AB-Solution - The Ad Blocking Solution

[thelonelycoder]

Ah ok so its tied into the router stats settings. I guess I should enable it and see.

Are we allowed to use hotmail accounts now or is it still gmail only?

Hotmail works if you use an outlook.com address and use an app password.
At least this worked for me a while ago.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Ah ok so its tied into the router stats settings. I guess I should enable it and see.

That or you have used the manual current stats function.
Then the file is downloaded and also updated when found.

 

[iMe]

@ All:
The bug is fixed locally and it's so simple I wonder if there are any other things I can fix in the stats compiling addon-file log-stats.add?
I'm not going to add functionality, but maybe there's a typo in the stats or something?

Update is now available with cu.

That was quick! Thank you.

 

[holden gray]

Quick question regarding ad blocking. I have added a lot of additional hosts, and AB-Soulution is now blocking just over one million hosts now which honestly may be a bit overkill but I haven't had any problems yet with it.

There are some sites I visit where it works perfectly, no ads to be seen, and then a few specific ones the ad block seems to have little to no effect.

An example is boston.com

I have made sure I added the domains to my blacklist which I believe is g00.boston.com, and I even added the entire address of one of the specific ads to the blacklist and no matter what I seem to do, the ads stay on the page. I have madd sure the pixel server is working as well, so https should be blocked as well.

Is there anything I can do about this, and is there an easier method of seeing exactly which ad providers certain sites are using so that I can promptly add them to the blacklist?

 

[Xentrk]

Quick question regarding ad blocking. I have added a lot of additional hosts, and AB-Soulution is now blocking just over one million hosts now which honestly may be a bit overkill but I haven't had any problems yet with it.

There are some sites I visit where it works perfectly, no ads to be seen, and then a few specific ones the ad block seems to have little to no effect.

An example is boston.com

I have made sure I added the domains to my blacklist which I believe is g00.boston.com, and I even added the entire address of one of the specific ads to the blacklist and no matter what I seem to do, the ads stay on the page. I have madd sure the pixel server is working as well, so https should be blocked as well.

Is there anything I can do about this, and is there an easier method of seeing exactly which ad providers certain sites are using so that I can promptly add them to the blacklist?

Two things I can think of.
1. Use the follow the log file option when viewing the page to see what domains are being referenced.
2. Use firefox browser to access the site. Then, right click on the page and select view source code. Look for www, net and com references/domain names that may be spinning up ads.

Edit: I am using the "Large" blocking file option and do not see ads on boston.com.

Edit2: go to browser and type in the pixelserv ip address followed by a slash and servstats
e.g 192.168.1.2/serverstats

 

[Makaveli]

Quick question regarding ad blocking. I have added a lot of additional hosts, and AB-Soulution is now blocking just over one million hosts now which honestly may be a bit overkill but I haven't had any problems yet with it.

There are some sites I visit where it works perfectly, no ads to be seen, and then a few specific ones the ad block seems to have little to no effect.

An example is boston.com

I have made sure I added the domains to my blacklist which I believe is g00.boston.com, and I even added the entire address of one of the specific ads to the blacklist and no matter what I seem to do, the ads stay on the page. I have madd sure the pixel server is working as well, so https should be blocked as well.

Is there anything I can do about this, and is there an easier method of seeing exactly which ad providers certain sites are using so that I can promptly add them to the blacklist?

When I check that site at work I see all the ads on the right side.

When I RDP Home where AB-Solution is using the Standard block file.

Only two ads are visible on the right side.

 

[thelonelycoder]

An example is boston.com

I have made sure I added the domains to my blacklist which I believe is g00.boston.com, and I even added the entire address of one of the specific ads to the blacklist and no matter what I seem to do, the ads stay on the page. I have madd sure the pixel server is working as well, so https should be blocked as well.

As you have noticed, adding an address to AB-Solution through the el function will strip it down to the domain/sub-domain part.
This is a hosts (domains) based ad-blocker, adding a url like www.domain.com/adstuff/image.jpg is useless as Dnsmasq only resolves domains: The www.domain.com part.

Apart from that, I currently use the shooter40sw blocking file type which filters out all ads on the https://www.boston.com/ website.

 

[holden gray]

As you have noticed, adding an address to AB-Solution through the el function will strip it down to the domain/sub-domain part.
This is a hosts (domains) based ad-blocker, adding a url like www.domain.com/adstuff/image.jpg is useless as Dnsmasq only resolves domains: The www.domain.com part.

Apart from that, I currently use the shooter40sw blocking file type which filters out all ads on the https://www.boston.com/ website.

I am using that blocking file as well, and suprisingly noticed the ads still on the site. Re-installed Chrome and it still appears, however after switching to Firefox on my PC and mobile device, the ads are indeed blocked on the site. Not quite sure why that is, but it is being blocked properly at least.

Also thanks for the confirmation that is it blocked on your end, I wouldn't have thought to try switching browsers otherwise. Odd that most things seem blocked on Google Chrome but the boston site seems to slip through where as Firefox it stays blocked.

 

[Makaveli]

Ahh yes i'm using FF aswell.

 

[MarCoMLXXV]

Looking at boston.com now with AB-Maximum loaded, no ads are being displayed. On first load I saw one ad on the right side, so I opened the page inspector in Chromium (Lubuntu user) to see where it originated from, which cause the page to reload. Closed the inspector, ad was gone. Happy user.

Normally the only ads I get to see are ads which have been included in the code by the website and they can't be blocked as there's no way for AB-Solution to dinstinguish embedded ads from actual content, as they are both originating from the exact same url. These are usual ads by sponsors which are 'hardcoded' in the page and not being loaded from an external adserver which could be blocked. They don't bother me, as there are so little of them compared to how the Internet looked prior too using AB-Solution...

