[Release] AB-Solution 3 - The Ad Blocking Solution

[eclp]

Is it possible in one of the upcoming version to integrate dnscrypt?

 

[thelonelycoder]

Is it possible in one of the upcoming version to integrate dnscrypt?

Do you mean @bigeyes0x0's install script?
No, not at the moment. This is outside the scope of ad-blocking.
bigeyes0x0's install script plays nice with other scripts, and installation is simple.

 

[kolyan]

MiniTool Partition Wizard, the free Edition formats to ext2, 3 or 4.

Thanks, I'll try that again. I thought Free edition didn't work....

EDIT: works now after I reformatted the drive in Windows. Not sure what happened before

 

[kolyan]

Was looking for a long time for something like this to run on Merlin. Easy to install. Thanks.

PS. not against ads really, but sometimes its almost impossible to browse on mobile, pages jump all the time due to ads loading, makes phone slow, some ads are full screen lol. I used to root phone and run adblocker, but not doing that anymore so this solutions works for home WIFI.

 

[visortgw]

Was looking for a long time for something like this to run on Merlin. Easy to install. Thanks.

PS. not against ads really, but sometimes its almost impossible to browse on mobile, pages jump all the time due to ads loading, makes phone slow, some ads are full screen lol. I used to root phone and run adblocker, but not doing that anymore so this solutions works for home WIFI.

It also can work away from home if you connect via VPN and resolve DNS via the router.

 

[kolyan]

It also can work away from home if you connect via VPN and resolve DNS via the router.

Yes I know, I tried OpenVPN. But I am ok with some ads when I am away from home WIFI.

 

[heysoundude]

this may be a silly question from someone definitely lacking knowledge, but now that I've got entware for pixelserv, would there be any benefit to having a proxy server like privoxy or 3proxy running on my router as well?

 

[kvic]

The "magic hook" I referred to is the 'dangling symlink' RMerlin creates in firmware connecting /opt (which is in ROM) to /tmp/opt (in RAM). That's really the key that makes entware work so transparently, and allows the end user to install it anywhere they please. That's the point I was trying to make in the previous posts. You may disagree about using that flexibility, but you can't argue with its elegance.

And one more cool bit of magic that RMerlin complied in, take a look at /etc/profile (which by default is linked to /rom/etc/profile). You'll see there that he's calling /opt/etc/profile (the profile installed by entware). That's how entware packages are able to transparently add to your shell environment as you install them via the 'opkg' command. All that magic with only 2 firmware hooks. That's an impressive design!

I think you put the credit to the wrong hats. They're neither created by RMerlin nor Entware. Before Entware, there is Optware. Guest where 'Opt' in Optware comes from? Your magic hooks are available in stock ASUSWRT too. ASUS provides her version of Optware. People seems pay little attention. Download Manager is installed part of this Optware distribution. Some other (limited number of) packages are available too.

Entware can also be installed into stock ASUSWRT. I recall seeing a howto from the Entware maintainer.

If you want to admire RMerlin, look at the hooks for custom scripts. These are usable hooks and provide additional usability to the stock ASUSWRT. But I won't even call them elegant design...

 

[Diamond67]

A stupid newbie question:

I have AB-Solution 3 installed and it works great!

Now I decided to make a backup copy of the contents of the adblocking folder (from my external Kingston DataTraveler usb connected to router), and entware folder as well, simpy using copy-paste method (dragging) from Windows 10 File Explorer (see attached picture).

I have configured R/W rights for my current Windows 10 User credentials from my Asus RT-AC68U USB Application - Network Place (Samba) Share / Cloud Disk for the Kingston DataTraveler, but I cannot copy dnsmasq.log and email.cfg files from the adblocking folder. Maybe because I should use the Router login Admin Name and password? But I cannot enter those credentials.

Is it even possible to easily make a backup copy of the contents of the external usb disk (containing entware and adblocking folders)?

Spoiler: Picture

 

[visortgw]

A stupid newbie question:

I have AB-Solution 3 installed and it works great!

Now I decided to make a backup copy of the contents of the adblocking folder (from my external Kingston DataTraveler usb connected to router), and entware folder as well, simpy using copy-paste method (dragging) from Windows 10 File Explorer (see attached picture).

I have configured R/W rights for my current Windows 10 User credentials from my Asus RT-AC68U USB Application - Network Place (Samba) Share / Cloud Disk for the Kingston DataTraveler, but I cannot copy dnsmasq.log and email.cfg files from the adblocking folder. Maybe because I should use the Router login Admin Name and password? But I cannot enter those credentials.

Is it even possible to easily make a backup copy of the contents of the external usb disk (containing entware and adblocking folders)?

Spoiler: Picture

View attachment 8301

The better way to backup is to use UNIX copy. Log into the router using ssh, and copy the contents of the USB thumb drive to a second thumb drive (or USB hard drive) -- user, group, and permissions are maintained.

