Privoxy: cannot get rid of google & facebook ads, or social buttons

geo909 · 2014-06-25 21:34:53

Hi all,

I wanted to give privoxy a try. For starters, I'd like to do some adblocking, so I followed the wiki instructions for adblocking with privoxy. In particular, I used the privoxy-blocklist script the wiki mentions to download and use the following adblock lists:

easylist
easyprivacy
fanboy-annoyance
fanboy-social
fanboy-antifacebook
malwaredomains_full
void-gr-filters (for ads in Greek sites)

Also, again as per the wiki, I added

{+block-as-image{Facebook "like" and similar tracking URLs.}}
www.facebook.com/(extern|plugins)/(login_status|like(box)?|activity|fan)\.php
platform.twitter.com/widgets/follow_button?
plusone.google.com

in my /etc/privoxy/user.action file.

Although now I have adblocking working, I can't get rid of google ads, facebook ads, or social buttons (e.g. facebook like, etc).

I googled around, and tried all sorts of things. For instance, the following guides did not work for me:
http://www.willamowius.de/privoxy.html
http://superuser.com/questions/668608/c … th-privoxy

Any suggestions anybody?

EDIT: I'm using privoxy 3.0.21-2 with firefox 30

Last edited by geo909 (2014-06-25 21:36:31)

brebs · 2014-06-26 08:06:20

Are they textual ads, or pictures?

Textual ads are harder to get rid of - this is where greasemonkey is useful.

geo909 · 2014-06-26 15:12:12

brebs wrote:

Are they textual ads, or pictures?
Textual ads are harder to get rid of - this is where greasemonkey is useful.

Thanks.. Though adblock plus would get rid of those. Also I wonder if installing privoxy and greasemonkey
slows down my firefox.. All in all, for ad blocking, I'm thinking of going back to adblock plus.

geo909 · 2014-06-26 15:19:10

Though, I have to say I may have not read the wiki very carefully:

To block tracking via embedded Facebook "Like" button, Twitter "follow", and Google Plus "+1", edit /etc/privoxy/user.action and add these lines to the end:

This is to disable the tracking and not actually hide the buttons.

Though, if I click, say the google plus button, it will still share the page. This is different from tracking, I guess?

Steef435 · 2014-06-26 20:17:50

Tracking in this sense means that Facebook/Google/Twitter knows you've visited the page even though you've never even thought about clicking that button.

geo909 · 2014-06-26 20:51:19

Steef435 wrote:

Tracking in this sense means that Facebook/Google/Twitter knows you've visited the page even though you've never even thought about clicking that button.

I see, thanks. This is the point that I didn't completely understand. So, using the appropriate filters with privoxy will remove
the tracking part, but the buttons will still be there to click if you so desire. Did I get it right?

Arch Linux

#1 2014-06-25 21:34:53

Privoxy: cannot get rid of google & facebook ads, or social buttons

#2 2014-06-26 08:06:20

Re: Privoxy: cannot get rid of google & facebook ads, or social buttons

#3 2014-06-26 15:12:12

Re: Privoxy: cannot get rid of google & facebook ads, or social buttons

#4 2014-06-26 15:19:10

Re: Privoxy: cannot get rid of google & facebook ads, or social buttons

#5 2014-06-26 20:17:50

Re: Privoxy: cannot get rid of google & facebook ads, or social buttons

#6 2014-06-26 20:51:19

Re: Privoxy: cannot get rid of google & facebook ads, or social buttons

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