Using Opera's build-in adblocker as an easier to use uBlockOrigin in medium mode

[Lenny_Fox]

Hi,

Although Opera's build-in adblocker has some bugs, it still has plenty of room to play with. I was send to our study room because my girl friend was talking to her friends in our living room using the Android house-party app. So I cooked something up for my friends at MalwareTips forum.

Idea background:
Opera offers an easy way to disable advertisement and/or tracking protection per domain. Opera also offers an option to add ABP-blocklist from the internet (e.g. from Github) of from local files (your hard disk). This inevitably triggers my curiosity to play with it. Would it be possible to set a uBlockOrigin like medium mode (blocking third-party scripts and frames) using a local user added advertising or tracking protecting file?

Sadly I ran into two bugs (the blocks of user added lists are only counted when you keep the default list enables. disable/enable of ad and tracking protection only works when you keep the defaults enabled), but I found a way to work around the bug-limitations. With the settings below I can use Opera adblocker in medium mode for HTTPs and hard mode for HTTP and set an easy per domain/website exception (reducing protection to uBO easy mode).

Instructions
Add an user defined blocklist to enforce a system wide medium mode uBlock Origin protection with Opera's build ad-blocker

This is the content of the local user defined 'medium mode.txt'

Because I would disable advertising protection for trusted websites, I added Kees1958 most used advertising and tracking networks blocklist to tracking protection


Next I surfed to NU.NL to see whether 3p-blocking worked. It seemed to work. No cookie prompt (from a third-party website) and no pictures were visible (also from a 3p-website associated with nu.nl).

Noe let's switch from medium mode to easy mode by disabling ad-blocking for NU.NL (note that the Adblocker is turned off in the picture below and the adblock shield turned red). Lets refresh NU.NL to see whether the images and videos are shown (which are on 3p- contend delivery network). With Kees1958 most used ads and tracker list and Opera's tracking protection I should not see any advertisements.

And it works

An easier way of using uBlockOrigin's medium level blocking with Opera's build in ad-blocker

 

[Lenny_Fox]

So now I am running medium mode uBlock Origin using just Opera's build-in blocker. When I trust a website I only need to disable adblocking for this website to reduce protection from medium mode (block third-party) to easy mode (use only adblockplus blocklists).

 

[LDogg]

Just seems overly complicated really, I just like blocked the Ads. I would love to use this aspect but I'm a simple man, I see something simple, I use it because it's simple xD (have used this in the past though and it does work wonders)

~LDogg

 

[Lenny_Fox]

Complicated? Can't get any simpler: with ad protection on you have medium mode, without you have easy mode. Switching mode with one click and Opera remembers your choices. It is an unusual way of upgrading an adblocker to a content blocker like uBlock. To do the same thing with uBo you need three clicks in stead of one. I just wanted to see whether I could find an alternative to uBlockOrigin in case the Google Manifest V3 (and other on-going security improvements to restrict extensions) would result in loss of medium mode blocking.

I also tried with Policy Control which offers better 3p-blocking than uBlock, but Policy Control can't be disabled easily per website. To my surprise this Opera build-in adblocker tweak is even easier to (less clicks) to switch from medium mode to easy mode as uBlockOrigin.