What mean default values in whitelistschemes

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defaultvalueexplanations

What mean default values in whitelistschemes

Post by defaultvalueexplanations »

Would appreciate a more detaileled explanation of the default values of extensions.adblockplus.whitelistschemes at adblockplus.org/en/preferences. Actually don't understand what is whitelisted and what is needed not to be whitelisted.
Thank you.
Ares2
Posts: 1275
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:47 pm

Re: What mean default values in whitelistschemes

Post by Ares2 »

Usually, you will use Adblock Plus to block http and https resources. Those are two examples for an URI scheme. If you read the Wikipedia entry, you will see that there are a lot of other schemes, some of them also known for their use in the context of a web browser, like ftp://ftp.mozilla.org , mailto:foo@example.com , about:config ....

Firefox uses some of those schemes internally (specifically: "about", "chrome", "moz-safe-about", "moz-icon", "x-jsd" and probably "resource"). Adblock Plus would actually be able to block them and because it makes little sense to block crucial local browser components (like, for example, just about the whole user interface ;-) ) and to avoid any of those things getting blocked accidentally by a bad filter, it makes a lot of sense to whitelist those schemes.

Do the research yourself if you want to know anything more specific about the schemes, but here is a quick classification:

"cid", "mailbox", "imap", "pop" and "addbook" are related to Mail/Thunderbird

"news", "snews", "nntp" are related to Newsgroups/Usenet

"irc" is related to IRC (duh)

"javascript": I didn't check how blocking those would work or whether it works at all

"file" is used to load local files, removing this scheme would for example allow you to block local embedded images of a local webpage (which you could be developing). However, non-local websites cannot use "file" to access local files for security reasons, therefore blocking "file" uris would really only serve local filter testing purposes.

"data" is used to embed files directly into a document and might be the only scheme worth removing from the list as it is actually used by websites. You can then block embedded "data" files, but only after they have already been downloaded (they are part of the document itself, they have already been downloaded with it when Adblock Plus gets a chance to see them). Therefore you could probably just hide the item with the Element Hiding Helper without the hassle of removing the scheme from the whitelist.

Example page for "data" images: en/chrome/

After removing the "data" scheme whitelist and restarting Firefox, you could use this to block the screenshot:

Code: Select all

|data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0K*7WGFjEZdiGhvPpSlMZXBrYygnNmVM5*TkSuQmCC|$domain=adblockplus.org
To instead simply hide it which pretty much has the same effect but without the requirement to tamper with whitelistschemes:

Code: Select all

adblockplus.org##img[src^="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0K"][src*="7WGFjEZdiGhvPpSlMZXBrYygnNmVM5"][src$="TkSuQmCC"]
defaultvalueexplanations

Re: What mean default values in whitelistschemes

Post by defaultvalueexplanations »

Thank you very much for your detailled answer.
But people use the list of blockable items sometimes just for getting some information and
if the items don't appear in the list of blockable items
then the desired information is also not displayed.
lewisje
Posts: 2743
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 12:07 pm

Re: What mean default values in whitelistschemes

Post by lewisje »

ABP is not intended for that; try Firebug or the Chrome Web Inspector.
There's a buzzin' in my brain I really can't explain; I think about it before they make me go to bed.
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