 

[thelonelycoder]

A stupid newbie question:

I have AB-Solution 3 installed and it works great!

Now I decided to make a backup copy of the contents of the adblocking folder (from my external Kingston DataTraveler usb connected to router), and entware folder as well, simpy using copy-paste method (dragging) from Windows 10 File Explorer (see attached picture).

I have configured R/W rights for my current Windows 10 User credentials from my Asus RT-AC68U USB Application - Network Place (Samba) Share / Cloud Disk for the Kingston DataTraveler, but I cannot copy dnsmasq.log and email.cfg files from the adblocking folder. Maybe because I should use the Router login Admin Name and password? But I cannot enter those credentials.

Is it even possible to easily make a backup copy of the contents of the external usb disk (containing entware and adblocking folders)?

Spoiler: Picture

View attachment 8301

The dnsmasq.log file is in use by the process and locked.
The email.cfg file is only accessible by the router admin's account, this is the best I could do to protect it from being read by other processes without sufficient privilege.

 

[thelonelycoder]

this may be a silly question from someone definitely lacking knowledge, but now that I've got entware for pixelserv, would there be any benefit to having a proxy server like privoxy or 3proxy running on my router as well?

You're free to do so, tell us about it if you have it up and running working alongside AB.

 

[tomsk]

The better way to backup is to use UNIX copy. Log into the router using ssh, and copy the contents of the USB thumb drive to a second thumb drive (or USB hard drive) -- user, group, and permissions are maintained.

+1 for this method...i had a USB stick on the fritz, so i duplicated the entire contents across with a recursive copy.

 

[tomsk]

this may be a silly question from someone definitely lacking knowledge, but now that I've got entware for pixelserv, would there be any benefit to having a proxy server like privoxy or 3proxy running on my router as well?

I think @kvic had some experience with privoxy prior to doing his additional work on pixelserv. As i recall, got better ad-blocking results from pixelserv than privoxy. he writes about it a little bit in the pixelserv thread.

 

[heysoundude]

I think @kvic had some experience with privoxy prior to doing his additional work on pixelserv. As i recall, got better ad-blocking results from pixelserv than privoxy. he writes about it a little bit in the pixelserv thread.

I'm gathering in not answering that part of my question, there's no benefit but possibly a whole bunch of troubles.
ok, thanks people.

 

[tomsk]

I'm gathering in not answering that part of my question, there's no benefit but possibly a whole bunch of troubles.
ok, thanks people.

I really don't know enough about privoxy to say if it would be an asset in conjunction with AB or not. Configuring it is enough to scare me away.... I was referring to this post by @kvic
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/pi...ixel-webserver-for-adblock.26114/#post-197650

 

[latenitetech]

I think you put the credit to the wrong hats. They're neither created by RMerlin nor Entware. Before Entware, there is Optware. Guest where 'Opt' in Optware comes from? Your magic hooks are available in stock ASUSWRT too. ASUS provides her version of Optware. People seems pay little attention. Download Manager is installed part of this Optware distribution. Some other (limited number of) packages are available too.

Entware can also be installed into stock ASUSWRT. I recall seeing a howto from the Entware maintainer.

If you want to admire RMerlin, look at the hooks for custom scripts. These are usable hooks and provide additional usability to the stock ASUSWRT. But I won't even call them elegant design...

kvic, thanks for the clarification and history lesson. Being new to this environment, I just assumed it was part of RMerlin's extensions. I was mainly trying to explain how the linkage allowed the entware package to have flexibility in its install location. So hats off to the Asus designers, or by chance does it even go back to AsusWRT's roots in Tomato? Regardless, I still find it elegant.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I really don't know enough about privoxy to say if it would be an asset in conjunction with AB or not. Configuring it is enough to scare me away.... I was referring to this post by @kvic
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/pi...ixel-webserver-for-adblock.26114/#post-197650

Quoting @kvic from this thread:

My Dnsmasq cache size is set to 10k. The idea behind is assume 20 individuals at worst scenario using my network. With each allocated a cache size of 500 and they don't have any lookup in common. Another change made to Dnsmasq is increase min-cache-ttl to 300s after reading this fellow's discovery here.

With all above Dnsmasq consumes about 5MiB ram. Average response time for a non-cached lookup is less than 90ms. Cached lookup is less than 10ms. I love this grown-up kid!

I wonder if increasing the cache size is worth exploring.
Standard size is: cache-size=1500
That's 1500 names, not MB.

 

[thelonelycoder]

They say AB-Solution 3.1 is about to be released. In a day or so.

 

[Diamond67]

They say AB-Solution 3.1 is about to be released. In a day or so.

Will it be a troublefree upgrade from the current version, just using the [cu] check for updates -command?