Adblock Plus and (a little) more
Dear authors of ad blocking software · 2008-05-09 12:56 by Wladimir Palant
I know that there is lots of different ad blocking software out there, for browsers other than Firefox or even independent of any browser. Some of these programs can use the same filter subscriptions that Adblock Plus offers, and some even use EasyList and/or other Adblock Plus subscriptions by default. And I don’t see a problem with that — as long as they do it in a nice way. However, I do have a problem when bugs in those ad blocking solutions overload my server. Which is why I want to write down some rules for using EasyList (that’s the only subscription currently hosted on my server though maintainers of other subscriptions will probably see it similarly):
- If you use somebody’s work, please credit them. It isn’t “default filter list”, it is “EasyList”. And it is maintained by Rick752 who has a website to help people with their issues as well as collect feedback — please point to it.
- Please make sure that you handle issues gracefully. If the subscription cannot be downloaded for some reason, don’t make another attempt until a day later. Don’t flood the server with requests only because the filter maintainer uploaded a broken file.
- Make as few requests as possible. For example, if you download both EasyList and EasyElement, use the combined subscription, don’t download them separately. Other combined subscriptions are available and more can easily be added if you need them.
- Please don’t download subscriptions too often, try to do the same thing Adblock Plus is doing. This means: consider the expiration time that is set for a subscription. Don’t forget to send “If-Modified-Since” headers to save traffic on the server.
- Don’t assume that the subscriptions will never move. Again, please try to be reasonably similar to Adblock Plus here, support permanent redirects so you don’t keep sending requests to the server that doesn’t have the filter list any more.
Feel free to ignore all points but the first one if you host a copy of EasyList on your own server. But please don’t as long as you are using mine.
PS: Something else that isn’t mandatory but that I would prefer: please set the User-Agent header so that I can recognize what software is doing the downloads. No “(Gecko)” and no “CFNetwork/221.5” please. I promise that I will not block anybody by user agent.
Comment [6]
Commenting is closed for this article.
Ash · 2008-05-17 17:12 · #
Good Article m8
FlyinHawaiian · 2008-05-18 01:07 · #
Thank you for all your hard work on Adblock Plus, it makes the Internet a better place to surf :)
piR · 2008-06-02 13:40 · #
Did you see this extension, Add-art, using Adblock plus ?
http://add-art.org/
Reply from Wladimir Palant:
Yes, I even wrote the first version of its code. It relies on Adblock Plus for blocking, so it won’t download any filters itself – no issues.
Arnold · 2008-06-18 04:10 · #
This is the best FF addon I’ve ever had! OK, I don’t surf that much and as much as I love FF, I don’t go hunting down every addon on the block; I just don’t have the time. But when someone on ZDNet blogs said ABP was the one to add, I checked it out. And I wonder how I got by without it before.
Now with FF 3.0 out (I’ve only had it 30 minutes and loving it already), browsing is the best experience I’ve ever had. Thanks for all the work on this product, it really make life better!
Luca Ratti · 2008-06-18 18:53 · #
To save your bandwidth, you can use the Coral Content Distribution Network, like this:
http://easylist.adblockplus.org.nyud.net/easyelement+easylist.txt
Reply from Wladimir Palant:
Coral CDN is quite unreliable. Anyway, neither bandwidth nor server load are a problem right now – if used properly.
dail doucette · 2008-06-25 18:21 · #
Which of your add canceling programs will work on I-Mac computers using OS 10.5 and firefox. daildd@comcast.net
Reply from Wladimir Palant:
Well, Adblock Plus will work in Firefox regardless of what it is installed on.