate your comments,
Felix

[Stupid Head]

It's because urchin.js is being blocked. I've seen this before on hyundaiusa.com/hyundaimotors.com with hbx.js.

[MonztA]

I am subscribed to the filterlists Easylist, Cédrics Liste (Germany) and Filter von Dr. Evil (Germany).

I would recommend you to use just one filterlist. I prefer Dr. Evil's list.

[Peng]

Ooh, that's bad. I block Urchin and Hitbox (hb[epx].js).

I guess you could use a Greasemonkey script to define those functions to just go to the link...

[felbre]

It's because urchin.js is being blocked. I've seen this before on hyundaiusa.com/hyundaimotors.com with hbx.js.

But I think urchin.js is blocked because it opens up the pop-up? Would it be possible to modify urchin.js, so that it opens dilbert.com correctly? Otherwise it would still be possible to reach the website via the dropdown-list. If it comes to the worst, I could live with this...

Thanks,
Felix

[felbre]

I would recommend you to use just one filterlist. I prefer Dr. Evil's list.

How good is Dr. Evil's list for international websites? I thought it was more focused on German ones (without any single sign of proof)?

Felix

[Stupid Head]

Urchin.js is purely for statistics and analytics. It has nothing to do with advertising or popups. It is possible to fix this with GreaseMonkey. Or you can just whitelist it.

[rick752]

I think it might be time and go with Wladimir's original suggestion and make 'tracking' sites a separate filter by itself. That way, people could opt-in for the added protection. We could make it a 'community' filter that we could all just add those "spyware" tracking sites to. They are usually very specific and there really are not that many of those 'global tracking' type sites. It would also free up little annoyances like the ones posted here.

Food for thought:
Someone recently posted on my forum that they were using my filters throughout their company on multiple stations. They were very disappointed when they found out that I had actually blocked THEIR site-tracker in it. So I removed it. It was argued that we had gone 'beyond' what adblock was supposed to do .... which was to just block ads. I am still thinking a lot about that statement.

Thoughts?

*MODS* ... can someone "break" the OP's link (page width?)

[chewey]

Someone recently posted on my forum that they were using my filters throughout their company on multiple stations. They were very disappointed when they found out that I had actually blocked THEIR site-tracker in it. So I removed it. It was argued that we had gone 'beyond' what adblock was supposed to do .... which was to just block ads. I am still thinking a lot about that statement.

Thoughts?

I tend to add trackers to my list too, or at least accept tracker sites being
blocked as a sort of desired collateral damage. But I also had some (just went
through my archive - there were two) people contact me about unblocking the
trackers they use on their sites.

I personally don't like trackers at all, I consider them an invasion of my
privacy (yeah, yeah, TINSTAPOTI¹...). But I also already thougt about
splitting my list into ad- and tracker blocking.

One of the problems would be to advertise () this so subscribers can decide to
use them - see the big differences in EasyList and EasyElement downloads.

However, I don't think tracker blocking is an "abuse" of ABP's possibilities - on
the contrary, I'm very glad to be able to use ABP to block trackers. Web tracking
has a way bigger potential to surpass being just plain annoying and to become
harmful than normal ads.

Jointly creating a tracking filter list is a neat idea actually, it is true that
there are not too many big trackers out there. Maybe this could end up as a simple
checkbox in ABP? Something like "[X] block known web trackers" would be very
convenient for end users.


¹: There Ain't No Such Thing As Privacy On The Internet.

edit: Typos

[rick752]

Jointly creating a tracking filter list is a neat idea actually, it is true that
there are not too many big trackers out there. Maybe this could end up as a simple
checkbox in ABP? Something like "[X] block known web trackers" would be very
convenient for end users.

Actually, chewey, the 'checkbox' idea seems like a good way to go.

[IceDogg]

*MODS* ... can someone "break" the OP's link (page width?)

Changed to link instead. Shouldn't be a problem with the poster as it gets the same results.

[Dr. Evil]

How good is Dr. Evil's list for international websites? I thought it was more focused on German ones (without any single sign of proof)?

It's hard to say. It clearly has its focus on German sites as I and the users who tell me of false positives or remaining ads come (mostly?) from Germany. Anyway, I and some of these others also surf on some English sites, where we don't want to see the ads as well.
I guess the best way to tell if it fits for you is to disable the other lists and to see whether some ads reappear or not

[MonztA]

And try to use this filter adress

Code: Select all

http://maltekraus.de/Firefox/adblock.php

instead of

Code: Select all

http://maltekraus.de/Firefox/adblock.php?elemhiding=sitespecific

There are blocked more ads (possibly).

[Wladimir Palant]

@chewey: Actually, my thought was in fact to expose these options (e.g. block ads/trackers/text ads) once we get the community filter list. But it probably could be done earlier as well in some backwards-compatible way.

The list author would then be able to specify a few options with the abp: protocol. These would appear as checkboxes in the user interface. Something like:

abp:subscribe?...&option1=trackers,Block%20trackers

If the user checks "Block trackers" the string "?trackers=yes" will be added to the filter list's address.

Issues:
1. Processing of these parameters requires some sort of server-side scripting. I don't think many list maintainers will like this but making Adblock Plus download several files for one subscription is worse IMO.
2. There are language-dependent strings in this address. Well, currently we have subscription's title there already and the language will usually match the language of the web page the user is viewing. But taking language-dependent strings in a random language into the user interface isn't nice. Still, this should be better than restricting the possible options to a few we have translations for built into Adblock Plus.

PS: I want to make Adblock Plus support 301 Permanent Redirect (and maybe some equivalent as a comment inside the subscription) to allow really changing the address a user is subscribed to - when Adblock Plus receives a 301 answer it should store the new address of the filter list. This should make merging separate filter lists easier.

[sheepy]

And 301 will make it much easier to move our lists around. I guess this is not difficult to do? =)