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

[RASG]

Nice.... i guess its a case of "less is more" for the simplified switches. I've always been an admirer of elegant coding, and as a general rule of thumb..the simpler you can make things, the more robust they are likely to be. its a credit to your skills that AB3 works so well across so many devices and firmware versions.

second that.
big fan of short-circuit evaluation, keeping the code simple, clean and easy to read.

 

[tooandrew]

why is it that none of the router-level ad blocking solutions work for me? i've read the op and done all of the configuration and nothing is blocked. what am i missing? the privoxy option didnt work for me either

 

[TRS_80]

why is it that none of the router-level ad blocking solutions work for me? i've read the op and done all of the configuration and nothing is blocked. what am i missing? the privoxy option didnt work for me either

Did you clean your browser and operating system cache? Privoxy issues are known and being worked on.

 

[tooandrew]

Did you clean your browser and operating system cache?

i cleared my browser cache, i'm unaware of how to clear operating system cache on windows 10.

dev mode output is as follows
appState:5 stage:mh prevSett:1 news:0 nMsg:0
vUpd:0 majVer:3 instVer:3.0 appChk:0
dev:/tmp/mnt/sda1 path:/tmp/mnt/sda1
tmpdev: psInstSt:5 psStateff
entware:1 entStaten entDevice:/tmp/mnt/sda1
entDescr: readlink: /tmp/mnt/sda1/ab-solution.sh

and the pixelserv option installs fine but gives 'pixelserv-tls is not running' error

thanks so much for your help

 

[TRS_80]

i cleared my browser cache, i'm unaware of how to clear operating system cache on windows 10.

dev mode output is as follows
appState:5 stage:mh prevSett:1 news:0 nMsg:0
vUpd:0 majVer:3 instVer:3.0 appChk:0
dev:/tmp/mnt/sda1 path:/tmp/mnt/sda1
tmpdev: psInstSt:5 psStateff
entware:1 entStaten entDevice:/tmp/mnt/sda1
entDescr: readlink: /tmp/mnt/sda1/ab-solution.sh

and the pixelserv option installs fine but gives 'pixelserv-tls is not running' error

thanks so much for your help

The only differnce with your output and mine is sda#, I'm using sda6. Mine is running perfectly. As mentioned "pixelserv-tsl is not running" is being worked on for the next update. To clear my system cache I just run something like WiseCare365 ( system cleaner/optimizer), I'm sure windows 10 has a similar program, but to be honest, I've never looked for it. You have rebooted the router I assume as well.

~ETA~ You have loaded a host file list in the GUI, i.e. shooter40sw?

 

[tooandrew]

The only differnce with your output and mine is sda#, I'm using sda6. Mine is running perfectly. As mentioned "pixelserv-tsl is not running" is being worked on for the next update. To clear my system cache I just run something like WiseCare365 ( system cleaner/optimizer), I'm sure windows 10 has a similar program, but to be honest, I've never looked for it. You have rebooted the router I assume as well.

~ETA~ You have loaded a host file list in the GUI, i.e. shooter40sw?

yes, shooter40sw is listed. it claims to have blocked ads, but i'm seeing them all over still. will you check if the ads at speedtest.net still display for you?

also thanks, i found the pixelserv solution in the thread, modifying the config made it show green but the script reports an error

 

[sfx2000]

Hi folks. I'm just curious. How many of you running this block ads on SNBForums and SmallNetBuilder?

From a DNS based solution (just something I'm trying out)... but this is only being tested on a couple of devices inside my network...

But this, like other solutions whitelists the domain, but doesn't necessarily whitelist the ad-providers - and here it does become a challenge, as one might whitelist providers that support SNB sites, but that would open up things for those ad providers on other sites.

People have different reasons for implementing an ad-blocking kind of solution - for some it's privacy, for others, it's a security aspect, and some have bandwidth caps that unwanted content blocked is bandwidth saved...

It's a tough nut - that's for certain...

 

[TRS_80]

yes, shooter40sw is listed. it claims to have blocked ads, but i'm seeing them all over still. will you check if the ads at speedtest.net still display for you?

I get an Ad-Blocker Detected warning. Type "disk" into windows search and run disk cleanup. This should clean necessary temp/cache files.

