[Release] AB-Solution 3 - The Ad Blocking Solution

[john9527]

OK! So how do I have ab solution to work with vpn?

If you are talking VPN Client, change the VPN DNS mode from exclusive to strict. The trade-off is that there may be occasional DNS leaks depending on the quality of your VPN DNS servers.

 

[tomsk]

OK! So how do I have ab solution to work with vpn?

maybe @RMerlin or @john9527 might be able to help you there... i believe their respective forks handle DNS slightly differently for openVPN. You would have to make any DNS queries go to dnsmasq first and then to the VPN providers upstream DNS server..... not sure if it would cause DNS leaks though

 

[thelonelycoder]

OK! So how do I have ab solution to work with vpn?

Respond to DNS= yes
Advertise DNS to clients=yes

and ads must gone....

The settings posted by @bayern1975 are the ones that need to be set in OpenVPN. It'll work that way.
No need to do more digging.

 

[eighteen]

The settings posted by @bayern1975 are the ones that need to be set in OpenVPN. It'll work that way.
No need to do more digging.

Ok! But in my openvpn settings i don't see any options like @bayern1975 say!

I only have "Accept DNS Configuration: Disabled"

 

[thelonelycoder]

Ok! But in my openvpn settings i don't see any options like @bayern1975 say!

I only have "Accept DNS Configuration: Disabled"

Look in the OpenVPN Servers Settings /Advanced, not the OpenVPN Clients.

 

[eighteen]

Look in the OpenVPN Servers Settings /Advanced, not the OpenVPN Clients.

In the OpenVPN server on asus Merlin?! Why?

My vpn provider is IPVanish.

 

[eighteen]

If you are talking VPN Client, change the VPN DNS mode from exclusive to strict. The trade-off is that there may be occasional DNS leaks depending on the quality of your VPN DNS servers.

I change to strict and the result is the same, ads continue...

 

[john9527]

I change to strict and the result is the same, ads continue...

Did you reboot the client afterwards to clear it's DNS caches?

 

[tpaxadpom]

I have successfully installed AB Solution 3 on my Asus RT-AC68U router. It works well, but I need to figure out a few things. White-listing is one of them, but the biggest question is hot to deal with this scenario.
I have a smart TV that I use to access IPTV using DNS change on my TV set. Basically it is using publicly available app as GUI to access IPTV server and DNS change is required. With DNS set to obtain automatically add blocking works beautifully when I watch youtube, though if I change to custom DNS to watch IPTV I no longer have add blocking with youtube. What are the possible work arounds for this short of changing DNS from auto to manual in TV menu? I thought if I could do host ip substitute it would work. Basically I need to redirect one of the TV aps to another IP address and it would work for me. I do not know the host app is trying to reach but I can probably figure it out by monitoring the traffic.

 

[eighteen]

Did you reboot the client afterwards to clear it's DNS caches?

Now everything is working without making any kind of change in the vpn configuration. I forgot that I had clients with Google's dns. As soon as I removed them the ab solution worked. Thanks anyway

 

[thelonelycoder]

I have successfully installed AB Solution 3 on my Asus RT-AC68U router. It works well, but I need to figure out a few things. White-listing is one of them, but the biggest question is hot to deal with this scenario.
I have a smart TV that I use to access IPTV using DNS change on my TV set. Basically it is using publicly available app as GUI to access IPTV server and DNS change is required. With DNS set to obtain automatically add blocking works beautifully when I watch youtube, though if I change to custom DNS to watch IPTV I no longer have add blocking with youtube. What are the possible work arounds for this short of changing DNS from auto to manual in TV menu? I thought if I could do host ip substitute it would work. Basically I need to redirect one of the TV aps to another IP address and it would work for me. I do not know the host app is trying to reach but I can probably figure it out by monitoring the traffic.

This is how you exclude clients from ad blocking:
Go to /Parental Controls/DNS-Filtering/
- set 'Enable DNS-based Filtering' to ON
- set 'Global Filter Mode' to 'NO filtering'
- fill in 'Custom (user-defined) DNS 1' with, for example, Google's DNS 8.8.8.8
- select your client(s) in the Client List and set 'Filter Mode' 'Custom 1'
- click Apply

Now the client(s) in the Client list get the DNS from google and not from your router.

