Using "hpHosts’s Ad and tracking servers (hosts-file.net)" results in bloomberg.com being completely blocked

[AmanitaVerna]

I disabled lists in the HTTP Switchboard options until the site would load, and then re-enabled them one at a time until it did not load again (which happened when I turned the "HpHosts's Ad and tracking servers (hosts-file.net)" list back on).

I also confirmed that turning all the other defaults on and leaving HpHosts off wouldn't block it.

Bloomberg.com on hpHosts: http://hosts-file.net/default.asp?s=bloomberg.com
It's classified as "ATS - Ad/tracking servers (Benign)."

I do appear to be able to override this without disabling the list, and without ads appearing, using the normal permission grid controls.

[gorhill]

That's how HTTPSB works, whatever hostname is listed in these host files will prevent any net requests to reach these hostnames.

[AmanitaVerna]

Blocking a reputable news site (using default settings) is intended behavior?

[gorhill]

I also disagree with blocking bloomberg.com (or others in there) but the issue rests with the list author, not HTTPSB. The list is checked only for the "block-all/allow-exceptionally" mode.

It's unfortunate that the author of the list is becoming overzealous with his ad-servers list, because now it's less likely to be useful because of these silly entries he put in it. But HTTPSB just makes these lists available as is, if one disagree with their content, this needs to be dealth with directly with the author.

[ghost]

Blocking a reputable news site (using default settings) is intended behavior?

@trafalg I would recommend contacting the hp-hosts folks. And again like @gorhill said this is not a HTTPSB issue.

[gorhill]

Closing because its a third-party list, thus a third-party issue which needs to be addressed by the third-party.

It's unfortunate, this list contains a lot of good hostnames to block, but is now less usable due to it containing entries which should definitely not be there: an "ad_servers" list should strictly just contain ad servers, not whole web sites (unless unavoidable). Examples of bad entries: bloomberg.com, tomshardware.com.

I will send an email to the author with a link to this issue.

[gorhill]

I submitted the issue and got a reference number in return: PI009620178219. Now whether this is addressed or not is completely up to this 3rd-party.

[ghost]

It's strange really the site keeps mentioning that it's "powered" by malwarebytes. However on my malwarebytes URL blocker I've got installed it doesn't block these host names.

[gorhill]

Probably because they don't block requests of type main_frame, i.e. the root HTML document itself. In HTTPSB I decided to interpret "blacklisted domain" as "no request whatsoever will reach server", and this means request of type main_frame will be blocked, just like a hosts file would: if the file is used as a hosts file in your OS, the browser won't be able to load the root HTML doc either.

So it seems their URL blocker you are talking about is not as strict as using a hosts file, which is the express purpose of their lists (see "Hosts File Installation").

[MysteryFCM]

Sorry for the errors folks, the sites were added by my apprentice. I've removed the two mentioned and will go through the others he's added.

Thank you for reaching out.

[gorhill]

I've removed the two mentioned and will go through the others he's added.

Wow thanks for this.