 

[tooandrew]

I get an Ad-Blocker Detected warning. Type "disk" into windows search and run disk cleanup. This should clean necessary temp/cache files.

i ran disk cleanup as well as ccleaner. could it be a factor that this router is only for my subnet? i've got all of my devices on a different subnet than the rest of the house for local bandwidth reasons. did i misunderstand and the browser addons are mandatory, or? I really appreciate your assistance.

 

[TRS_80]

i ran disk cleanup as well as ccleaner. could it be a factor that this router is only for my subnet? i've got all of my devices on a different subnet than the rest of the house for local bandwidth reasons. did i misunderstand and the browser addons are mandatory, or? I really appreciate your assistance.

I'm not a routing expert, but yes, I'd say that its your problem, it should be running on your main WAN router as I understand. Browser addons aren't needed for your PC. I'll let someone else with more subnet experience chime in 'cause I'm outta ideas and a noob myself Good Luck!

 

[RASG]

I'm not a routing expert, but yes, I'd say that its your problem, it should be running on your main WAN router as I understand.

i have the adblocker running on one specific device (ac66u) , and all other routers have their DNS set to that.

that's all one need to get it to work.

 

[tooandrew]

i have the adblocker running on one specific device (ac66u) , and all other routers have their DNS set to that.

that's all one need to get it to work.

but if you hadn't routed the other router's dns to this one, would only the devices connected directly to the router in question get their ads blocked, or none of them would?

 

[tooandrew]

wierdly, i switched the main router to use this router as a dns momentarily and that fixed both privoxy and this, then i switched it back, and the ad blocking just kept working on here. so... thanks for the tip! AWESOME SOFTWARE! finally my router can stop being so lazy

 

[thelonelycoder]

wierdly, i switched the main router to use this router as a dns momentarily and that fixed both privoxy and this, then i switched it back, and the ad blocking just kept working on here. so... thanks for the tip! AWESOME SOFTWARE! finally my router can stop being so lazy

Also make sure your devices DNS Server points to that router: (Windows: ipconfig/all)
And you flush the DNS cache (ipconfig/flushdns).

 

[thelonelycoder]

what am i missing? the privoxy option didnt work for me either

AB-Solution has no privoxy option, and the one by @ryzhov_al is only for limited use, if it still works.

 

[tomsk]

From a DNS based solution (just something I'm trying out)... but this is only being tested on a couple of devices inside my network...

View attachment 7963

But this, like other solutions whitelists the domain, but doesn't necessarily whitelist the ad-providers - and here it does become a challenge, as one might whitelist providers that support SNB sites, but that would open up things for those ad providers on other sites.

People have different reasons for implementing an ad-blocking kind of solution - for some it's privacy, for others, it's a security aspect, and some have bandwidth caps that unwanted content blocked is bandwidth saved...

It's a tough nut - that's for certain...

I had this conversation with @kvic a while ago and it seems he has already tried to think his way around that....as you say...a tough nut to crack

Me: Hi Kvic.. hope all is well with you. With all the discussion around ad blocking and revenue loss on the SNB thread, i would like to explore with you a possibility that may help. The problem with blocking ads by host is that there is no discrimination regarding where the request comes from. lets say, that to support a forum like SNB, we decide that we will accept ads Tim runs on the site. Unfortunately by whitelisting those hosts we will also enable them for every other site we visit. I believe that the information as to where the ad request comes from is in the http GET request? Would it be possible to get pixelserv to read this info and match it to a sort of "friendly sites" whitelist and forward the request rather than returning the 1*1 pixel? If pixelserv could not be adopted to do it, the other way i guess we might get that info is from the pixelserv log.. but not sure if it would be effective or fast enough... what do you think?

Kvic: Hi..I looked at this one year ago...Ad revenue need to be shared to their 'referrer' sites. From that perspective, the ad servers must have a way to identify the referrer. However the identity information wasn't simply embedded in the request URL which is what pixelserv-tls receives. So there is no easy or straightforward way for pixelserv to tell an ad request is referred e.g. by SNB.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I had this conversation with @kvic a while ago and it seems he has already tried to think his way around that....as you say...a tough nut to crack

Me: Hi Kvic.. hope all is well with you. With all the discussion around ad blocking and revenue loss on the SNB thread, i would like to explore with you a possibility that may help. The problem with blocking ads by host is that there is no discrimination regarding where the request comes from. lets say, that to support a forum like SNB, we decide that we will accept ads Tim runs on the site. Unfortunately by whitelisting those hosts we will also enable them for every other site we visit. I believe that the information as to where the ad request comes from is in the http GET request? Would it be possible to get pixelserv to read this info and match it to a sort of "friendly sites" whitelist and forward the request rather than returning the 1*1 pixel? If pixelserv could not be adopted to do it, the other way i guess we might get that info is from the pixelserv log.. but not sure if it would be effective or fast enough... what do you think?

