ABP forum not for filter issues, but where then?

Everything about using Adblock Plus on Google Chrome
Post Reply
geve
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2019 10:06 am

ABP forum not for filter issues, but where then?

Post by geve »

Hi,

I'm new to this forum but not new to ABP custom filters or writing my own filter lists.
With browser engines such as chrome and firefox supporting html5 now, I think advanced filtering may be possible which were not possible before. However, I cannot find useful examples of these advanced filters and I had no success so far writing my own.
So, if this is not the place for advanced filtering questions, where can these questions go?
But if you would be willing to help me and maybe others with similar questions, could you take a look at this:

<li id="10bf840" data-teaser-hash="816030019" class="teaser-list-item fjs-hftn-teaser hftn-list-item-teaser__wrapper" style="height: 32px;">
<article class="list-teaser hftn-list-item-teaser">
<header class="teaser-header hftn-list-teaser__header">
<time datetime="2019-09-05T07:02:50.668Z[UTC]" class="teaser-publication-time hftn-list-teaser__publication-time">09u02</time>
<h1 class="hftn-list-teaser__title" title="Wapenlobbygroep NRA is in San Francisco voortaan "binnenlandse terreurorganisastie""> <a data-gtm="net-binnen-teaser/art-7/text" href="https://www.hln.be/nieuws/buitenland/wa ... ~a10bf840/" class="teaser-link teaser-link--color hftn-list-teaser__link">Wapenlobbygroep NRA is in San...</a>
</h1>
</header>
</article>
</li>

It's part of a news website (http://www.hln.be). While I know how to filter (hide) an unwanted <a href> element, the <time> element is still showing in this case, so I really want to block the complete surrounding <li> element containing that url reference.
The id= on the <li> element is probably generated randomly so cannot be used for filtering.

The above is just an example. The more general question being: how to filter an element that cannot be filtered on its own but instead contains another identifiable element.

Thanks for reading and any useful feedback.
sbell
ABP Technical Support Specialist
Posts: 522
Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2017 8:08 pm

Re: ABP forum not for filter issues, but where then?

Post by sbell »

Hi there!

Great question! You can reach out here https://forums.lanik.us. ABP is not the owner of this site but these are the Authors of Easy List.

Thanks
Shannon
ABP Support Team
Naheem
Posts: 208
Joined: Sun Dec 04, 2016 1:02 pm

Re: ABP forum not for filter issues, but where then?

Post by Naheem »

sbell wrote:Hi there!

Great question! You can reach out here https://forums.lanik.us. ABP is not the owner of this site but these are the Authors of Easy List.

Thanks
Shannon
ABP Support Team
Lanik banned my IP address a couple of years ago from there so theres no way for me to get help with sites that I have problems with. He banned me for a very poor reason and was getting his personal frustration out because I was commenting on old threads that weren't correctly working and he hadn't yet made a rule for that so he banned me on the basis of me doing that even though I broke no rule at that time I was only trying to help.
geve
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2019 10:06 am

Re: ABP forum not for filter issues, but where then?

Post by geve »

sbell wrote:Hi there!

Great question! You can reach out here https://forums.lanik.us. ABP is not the owner of this site but these are the Authors of Easy List.

Thanks
Shannon
ABP Support Team
ABP may not be the owner of that site, but ABP is the owner of the filter rules and their syntax. I find it less than helpful to leave it to others to explain how to use them.

It appears to me that the long term goal of ABP is to abandon support for the average customer completely.
First there was the action to remove Element Hiding Helper that did much better than the very poor filter implementation in ABP itself. As a ABP developer I would be ashamed of myself.
Recently, I noticed that the mobile version of ABP even doesn't support custom filters anymore and instead insists on filter lists being used (which are incompatible with desktop filter lists, maybe only in the header).

So it would be very useful to know what ABP really wants: do you want to empower the customer to filter out unwanted things that are being thrown at him even if that goes (far) beyond advertisement filtering, do you want to leave it to specialists such as the Easy List guru's to decide what's good/bad for everybody, or is it the long term goal to remove the possibility for filtering completely?
Post Reply