Question Which Ubo filters 2023 do you use ?

[floalma]

Hi friends,

Spoiler

This is an update to a previous thread here about Ubo filters lists.
These are my UBO filter lists.
Any comments or recommendations are welcome.
Thanks you for your contribution.

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

In post #38 you see the uBO filter rules (as you may expect in this thread). And indeed, there's an extension that can do the job.

Sorry, thought that rule blocked all gifs (also static gifs), intended to ask whether it is possible to block animated gifs only
(to save me from installing an extra extension which sits around doing nothing for 99,99% of the time).

Spoiler: I am not a blocklist junky with less than 3000 rules total 😄

 

[Jan Willy]

intended to ask whether it is possible to block animated gifs only

AFAIK there is no filter rule that only blocks the animation. BTW : a nice minimalist setup. It's a pity that AG MV3 still doesn't have a log.

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

AFAIK there is no filter rule that only blocks the animation. BTW : a nice minimalist setup. It's a pity that AG MV3 still doesn't have a log.

Considering the delay of MV3 introduction, I don't think it will get one. Looking at AdGuard development to modularize and reuse code (separate filter engine and creating their own independant API-layer for easy MV2 to MV3 migration) my guess is that they will transform existing AGv4 MV2 into AGv5 MV3 and see how many change requests Google will implement (to make the change as seamless as possible for average AG users).

Around 10% of my webtraffic (DNS + extension) is blocked,. I rarely see ads, only empty placeholders (which can be hidden using the crosshair element blocker).

 

[toto_10]

What site is it?

I'm testing on this website:

AdBlock Tester: test your AdBlock extensions

Website with ads, analytics trackers, metrics, error catchers. Check your blocker: AdBlock, AdBlock Plus, AdGuard, Ghostery, uBlock Origin, AdBlocker Ultimate…

adblock-tester.com

Blocking gif images on every site:
*.gif$image

Blocking gif images on a specific site (real world example):
*.giphy.com/*.gif$image,1p

Blocking all images on every site:
*$image

I'm still getting a test failed at Gif and Static image. I'm using AdGuard if it makes any difference.

 

[toto_10]

I asked ChatGPT and it gave me this return:
||*.gif
||*.jpg
||*.png
||*.bmp
||*.jpeg
||*.tiff

It's working. I'm now getting 100 points out of 100. I hope this will not break any websites.

 

[toto_10]

Having all of them added is blocking your avatars and will properly block a lot of other things on other websites.

So I will only keep: ||*.gif

If there is any other smart way to block Static images please let me now.

 

[oldschool]

I'm testing on this website:

AdBlock Tester: test your AdBlock extensions

Website with ads, analytics trackers, metrics, error catchers. Check your blocker: AdBlock, AdBlock Plus, AdGuard, Ghostery, uBlock Origin, AdBlocker Ultimate…

adblock-tester.com

I'm still getting a test failed at Gif and Static image. I'm using AdGuard if it makes any difference.

Oh, I see you're trying to pass the individual tests at that site, not block a specific GIF, etc. I'm using Adguard on Chromium browsers and pass all those tests. But, please realize that these kind of ad blocker test sites are unreliable in their methods and certainly don't replicate 'real world' usage for folks surfing the web. Their "test" results are mostly meaningless except possibly as a rough guide to comparing different adblocker and different list combinations.

My advice is to use any reputable ad blocker like µBO, Adguard or Ghostery and enable the default filters and check the relevant threads for more filter tips.

 

[toto_10]

Oh, I see you're trying to pass the individual tests at that site, not block a specific GIF, etc. I'm using Adguard on Chromium browsers and pass all those tests. But, please realize that these kind of ad blocker test sites are unreliable in their methods and certainly don't replicate 'real world' usage for folks surfing the web. Their "test" results are mostly meaningless except possibly as a rough guide to comparing different adblocker and different list combinations.

My advice is to use any reputable ad blocker like µBO, Adguard or Ghostery and enable the default filters and check the relevant threads for more filter tips.

I totally agree. I'm just playing around with those types of test, but sometimes it turns into a sport

I mainly use AdGuard's optimized filters to have less rules.

 

[oldschool]

I'm just playing around with those types of test, but sometimes it turns into a sport

The same here, my friend!

 

[Jan Willy]

I'm using AdGuard if it makes any difference.

Yes, it makes a difference. Of course I used the uBO-syntax (in accordance with the title of this thread).
If you would have activated AG Base filter (AG English filter + Easylist)* you would have passed both tests (also with the optimized version).
This answers also your next quote.

If there is any other smart way to block Static images please let me now.

*edit: I haven't tried other filterlists.

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

@toto_10 to make you feel better I only got

 

[floalma]

This is the order:
1) Dynamic URL filtering rules
2) Dynamic filtering rules
3) Static filtering

When you open the logger and choose an element of the page to block, you have two options: create a URL rule (Dynamic URL filtering rules) or a Static Filter. That URL rule takes precedence over the other two, but must be used on special cases. For example, i use 2 of this "special" URL rules...

* https://www.google.com/recaptcha/ * noop
* https://www.gstatic.com/recaptcha/ * noop

to avoid globally whitelisting google and gstatic domains with the (less granular) dynamic filtering rules.

Static filtering gives you even more granularity than what my beloved uMatrix used to, but, alas, there's no panel, you have to create the rules with the logger

When still crying over uMatrix demise, I used to create all my rules with the static filter. Give me granularity, Mr. Hill!
Well, not anymore.

