Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Everything about using Adblock Plus on Google Chrome
MonztA
ABP Developer
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Re: Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Post by MonztA »

Ok, thanks!
MonztA
ABP Developer
Posts: 3957
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Post by MonztA »

Turns out the tracking pixels simply were not blocked in ABP for Chrome 1.2 and older. For some reason (I don't know why) blocking them breaks more sites in Chrome than it does in Firefox. :( I will discuss this with the other EasyList authors how we will deal with it.
fhd
Posts: 119
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:29 pm

Re: Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Post by fhd »

That's what I suspected, not a Chrome bug after all.

Anyway, you pointed out earlier that blocking the tracking scripts might cause issues, and that does indeed not look like the best solution. Do you think this is/could be an issue when blocking tracking pixels in other systems?

What we could do is add a new filter option that returns an empty resource instead of failing. I'd be reluctant to implement that just for Omniture though.
MonztA
ABP Developer
Posts: 3957
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Post by MonztA »

fhd wrote:Anyway, you pointed out earlier that blocking the tracking scripts might cause issues, and that does indeed not look like the best solution. Do you think this is/could be an issue when blocking tracking pixels in other systems?
Back then when the issue was reported, the same issue happend with tracking pixels from scorecardresearch.com. I cannot find any current examples though. I would say it can always happen with other tracking systems.

Maybe blocking the s_code script isn't (that) dangerous anymore. I still have no feedback from the other authors whether we should block it again or not.
MonztA
ABP Developer
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Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Post by MonztA »

Wladimir Palant

Re: Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Post by Wladimir Palant »

Actually, that's Adobe SiteCatalyst we are talking about here. The feature in question is called "forced link tracking" and is described in detail here. It was introduced in version H.25 for WebKit-based browsers and in version H.26 for Gecko-based browsers. The latter isn't very wide-spread yet which is why the issue is only being reported for Chrome.

This feature isn't meant to prevent link clicks, merely delay them to allow the tracking request to happen. However, there are two bugs:
  • The code re-triggering the link click is attached to the "load" event handler of the tracking image. That fails to account for the fact that image loads sometimes fail, same code should be running for the "error" event handler as well.
  • There is some failsafe code that removes the link handler after the first click. That one fails to have any effect because the link handler was registered as a capturing event handler, yet the code removing it assumes a non-capturing handler.
On chip.de there are more issues - the hook-tracking.js script (apparently a custom script on this particular website) breaks some of the SiteCatalyst functionality because it wraps its functions. Blocking that script makes SiteCatalyst work correctly.
MonztA
ABP Developer
Posts: 3957
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Post by MonztA »

Wladimir Palant wrote:Blocking that script makes SiteCatalyst work correctly.
Oh, nice find. Blocking this one as well now. Will leave the filter for omniture_somtr_code_vH.25.js in the list since it doesn't seem to cause issues.
Wladimir Palant

Re: Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Post by Wladimir Palant »

I contacted Adobe with the technical details of this issue. Let's hope I'll get a response.
MonztA
ABP Developer
Posts: 3957
Joined: Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:18 am
Location: Germany

Re: Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Post by MonztA »

Thanks!
scoyle391

Re: Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Post by scoyle391 »

Hi guys....
so the same thing has been happening to me on pandora, except I am getting redirected to THIS site: http://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/arpy?u ... m=baseball

I uninstalled ABP and it still redirects me. I am literally helpless when it comes to the whitelisting thing you can do, so if anyone could lend some help :(

Thanks!
Wladimir Palant

Re: Ad-Block Plus rendered many pages useless after update 10/28

Post by Wladimir Palant »

scoyle391 wrote:I uninstalled ABP and it still redirects me.
That's a very good indication that the issue has nothing to do with Adblock Plus. And it definitely has nothing to do with the issue discussed in this topic.
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