µBlock, a lean and fast blocker

11 different machines with AM, and nobody was able to stream. Pulled AM off, put uBlock on, everyone was able to stream.

http://www.skyscraperlive.com/live.html

 

Is it possible to get an exact link to a page with a playing video so I don't have to hunt for it and get the wrong one?

 

Umm that's the exact link, and if you click it a video plays immediately - if you aren't running Admuncher. If you are running Admuncher you don't see anything, and/or a video doesn't start.

 

It seems µBlock also breaks that page with Anti-ThirdpartySocial‎ checked (but I don't know if this is the type of breakage you were referring to, Mayahana): i.imgur.com/2DT3fiP.png

(I had to disable µMatrix on the page because there were so many blacklisted requests, and I didn't have time to figure out which ones were needed.)

 

I run uBlock default, along with 3 Adblocking databases on my UTM's, no issue at all.

 

Somehow the site wants Facebook and Twitter scripts to no be blocked. This worked I found:

skyscraperlive.com brightcove.com plugin allow
skyscraperlive.com brightcove.com script allow
skyscraperlive.com c.brightcove.com plugin allow
skyscraperlive.com connect.facebook.net script allow
skyscraperlive.com discintlhdflash-f.akamaihd.net plugin allow
skyscraperlive.com platform.twitter.com script allow
skyscraperlive.com ustream.tv plugin allow
skyscraperlive.com ustream.tv script allow
skyscraperlive.com www.ustream.tv frame allow​

 

I am unable to confirm.

It works properly here...

 

@gorhill I recently switched over to umatrix from ublock now that its stable. Firstly thank you for your hard work. Its greatly appreciated. Secondly, since you have introduced the dynamic filtering in ublock, i found myself increasingly creating rules for sites, hence the move to umatrix as i didnt see what needed to be enabled in order for the site to function, (allowing both first party scripts and iframes did not always work) so Just a question or two;

• What are your thoughts on seeing number of items blocked in ublock's dynamic filtering squares? similar style to umatrix perhaps
  
• Would umatrix benifit from local mirroring? given that umatrix is much more privacy focused.

regards.

 

A count is in the realm of possibility. For me though the priority currently though is to fix the incremental reloading of filters, as this is blocking me from fixing other important issues, like the quick toggling of filters from the request logs, and other issues.

Re. local mirroring... Not sure what I should do.

Local mirroring allows uBlock to obtain better results than ABP when benchmarking on privacy exposure, so it is nice to allow everybody, even those who don't care, to reduce their privacy exposure. For instance, googletagservices.com is not blocked by ABP, and local mirroring helps fix this in uBlock. It is an interesting feature also for standalone uMatrix users as you say.

I've though about whether I should spin this one as another separate extension dedicated to that purpose only, say µMirror, with more features to look into, and manage mirrored resources, but I am still undecided.

 

@gorhill Thank you for your reply, interesting thought indeed. In my opinion since you have already forked your extension, as you said, two approaches. There should not be another extension as things would start to either overlap or leave users undecided into which extension to use. But i believe they each should enforce the basic principals of privacy, then leave the user to decide the extent of privacy to enforce.

As a common between the apps (ublock and umatrix), IMO there should be Local Mirroring, unused cookie blocking, http referrer, spoof user agent etc, all the things that rarely break pages and may be enforced without any user interaction. Then users may choose either extension to complete their needs.

regards.

 

No, the bolded part above won't make it into uBlock, or else this would prevent both extensions from working properly together. uBlock is really for mainstream users, mostly as a replacement of ABP, this has to be kept in mind. I think I pushed it far enough already with dynamic filtering.

I still believe uMirror as a standalone extension is an interesting idea, because it has other virtues than just enhancing privacy: faster page load and less bandwidth, because less network requests. But I am taking my time before deciding.

 

I have faith in whichever route you take, thank you.

regards.

 

Yes, maybe reduce the options (for the user) to only switch on blocking third party scripts and or iframes. Since blocking iFrames causes less problems in daily usage I would call that level 1 and blocking scripts level 2. For more granularity in filtering you have developed uMatrix.

 

I recommend focusing on 'basic' adblocking with uBlock, and put the other gizmos in the other product. I had to uninstall uBlock due to some page breaking, and Adguard Extension seems to be working fine now. uBlock never did this until recently, so it confuses me. But I think it best if it's left to be a simple, effective, fast adblocker with no features/options/tweaks. I'm waiting to see what Adguard does with their re-write coming up, and maybe I will switch to their installable version. But right now I find it slower than the extension and don't use it because the benchmarks don't satisfy.

 

µBlock doesn't break sites. It's an entry in one the regularly updated hosts files or a filter in one of the ABP filterlists which are not under gorhill's control (although he tries to add exception rules in cases reported to him). If a site really breaks (which happens rarely enough), it's easy to deactivate µBlock for it or to create an own exception filter. But uninstalling it straight away ...

 

I manage 12 machines in the home. (and 32K at work) I can't be doing rules/exclusions/exceptions on a dozen machines everytime something breaks. Adguard folks do it for me, gorhill is at the mercy of third party.

 

I would love to have uMirror. I use umatrix and ublock together and love both of them but with umirror I could just have like a automated umatrix with no breakage and the privacy that umatrix brings along with ublock.

 

Adguard folks also depends on EasyList. EasyList is concatenated to Adguard's own filters, after they removed the embedded comments from it, including the header identifying the details of the list (source, license, version, url to http://forums.lanik.us/, etc.). Adguard folks say "originally based on the EasyList filter", while a quick diff shows they import regularly the latest version of the list.

 

First link is a 404. Also I noticed Adguard picks up a TON of malware links.. Install the extension then go hit MDS or CleanMX, Adguard nails it. So they must be sourcing their malware list somewhere else, because it certainly outperforms the ones you and adblock use.

For me the ultimate decision is based on what breaks the fewest pages. Even a couple of broken pages a day can cause a huge hassle, as many of those pages are needed for research for students in the home here - including my wife working on her Masters. I need something that works, and doesn't break stuff. So far Adguard (default) seems to do the trick? In all fairness, I block a LOT of ads at the network level with my appliances so I probably could ditch the browser ones if they become too much of a hassle. Untangle alone drops off 2000-3000 ads a day, Kaspersky UTM (ZyXEL) another 400-600 a day.

To give you an idea of how much browsing takes place in this home - we average 150,000 web pages a day. Sometimes exceeding 200,000 a day on the weekends. I have a big home, with a lot of very busy kids, and 2 very busy adults. We average 1,500-2,000 files per day downloaded, which is why I take security seriously.

 

Not for me, although TrafficLight claimed it was a phishing attempt, bypassed that and got website is overloaded. Clicked the link again and it shows the whole text.

 

Untangle Phish blocker kills that page. Wonder why?

2014-11-10 9:45:56 pm
192.168.1.55
adguard.com
/en/filter-rules.html?id=2
162.159.251.224
block

 

LOL My UTM's block all of Adguard (even Adguard.com), claiming it's phishing in the case of Untangle, and Suspect from Bluecoat/COMMTouch..

 

On twitter if Cosmetic Filters are disabled, I see ads.
Unfortunately even with uMatrix I was not able to kill these ads. Blocking IMG @ o.twimg.com makes the image not visible, but the ad-tweet stays there.

 

Expected.

https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/45. The blocked image will be optionally collapsed, however uMatrix won't support cosmetic filters. That's uBlock's job.

 

ublock is blocking usefull stuff in the stackexchange network. I'm talking about the menu in the top left corner.