Kvic: Hi..I looked at this one year ago...Ad revenue need to be shared to their 'referrer' sites. From that perspective, the ad servers must have a way to identify the referrer. However the identity information wasn't simply embedded in the request URL which is what pixelserv-tls receives. So there is no easy or straightforward way for pixelserv to tell an ad request is referred e.g. by SNB.

I always wonder how far one can get with a local, router based ad-block solution, googling and looking up what others do.
But it seems to come down to only one way of doing it: Hosts based.
The limit is the processing power of the device you install it on. We're lucky having routers such as Asus makes affordable and available today.

Still, the only workable local ad-blocking possible with these routers is a list of blocked domains. No fancy filtering, no granular blocking seems possible.
We may have to wait a few years for even beefier routers to come out to use filter lists such as uBlock or Adblock Plus can.

On the other hand, I wonder how long a hosts based blocking will be possible.
It works remarkably well, especially with pixelserv adding the https ads blocking. But still, this may at one point no longer work in the traditional way it currently does.

 

[tomsk]

I always wonder how far one can get with a local, router based ad-block solution, googling and looking up what others do.
But it seems to come down to only one way of doing it: Hosts based.
The limit is the processing power of the device you install it on. We're lucky having routers such as Asus makes affordable and available today.

Still, the only workable local ad-blocking possible with these routers is a list of blocked domains. No fancy filtering, no granular blocking seems possible.
We may have to wait a few years for even beefier routers to come out to use filter lists such as uBlock or Adblock Plus can.

On the other hand, I wonder how long a hosts based blocking will be possible.
It works remarkably well, especially with pixelserv adding the https ads blocking. But still, this may at one point no longer work in the traditional way it currently does.

Funnily enough.... from the same conversation

Kvic:Apparently DNS based ad blocking is well known to lots of people. I see more and more ads are served through not only HTTPS but also from the same domain names that serve regular contents. So both DNS based adblock and browser plug-ins like uBlock..ABP etc will hit the wall pretty soon..

So even if a way could be worked out how to allow certain ad hosts based on the referrer ( and thats a big if, as different ad companies use a variety of different methods.. so one solution wouldn't work for all), then its effectiveness is likely to be fairly short lived.

AB is one of the best tools we have out there for our routers currently.... but i think keeping it effective in the long term is going to take a multi pronged approach eventually.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Funnily enough.... from the same conversation

Kvic:Apparently DNS based ad blocking is well known to lots of people. I see more and more ads are served through not only HTTPS but also from the same domain names that serve regular contents. So both DNS based adblock and browser plug-ins like uBlock..ABP etc will hit the wall pretty soon..

So even if a way could be worked out how to allow certain ad hosts based on the referrer ( and thats a big if, as different ad companies use a variety of different methods.. so one solution wouldn't work for all), then its effectiveness is likely to be fairly short lived.

Serving ads from the same domain requires either re-configuring your server (to allow the ad servers to pipe in ads) or, at the least, adding the content to your servers doc root.

Both need the Domain holder to know and understand more than the average webmaster does.
It's implementation will therefore be limited and not as widespread as a simple inclusion of some javascript code in the html (template), as it's currently done.

Imagine if the DNS would be upgraded to be dynamic. Instead of the more or less static system that is in use now, you would have an instantly propagated Domain Name System that would allow for dynamic changes for domain names.
Ad-servers could do all kinds of stuff with that.

But the discussion we are having here is for white-listing. Serving Ads from the same domain may still work with the major browser based ad-blockers, provided the relative path to the ads on that server does not change.
White-listing does work that way. But on a hosts based blocker there are only two ways: Accept the ads or block the domain and go look for content elsewhere (for the hardcore user).

 

[tomsk]

Imagine if the DNS would be upgraded to be dynamic. Instead of the more or less static system that is in use now, you would have an instantly propagated Domain Name System that would allow for dynamic changes for domain names.
Ad-servers could do all kinds of stuff with that.

Enough horror stories for one day ...Now you are scaring the children!