facebook.com #98
Comments
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I will need to reproduce to be able to figure what filter is needed. So far, I haven't been able to reproduce (it's a brand new account I created for that purpose). any hint on how to reproduce is welcomed. |
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Those posts can be blocked with the following filter:
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ublock/comments/4wye33/does_ublock_monitor_this_site_if_so_can_any/d6cdlei |
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Thanks @warthog3. I will try to understand the DOM layout for that ad according to your xpath: If this is it, would this also work? |
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I am seeing it show up in uBlock's logger as blocking something with that filter on occassion. So, yes, I think it is working. |
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For those who can have these ads at will, to confirm it works is just a matter of toggling on/off cosmetic filtering in the popup panel -- they will be shown/hidden as one toggle off/on cosmetic filtering. |
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At this point it comes down to pick which selector runs most efficiently -- i.e. the one which will cause the smallest number of DOM elements to be visited internally by the browser's matching engine. Does that work? |
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@gorhill that last rule does not seem to work. the first two still do. not sure how to compare which is most efficient. |
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Ok, I see the DOM layout can vary a bit more than I expected. Try: Edit: re-wrote it after a bit more thinking. There is probably no point trying to narrow more beyond |
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@gorhill yes, that one seems to work. so, to summarize, any of the three below seem to be working for me. which would be more efficient?
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I modified my comment above. For now, I will prefer the |
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Taking into account the information gathered on reddit, and given your confirmation that it works, for now I will go with: |
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It works after I clicked the update filters button just now. Thank you! |
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@gorhill it looks like EasyList implemented a different rule. not sure if having both rules hurts (since many users of uBlock are probably subscribed to both uAssets and EasyList) https://adblockplus.org/blog/fb-reblock-ad-blocking-community-finds-workaround-to-facebook |
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Having both does not hurt -- like he is saying, Facebook may change a few things to make that filter stop working (especially with the bragging about it on a blog post directed at Facebook). On my side I still haven't been able to get any ads, so I rely completely on others to figure the DOM details of these ads. |
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I just got an ad in my feed, so I guess they found a way to get around it. Edit: At the same time that was happening, Facebook was also sometimes having errors. |
Whoever get an ad in their feed, what helps is to provide the DOM details for that ad. Otherwise nobody can figure what filter could work. |
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I just got an ad, and have some information on the DOM: The class names all appear obfuscated (names like "_x72" and "5jmm"), but the outer <div> of the ad has an ID beginning with "hyperfeed_story_id" and contains a <div> that contains a <div> that contains a <div> that has class="... userContentWrapper ..." and contains a <div> that contains a <div> that contains a <span> without a class and with the exact content "Suggested Post" The previous uiStreamSponsorLink class no longer is used, apparently replaced with a obfuscated name like "l_lkulvba5m" (and probably changes randomly). |
Aren't ads supposed to be "Sponsored Post"? |
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I still do not have ads in my stream with cosmetic filtering disabled, however I have that annoying "People You May Know" box appearing all the time. I can make it go away with: So the same can be done for "Suggested Post" for those who get them: And for "Sponsored": However, this works for English Facebook, this would need to be adapted for other languages. Edit: now I see in OP the image clearly shows that the ad has both "Suggested Post" and "Sponsored". So the last filter above would be the one to use. I will await confirmation it works. |
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The filters in the previous comment work great for me, but would this block my friends' posts that include the word "Sponsored"? |
Yes, I though about that afterward -- try: Or, somebody tell me the ancestors of the "Sponsored" text -- I am assuming |
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By the way, what is the best way for one to see these ads? What specific feed do I need to activate? Currently using "News Feed"/"Most Recent". Is "Pages Feed" better if trying to get these ads? |
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Yeah, I'm having a hard time seeing any of them as of late, either. Last week when they first rolled them out I was seeing them a lot. Now, I don't see any in my feed or blocks of them in the uBlock logger... When I was seeing them, though, they were just in the standard News Feed almost always as like the 2nd or 3rd card down. |
On my side I find it easier to toggle on/off the no-cosmetic-filter switch to see what is being hidden by uBO. So far, I only got the "People You May Know" cards. |
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Ads are personalised, so I guess it helps if Facebook knows a bit more about you and what you like. Maybe if you'd like some companies, you see more suggested posts? |
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Yes, I did "liked" stuff just for the sake of getting a feed with something in it. Currently tech news, science news. Maybe I should go with something more likely to generate ads. Clues? |
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Facebook might not be showing ads to you if your account is too new or you don't have enough friends. (They might have data suggesting that showing ads to those types of people causes people to use Facebook less or close their account.) Some companies will try to aggressively target you if you visit their site a few times. https://www.invisionapp.com/ and https://www.intercom.io/ might be some of those sites.. not certain. Either way I haven't seen any ads again, so maybe they were trying to test something but it broke the site. |
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Is that feed supposed to update itself regularly with new posts at the top? I can see the right-hand bar content change, but the feed itself seems to not change. |
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This is firefox 48.0 using the builtin devtools |
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Ok, somehow I never realized the comments were visible in the DOM. So how about: I get no hit on my side, but then I have no ads in the first place. |
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I'm still seeing some ads |
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I don't use Facebook, but I took a quick look and noticed that 1 of their images still loads from slash ads. Maybe you could try something simple like this? Edit: From looking at a user script that removes the ads. |
