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Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 9:59 pm
by Michael
In accordance with this topic I have started to compile a list of filters that are simply unsuitable for EasyList or EasyPrivacy as they cause too many false positives. A post with this content will later be set as a sticky in the public forums. Thus far I have collected the following filters:

Code: Select all

/cmdatatagutils.js
/coremetrics
/eluminate.js
/foresee/foresee
google-analytics.com
google.com/jsapi
/ga.js
/hbx.js
/oas_
/omniture
/s_code
/h_code
/__utm.js
/urchin.js
/webtrends
In addition, adult websites are not explicitly dealt with in EasyList or EasyPrivacy. If you wish to block adverts on such sites, try Fanboy's Adult/Dating subscription.


If anyone has more submissions I would be grateful for any suggestions. I will update this post as appropriate.

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 10:11 pm
by MonztA
Anyone knows if google-analytics.com/siteopt.js (e.g.) also breaks sites?

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 1:40 pm
by Michael
I've just added

Code: Select all

google.com/jsapi
from here

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 1:55 pm
by Erunno
There are still two filters which contain the webtrends substring and some which could be related to webtrends (e.g. /analytics/wt.js). Are these oversights or were they left in EP on purpose?

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 2:21 pm
by Michael
Presumably there have been no false positives reported as a result of those filters, and therefore they remain. It is only intended that this list will act as a notice advising that we do not want any more scripts in that category.

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:21 am
by Michael
Update: I've just added a note about adult websites.

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:39 pm
by Ares2
google.com/jsapi
probably isn't tracking at all, so I don't think it belongs to that list. Also I only found foresee here: http://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?t=4685 but as the topic is yet unanswered, I don't know how this one got into the list.

Here's the sticky: http://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?t=5222

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 11:02 pm
by Michael
At a guess, foresee was probably just one of several filters I dumped in the topic because they were in my personal filters, although I am sure that I saw something about it negatively impacting on one website.

I included google.com/jsapi just for the sake of completion as I understood the task was simply listing filters that would not be suitable regardless of the subject matter.

Finally, I don't know how I forgot to mention that EasyList is for English languages websites only. Talk about missing the obvious...

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 11:03 pm
by Erunno
For google-analytics, there is a way to block it and still don't break any site, see https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic ... 886#p27886
Actually, even with the GM script image upload on http://imageshack.us/ does not work as long as GA is blocked.

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 11:49 pm
by Ares2
Erunno wrote:Actually, even with the GM script image upload on http://imageshack.us/ does not work as long as GA is blocked.
Hmm, confirmed.

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onclick="pageTracker._trackEvent('home-click','old-homepage-click-upload-btn'); uploadstart();"
I guess our script has to be modified so to "work with" _trackEvent too, but I have NO idea how to do that. ;-)

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:06 pm
by Erunno
I'd like to propose the following addition to the sticky:
About Google Analytics and the other unblocked scripts:

Google Analytics (from here on abbreviated as GA) is likely the most used tracking software on the Internet right now and the lack of a filter for blocking the google-analytics.com domain has caused some concern among users of EasyPrivacy in the past. To understand what impact the decision to refrain from blocking GA directly has on Internet privacy, the following circumstances have to be taken into account:

1.) GA does not track you across domains. Each site creates a different unique ID to recognize your Firefox installation.
2.) GA uses first party cookies for tracking. Since all major browsers forbid that domain "foo" has access to cookies from domain "bar" for security reasons GA has to use a trick to transmit the information stored in the cookies of domain "foo" to google-analytics.com for further processing. The Google-provided script on domain "foo" tries to load a small image (called __utm.gif) from Google servers and attaches all relevant information (your user ID, session ID, etc.) as parameters to the image (the part after the '?' character).

EasyPrivacy does block __utm.gif and therefore also the information that is transmitted alongside it. Your browser may store GA cookies but without the possibility to load __utm.gif your presence is still hidden from GA.

The other unblocked scripts are also "first party" tracking scripts. They are able to monitor your activity on domain "foo" but not on domain "bar". The privacy leak therefore is manageable.
Any additions? Corrections? I've read that it *is* possible to track someone across domains with GA with some kind of cross authentication but I left out on purpose as this is not a problem on the same scale as, for instance, being tracked by DoubleClick across the Internet which does not require any kind special provisions.

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:17 pm
by Michael
Looks good Erunno; I'm sure that it will help many people understand our stand on Google Analytics. My only minor suggestion would be to put the names of filters in bold to differentiate them from the rest of the text.

[EDIT]
Also, there's a space missing:
Erunno wrote:They areable to monitor...

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:41 pm
by Erunno
Michael wrote:filters in bold
What filters? The subscription name (i.e. EasyPrivacy)? __utm.gif and google-analytics.com?

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:48 pm
by Michael
I'd definitely recommend __utm.gif and I'd probably leave it at that. It's all really about personal style, but looking at the forums it seems that filters are generally indicated as being separate from any surrounding text. In this instance, bold text appears to be the most obvious answer.

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 2:33 pm
by Erunno
It's not really a filter but I'm okay with whatever makes the text more legible.

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 7:51 pm
by Erunno
Since nobody objected I expended the sticky with my addendum.

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 1:35 pm
by Khrin
http://www.sonymasterworks.com/

I suppose that for /ga/js should be applied the same rule for /ga.js, right?

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 4:49 pm
by Michael
I would certainly advise against the filtering of the item.

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2011 3:28 pm
by Khrin
I suppose that shouldn't be a good idea to block also /ga.php?, right? (Although I haven't done any test for now...)
http://english.aljazeera.net/mobile/200 ... 86854.html

Re: Filters Unsuitable For EasyList Or EasyPrivacy

Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2011 3:41 pm
by MonztA
In this case it's just an imge. I don't think blocking it would cause issues. I would suggest to add /googleanalytics/ga.php?$image to the general EP list.