Extensions and custom buttons for UXP browsers - Corrections, modifications, adjustments, and special recommendations

[Sampei.Nihira]

@Felipefpl

You are certainly protected if only your Custom filter list uses more Network rules and Cosmetic rules than all my filter lists.
But I use UBO in Hard Mode + TLD's.
An advanced mode of use compared to the protection provided by filter lists alone.

[AstroSkipper]

1 hour ago, billmcct said:

Just because their invalid only means they're not used.

I don't think that filters, which are considered by uBO invalid, will properly do their job anyway. 

1 hour ago, billmcct said:

If you have a list that shows it's using 0 out of ????? then disable it.

That is probably clear to everyone. 

1 hour ago, billmcct said:

It clearly shows in the Filter lists window how many filters are actually used for each list.

I am not fully convinced that these values are really meaningful. The filter engine is very old, and the modern filter lists contain more and more syntax which presumably can't be executed successfully by it. 

Edited April 20 by AstroSkipper

[billmcct]

I personally don't think the list owners ever delete anything, only add to them.

What may have been valid when added to the list may not be years later.

[AstroSkipper]

15 minutes ago, billmcct said:

I personally don't think the list owners ever delete anything, only add to them.

What may have been valid when added to the list may not be years later.

You can't know that in general. Some lists, especially the well-known ones such as Adguard, uBlock or Easylist, are certainly better maintained than less well-known or private ones. But I can definitely tell from the download size that it sometimes decreases and then increases again. So, entries are both deleted and added. From time to time, I load these lists for the offline update of my mod. Therefore, I can't agree with your statement in general.  It doesn't really reflect the reality.

Edited April 20 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[Amigafever]

Is there a particular feature from the WebExtension that stands out in those invalid -for uBO Legacy- entries?

In other words: is there a particular feature that should be clearly the first one to be ported over to uBO Legacy? Or it's a complex combination of features, and we cannot easily pick one out?

[AstroSkipper]

3 hours ago, Amigafever said:

Is there a particular feature from the WebExtension that stands out in those invalid -for uBO Legacy- entries?

In other words: is there a particular feature that should be clearly the first one to be ported over to uBO Legacy? Or it's a complex combination of features, and we cannot easily pick one out?

This is a good question for addressing to @UCyborg. He already implemented some features which were previously only found in the webextension of uBO.

Edited April 21 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[UCyborg]

I don't know what uBO users at large value as super important, there are a lot of under the hood changes, one of the things that stood out to me were filters using $removeparam, AdGuard URL Tracking Filter list uses those exclusively for removing tracking parameters from URLs when navigating web pages. Number of changes, including this one, come from later versions that saw much code cleanup, meaning, in layman terms, you can't copy-paste code directly from web extension. There's loads of now closed issues that were opened once for the extension... Also newer versions have some code parts written in WebAssembly for performance reasons.

Anyway, don't look at me for big updates, I hate programming...maybe I'll still try to get some of the easier stuff into the old extension, not right now though as I'm not in the right place mentally.

The older I get, the more software seems like politics. A bunch of bickering how to achieve certain result...

[Amigafever]

On 4/21/2024 at 6:01 PM, UCyborg said:

... one of the things that stood out to me were filters using $removeparam, AdGuard URL Tracking Filter list uses those exclusively for removing tracking parameters from URLs when navigating web pages.

Thanks. I guess this is good news, since removing tracking parameters isn't strictly ad-blocking, right? It's important, yes, but at least we can rest assured for now, that ads won't suddenly start appearing on us and that uBO Legacy still remains extremely effective, notwithstanding running behind the WebExtension.

Update: perhaps we should contact AdGuard to provide compatible filters.

Edited April 24 by Amigafever

[Sampei.Nihira]

1 hour ago, Amigafever said:

Thanks. I guess this is good news, since removing tracking parameters isn't strictly ad-blocking, right? It's important, yes, but at least we can rest assured for now, that ads won't suddenly start appearing on us and that uBO Legacy still remains extremely effective, notwithstanding running behind the WebExtension.

Update: perhaps we should contact AdGuard to provide compatible filters.

It is a privacy-related feature.
In addition to the list of filters you mentioned @UCyborg

other filter lists with these features are those of DandelionSprout (The most famous is Actually Legitimate URL Shortener Tool).

 

 

 

Edited April 24 by Sampei.Nihira

[Amigafever]

11 minutes ago, Sampei.Nihira said:

To check whether the filter list that removes URL tracking parameters works, just run a simple test:

https://fmarier.org/query-filter/

If the "fbclid" parameter is missing everything is OK.

Not sure how this test is supposed to work. It always shows the URL you posted, with no extra parameters. This also occurs on a clean profile, with no extensions installed.

It's always a blank page with the text: "Look in the URL bar for the presence of a query string parameter."... and just the clean URL.

[Sampei.Nihira]

Yes you are right,I will delete the not working test (Brave).

[UCyborg]

9 hours ago, Amigafever said:

Update: perhaps we should contact AdGuard to provide compatible filters.

There isn't anything they can do I think, old uBO simply doesn't have the function for removing parameters from URLs.

[Amigafever]

Yes, you are most probably right. I recall this being a newer feature. Good thing we have two excellent extensions (that I know of) to deal with this:

CleanLinks2 and Pure URL

[AstroSkipper]

2 hours ago, Amigafever said:

Good thing we have two excellent extensions (that I know of) to deal with this:

CleanLinks2 and Pure URL

I used Pure URL in the past. And long time ago, the extension Clean Links. CleanLink2 seems to be a fork of Clean Links. So, thanks for the hint! I will try this forked version next time. 

[AstroSkipper]

I can remember very well that there was a problem with the sporadic disappearance of the Clean Links' toolbar icon in the past. This seems to be fixed in CleanLink2 as far as I can tell at the moment. In any case, I have installed this version and will see how it behaves.