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They seem to have changed it back and the old rules are working again for me now. The |
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Would ... ... also remove legit posts? In any case, I will go through the cosmetic filtering engine and prepare for what Facebook may come up again if the problem resurface. This will not be next version though, rather the one after it. I already modified the new |
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I'm getting the same result as neilmcd. The previous filter snippet has resumed working again. Thanks gorhill and those who contribute their time and efforts to this project and others like it. |
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@gorhill The last rule you added seems to be working ok and doesn't remove any legit posts. |
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I'm a reporter doing a story for AP about ad blocking, and am interested in talking to people who write the filters that block ads -- would you want to explain the process to me and what motivates you? I'm at 212-621-7629 and tarbel@ap.org. Thanks, Tali |
Aside all the obvious reasons (privacy invasion, malvertising, bloat, bandwidth, attempt at manipulation, bullshit, noise to signal ratio, etc.), blockers and filter lists help ensure user agents (i.e. browsers) keep working on behalf of users. |
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Could you talk on the phone for an interview? -------- Original message -------- would you want to explain the process to me and what motivates you? Aside all the obvious reasons (privacy invasion, malvertising, bloat, bandwidth, attempt at manipulation, bullshit, noise to signal ratio, etc.), blockers and filter lists help ensure user agents (i.e. browsers) keep working on behalf of users. — |
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Just found you and your work - I would like to pick your brain on my efforts - ioutoday.org - if you don't mind and can spare a free minute I can be reached at jd@ioutoday.org |
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Sorry, I do not give interview. The whole project is developed completely publicly, so whatever else is not answered by what is public here should be assumed to be private matter which I rather keep private. |
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Are you looking for a deeper motivation other than what gorhill has already said? I can't speak for him, only as a user of his code. I use uBlock origin because my browser performs much better without ads, I'm at less risk of getting infected with malware, and it's easier to view the content I want to view. There's no deep, political reason for me: I just want to use the internet. uBlock origin makes it easier. |
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I'm not interested in motivation as much as process...is all the code open-source and unpaid, or does ublock origin have paid employees too? how hard is it to write filters that bypass walls and hide reinserted ads? how quickly do publishers react, if they do at all? do all these filters get automatically sent to all ublock origin users or is there individual tweaking that many people have to do? |
Paid with what money? |
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It's all volunteer-based work, nobody is paid (it's a hobby). How hard it is to create filter is a case-by-case basis, there is no generic answer. When it gets too difficult I take it as a sign it's time to extend the blocker capabilities. Probably best is to ask to those who spend a lot of time writing filters, the volunteers maintaining EasyList, EasyPrivacy and all other major filter lists. Filter lists are updated automatically, so when a new filter is added, eventually everybody will have it. The goal is for the blocker to work seamlessly, requiring no tweaking by users -- but they can tweak however they want if they want to. |
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OK, but for example, with Facebook ads - a user would have to do more than simply install ublock to block those ads, no? that's what this whole message board is about? |
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Tali, you will get a much better understanding of the process of development by familiarizing yourself with GitHub. All of the development of uBlock Origin is done very much out in the open, transparently. With some research, you can see it all, back to the beginning (almost). gorhill's recommendation of going to the EasyList forum is a great one, if you want to see how that side of the equation occurs, as well, fwiw. |
Users are not supposed to do anything special. So far it appears the current filter is working[1], until people start to report that it does not, in which case this will have to be looked into. [1] See above: "I'm getting the same result as neilmcd. The previous filter snippet has resumed working again." |
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well, for example for me, after downloading ublock to both firefox and chrome, i still see in-feed facebook ads today. i've not made any changes to the default version. |
If one installs for the first time, the filter lists might not be up to date. They will update on their own within one hour, or you can force an update by visiting the "3rd-party filters" pane and clicking "Update now". That is a behavior specific to uBO, filter lists are never pulled from remote servers at launch time. Can't tell whether other blockers work this way. |
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Magic! Thanks. This discussion has been helpful. Again, if any of you would want to talk about the process behind this in more detail, I'm always available - tarbel@ap.org and at 212-621-7629. @gorhill, how do you extend the blocker capabilities? Are you limited in what you can do by the fact that you're not running an entire browser itself? |
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@taliarbel In my opinion, any adblock browser extensions shares the limitation: video ads. Why is it so easy to remove facebook sponsored ads? Because this is about element hiding. If element hiding is the matter, one can write a javascript code to block them, and if something is possible with javascript, it can be implemented to blockers, too. Video ads are different. This is about url blocking, among two things that blockers do. Video ads can't just be hidden via element hiding rules as otherwise it will hide the main video too. Also, video ads are more closely related to the main content, so it's possible to make it hard to distinguish ads and the main content, or it can stop users if the video ads content is not downloaded to the browser, to which you can even use Subresource Integrity. |
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Facebook must have changed something recently. I am seeing sponsored posts again in my timeline as of a couple days ago. Here's a screenshot. I am using uBlock Origin's Wiki "Hard Mode" with a few additional lists as well as Reek's AAK userscript.
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Do the filters suggested at #233 work? |
URL(s) where the issue occurs
facebook.com
Describe the issue
Facebook is now showing ads for desktop users "who currently use ad blocking software."
Screenshot(s)
Versions
Settings
Notes
Only started noticing it today, also at least one other user reported the same issue. gorhill/uBlock#1886
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