 

[MarCoMLXXV]

Speaking of sponsors...

@thelonelycoder: could you please post the 4 or 5 pre-whitelisted domains? You know, the ones you kindly request to let them be whitelisted? I've done something foolish

 

[thelonelycoder]

Speaking of sponsors...

@thelonelycoder: could you please post the 4 or 5 pre-whitelisted domains? You know, the ones you kindly request to let them be whitelisted? I've done something foolish

# Please support SmallNetBuilder.com by leaving these in the whitelist.
# Run [el] to process changes into blocking_file.
# Add whitelisted domains in the same format as below.
# No wildcards (*tgdaily.net) and no IP addresses. This WILL NOT work.
vma.tgdaily.net
tgdaily.net
vma.tgdaily.com
tgdaily.com
assets.omidoo.com
z-na.amazon-adsystem.com
servedby.flashtalking.com
flashtalking.com
ad2.netshelter.net

If I remember correctly, AB-Solution has a built in backup function...

 

[MarCoMLXXV]

If I remember correctly, AB-Solution has a built in backup function...

You remembered correctly, sir. Unfortunately it has no option to set things straight to silence my conscience. And as it was just a matter of copy and pasting a few lines, I took the liberty of just asking you. I hope you don't mind. Thanks for your efforts, I appreciate it.

 

[Xentrk]

I am concerned with this entry from stats email for the router at the school:

 192.168.1.156, Black-Mirror*:
 --------------------------------------------------------
 4098   router.asus.com

Does this mean this device tried to access router.asus.com domain 4098 times? Many of the staff do not make much money so they side load apps and download freeware on their devices from questionable sources. baidu.com is one such site and I block it. But I see many have apps that phone home to baidu.com. I had both http and https authentication method enabled. I turned of http access just to be safe.

I am starting to see a lot of entries in the email stats report where it shows the client IP address as a domain being referenced. Not sure when this starting occurring.

 192.168.1.156, Black-Mirror*:
 --------------------------------------------------------                        
 87     192.168.1.156

 192.168.1.150, Meow*:
 --------------------------------------------------------
 367    192.168.1.150    

 192.168.1.181, Admin-PC*:
 --------------------------------------------------------
 337    192.168.1.181

I wonder if this is when OpenDNS web filtering blocks a site I have restricted?

 

[Xentrk]

Ahh yes i'm using FF aswell.

Me too.

 

[thelonelycoder]

I am starting to see a lot of entries in the email stats report where it shows the client IP address as a domain being referenced. Not sure when this starting occurring.

 192.168.1.156, Black-Mirror*:
 --------------------------------------------------------                       
 87     192.168.1.156

 192.168.1.150, Meow*:
 --------------------------------------------------------
 367    192.168.1.150   

 192.168.1.181, Admin-PC*:
 --------------------------------------------------------
 337    192.168.1.181

I wonder if this is when OpenDNS web filtering blocks a site I have restricted?

In experimental settings es enable dnsmasq settings, then set cache-size to default, log--async to default and set domain-needed to on.
Next complete router stats with this setting in the weekly period will have these removed.

 

[MarCoMLXXV]

In experimental settings es enable dnsmasq settings, then set cache-size to default, log--async to default and set domain-needed to on.
Next complete router stats with this setting in the weekly period will have these removed.

Can you explain what this exactly does? I've left the 'experimental' features off on purpose, because of your warnings and I don't want my router (or resolving for that matter) to become unstable but as you're now recommending @Xentrk to switch it on (dnsmasq at least, from what I've read wanduck is a complete mess). If I recall correctly you even left these feature out of the documentation on the website to prevent possible (user) issues, but I don't get how enabling dnsmasq would be of added value to AB-Solution's functionality.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Can you explain what this exactly does? I've left the 'experimental' features off on purpose, because of your warnings and I don't want my router (or resolving for that matter) to become unstable but as you're now recommending @Xentrk to switch it on (dnsmasq at least, from what I've read wanduck is a complete mess). If I recall correctly you even left these feature out of the documentation on the website to prevent possible (user) issues, but I don't get how enabling dnsmasq would be of added value to AB-Solution's functionality.

Explanations are intentionally left blank because the user should decide to enable/disable these settings.
In the case of @Xentrk 's case, this is the reason he sees those entries in the logfile.
To tell dnsmasq not to forward local queries to the upstream DNS Servers, this setting was added.
From the dnsmasq Man page:

-D, --domain-needed
Tells dnsmasq to never forward A or AAAA queries for plain names, without dots or domain parts, to upstream nameservers. If the name is not known from /et(c)/hosts or DHCP then a "not found" answer is returned.

The default settings in es are the ones dnsmasq uses if not specified in the dnsmasq.conf file.
I have added these upon request by users.

Also, in the rs settings there's the option to filter local client names. This is helpful if the client name appears in the stats as being queried. This is a filter for the stats function and does not alter the dnsmasq.conf.

 

[MarCoMLXXV]

Thanks for the explanation. Was always wondering what was hidden behind these option.

As for dnmasq allowing or denying upstream queries for local servers, isn't that setting turned off by default in the LAN > DHCP Settings?

(At least, on @RMerlin's builds)?

 

[thelonelycoder]

Thanks for the explanation. Was always wondering what was hidden behind these option.

As for dnmasq allowing or denying upstream queries for local servers, isn't that setting turned off by default in the LAN > DHCP Settings?

(At least, on @RMerlin's builds)?

I'm not sure how this affects dnsmasq as nothing is changed in the dnsmasq.conf file, setting on or off.
But if set to on it could/would bypass local DNS (dnsmasq) resolving.
And if queries bypass dnsmasq --> no ad-blocking.
So, no, domain-needed is not the same as the WebUI setting.