AB-Solution 1.0 release

[thelonelycoder]

@matthew_eli I have no hardware to test it on, other than the two ASUS routers in my signature and an old Linksys E1500 that has no USB Port.
The road map of AB-Solution does not include privoxy atm.

And really, there is no documentation for AB-Solution either... It will come with v1.1

 

[Authority]

OK I have two questions...

1) It SAYS it's on. Can you suggest a test page? I Googled a few test pages, and I still saw ads... but that might be because I picked the standard list?

2) If I want to update or check the status... what should I do? Open a terminal, telnet into my router, cd /tmp/mnt/USB/adblocking?

Oh and thank you for taking the time to create this and provide amazing support here!

 

[matthew_eli]

@matthew_eli I have no hardware to test it on, other than the two ASUS routers in my signature and an old Linksys E1500 that has no USB Port.
The road map of AB-Solution does not include privoxy atm.

And really, there is no documentation for AB-Solution either... It will come with v1.1

But you could have DD-WRT in one of your ASUS router; check here for RT-AC66U for example:

ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/2016/02-19-2016-r29134/asus-rt-ac66u/

Obviously I don't want to force you; I can help with a small donation if you want

 

[dsring]

Sure. Go ahead.

Another question....Will it run on Asus firmware or is the Merlin version required? Thanks.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Will it run on Asus firmware or is the Merlin version required?

Merlin only, because of the ability to run custom scripts.

 

[thelonelycoder]

But you could have DD-WRT in one of your ASUS router;

I know that, that's why I mentioned them. But your router might use other paths or needs other commands to run scripts.
Anyway, ATM I'm concentrating on Asuswrt-Merlin only until I have reached my goals for AB-Solution on this platform.
Then I might think about what good can be done for others.

 

[thelonelycoder]

OK I have two questions...

1) It SAYS it's on. Can you suggest a test page? I Googled a few test pages, and I still saw ads... but that might be because I picked the standard list?

2) If I want to update or check the status... what should I do? Open a terminal, telnet into my router, cd /tmp/mnt/USB/adblocking?

Oh and thank you for taking the time to create this and provide amazing support here!

If it says on it might well be on...
Seriously, make sure you read the first post concerning the OS and Browser cache.

If you want to update or check the status you run the script just as you did when you installed it, using ssh. It'll find the installation and present the control center right away.

 

[Benesch Csaba]

For me still not working on the latest hgg firmware with optware-ng. Router was rebooted after the install. The router is ac87u


Az én iPhone készülékemről küldve a Tapatalk segítségével

 

[elradix]

installed and running successfully on R7000 running xwrt

 

[Authority]

If it says on it might well be on...
Seriously, make sure you read the first post concerning the OS and Browser cache.

If you want to update or check the status you run the script just as you did when you installed it, using ssh. It'll find the installation and present the control center right away.

Well, I don't think my browser cache would be an issue, because I normally run a browser based blocker anyway and never see ads. So after installing... I turned the browser blocker off but I see ads?

Maybe I'm not understanding how the browser blocker works?

 

[thelonelycoder]

Well, I don't think my browser cache would be an issue, because I normally run a browser based blocker anyway and never see ads. So after installing... I turned the browser blocker off but I see ads?

Maybe I'm not understanding how the browser blocker works?

Even if you have had a browser based blocker installed, clearing the cache AND your OS's DNS cache (Windows ipconfig/flushdns) is important.

AB-Solution is not a browser blocker. It blocks ads (and malicious sites) LAN wide. On all connected devices, apps and what have you.

What is the install log saying at the end of the file (found in the adblocking/logs directory on your Stick)?
- Looking good, no problems found.
or
- Errors found. Please copy this final check's output and post it to the AB-Solution forum thread

To check if ads are blocked and the adblocker is working enable logging and then type f and hit Enter to follow the log.
Then browse websites with ads and look at the log stream. If it lists entries ending with 0.0.0.0 then the adblocker works.

