Adblocking innovation

Terry Ganzi

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Feb 7, 2014
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@Terry Ganzi

I'm lost what are you speaking about, what have I posted on march friday 6 or 6 months from this date? Clearly you read certain (old) things to a point.
Anything older needs to be reviewed or updated. So please enlighten me as you have me lost.
Seem you have me on your mind so please get whatever it is off of your chest so that i can help you think better.
 
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oldschool

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Decentraleyes has only broken 1 website I regularly visit (MT emojis ;)), and only 1 or 2 others - and this is with "Block requests for missing resources" enabled (an advanced setting which includes a "will break webpages" warning). It includes whitelising ability.

@Lenny_Linux you didn't include Privacy Possum in your comparison in above post.
@security123


Privacy Possum makes tracking you less profitable. Companies gobble up data about you to create an asymmetry of information that they leverage for profit in ever expanding ways. Their profit comes from your informational disadvantage. Privacy Possum monkey wrenches common commercial tracking methods by reducing and falsifying the data gathered by tracking companies.

Current Features
  • Blocks cookies that let trackers uniquely identify you across websites
  • Blocks refer headers that reveal your browsing location
  • Blocks etag tracking which leverages browser caching to uniquely identify you
  • Blocks browser fingerprinting which tracks the inherent uniqueness of your browser

Threat Model
Privacy Possum does not have a threat model. Weird huh? We prioritize costing tracking companies money over protecting you. When considering some anti-tracking measure we do not ask "Is it possible to circumvent this?". Instead we ask "Is it cost-effective for a tracking company to circumvent this?". If the answer is "yes, no" we accept it.

Tracking companies are growing, they own more infrastructure, and make more money than ever. This means they have a growing economic, technical, and political influence. And they are guiding the internet into a ever less private place.

We think tackling the problem from an economic angle is extremely important, and will ultimately help shift the internet into more private place.
 

Lenny_Fox

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@oldschool

Because Privacy Possum lacks a threat model, I digged into the code and it looks like a brilliant solution for PC users which never clear their browser cache. Privacy Possum looks like the product of Don Quichot de La Mancha of privacy. The developer certainly has a point, but the 112 open issues (on Github) make me have doubts on the implementation.

Regards

Lenny
 
F

ForgottenSeer 85179

Next I'm on firefox so check it out yourself ain't nothing hard.
Last updated: 5 months ago (Oct 11, 2019)

So two sources for my argument. Still don't know where you get that wrong date from.
 
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Lenny_Fox

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I'll check it out. What PP alternative would you suggest?
Sorry, those issues are related to website breakage. When it works well for you in combination with Brave's ad-blocker, I would suggest to keep using it. I am unsure on its actual blocking benefits. When I try to figger out which sources Privacy Possum blocked using WebSniffer extension, the numbers don't add up.
 
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monkeylove

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Mar 9, 2014
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@monkeylove
Please post factual and verifiable information. Posting an opinion as a fact, makes it impossible to distinguish make believe from (alternative) facts. Not implying that you are not telling the truth, just want to understand and investigate the websites on which you encountered problems.

So ...please post which sites broke while using what blocklist or extension?[

I've been using the ff. customized config:

- NoScript in default mode, but I had to unblock some sites for some pages;
- Decentraleyes;
- Privacy Badger;
- uBlock Origin with all lists activated, and a few more.

I went to the ff. page and videos were not shown:


I tried trusting the abcotvs* sites in NoScript, disabling Decentraleyes and PrivacyBadger, and disabling uBlock Origin, and the videos still didn't show. It was only when I disabled NoScript that they did.

For popups (newsletters, cookie warnings, etc.), I think I can manage by just blocking them using uBO or using the element picker. For sites broken by my uBO config, I found one in my "My Rules" list:


I have to greenlight the website and minutemediacdn.com in uBO. I'll see what happens if I use the default settings for uBO. Meanwhile, I left NoScript disabled.
 
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Lenny_Fox

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So Ghostery is the best, compared to Privacy Possum and Privacy Badger? Or did i read the comments wrong?
Can't belive that. Ghostery is from a advertising company...
Takes a thief to catch a thief? They use a similar approach as Privacy Badger, only the data Ghostery collects to decide to block/filter is on a more detailed level. Making it less prone to false positives (breaking websites) and more effective at the same time.
 

