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I'm trying to find out a) whether the junk a news site pulls down from outbrain.com (specifically http://widgets.outbrain.com/outbrain.js) is necessary when reading that site and b) how I can surpress the loading of this junk to answer a).

I've tried adding various rules like and even but the junk is still there.

The reference to it is in in a script element in the head for the news site.

Please how do I outbrain outbrain? But there seem to be other providers of junk who I want to squelch but similar rules don't overrule them either.

Firefox 15.0
ABP 2.1.2 with Easylist subscription plus a sheaf of home-grown rules
Mac OS X 10.8.1

should definitely block http://widgets.outbrain.com/outbrain.js (but the filter "outbrain.com" should also have worked...)
If this still doesn't work, can you please make a issue report with ABP and post its link here so we can see what's wrong?

Crits wrote:

Code: Select all

||outbrain.com^

should definitely block http://widgets.outbrain.com/outbrain.js (but the filter "outbrain.com" should also have worked...)
If this still doesn't work, can you please make a issue report with ABP and post its link here so we can see what's wrong?

I've added
To my Extreme Measures list (we'll see how it goes). It is blocking the script as intended.

Can you please explain exactly what you were hoping to achieve by blocking it, were you trying to prevent specific content on the page from loading? If so perhaps a screen shot would help us (me)understand.

Hubird wrote:I've added

Code: Select all

||outbrain.com^$third-party

Added that to my custom filters and still the code for their script is being loaded.

Can you please explain exactly what you were hoping to achieve by blocking it, were you trying to prevent specific content on the page from loading? If so perhaps a screen shot would help us (me)understand.

That's just it, I don't know what it's there for. The code is deliberately obfuscated; they have removed all spaces that are not data.

First I want to know whether the absence of this script will prevent conventional functionality of the web site concerned (http://www.guardian.co.uk/) from working. Why download a script that does nothing for my "experience" of the site?

Secondly, from Outbrain's own web site they appear to be some tracking outfit. So if I can get a rule to work without affecting the original site's functionality then I want to blatt this junk to hell to prevent the tracking from working.

Third there are a heap of other "extras" loaded for that web site that smell of tracking and ads. But despite my existing custom filters that junk also gets through.

BTW, how can you be sure that the content of http://widgets.outbrain.com/outbrain.js (or any other script from outbrain.com) is still being loaded, even with the filters?

It isn't always easy to tell if blocking a script will cause issues or not, most of the time it is trial and error.

If you open the ABP blockable items pane you can see what has been booked.

Hubird wrote:It isn't always easy to tell if blocking a script will cause issues or not, most of the time it is trial and error.

I don't mind the trial and error; been known to mess for hours getting rid of tracking junk and related unnecessary content on web sites. But this one proved to be a little trickier.

If you open the ABP blockable items pane you can see what has been booked.

Now that's weird. It wasn't blocked earlier despite me having exited from Firefox. Now four hours later it is blocked now after I had to "force quit", "kill -9", or "abend" Firefox because it had become unresponsive.

As it happens this Outbrain script doesn't affect the conventional/expected behaviour of the web site I was using.

This filter

/advertising-

breaks the Outbrain user dashboard (my.outbrain.com)

Is there any way to fix this? Using Chrome.

Fixed in EasyList https://hg.adblockplus.org/easylist/rev/5052304da1a7

Another question: should outbrain's "from around the web" links on a page such as this one be blocked? Do they constitute advertising?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/jodi-arias-pos ... ZMFhSvwJgJ

Not advertising, but maybe considered annoyance..Will decide later if it gets added. Currently testing the following filter

Okay, let see how this goes..

https://hg.adblockplus.org/easylist/rev/148b8bcf004e

This filter
is breaking my.outbrain.com now.

Should be fixed now: https://hg.adblockplus.org/easylist/rev/ede966f67f40