Firefox Adblock Plus Subscriptions

I currently have the following Adblock Plus subscriptions:

1. EasyList
2. EasyPrivacy
3. Malware Domains

I see that recent new installs of Adblock Plus have been pointing towards Fanboy's List.

Should I add Fanboy's List to what I have now?

What Adblock Plus subscriptions do you have/recommend?

Thanks in Advance.

 

I personally use the following from Fanboy:

Fanboy's List

Fanboy's Annoyances

Fanboy's Object Dimensions

Fanboy's Tracking/Stats Blocking

Fanboys's International Tracking/Stats Blocking.


With these, I've not seen a need for Easy Privacy. For one thing, they may overlap, slowing things down. For another, what is blacklisted on one list, may be whitelisted on another, making it rather pointless. As I use Norton DNS along with Avast and its Web Shield, I've seen no need for Malware Domains. They change too fast anyway to have a list.

If you frequent many Russian, Japanese or other specific locale websites, perhaps you might want to look into their respective filters. However, International Tracking/Stats should take care of it for you. Be on the lookout for the little snail icon in your lists, as too many of those filters can impact your browsing speed. By the way, FYI, there is an "AntiSocial" list as well, to take care of the pervasive amounts of Facebook/Twitter icons and banners. However, I've found that many sites that have them integrated in one way or another, break with this list.

 

Add Element Hiding Helper.

All in all, your ADB+ setup is fine, more subscriptions will probably cause slowdowns. Keep doing custom blocks and/or installing localized subscriptions (if needed).

 

When I was using ABP,

• I didn't use EHH because it only hides stuff from displaying and therefore hides what the site has, in reality, downloaded.
• I didn't use any readymade list. I browsed in Sandboxie, and blocked things as I saw fit. Then, I transferred the filter to the hard disk.

 

I've used Fanboy's and it's Tracking/Stats before. One of them hid my (our) security list's Index. Never looked back. Is it still happening?

 

I use both of those and more, and I see everyone's list here. I don't remember not seeing them. Perhaps it was just a bad entry that was fixed?

 

You can see Probably the Best Free Security List in the World, but probably not it's entirety. The Index portion was hidden from me.

Please disable it and report any changes (Ctrl+F5 to double-check).

 

True, since there is content which is hard-coded on websites and cannot be blocked from being downloaded by ABP. Nevertheless, it's very often rather annoying, and hiding it is better than nothing.

Must be rather laborious EasyList, which is the one I'm using, is very comprehensive and reliable, IMHO. False positives are extremely rare. That's why I don't see any benefit from re-inventing the wheel

 

I see "My Security Setup", "Probably the Best Free Security List in the World" and "GS Cache". I've never seen anything else in your sig, and I don't see anything more with ABP disabled.

 

I do "hide" stuff but I prefer DOM Inspector to help make my own css rules.

And, yes, while it's initially "laborious", it rapidly gets easier and gives me a cheap thrill when I catch something on my own Plus, I get a better understanding learning to fish rather than relying on external sources.

 

I understand. But one problem is that EasyList (or other available lists for ABP like Fanboy's) also blocks stuff like doubleclick, googleanalytics etc. etc. - stuff which you often don't "see" (and, consequently, may not block - at least not all of them) but it's nevertheless there. I think it's very difficult (if not impossible) for an ordinary user to get the hang of all that crap out there. But hey - you may not be ordinary at all

 

I look at the log of Privoxy which I have set to show only requests allowed. That gets them. I don't rely on "seeing" in the visual sense since we don't see things like javascripts or css files. (Yes, I block some .css from dowloading as well.)

For example:

Code:

Sep 06 22:35:47.745 b54b4b70 Crunch: Blocked: http://kona.kontera.com/javascript/lib/KonaLibInline.js
Sep 06 22:35:47.754 b5cb5b70 Crunch: Blocked: http://pixel.quantserve.com/seg/p-9dsZX-5zhUuTg.js
Sep 06 22:35:47.755 b42ffb70 Crunch: Blocked: http://edge.quantserve.com/quant.js
Sep 06 22:35:47.755 b54b4b70 Crunch: Blocked: http://static.crowdscience.com/start-5c5c650d27.js
Sep 06 22:35:47.768 b3afeb70 Crunch: Blocked: http://b.scorecardresearch.com/b? ...
c9=

 

I'm talking about the list itself, not my signature.

 

EasyList
Recommended for Google Chrome

I haven't even looked at them... I should.

 

I'm a bit confused, do you mean a part of the list is in your signature? Let me explain, I see the things I already told you, and I can click your signature and see everything just fine. That includes your personal setup, the techsupport list and all. It's the same whether ABP is disabled or enabled.

 

I use any subscription that strikes my fancy. Right now I've got three of Fanboy's, EasyList, and two others.

I use the filter dialogue to manage my filters. After you've used Adblock for awhile, the dialogue will have stats for how many hits there've been on each filter. I sort by "Slow filters" and look at each one. If there are 0 hits I disable that filter. Then I sort by "Hits." Normally there'll be a handful of filters with a very high number of hits, a few more with less hits, and keeps going down to a few with 1 hit. In the case of Fanboy's and EasyList there will be a very high number left with 0 hits. Theoretically I suppose a person could disable them or delete them. Everyone's browsing habits are different and the filter lists are designed with any and all possibilities in mind. But if you look at your stats and find that 99% of the filters aren't being used why keep them? I usually just leave them alone unless I'm having sever problems with slowdown, but with the slow filters disabled that's usually not a problem.

 

I thought I had imagined it! It is still happening.

 

You can see it, but I didn't saw the Index portion of the list. Can you post screenshots?

Darn, it should be fixed. Makes things much harder.

 

After seeing the same results just yesterday on Google Chrome Portable with Adblock Plus (Beta) at school, I'm sure Fanboy's List is causing the problem.