ADBlock on Asus Merlin build 378.55_0

[corey M]

Is there a way to implement 'ALL-U-NEED Ad Blocking' or other similar scripts. I would like to enable ad blocking on my RT-AC66U. The only way i could really find was to put Tomato USB on it and then use the startup scrips. Ideally it would be really nice to have a Menu on the Firmware screen for this.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Have you read the numerous other threads on this forum about ad blocking? Or do you have some specific requirement that hasn't already been discussed?

 

[corey M]

Yes i have an I have the one of them in use right now. But it does not seem to work as good as 'ALL-U-NEED Ad Blocking' or even adblock extension on chrome.
I used to use Dansgaurdian for my adblocking that worked great! I really like the fact that you could replace the adds with a custom image on the page. Thats ideally what i would like todo.

 

[corey M]

Also the one that i am using currently just looks for known ad domains. I am looking for a more pro-active blocking. for instance DansGaurdian would look at tall the file names coming across and use expression filtering. so if it seen ad-*.* then it would block that. There was more to it then that. I just think what is out there for this firmware is not that strong or smart unless i had missed one.. If you know of a better one that would be great! One think i would love to see would be an interface on the GUI to add and remove white/black list.

 

[ColinTaylor]

As you say, most of the ad blockers here are just simple lists of blocked domain names. I think there is a post that uses Adblock Plus lists and pixelserv. Is that any good?

 

[RMerlin]

Ad blocking at the firewall level will never be as efficient as blocking at the browser level through an add-on. To be effective, you need the context and access to the actual HTML rendering engine, both to be able to modify that content, and to know its context (i.e. what website is causing a specific ad to load). This is something only achievable in the browser.

 

[ColinTaylor]

This is the thing I was thinking of earlier: https://github.com/RMerl/asuswrt-me...to-provide-advertisement-filtering-to-devices

 

[mstombs]

Depending on your internet speed you might find privoxy slows things down a lot, but easy to apply for specific devices and to toggle on/off. It will also not work for https ...

The closest script dns poisoning solution round here to the Tomato one is
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/adblocking-with-combined-hosts-file.15309/

I'm not sure either use pixelserv, but the one compiled for Tomato works fine for me on N66, in association with a simple domain list linked from custom dnsmasq.conf

/mnt/usb4gb/pixelserv version: V35.HZ11FIX2 compiled: Nov 29 2014 13:32:49 options: 192.168.66.254 -p 80 -p 81 -p 8080 -p 8081 -p 443 -o 2
4019579 uts, 211122 req, 3009 avg, 86797 rmx, 2551 tav, 4554 tmx, 0 err, 26961 tmo, 1711 cls, 0 nou, 0 pth, 7736 nfe, 4552 ufe, 478 gif, 8 bad, 25030 txt, 4 jpg, 28 png, 32 swf, 20 ico, 138420 ssl, 3 sta, 1 stt, 0 204, 5499 rdr, 639 pst, 0 hed

 

[kvic]

I just think what is out there for this firmware is not that strong or smart unless i had missed one

Depends on which threads you landed. Information is scattered in a couple of places. Good or not is more in the eyes of the beholder

The ideas are basically the same and dated back almost a decade from my research. On asuswrt-merlin, you could have

• dnsmasq with domain-level block; and plus
• pixelserv (or lighttpd if you prefer custom image); and plus
• privoxy with Adblock Plus filters

in descending order of diminishing return. Such a setup would be as good as all alternatives people claim better IMO.

If you decide to run Privoxy, better use a PC (I think same applies for DansGuardians). On an Asus with 1.4GHz ARM A9, delay in page loads is still observable. I'm no longer running Privoxy. The only additional benefit I saw is occasionally tidying up page layout on phones and tablets. That I can comfortably live without. On PC browsers, I still run Adblock Plus which now has extremely light workload.