[Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Hi everyone.

I'm proud to announce adflashblock-css's release to extras-devel. A lot of people have used my last package, Adblock Plus, and some have had very mixed results due to the way microb works with extensions. I decided to go another route and to provide ad blocking through CSS which should be a lot less... random.

I also added a form of flashblock, also done through CSS. When a flash animation is loaded on a page, it will be replaced with a grey square telling you that it's flash and if you click, the flash animation will be loaded and played.

The installation will take effect after you close all open browser windows.

Enjoy, I hope.

EDIT: Just promoted to extras-testing. Give it a shot.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Nice to hear sth. new from the adblock frontier. I was one of the unsuccessful installers of adblock plus and appreciate a new adblock development.
Does addflashblock also work with the same blocking lists as adblock or do its list still need to be written?
Do you think it is quite save to try it now for normal use or would you suggest use only for programmers?

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

It doesn't use any adblock blocking lists at all, so it's probably not as comprehensive as it could be, but at least it should work for one and all without any issues. At a later date, I might add host-based blocking to this package as well.

It's perfectly safe for anyone to use.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

ok, and how do I block ads? you explained how it works with flash content, e.g. you have to allow the flash to run manually (assume it remembers the selection). But how to block google-ads (text based) and images?

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Just install the package and those should all pretty much go away.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

I installed it and it blocks flash on youtube and when I click it, it plays.

But when I visit www.spon.de nothing is blocked and this site is overloladed with ads. Do you see what I mean? Can you add functionality to manually block those ads?

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

You can edit the userContent.css file yourself to block those. You can find it at /home/user/.mozilla/microb/chrome/userContent.css. Once you find some formulas that block them, send them over to me and I'll add it in an update for the package.

Also, if/when I get around to adding hosts-based blocking on top of the CSS, it should be a lot better.

I'll be putting out another update tonight that incorporates a lot more rules into the CSS file which should block a lot more ads. Hopefully enough to not need hosts-based blocking... I just hope it's not too much and microb starts slowing down.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Does adflashblock-css prevent ads from loading (thus saving your monthly bandwidth) or does just not display them?

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

I believe flash isn't downloaded until you click on the video to unblock it. As for the rest, CSS is just hiding them.. though when I get around to adding hosts-based blocking to this as well, it should keep most ads from being downloaded at all.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

So has anyone else out there tried it? Is it working for you? Ideas?

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

is working good for flash content, however many ads still showing up, an "block" option over the ads would be nice like "adblock plus", thanks BTW
:D

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Works quite well. It even blocks the pandora player :)

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Works well :)

Mine shows only text, no play button or so, but that's ok.

That's why iPhone will always win: iPhone already has a flashblock, you don`t need to install it :rolleyes:

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

I'll be adding many more filters in an update probably tonight. Along with hosts blocking, most ads should die a horrible death. :)

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Muhahhahahaha *lightning/thunder* wuhahahaha

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

You know what? I planned on updating when I got home from work tonight, but I realized that I've got an N900 in my hands... and what a nice powerful piece of equipment it is. I just made the (quite major) update on my lunch break and uploaded to the autobuilder a few minutes ago, all done on my N900. :)

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

At least the flash click to play works :) Didn't notice the rest.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

I was using a combination with hosts blocking, but with this update I disabled my hosts blocking and it sure is doing a good job... kills off ads everywhere I've been so far. Check out a site like pwtorch.com which has a ton of ads all over it for comparison.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Working very well, has blocked pretty much every add/flash I have come across so far.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

the ads on www.spon.de are blocked now too, but the header is gone also :(

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Can you get me a screenshot? It looks perfect here.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

here it is: http://flickr.com/gp/47243093@N05/B7Z4nj

you have to wait until the page is fully loaded, then the read header disappears and you get what you see on the screenshot.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

I think I've got a fix for it in the upcoming version, 1.0.0-4. Give it a shot when it's ready in a few minutes and let me know how it goes.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

I definitely will, but it would be nice if you could announce a new release here when it is in extras-devel, because I activate it only temporarily for downloading your program.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Well, I've announced it when I put it into the autobuilder and it came out the other side. Should be less than an hour after I post at most.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

I've just promoted adflashblock-css to Extras-Testing. Let me know what you think if you try it out... and if you see anything that looks wrong like a false positive or an ad that slipped through, let me know and I'll try to get it killed.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

it is very noce tool , so thank you
it has blocked very good , just perfect for some x-rated contend =)))
but ... on youtube i haven´t seen that thing, i must click on , so it turnes it on ... how can i disable it for some sites ???
it would be realy nice if i could manage some rules , so some sites will nior be blocked ... =)))

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

zerojay, thanks for your hard work on this project!