Lenny_Fox

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DuckDuckGo tracker-radar has under 6000 domains listed Disconnect simple ad filter and Peter Low's list have just over 3000 ad&tracking server domains listed. Ghostery has in default setting just over 3000 and in maximum setting just under 5000 domains blacklisted, These numbers are illustrative that there are not an unlimited number of ad&tracking domains. As shown earlier the number three largest ad&tracking network in the world has less network traffic than the amazon.com website. Google has (depending on different reports) 40 to 60 percent of the market, Facebook (depending on different reports) 20 to 30 percent and number three has in most reports less than 3% market share. Number 200 probably has a market share of under 1 percent, meaning you have a small chance of ever encountering it while surfing.

Because small ad&tracking networks are missed by most block lists, those niche players will continue to exists serving websites not in Alexa top500000 (more than 2000 visitors per day). The picture below shows the progressive reducing value (benefits in terms of blocking) by adding more rules to the blocklist.

The second row is the number of block rules used. The column ultimate uses the Ultimate pack of the energized.pro website and the Top500 uses the Kees1958 github Top500 experimenal list (@ Oldschool no, I am not :) ) . Domains is the number of domains connecting out. Yes the blocklist with nearly a million rules wins, but at a price (video's not playing in red). uBlockOrigin in default is as good as the Top500 list and only throws one please-support-us-disable-your-adblocker prompt (in yellow).

1583573961386.png


Above illustration make it plausible that Adguard, Brave, Opera with their optimized rules (30 to 40 percent of easylist meaning 20 to 25% of uBo default) are 95% as effective as an adblocker with all blocklists enabled. Smart adblockers (with heuristics) using only 3000 to 5000 blacklist rules are as effective or even more effective than the leading 'large-list' adblocker (uBlockOrigin).
 
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Lenny_Fox

Level 22
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Oct 1, 2019
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I'm lost what are you speaking about, what have I posted on march friday 6 or 6 months from this date? Clearly you read certain (old) things to a point. Anything older needs to be reviewed or updated. So please enlighten me as you have me lost.
Seem you have me on your mind so please get whatever it is off of your chest so that i can help you think better
Is this your reply to this post :unsure: ?
 

oldschool

Level 81
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Mar 29, 2018
7,044
(@ Oldschool no, I am not :) )

You're not? I can't believe it! :LOL::LOL::LOL: I find that µBO with under 50,000 works about as well as default filters. I use Adguard Base and Tracking filter lists instead of Easy List & Easy Privacy, and add Frogeye 1st party trackers (which is a fairly big list) and still < 50,000 total.
 

Terry Ganzi

Level 26
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Feb 7, 2014
1,540
I've been using the ff. customized config:
- NoScript in default mode, but I had to unblock some sites for some pages;
- Decentraleyes;
- Privacy Badger;
- uBlock Origin with all lists activated, and a few more.

I went to the ff. page and videos were not shown:


I tried trusting the abcotvs* sites in NoScript, disabling Decentraleyes and PrivacyBadger, and disabling uBlock Origin, and the videos still didn't show. It was only when I disabled NoScript that they did.

For popups (newsletters, cookie warnings, etc.), I think I can manage by just blocking them using uBO or using the element picker. For sites broken by my uBO config, I found one in my "My Rules" list:


I have to greenlight the website and minutemediacdn.com in uBO. I'll see what happens if I use the default settings for uBO. Meanwhile, I left NoScript disabled.

I'm getting the same as you on Firefox but not other browsers.
Will try to solve it as i finish what I'm doing.
 
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Lenny_Fox

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Oct 1, 2019
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You're not? I can't believe it! :LOL::LOL::LOL: I find that µBO with under 50,000 works about as well as default filters. I use Adguard Base and Tracking filter lists instead of Easy List & Easy Privacy, and add Frogeye 1st party trackers (which is a fairly big list) and still < 50,000 total.
Good for you, old school rules 👍😉

Seriously around 60k to 100k max, should do the trick, more is useless, so you are stll a lean mean blocking machine 👍
 

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