 

[elorimer]

I've been using the advanced method on an N66 and decided to try this today. Went fine, but I have two suggestions:

1. The cron job set up to update every Sunday at 2am. The syslog started generating messages about a crond client parse error at 7. While I thought Sunday could be either 0 or 7, the cru line in the script seems to choke on 7. I changed it to 0 and the error went away. I don't know if the cron job would have run.

2. The script located my setup fine and removed it. Can I suggest, though, that if possible a blacklist.txt file or whitelist.txt file if found be renamed to .old rather than deleted? It took me a bit to recreate what I had there.

 

[kegonzal]

Looks like it should be working for me.. got the "Ads be gone now!" Added, for example, winscp.net to the blacklist, updated and still can hit the page. Also, ads are still visible everywhere. Rebooted, cleaned all cache, flushed DNS and behavior remains. Any thoughts or direction would be appreciated.

 

[elorimer]

Looks like it should be working for me.. got the "Ads be gone now!" Added, for example, winscp.net to the blacklist, updated and still can hit the page. Also, ads are still visible everywhere. Rebooted, cleaned all cache, flushed DNS and behavior remains. Any thoughts or direction would be appreciated.

Do you have a DNS Server set under Lan|DHCP?

tlc: Maybe the script could check for a null value and warn for that? That's another area people have had problems.

 

[kegonzal]

Do you have a DNS Server set under Lan|DHCP?

tlc: Maybe the script could check for a null value and warn for that? That's another area people have had problems.

Tried with and without DNS specified.

 

[thelonelycoder]

For me still not working on the latest hgg firmware with optware-ng. Router was rebooted after the install. The router is ac87u

I am still looking for the root cause of that. I have been working on improvements in the interface lately.
I should really concentrate on finding out why it's not working for others. Coding is more fun than finding causes of AB-Solution not to work.
I have now dedicated time to do it.

 

[thelonelycoder]

1. The cron job set up to update every Sunday at 2am. The syslog started generating messages about a crond client parse error at 7. While I thought Sunday could be either 0 or 7, the cru line in the script seems to choke on 7. I changed it to 0 and the error went away. I don't know if the cron job would have run.

Thats interesting, the dayOfWeek=`date +\%u` outputs a single number, like 2 for Tuesday and 7 for Sunday, with 1 being Monday. That should work for all language settings. I'll look into it, thanks.

2. The script located my setup fine and removed it. Can I suggest, though, that if possible a blacklist.txt file or whitelist.txt file if found be renamed to .old rather than deleted? It took me a bit to recreate what I had there.

That's a good idea and frankly have not thought of it as I have no idea where the manual installation files are stored. But it's an easy way to find them during install and append these to the new b/w lists. It's on my todo list now. Thanks for bringing that up.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Tried with and without DNS specified.

Checking the LAN DNS is the first checks being done during install. It checks these settings: lan_dns_fwd_local, dhcp_dns1_x and dhcp_dns2_x. So I can safely say that is not your problem.
But your PC might have set another DNS server. On Windows you'd open a command Prompt: (Windows key + r) then type cmd and hit Enter. Type ipconfig/all and hit Enter.
Then the interesting part is the DNS Server. It should have the IP of your router, and so should the Default Gateway and DHCP Server.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Looks like it should be working for me.. got the "Ads be gone now!" Added, for example, winscp.net to the blacklist, updated and still can hit the page. Also, ads are still visible everywhere. Rebooted, cleaned all cache, flushed DNS and behavior remains. Any thoughts or direction would be appreciated.

Enable logging and then type f and hit Enter. It follows the logfile. Then browse the web on sites with a lot of ads. The logfile will have a lot of entries going by that end with 0.0.0.0. Those are successfully blocked requests.
Look at my answer to @kegonzal for more help.

 

[Savell Martin]

Hey TLC,

Is there any way to whitelist all the Google search results that pop up the first 3 results which are paid for?
I've tried removing a few Google links from the blacklist and added them to whitelist but its not working, or not going through them all as I think there are quite a few or a few different ones.

Is this information available anywhere that I could just add them all to whitelist?