Forgive me for asking what may be a stupid question, but what will adflashblock-css do that is different than periodically updating my /etc/hosts file with localhost data from here? (other than the obvious that modifying the /etc/hosts files is not for a UNIX neophyte.)

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

It doesn't really do anything for you except flashblock then. It's meant to be more for people who don't want to deal with setting that up. I was planning on integrating it as well, but at this point, it's working so well alone that I don't even need it.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Give me sites you would like to see whitelisted aside from youtube... either here or if they are of a... ahem... personal nature, send me a PM with the links and I'll see what I can do.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

em i just reinstalled it , and now on youtube i see the field, so i can turn on youtube videos now.
but i wiold be realy nice if youtube would be on the white list.
youtube.com
veoh.com
animefreak.tv
schuelervz.net
vimeo.com
dropbox.com
chilloutzone.to


the, em x rated sites , i just tested worked nice , too . By the way there is so many advertisments , that are blocked. Thats a nice sing. And the videos i cant turn on manualy , thats ok.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

I think it ate some non-ad pictures for me on the forums here, using the "Classic Light" skin.

The circled image below seems to have disappeared on my N900. I can post a N900 screenshot later, if needed.

I'm using 1.0.0-4 right now.

-jkq

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

ZJ, I have been using a custom UserContent.css file for sometime now and get most of my ad block content from Floppy Moose
I have also added many mods for text & image size for some of my more frequently visited sites. I was going to produce a tutorial for others to follow that would have had to include root privileges, directory creation, and file editing instructions... not a small task. :eek:

Am I right in my understanding that your package automagically creates a "chrome" directory and UserContent.css file?

If so, would it be difficult to add access to the css file so that other mods can be added to that file?

Perhaps something similar to what HideUserAgent does...

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

The userContent.css file included in my package is based upon someone's edited version which ads a TON more things to the block list. I can't remember the name off the top of my head, but basically that version was based on the original at floopy moose anyways. I've also added a few custom ones.

Yes, it creates the chrome directory in the right place and installs the file. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from adding whatever you want to it after the install. If there's any other mods you wanna add to it, let me know because they might be useful for everyone (much like the flashblock I added already).

You can base your tutorial idea upon my package if you'd like... and maybe make mods available as add-ons for my original package. I haven't checked into HideUserAgent.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Probably being blocked because of their size. I'll see what I can do to add a fliter for maemo.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Then it should install over my existing chrome directory and css file without pronlems then; or should I remove them first?

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Actually, test it out and let me know if it works without removing your own first.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

This is very nice, but for the times that it blocks unnecessary content, it would be nice to have "show all blocked content on this page" option somewhere. Not sure if it's easily done though.

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Why would your filter automatically block icon-size images? No ads are icon-size, are they?

Re: [Announce] adflashblock-css
 

Thanks for this! I could swear most websites are like 30% snappier now (and in fact the entire N900). I am thinking maybe flash is left on in the background, taking resources, even if I don't have a flash-enabled site open at a specific moment, because it feels like the entire experience is much snappier. I don't care so much about removing ads, but making Flash selectable on a per-swf-basis is absolute gold.

I realize this might be a placebo-effect, but everything has been good since I installed this filter. My battery even lasted a log longer. It might also be because almost every site I visit has some flash ad somewhere... I mostly read news on the N900 and what news site doesn't have flash banners these days?

What I'm not immediately clear about is how this works. How can you, using only css, "sniff" out swf:s that are included with swfobject.js, which is the "correct" way to include flash on websites these days? I guess I could just look at the app itself, but I haven't had the time.