​

Overview of uBlock's network filtering engine: details

My questions were not oriented about the logger, but on the "UBO settings" tab, which rules prevail ?
After dynamic rules ("My rules" tab), rules from "filter lists" or from "my filters" or "cosmetic filters" ?
When opening with the logger, only 1 option is possible : create a static filter, not a dynamic filter.
Yes, uMatrix was nice extension indeed. I've still using on my old browser.

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

My questions were not oriented about the logger, but on the "UBO settings" tab, which rules prevail ?
After dynamic rules ("My rules" tab), rules from "filter lists" or from "my filters" or "cosmetic filters" ?
When opening with the logger, only 1 option is possible : create a static filter, not a dynamic filter.
Yes, uMatrix was nice extension indeed. I've still using on my old browser.

Dynamic allow/block rules override static filtering rules -> Dynamic filtering: precedence By default dynamic rules only have NOOP (grey) and BLOCK (red). NOOP (no operation) means that you can ignore (disable) dynamic block rules (usually to override a generic dynamic medium mode or hard mode block rule for a specific website). You can do that from the popup-panel of uBO, so there is no need to have this option in the logger.

The rules (static block rules and cosmetic hide rules) of the block lists in Filter Lists are merged with the rules you define in My Filters (so there is no precedence). When uBO takes a selfie it optimizes rules (e.g. when you have a block rule of website.* and website.nl the website.nl rule is dropped in the optimized b-tree. When you specify a more generic rule (e.g. ||website.com ) in MyFilters then this seems to overrule two rules out of two different blocklists (e.g. ||website.com/*/ads.js$script and ||website.com/trackingyou$xhr), but in fact the two more detailed rules are dropped, because the one rule you defined in My Filters is more generic.

For static rules an allow (@@) overrides a block (||) adding an $important to a block rule does override the allow rule. Because cosmetic rules hide stuff and don't block stuff, these cosmetic rules are applied after the block rules. My guess is that useless hiding rules (for stuff already blocked) are also dropped when uB0 optimized the rule sets (takes a selfie).

 

[Jan Willy]

By default dynamic rules only have NOOP (grey) and BLOCK (red). NOOP (no operation) means that you can ignore (disable) dynamic block rules (usually to override a generic dynamic medium mode or hard mode block rule for a specific website). You can do that from the popup-panel of uBO, so there is no need to have this option in the logger.

You've explained it very clear, well done. A small addition: the logger offers the option to create a so called dynamic URL rule. View:

Overview of uBlock's network filtering engine: details

uBlock Origin - An efficient blocker for Chromium and Firefox. Fast and lean. - gorhill/uBlock

github.com

Dynamic URL filtering

uBlock Origin - An efficient blocker for Chromium and Firefox. Fast and lean. - gorhill/uBlock

github.com

A real world example from the log:

The details-window on the right side opens when you click on the in this case relevant dynamic blocking rule **3p-script block (the first one). There you see the well-known colored boxes from the dynamic filtering rules. In this example I've chosen to 'noop' the third party. The noop-rule is as follows:
www.futura-sciences.com https://assets.poool.fr/audit.min.js script noop

Now the log shows following details:

In this way you can make very precise choices.

Edit: later I saw that Zappathustra did the same in an earlier post. All credits to him. But I hope I could clarify it a bit further.

 

[ForgottenSeer 97327]

@Jan Willy uBO-master

I had not noticed this. This is good news, the new TO and FROM in static rules and combines nicely with this detailed level of dynamic rules (URL in stead of domain or tld)

MV3 has dynamic (the 5000 rules tops) and static rules (imported from blocklists), is this how current uBO functionality is mapped to MV3?

 

[wat0114]

Seems like a lot of filters, no

 

[oldschool]

Seems like a lot of filters, no

View attachment 275326
View attachment 275327

Why the phishing and malware filters when you could use another extension for those? WDFP, Emsisoft, G Safe Browsing, etc. are more effective than filter lists.

 

[Trident]

Why the phishing and malware filters when you could use another extension for those? WDFP, Emsisoft, G Safe Browsing, etc. are more effective than filter lists.

You can’t expect too much from community-driven feeds when it comes to these extremely dynamic websites. Some of them come and go in 15 minutes (that’s the shortest-lived phishing page). In general, security is the job of professionals and professionally-designed systems. Not the community’s job.

Now to the subject. When using uBO, I maintain a very vanilla and down to business configuration and use only the default filters which are only enabled. I like my browsing smooth and not too impactful.

 

[wat0114]

Why the phishing and malware filters when you could use another extension for those? WDFP, Emsisoft, G Safe Browsing, etc. are more effective than filter lists.

I don't want to use more than one extension. Also, i'm not overly concerned about phishing and malware threats in the first place. I just enable the filters because they're available. I'm using Librewolf browser enforced with Apparmor in Linux OS.

 

[Jan Willy]

Filterlists in uBO (Firefox ESR with strict tracking protection).
Networkfilters: 24.665 (my filters: 5)
Cosmetic filters: 8797

- AdGuard URL Tracking Protection

https://filters.adtidy.org/extension/ublock/filters/3.txt

- Adguard Dutch filter

https://filters.adtidy.org/extension/ublock/filters/8.txt

- Block advertisements on Youtube.com

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LennyFox/Blocklists/master/videos.txt

- EasyList (minified)

https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylist-minified.txt

- EasyPrivacy (minified)

https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easyprivacy-minified.txt

- LennyFox uBlockOrigin medium mode blocklist

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LennyFox/Blocklists/master/uBO_medium_mode_filter

Further:
- Easy Medium Mode (noop rules for regular TLD's)
- NextDNS with Peter Lowe's filterlist, blocking Samsumg and Windows tracking and all security options.