Advanced AdBlock rules: Try to kill all trackers!

— Posted inEnglish, Privacy, Software — 7 min read

Are you sure that you are using all features of your ad-blocker? Because this is not about advertising only. Can ads filters protect you from trackers and replace popular security extensions like Disconnect, Ghostery or Privacy Badger? Why not?

Advanced AdBlock rules
Let’s try to kill all trackers!

If your browser does not have any feature what you need, this is not so important, because you can use extensions. But if your browser does not support extensions what you need, this is serious trouble. And it happened with Maxthon and Nitro…

There are many reasons why I can’t use Maxthon anymore. And one of these is lack of popular security extensions. Do you know any ones? I think you can call two-three titles. Does it mean that you just can’t protect your data if you still use Maxthon? No, because you can use substitutes. And this is not so difficult as you think!

What popular extensions do you know? And what popular extension are exist for Maxthon? I remember Lastpass and AdBlock Plus only. And ABP is what we need now. ABP was one of the first tools for ad blocking. Today there are many ABP analogs, but most of its still use ABP rules.

Probably, ad filters are the most popular extensions for any browser and ABP is the most popular tool for ad blocking. So what ad-blockers do you know? I tried these ones:

Most users use only a few lists: EasyList, EasyPrivacy and regional lists. But all these extensions offer additional lists for a better user experience. And every ad-blocker offers different lists. I just collected all of these in one place, because there are many intresting…

Warning: 
This text was written a few years ago and many things could change. I did not check these links. Let me know if some of them will not work.

Advanced rules from AdBlock Plus

As the main tool for ad blocking, AdBlock Plus may be usefull not as ad filter only. But for some reason ABP does not offer additional list directly in the extension, there are EasyPrivasy and regional lists only. So you have to go to their website to look what else you can add:

Advanced rules from AdBlock

Many years AdBlock Plus worked on Mozilla Firefox only and AdBlock was the first competitor of ABP, because it was the first ad-blocker for Google Chrome. And AdBlock offers to own users some additional filters:

Advanced rules from AdGuard

AdGuard is probably the only advertising filter, that uses its own rules, but not ABP lists. That’s why you may have problems with AdGuard lists if you will use it with other ad-blockers. I did not test this, but you can try… So what filters may be usefull for you:

  • Spyware filter (list of various online counters and web analytics tools)
  • Social media filter («like», «tweet» and other social media buttons)
  • Annoyances filter (irritating elements on webpages, including cookie notices, third-party widgets and in-page popups; inspired by Fanboy Annoyances List, but doesn’t duplicate it)
  • Filter for useful ads (unblocks ads that may be useful for users)
  • Mobile ads filter (mobile websites use other ad networks)

Advanced rules from Fanboy

If you spend too much time and can not control yourself, Funboy filtres will be usefull:

  • Fanboy Social List (hide and block social content, social widgets, social scripts and social icons)
  • Fanboy Annoyances List (pop-ups and other annoyances; includes Fanboy Social List!)
  • Anti-Facebook Filters (warning: will break on facebook comment on some sites and may also break on some facebook apps or games; use with Social, Annoyance or Ultimate subscriptions is desirable!)
  • Anti-Cookie Filters (remove cookie and privacy warnings; included in Annoyances List already!)

Advanced Disconnect filtres

The only ad filter that uses these Disconnect lists is uBlock Origin. And I really thought that I could just copy these links, but uBlock use own build-in pages. But honestly I began writing this text only because of Disconnect rules and I need these rules to complete this text. That’s why I tried to find it in the web. Most likely these are unofficial links that are rarely (or never) updated. But this is better, than nothing!

Hidden mining of cryptocurrency

Probably, blokchein really can change the world. Unfortunately, the world is not ready for this yet… Even if you like cryptocurrencies and really ready to use it, for so fast growth of cryptocurrencies popularity, humanity needs more powerful computers than we have today. Today we can calculate all transactions, but this is already too difficult. What will we have after a few years?

Mining is a very simple way to get money. Especially if you keep it hidden, from someone else’s computer, without investment in equipment and energy. Popular PirateBay and CBS Showtime have already been caught on the hidden crypto currency were caught on hidden mining of cryptocurrency. If we have issue, someone have to fix it. An now this is work for ads blockers… AdBlock uBlock Origin and Opera Adblocker added protection against hidden mining, Yandex.Browser will do the same soon. Unfortunately, not all of these rules are available for users of other extensions. So far we will have to be satisfied with only these:

Instead of concluding

I do not suggest you to use all of these lists, that would be stupid: every this list may be reason of trubles and all these lists may slow down your browser. But some these lists really may be usefull. For example, this is the only way to block trackers on Maxthon browser, because there are not Ghostery or Disconnect, but MX has build-in AdBlock Plus. So use your brain! This is only your choice!

How to be sure that this really works? In some adblock extensions you can see blocked elements. Do this or just look on number of blocked elements on the page and check it when a new filter is added. If there are more blocked elements, this is the reason to think that it works. But what if your ad-blocker does not show the number of blocked ads?

If you can’t trust something that you can’t see, I have not so many ideas how you can test this. I think, if you want to check how this tracking protection works, you need to open any website with ads links, but you have to be sure that you know how this website works with popular secure extension (Disconnect or Ghostery) For example, I know that all links on Russian new aggregator КакТам? redirected through DirectAdvert, so if I click one Ghostery will block it. It means that if I can’t open any likns on КакТам? tracking protection works.

I’m not sure that adblock tools really can protect you from advertisers spying. But in some cases this is the only way to protect your data. I don’t think that tomorrow Ghostery or Disconnect will make extension for Maxthon. So…you can just try it… and hope that this really helps…

August 6, 2017

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    1. As I know, uBlock Origin’s rules are embedded to the extension. Are there external links that can be added to other ad blockers?

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