EasyList blocks affiliate tracking links in our add-on

This is where you should report issues arising from the subscription filters.
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dbaldwin
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EasyList blocks affiliate tracking links in our add-on

Post by dbaldwin »

Hi,

I've been working with Wladimir and Fanboy regarding an issue that is causing a lot of problems for our add-on users. I've been discussing this with Fanboy in his forums and didn't realize until now that I should've posted here too. Do you mind reading the following thread and letting us know what you think?? Please let me know if you have any questions and thanks for considering our suggested filter mods.

http://forums.fanboy.co.nz/forums/viewt ... f=8&t=9849
Khrin
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Post by Khrin »

Hi, unfortunately at the moment I can't test you your add-on, so can you tell me if these rules could solve the issue? If I understood correctly all these links are on a frame on priceblink.com.

Code: Select all

@@||pgpartner.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||linksynergy.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||tkqlhce.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||jdoqocy.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||dpbolvw.net^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||anrdoezrs.net^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||kqzyfj.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||shareasale.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||pntrac.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||pntra.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||pntrs.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||cc-dt.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
@@||avantlink.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com
dbaldwin
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Post by dbaldwin »

Yes! These work great and thanks for the tip on how to make the filters more restrictive than the ones I was proposing! How does the process work for getting these pushed out to EasyList? Thank you so much for your help.
Khrin
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Post by Khrin »

Fixed now on EasyList: https://hg.adblockplus.org/easylist/rev/ac34eb98584f
The subscription is automatically updated every 5 days, so in a few days almost every user will see the fix. Anyway, in any moment is possible to force a subscription update through the ABP menu.
dbaldwin
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Post by dbaldwin »

Khrin,

We're continuing to get numerous emails from our users saying this fix isn't working even after we've asked them to manually update their EasyList. Unfortunately, during my testing it was very limited and I didn't test it in the scope of our production add-on. Let me try and explain what I think the problem is and see if you can help us think through the filters.

Initially I proposed filters in the following format:

||dpbolvw.net^$third-party,~subdocument

Then you proposed a variation as an exception filter:

@@||dpbolvw.net^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com

The problem with this exception filter is that the domain will never be priceblink.com. The user will be on newegg, or tigerdirect, or bestbuy, and priceblink.com is injected as an iframe. Therefore the exception never works. We support thousands of retailers so maintaining a huge exception list is probably too cumbersome.

Ideally, if you were to use the filters we originally proposed this would work the way we want it. Is this possible? If so, there are about a dozen modifications we'd like to make to the existing filters to allow our redirects to work in subdocuments. If Mozilla would hurry and fix the bug it would save us all a bit of time and energy.

Let me know how this sounds and I'll post the list of filters.

Thanks.
Ares2
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Post by Ares2 »

How exactly can the problem be reproduced (can also be the steps after installing the addon if no testcase is possible)?

I loaded the test iframe (on a different domain) as you explained in fanboy's forum and the links were displayed and clickable. Are you saying that the iframe address is actually something like pgpartner.com/fooframe.html etc. ?
dbaldwin
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Post by dbaldwin »

Here is a sample video showing what happens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1b6HptCqP0

The two links in this sample video are:

http://staging.priceblink.com/rdr.php?d ... 82183.gc%3

http://staging.priceblink.com/rdr.php?d ... oduct.html

I've also updated our iframe to include these two links so you can inject it and see what happens using the following code in the web console:

var iframe = document.createElement("iframe");
iframe.src = "http://staging.priceblink.com/iframe/iframe_test.html";
document.body.insertBefore(iframe, document.body.firstChild);

In the first link case I was able to freeze frame the video and see the following filter blocks the redirect:

||tkqlhce.com^$third-party

although the following exception is defined:

@@||tkqlhce.com^$subdocument,domain=priceblink.com

I'm assuming the domain doesn't match up because the top level document isn't priceblink.com. Sorry for all the back and forth on this, but we're trying to figure the best way to handle this problem.

Thanks.
Ares2
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Post by Ares2 »

OK, apparently, simply opening the window via javascript seems to work around the Firefox bug (Wladimir told me and I verified it). As your extension already requires Javascript to work, it shouldn't be very problematic to implement, just add something like this to the affiliate links:

Code: Select all

onclick="window.open(this.href, '_blank');return false"
Does that work?
dbaldwin
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Post by dbaldwin »

Thanks for the great tip. This works perfectly! Please tell Wladimir thanks for his help as well.
Ares2
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Post by Ares2 »

Great, marking as fixed then.
dbaldwin wrote:Please tell Wladimir thanks for his help as well.
Done.
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