AB-Solution - The Ad Blocking Solution

[skeal]

Using Firefox?
Options --> Privacy & Security. Set Tracking protection to either only in Private mode or to never.
Clear OS and browser cache after.

Or maybe you are using DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials? Then set it to off or, well, there's no OR available.

No not using Firefox however I am using chrome on Ubuntu. The only blocking I have is ABS nothing else now. Medium protection with + enabled. Using V2 pixelserve.

 

[thelonelycoder]

No not using Firefox however I am using chrome on Ubuntu. The only blocking I have is ABS nothing else now. Medium protection with + enabled. Using V2 pixelserve.

The ones that are default-white-listed in AB are getting through here. That's Amazon above the threads and sidebar and local content in the sidebar.

 

[skeal]

The ones that are default-white-listed in AB are getting through here. That's Amazon above the threads and sidebar and local content in the sidebar.

That explains everything I'm seeing!! Excellent man great help!

 

[XIII]

Pixelserv-tls fails gracefully with https requests without a certificate, so it doesn't really matter.

Finally had some time for additional experiments.

On iOS it does not seem to fail gracefully as their appears a pop-up for every HTTPS request captured by pixselserv?

I don’t mind putting the root certificate on all my iOS devices, but some of my guests are not technical enough to do the same.

What can I do to work around this?

 

[apokrif]

In firefox try the following:

Skip Redirect by Sebastian Blask
Some web pages use intermediary pages before redirecting to a final page.
This add-on tries to extract the final url from the intermediary url and goes there straight away if successful.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/skip-redirect/

For example the following link goes to www.mozilla.org using this addon.
www.google.com/chrome/?i-would-rather-use-firefox=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mozilla.org/

There are other similar addons for Firefox & Chrome YMMV

Twiglets,
Thank a lot - it's exactly what I was looking for!

 

[elorimer]

On iOS it does not seem to fail gracefully as their appears a pop-up for every HTTPS request captured by pixselserv?

Hmm. We only have one iOS device active, so I dug out an iPod Touch that hasn't been used in a while, so I hadn't ever imported a cert. iOS 6.1.6 it is, don't know how old this is. I went to several ad-heavy sites, and it didn't generate popups.

 

[XIII]

Hmm. We only have one iOS device active, so I dug out an iPod Touch that hasn't been used in a while, so I hadn't ever imported a cert. iOS 6.1.6 it is, don't know how old this is. I went to several ad-heavy sites, and it didn't generate popups.

I’m using iOS 11.2.2; it might be a security feature not present in iOS 6?

 

[thelonelycoder]

I’m using iOS 11.2.2; it might be a security feature not present in iOS 6?

Can't test it ATM for lack of time and I run beta releases on my apples.
Just to be sure, do the cert warnings also happen for non-guests devices and for what domain?
Teach them not to click on affiliate links, they usually have a redirect that results in such errors...

 

[shooter40sw]

Hi, does anybody know about a list that can help block the latest cryptocurrency attacks through web browsers, and that we can use them in the ab-solution ?
Some sites are recommending to install ad blockers...
Im using my list of course shooter40sw
Thanks

 

[Protik]

Today in my router stats, stat for only device was reported.

 Top 10 domains for top 10 clients:
 --------------------------------------------------------

 192.168.2.77, ProtixPC:
 --------------------------------------------------------
 19739  cdn-gl.imrworldwide.com
 13301  RT-AC68U-DF28.edu
 5985   RT-AC68U-DF28.edu2
 5118   RT-AC68U-DF28.local
 4993   router.asus.com
 1372   www.com
 1089   wpad.edu
 922    ccg.lenovo.com
 676    www.washingtonpost.com
 649    quora-prod-tch-vpc-1136165707.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com

 192.168.2.72, TV:
 --------------------------------------------------------

 192.168.2.31, RPi*:
 --------------------------------------------------------

 192.168.2.200, iPhone*:
 --------------------------------------------------------

 192.168.2.133, G5-plus*:
 --------------------------------------------------------

It seems like Ab-Solution ran out of memory while compiling the stats.

 

[seattle]

I have two routers in my house. The main one is ASUS AC-66U (192.168.1.1), and have another DD-wrt router (192.168.2.1) connect to it. Can I install AB-solution on ASUS and use it to filter certain device, such as 192.168.2.5? How to do it?

Thanks.

 

[XIII]

Can't test it ATM for lack of time and I run beta releases on my apples.
Just to be sure, do the cert warnings also happen for non-guests devices and for what domain?

Sorry, too busy upgrading all my Apple devices today...

Hope to test again later this week.

 

[JJQuin]

Hey lonelycoder your AB-Solution is awesome! Just got it working on my RT-AC86U.

I had a few minor issues but was able to work them out thanks to your VERY through website and Xentrk's Torguard instructions.

Issue #1: I couldn't get the ad-blocker to work on clients going through my two VPNs (PIA & NordVPN). Xentrk's instructions explained how to set the OpenVPN Client's Accept VPN Configuration to Strict instead of Exclusive, that fixed the issue right away. My only concern is, as I understand it, Strict puts your VPN's DNS servers before the DNS setup for the WAN connections; whereas Exclusive puts your VPN's DNS servers as a replacement for the DNS setup for the WAN connections. There is a possibility (though highly unlikely) that the router wouldn't be able to connect to the VPN's DNS servers and use the DNS for the WAN connection while set for Strict and there could be a DNS leak. I'm planning on dropping NordVPN soon and I will set my WAN DNS servers to point to PIA's.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/t...or-asus-merlin-380-65-380-65_2-part-ii.38282/

Issue #2: I had a problem setting up the sendmail feature until I remembered that I had two-factor authentication setup on my email. I just had to create an app password specifically for the router sendmail then it worked great!

