[Wiki Topic Request] Default Deny, should third party filters still be used? Latency impact of cosmetic filters.

[MikhailTNY]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to make ublock the leanest it can be. I'm using uBlock in the default-deny role. One method I want to try to get rid of third party rules as a lot of the rules don't apply to me since I don't visit many of the sites in the filters, especially international sites. After two-three weeks, I've already stopped adding new rules to uBlock, which is <200 rules and with 40K third-party filters/40K cosmetic rules are also in effect, it seems to me that disabling them all would keep uBlock at the leanest possible but I don't know how it works exactly.

In the default-deny wiki article, it says on the bottom:

working on it.. topic to cover:

no need to use malware domain lists since all 3rd-parties are blocked by default = leaner uBlock

ubiquitous servers blocked by default, i.e. no need to pre-emptively block facebook, google, twitter, linkdin, etc. to prevent tracking by these

provide many real-life examples of how easy it is to un-break websites

1. I don't understand the second part, do you mean it's not worth using EasyPrivacy filter anymore because the default deny would have it blocked anyway?
2. Is it better to have 10000 local 'noop' rules for CDN or asset sites or one global CDN whitelist? An example: io9, lifehacker, jalopink, and other kinja-related sites, they're all storing many of their assets on kinja-*.com central servers. I would love to whitelist images,css only from kinda-* domains but I don't think ublock allows this. So, from the security and improvement stand of view, is it better to 'noop' kinja-*.com on individual sites or whitelist it globally? I'm worried that it might whitelist cookies as well on third party sites. Is there a way to easily create a filter to have one 'noop' one rule for 3-4 sites instead of globally, or it makes no different to the performance of uBlock to have 3-4 rules than one rule for this situation?
3. How big of an impact is the cosmetic filter on the rendering of the sties? If I disable it completely, is it faster? Why is it better to disable cosmetic filters, uBlock keeps it all in memory?
4. You recommended to disable malware domains but that's assuming we know the site we're visiting is not a malware domain. For an example, suppose the site 'blah.cn' is blocked in the malware filter list which you've disabled, wouldn't clicking on a link to open 'blah.cn' by whitelisted by ublock even with default deny rule for 3rd party and would've helped by having the malware filter used? Or ublock wouldn't even touch the malware filter for first party sites?

[MikhailTNY]

1. Are there any cons of disabling all third-party filters?

[MikhailTNY]

Based on what gorhill said here:

Dynamic filtering is more efficient: it's mere dictionary look-ups using hostname/type, as opposed to pattern-based filtering which involves scanning a URL. Also, toggling on/off a dynamic filter is virtually a noop compared to doing the same with a static filter, which require the whole reload of all static filters.

If I understand this correctly, it'll be much quicker to use uBlock in default deny role without any third party filters used because you have to scan the filters for the matching URL whereas my own rules would just be a simply dictionary check based on the hostname/type?

[MikhailTNY]

I just realize something but is it better to block explicitly twitter.com globally to block the net requests first and then noop it on twitter.com, right? This doesn't matter in the scheme of default deny?

What's the difference between explicit block Twitter.com and the default deny Twitter.com?

I do apologize for all of these questions, I just couldn't find it in the wiki.