ClustrMaps Policy

Discussion of EasyList subscription policy
Locked
Michael
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 4124
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2009 8:08 pm

ClustrMaps Policy

Post by Michael »

I was recently looking through the forums and was reminded of the issues with the filter ||clustrmaps.com^$third-party, which have previously been discussed at http://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?t=4476 and http://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?t=4745. The issue originates from the code that is embedded in pages that use the service:

Code: Select all

<a href="http://www3.clustrmaps.com/counter/maps.php?url=[site name]" id="clustrMapsLink"><img src="http://www3.clustrmaps.com/counter/index2.php?url=[site name]" style="border:0px;" alt="Locations of visitors to this page" title="Locations of visitors to this page" id="clustrMapsImg" onError="this.onError=null; this.src='http://www2.clustrmaps.com/images/clustrmaps-back-soon.jpg'; document.getElementById('clustrMapsLink').href='http://www2.clustrmaps.com'" />
This essentially means that the page will attempt to load the tracker and, if it fails, will repeatedly attempt to load http://www2.clustrmaps.com/images/clust ... k-soon.jpg until the request is successful. The obvious flaw is that Adblock Plus will always refuse such connections and that the page will therefore perpetually attempt to retrieve the image, resulting in excessive CPU usage. An example of a domain where this issue arises is http://notalwaysright.com/.

The current policy is that EasyList and EasyPrivacy only include whitelists when websites would be unusable without such filters, a situation that appears to have arisen in this instance. I would therefore propose the addition of @@||clustrmaps.com/images/clustrmaps-back-soon.jpg$image,third-party to the subscription, which will not only resolve the issue, but does not appear to result in any tracking being protected; the actual counter, http://www3.clustrmaps.com/counter/index2.php?url=[site name], will still be blocked by the current filters.
User avatar
fanboy
EasyList Author
EasyList Author
Posts: 12220
Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2007 8:17 pm

Post by fanboy »

Personally I haven't touched the clustrmaps stuff, too many issues, little gain.
User avatar
Erunno
Emeritus Contributor
Emeritus Contributor
Posts: 1866
Joined: Fri Dec 05, 2008 5:21 pm

Post by Erunno »

I'm fine with an escalation approach. Let's try your whitelist first and see how it works. If the problems should persist I opt removing the filter altogether as I consider abnormal CPU usage a serious bug caused by EasyList.
Zombie Contributor
Michael
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 4124
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2009 8:08 pm

Post by Michael »

Added (https://hg.adblockplus.org/easylist/rev/95361b2675a7)

Code: Select all

@@||clustrmaps.com/images/clustrmaps-back-soon.jpg$image,third-party
Wladimir Palant
Adblock Plus Author
Adblock Plus Author
Posts: 444
Joined: Thu Mar 09, 2006 1:01 pm
Location: Cologne, Germany

Post by Wladimir Palant »

Note that this issue has been reported to Clustrmaps in May 2008 and fixed back then (https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2380). However, since that particular piece of code is copied into page source it needs to be updated for each website. Some sites still didn't bother apparently.
Locked