Global install FAQ should handle subscriptions

[JoshTriplett]

I maintain Adblock Plus installations for various systems which have users other than myself; thus, I appreciate the FAQ entry targeted at sysadmins (en/faq_install#global). However, that entry only mentions how to set a systemwide patterns file via preferences, which would require maintaining a local patterns file on the system. Like most Adblock Plus users, I'd prefer to rely on the standard subscriptions, and I suspect that many or most other sysadmins would prefer to do the same. The FAQ entry doesn't mention how to handle subscriptions, though. Could the FAQ entry at en/faq_install#global please add information on how to do the following via system preferences?

• Enable EasyList (or some other subscription) by default.
• Disable the enabled-by-default whitelist of "acceptable ads".
• Hide the first-run subscription dialog.

If someone could tell me how to accomplish the above, I'll happily write it up as documentation for inclusion in the FAQ entry.

[lewisje]

patterns.ini includes the list of subscriptions used; I have successfully transferred a patterns.ini file (with the EasyList+EasyPrivacy subscription) from one installation of Firefox to another and when I installed ABP on that new installation of Firefox, "acceptable ads" was disabled by default and all of my subscriptions were there.

[Wladimir Palant]

What lewisje said - patterns.ini contains filter subscriptions as well. Even if you put up a patterns.ini file with an outdated subscription version, about 5 minutes after the user starts his browser an update will be triggered and the user will get the current filters.

All this needs a better description on the web page. I want to replace the FAQ by proper (and most importantly current) documentation but I have to find time for this.

[JoshTriplett]

What lewisje said - patterns.ini contains filter subscriptions as well. Even if you put up a patterns.ini file with an outdated subscription version, about 5 minutes after the user starts his browser an update will be triggered and the user will get the current filters.

All this needs a better description on the web page. I want to replace the FAQ by proper (and most importantly current) documentation but I have to find time for this.

I agree that this mostly just needs a documentation update. Thanks for the explanation.

However, I also just transfer my patterns.ini around, and yet when I upgraded I got the prompt about enabling "acceptable ads". As the admin I want to answer all such prompts for users, so they don't turn into support questions. Hence my question.

[Wladimir Palant]

The notification about "non-intrusive ads" happens for all users updating from a version before Adblock Plus 2.0 (unless they already have this subscription or a privacy-related one like EasyPrivacy). You can set "extensions.adblockplus.currentVersion" preference appropriately to disable upgrade actions, e.g. use "2.0".

[JoshTriplett]

What lewisje said - patterns.ini contains filter subscriptions as well. Even if you put up a patterns.ini file with an outdated subscription version, about 5 minutes after the user starts his browser an update will be triggered and the user will get the current filters.

I started looking into how to set this up (both because I just set up or upgraded several systems and had to go through systems*users instances of the setup process, and because I'd like to migrate my own systems from my personal filters to EasyList).

However, I ran into a problem. As far as I can tell, in order to set up an automatic subscription for EasyList, I have to set extensions.adblockplus.patternsfile to a file containing a Subscription block for EasyList. However, that preference also controls where Adblock Plus wants to store the subscription content itself, so if I point this at a system-wide read-only file, automatic updates won't work. I don't want to break the standard automatic updates that users will get as they run Firefox; I just want to set up the initial subscriptions so that a user doesn't get prompted.

Ideally, I'd like to construct a Debian package that depends on xul-ext-adblock-plus and installs an appropriate default configuration, so that with that package installed, users will get consistent ad blocking and not have to answer any questions on startup. I can pre-answer the questions by setting the version preference, which I already know how to do; I just haven't figured out how to provide default subscriptions yet.

So far, I've only found a partial solution: I could put a patterns.ini in the template profile that Firefox uses as the basis for new profiles it creates. That would make sure that new setups get the right set of subscriptions, but it wouldn't help for users who already have a Firefox profile but not an Adblock Plus patterns file. Ideally, I'd like to find a solution that works for users who already ran Firefox and got a profile before I installed Adblock Plus. This partial solution does address the primary problem with new installations; I'd just like to improve it a bit more if possible.

All this needs a better description on the web page. I want to replace the FAQ by proper (and most importantly current) documentation but I have to find time for this.

Once I have a working solution, I'll happily write it up in a form suitable for inclusion in documentation.

[JoshTriplett]

The notification about "non-intrusive ads" happens for all users updating from a version before Adblock Plus 2.0 (unless they already have this subscription or a privacy-related one like EasyPrivacy). You can set "extensions.adblockplus.currentVersion" preference appropriately to disable upgrade actions, e.g. use "2.0".

Turns out this doesn't work in current Firefox (or any version since roughly 4.0), due to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=674013 . Firefox loads preferences in the wrong order, causing extension defaults to override anywhere I could set this system-wide.