[Done] Removing "Block Images from ..." context me

[Wladimir Palant]

This seems a common issue: a user decides to try out Adblock Plus, goes to the context menu and clicks "Block Images from bla-bla.com". He never noticed this menu item before, so this must be from Adblock Plus. And then he fails to recognize how he can unblock the images again - Adblock Plus isn't showing any filters. So he uninstalls Adblock Plus and keeps complaining about how bad this extension is - his images still don't show up.

There is a suggestion in Bugzilla about integrating Adblock Plus with "Block Images from" somehow. The functionality of the two is very different however, and Adblock Plus makes the built-in blocker redundant. I get the impression that best thing that we can do here is to remove this item from the context menu alltogether. There would be a hidden option (about:config) to switch this off.

I am considering this change for Adblock Plus 0.7.0.1, to be released this weekend. Any objections?

[Fox]

This is very good idea.

[Peng]

I kind of object to messing with another feature...

What would you do about domains already on the image blocklist?

[Master X]

Would be a improvment, mainly for novice users. Good idea in my opinion.

And professionals can still access the internal Firefox image blocking via tools/preferences menu. So there sould be no problems.

[Wladimir Palant]

@Peng: They are accessible via Options (or Image Manager in SeaMonkey).

[Peng]

I know, but this is being done for people who never noticed the 'Block Images' context menu item. How are they going to find the 'Exceptions' button?

But, that's probably going to be a problem less frequently than what you described in the first post, so it would be worth it.

[Wladimir Palant]

@Peng: Whoever needs "Exceptions" is someone who noticed "Block Images" by definition

Anyway, I received a valid objection: somebody who used "Block Images" before he installed Adblock Plus might simply forget that he didn't block something with Adblock Plus. And then we will have the original problem again - somebody is confused why images are blocked without any Adblock Plus filters.

A clean solution would be: in addition to hiding the menu item Adblock Plus Preferences will show an additional group "Image Manager filters" - first entry a comment describing what this is, then a list of entries from the image manager. Editing will open the image manager dialog.

This isn't going to make it into Adblock Plus 0.7.0.1 however.

[Peng]

A clean solution would be: in addition to hiding the menu item Adblock Plus Preferences will show an additional group "Image Manager filters" - first entry a comment describing what this is, then a list of entries from the image manager. Editing will open the image manager dialog.

I like that solution. Would you still hide the 'Block Images' context menu item in 0.7.0.1 without doing this, though?

(I wonder, is blocking a domain with the image blocklist faster than using Adblock Plus?)

[Wladimir Palant]

I like that solution. Would you still hide the 'Block Images' context menu item in 0.7.0.1 without doing this, though?

No, better make one change in 0.7.1 than an incomplete in 0.7.0.1 and a fix later.

(I wonder, is blocking a domain with the image blocklist faster than using Adblock Plus?)

It probably is but only if you don't have Adblock Plus installed at all.

[Peng]

No, better make one change in 0.7.1 than an incomplete in 0.7.0.1 and a fix later.

Okay, good.

It probably is but only if you don't have Adblock Plus installed at all.

Hmm. Okay. I had never thought of moving stuff from the image blocklist to Adblock Plus.

[Master X]

A clean solution would be: in addition to hiding the menu item Adblock Plus Preferences will show an additional group "Image Manager filters" - first entry a comment describing what this is, then a list of entries from the image manager. Editing will open the image manager dialog.

Not a bad idea. But I know the differences between internal blocking and adblock; do the newbies know it, too?? In most cases they will not read the instructions/information. And when they try to edit them and a new window pops up, they can perhaps be totally confused.

And also the splitting of the lists can be dangerous. Import/export will not cover this list. And the lists are saved at different locations. When somebody tries to backup, he will not export the internal list.


In my opinion it would be the best, if the user is asked after the installation/update of adblock plus, if he would like to transfer the internal list into adblock (and delete the internal list) or not.

[Wladimir Palant]

The point is exactly that it isn't possible to transfer the filters - there is no way you can block images (and only images) from domain bla.com (yes, domain!) with Adblock Plus.

[ecjs]

This seems a common issue: a user decides to try out Adblock Plus, goes to the context menu and clicks "Block Images from bla-bla.com". He never noticed this menu item before, so this must be from Adblock Plus. And then he fails to recognize how he can unblock the images again - Adblock Plus isn't showing any filters. So he uninstalls Adblock Plus and keeps complaining about how bad this extension is - his images still don't show up.

I knew this feature, although I didn't know the context menu item was not from Adblock !

[chewey]

I get the impression that best thing that we can do here is to remove this item from the context menu alltogether. There would be a hidden option (about:config) to switch this off.

I am considering this change for Adblock Plus 0.7.0.1, to be released this weekend. Any objections?

I think you've got a valid point here. I too had to deal with this problem
several times already, with people accusing my list of blocking things it
didn't.

However - as you pointed out already - the functionality of
per-domain-blocking of images cannot be replicated using ABP, so
importing existing rules on installation isn't feasible either.

An integration in ABP's UI in my opinion also is a problem, because users
will assume this to be a part of ABP and expect exported filters to contain
those rules too.

So maybe you could remove the menu item if the image blocking list is
empty, which means it is not being used. I've never used it myself, and I
don't know how common usage of this feature is, but I don't expect too
many casual users being aware of it.

Or you could change the menu items text, adding somthing like "hey,
careful, that's not ABP" - not too pretty a solution, unfortunately.

Or - this may be one of the easiest - make import/export deal with those
rules too, as a not-really-ABP-related-but-nice-to-have bonus feature.

Hum. After all, I don't really see an obvious simple solution to this
problem except adding documentation about Gecko's image blocking
in an eye-catching place. Which obviously will still mean hardly anybody
reading it . Tricky.

[Wladimir Palant]

That's probably the easiest thing to do - only remove "Block images from" if the block list is empty. We could do this in Adblock Plus 0.7.0.1 and see whether somebody cares.