Re: Feature request

On Tue, 2005-12-04 at 09:40 -0500, Douglas Hitchcock wrote:
> What does ad block do exactly?  I have flash block, which is a life
> saver, and if some annoying flashing image gets through i block images
> from that server, and that's been enough for me.  What extra can
> AdBlock do?  does it just have a list of servers to block set up
> already?  My list is getting pretty long as it is :)

Yes, AdBlock blocks *everything* from certain servers.

In Firefox, it's configurable: it starts off blocking nothing. When you
browse to a page and see an ad, you can click the "adblock" icon on your
statusbar and it gives you a list of URLs you may block. More advanced
users can also use regular expressions.

Quite honestly, I never bothered to figure out how to use it (the
interface almost made me cry), but some people swear by it.

What a lot of users do is download a pre-built "filterset" and then load
it up in AdBlock. I never figured out how to get *that* working
properly, either (not that I tried all that hard, but suffice to say
it's non-trivial). One of the more popular filtersets out there is
"Filterset.G", written by a guy who calls himself "G".[1]

So in my Epiphany extension, this filterset is used automatically. I've
got a little script to download it from
<http://www.geocities.com/pierceive/adblock>, and "make install" puts it
into /usr/share/wherever. My extension relies entirely upon the accuracy
of FilterSet.G -- which, luckily, is very good. (For those who want to
hack, the start of the trail to understanding is "NSIContentPolicy".)

I've also got some user-definable white-lists and black-lists, but no UI
for them yet.

Anyway, there's no real magic when you get right down to it. I rely
solely upon the greatness of the rule set. An interface to add/remove
blocked sites is an obvious extension to the current functionality, if
anybody wants to get carried away ;).

Both Firefox's AdBlock and my Epiphany extension block images, flash,
popups... absolutely any content which has a URL which matches one of
the entries in the rule list.

Adam

[1] Yeah, that's what he likes to be called. When I asked him if I could
use his stuff under the GPL, he said yes but I must make a disclaimer
and mention his name, "G".

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