How to whitelist embedded tweets?

[michaelstepner]

Hello, I've noticed since switching to uBlock that tweets embedded into a page using a Twitter widget are no longer visible. For example, this page has an embedded tweet from @BillSimmons: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/peyton-manning-isnt-finished/

It's pretty common for news organizations and blogs to embed tweets within articles for context, and I'd love to whitelist these elements. I've figured out that the blocking is coming from "Fanboy’s Social Blocking List‎", but I can't figure out how to add a rule in uBlock that whitelists Twitter widgets. (My goal is not to fully disable "Fanboy's Social Blocking List".)

I've tried referring to the ABP filter rules and adding whitelist elements to the "My Filters" text box in the uBlock config, but I'm not getting it right. Any guidance is appreciated.

[gorhill]

Just un-select "Fanboy Social Blocking" filter list if you do not want social widgets to be blocked/removed.

Ok sorry, read too quick, I had not seen you want to keep Fanboy Social. Let me look into this.

[gorhill]

This works:

fivethirtyeight.com#@#.embed-twitter

Ref. ABP filter syntax.

Edit: Did you mean you want to whitelist .embed-twitter globally, for all domains?

[michaelstepner]

Thanks gorhill, that works! For others' reference (or your comment), I wanted to whitelist twitter embeds on all sites, not just fivethirtyeight.com. I tried:

#@#.embed-twitter

but that doesn't successfully whitelist any sites. I read the ABP filter syntax and couldn't figure out how to do an all-domain whitelist. Absent that, the I've settled for this hack:

.com,.org,.net,.edu,.gov,.uk,.ca#@#.embed-twitter

Which does work for all sites with those TLDs. This should whitelist twitter embeds for almost all websites I visit.

[gorhill]

Yes, uBlock does not currently support global whitelist cosmetic filters. I left this out because I could not find one single instance in any of the filter lists. I could support it.

Your solution is not "hacky", I think it's all fine -- though you don't need to use the leading dot on each TLD. I actually prefer this workaround rather than introduce some kind of overhead to support global whitelist cosmetic filter which cost would be incurred by everybody rather than just those interested in that kind of filter.

Edit: Well I looked at the code, and really I don't see any problem supporting there, the overhead mentioned above is really a non-issue. I will fix this.

[michaelstepner]

Sounds good! I understand and respect the decision not to support global whitelist cosmetic filters.

I do think this illustrates a clear use case for them. I'd like to always whitelist twitter embeds if I could. By listing TLDs one-by-one I will still occasionally encounter a website on a less common TLD where I've failed to whitelist the embedded tweets.
(For instance: I've visited some .fr websites in the past week to read about Charlie Hebdo.)

But clearly global whitelist cosmetic filters are not commonly used, and I defer to your judgement on issue of overhead for many / benefits for few.

Thank you for your helpful support, and your excellent program.

[gorhill]

I changed my mind above after looking at the code.

[Snapy]

I'm surprised dynamic filtering hasn't been mentioned. I know it's for advanced users but you can more easily allow an element and reload the page and you don' need to have knowledge on filter syntax. Whitelisting platform.twitter.comshould allow embed tweets. I don't know if it's the kind of solution that could satisfy you @michaelstepner

[CODYQX4]

I've still had to undo cosmetic filters, but yes dynamic filtering is letting me get rid of the complex and ugly looking syntax for unblocking files.

…

On 1/14/15, Snapy <notifications@github.com> wrote: I'm surprised dynamic filtering hasn't been mentioned. I know it's for advanced users but you can more easily allow an element and reload the page and you don' need to have knowledge on filter syntax. Whitelisting `platform.twitter.com`should allow embed tweets. I don't know if it's the kind of solution that could satisfy you @michaelstepner --- Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: gorhill/uBlock#497 (comment)

[gorhill]

Dynamic filtering applies only to network requests, not DOM elements.

[gorhill]

For the record, I could find only 11 instances of generic exception filters in all the filter lists packaged with uBlock:

/raw.githubusercontent.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer/master/anti-adblock-killer-filters.txt:75:#@##div-gpt-ad-1-0
/raw.githubusercontent.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer/master/anti-adblock-killer-filters.txt:82:#@##sponsored-ad
/easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/liste_fr.txt:3762:#@##AdArea
/easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/liste_fr.txt:3763:#@##banner
/easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/liste_fr.txt:3768:#@##ad_ad
/easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/liste_fr.txt:3769:#@##ad_link
/easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/liste_fr.txt:4292:#@##bannerAdContainer1_1
/easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/liste_fr.txt:4293:#@##bannerAdFrame
/easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/liste_fr.txt:4294:#@##bannerGoogle
/easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/liste_fr.txt:4295:#@##block-ad_cube-0
/easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/liste_fr.txt:4296:#@##blox-big-ad-bottom

[michaelstepner]

Well I, for one, really appreciate your work on this (and μBlock more broadly). Thanks gorhill!