It's an incredible amount of work to create, update and maintain a project like this. I suggest anyone using AB-Solution send a donation through www.ab-solution.info. I just did!

Thanks for all your hard work!

 

[JJQuin]

So it turns out that highly unlikely DNS leak is a lot more likely. I had my WAN DNS set to OpenDNS and setup to block porn for my kids. I decided to test like porn.com to see what would happen. Usually when I'm on the vpn it works, but with the OpenVPN DNS configuration set to Strict it actually showed OpenDNS's block page! I'm pretty sure that the DNS request is going through the OpenVPN connection not through the WAN connection though not sure how to test it. I guess I could try a traceroute.

I changed my WAN DNS to PIA's DNS servers and it worked (after a reboot). My NordVPN OpenVPN client is sending the DNS request over to PIA. Not the best solution but I'll be getting rid of NordVPN soon (hopefully ).

Edit: Looks like this is a long standing issue between Asus Merlin and AB-Solution. Forget my questions, I should have looked back through the thread first!

 

[thelonelycoder]

Hi, does anybody know about a list that can help block the latest cryptocurrency attacks through web browsers, and that we can use them in the ab-solution ?
Some sites are recommending to install ad blockers...
Im using my list of course shooter40sw
Thanks

Some are and have been included in for a while in several of the used hosts files. Whichever blocking file type you use the coin-hive.com and more are already blocked.
For a more comprehensive list you could add this actively maintained hosts file to it:
https://github.com/hoshsadiq/adblock-nocoin-list.
Use the raw link to the file:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hoshsadiq/adblock-nocoin-list/master/hosts.txt

I officially inform you that the hosts file type named after you will be gone in AB-Solution 4.0, along with the AdsBeGone! name.
The name disappears but the memory lingers on .
Hosts files are handled differently in AB4, hence names are no longer of significance.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Today in my router stats, stat for only device was reported.

 Top 10 domains for top 10 clients:
 --------------------------------------------------------

 192.168.2.77, ProtixPC:
 --------------------------------------------------------
 19739  cdn-gl.imrworldwide.com
 13301  RT-AC68U-DF28.edu
 5985   RT-AC68U-DF28.edu2
 5118   RT-AC68U-DF28.local
 4993   router.asus.com
 1372   www.com
 1089   wpad.edu
 922    ccg.lenovo.com
 676    www.washingtonpost.com
 649    quora-prod-tch-vpc-1136165707.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com

 192.168.2.72, TV:
 --------------------------------------------------------

 192.168.2.31, RPi*:
 --------------------------------------------------------

 192.168.2.200, iPhone*:
 --------------------------------------------------------

 192.168.2.133, G5-plus*:
 --------------------------------------------------------

It seems like Ab-Solution ran out of memory while compiling the stats.

Hard to say, the stats compiling is not so memory intensive but taxes the processor. It does look like one of the temporary created files got corrupted or was filled in with invalid data. Try to run a manual stats report through the current stats function.
Before that, look at the /tmp/ directory. If you see any file named /tmp/abstats* there, it most certainly quit for an unknown reason.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I have two routers in my house. The main one is ASUS AC-66U (192.168.1.1), and have another DD-wrt router (192.168.2.1) connect to it. Can I install AB-solution on ASUS and use it to filter certain device, such as 192.168.2.5? How to do it?

Thanks.

If your RT-AC66U runs on Asuswrt-Merlin then there is nothing stopping you from installing AB-Solution on it.
Consult the FAQ on how to exclude clients from ad-blocking here:
https://www.ab-solution.info/use/faq.html

 

[thelonelycoder]

Edit: Looks like this is a long standing issue between Asus Merlin and AB-Solution. Forget my questions, I should have looked back through the thread first!

This is a long thread but the search function helps. If that fails use a search engine with relevant words to look for.

Not much I can do in my coding to eliminate this behavior in Dnsmasq AFAIK.

 

[steelskinz]

Hard to say, the stats compiling is not so memory intensive but taxes the processor. It does look like one of the temporary created files got corrupted or was filled in with invalid data. Try to run a manual stats report through the current stats function.
Before that, look at the /tmp/ directory. If you see any file named /tmp/abstats* there, it most certainly quit for an unknown reason.

What file needs to be delete to reset the stats please ? Thanks.

 

[thelonelycoder]

What file needs to be delete to reset the stats please ? Thanks.

The stats are compiled from the dnsmasq.log* files. These (three) log files are reset every week after the stats compilation when the blocking file does its scheduled update. The reset of the dnsmasq log files is triggered by the "cronjob" parameter in the cron queue: /adblocking/addon/update-hosts.add cronjob #AB_UpdateHosts#

The cron jobs can be viewed with cj in AB or cru l at the terminal.
If you must, you could disable logging in AB and then delete all three dnsmasq.log* files in /adblocking/logs/ and then re-enable the logging.
The automatic log rotation at 5:20 every day will take care of creating the .log1 and .log2 files while dnsmasq will create the dnsmasq.log file when logging is re-enabled.