 

[tpaxadpom]

This is how you exclude clients from ad blocking:
Go to /Parental Controls/DNS-Filtering/
- set 'Enable DNS-based Filtering' to ON
- set 'Global Filter Mode' to 'NO filtering'
- fill in 'Custom (user-defined) DNS 1' with, for example, Google's DNS 8.8.8.8
- select your client(s) in the Client List and set 'Filter Mode' 'Custom 1'
- click Apply

Now the client(s) in the Client list get the DNS from google and not from your router.

I will give it shot tonight. Thank you for the prompt reply.
I am a bit confused by "client" as I don't have the AP with Merlin FW in front of me right now. I hope it is not MAC based filter as I don't how it would work. I will try it and report back.

 

[Makaveli]

Question is anyone able to access www.hardocp.com with AB and pixelserv running?

I know they were pretty anal before about having their ads blocked.

I had them white listed in Ad block but not with the new ab blocking solution can someone check this for me?

 

[tpaxadpom]

This is how you exclude clients from ad blocking:
Go to /Parental Controls/DNS-Filtering/
- set 'Enable DNS-based Filtering' to ON
- set 'Global Filter Mode' to 'NO filtering'
- fill in 'Custom (user-defined) DNS 1' with, for example, Google's DNS 8.8.8.8
- select your client(s) in the Client List and set 'Filter Mode' 'Custom 1'
- click Apply

Now the client(s) in the Client list get the DNS from google and not from your router.

I re-read your post and I believe the solution you have provided will simply disable ad-blocking on that client when specified DNS is used. The problem is that I cannot set DNS on TV set for IPTV app by itself. Instead I have to change Network settings so essentially all of my apps will be routed through that specific DNS, which disables ad blocking for youtube app. I am trying to figure out the way to watch youtube without ads and keep IPTV service running. Your solution simply changes DNS TV is going to use on the router side instead of TV network settings.

Here is what I believe has worked (essentially your recommended settings with one exception):
Go to /Parental Controls/DNS-Filtering/
- set 'Enable DNS-based Filtering' to ON
- set 'Global Filter Mode' to 'Router'
- fill in 'Custom (user-defined) DNS 1' with, for example, Google's DNS 8.8.8.8
- select your client(s) in the Client List and set 'Filter Mode' 'Custom 1'
- click Apply

Thank you for your help once again. I did see one commercial on youtube but I was changing settings back and force. I will update this post if ads come back.

 

[starbux]

Would it be a bad idea to add this entire hosts file IP list to the blacklist in Ab-Solution 3?

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt

Does Ab-Solution automatically get rid of overlap in blocked domains from the lists that Ab-solution automatically pulls in?

 

[thelonelycoder]

I did see one commercial on youtube but I was changing settings back and force. I will update this post if ads come back.

Filtering YouTube ads completely with a hosts based ad-blocker such as AB-Solution is almost impossible. Don't put your hopes too high on that one.
Your router's processing power is not capable to do such granular filtering as a browser based blocker can.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Would it be a bad idea to add this entire hosts file IP list to the blacklist in Ab-Solution 3?

http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt

Does Ab-Solution automatically get rid of overlap in blocked domains from the lists that Ab-solution automatically pulls in?

Why would you want to add an already included hosts file to the blacklist?
See https://www.ab-solution.info/how-to/ at the bottom for the list of hosts files used in AB-Solution.
And of course, duplicates are removed from the final hosts-adblock file.

 

[tpaxadpom]

Filtering YouTube ads completely with a hosts based ad-blocker such as AB-Solution is almost impossible. Don't put your hopes too high on that one.
Your router's processing power is not capable to do such granular filtering as a browser based blocker can.

So far so good. Good to know though that complete ad blocking is not possible. I appreciate your help.

 

[steelskinz]

For pixelserv-tls to work (explicitly the tls part) it needs to to communicate on the secure layer, the certificates are used for that.

Great. Thanks.

 

[eighteen]

My ab solution problem does not block advertising over vpn router is resolved. But I have some devices that your connection to my router is not going through vpn and when I intend to connect or disconnect vpn through the openvpn application. On these devices what change I have to do in the openvpn file for the ab-solution work?


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