Re: Ad blocking in OS2008
 

I've NEVER had Privoxy "crash" on me and I've used it pretty much non-stop for almost two years now, upgrading it along the way. So far the most recent "stable" version is dated 2006 and I'm using it on my N800 w/OS2008, MacBook Pro with OS X 10.4.11, and Vista laptop installed as a service with ZERO problems.
On Eurogamer it blocks....THE ADS! Which was the point of Privoxy anyway. If it's crashing on you then your machine is doing something out of the ordinary.
On Penny-Arcade with the N800 I've noticed that if you have "fit to width" enabled on any browser (micro-b, opera, OS2008-mozilla) then the blocked ad kind of forces you to scroll a lot, but once you set it to normal page width that problem goes away.
What I do NOT like about the OS2008 browser is that when you set "fit to width" on one window it forces it across all the other web browser windows. OS2007 thankfully didn't do that. Some pages I like "set to width" (forums, etc.) but for most of them I don't.

Re: Ad blocking in OS2008
 

The first thing I did was setup an adblocking host file. Unfortunately that's a bit high on the crude-o-meter and in this case the hosts file seemed unable to block stuff that quite clearly was present in the file. Most notably the rather large ad on the right hand side of Reddit.com. Oddly enough this method had always worked with Opera under OS2007 (Although doing it with Opera raised another set of problems that I'm pleased I don't have to run into again).

I'm happy enough with Privoxy so far though. At the moment Eurogamer seems to be the only site on my regular browse list that has this rather weird problem so I'm not terribly worried for now if I can't solve it.

It does concern me somewhat that Microb has no method of blocking images from user definable sites. In my opinion this is a very important feature on a system that an awful lot of people will be using from low bandwidth connections. Heavy ad use on websites is a big killer when it comes to the mobile web experience. It would be nice to have a way built into the system of blocking content that's not wanted. Either through a simple blocklist system built into Microb by default or by someone porting something more powerful like Adblock plus.

While privoxy works it's definately overkill for what the average user needs and if the user does need to change something it's going to be almost impossible to give them support here on this forum if they don't have the technical knowledge to enable root access and hand edit config files. I have no problem with it. I went straight in and enabled access to the web configuration tools but even I have to struggle to figure out what to turn on and off. As mentioned earlier by default this config of Privoxy turns all cookies into sessions cookies which is going to confuse the hell out of some people :)

We definately need something simpler to use, configure and maintain. I could always use Firefox on my eeePC (Running Ubuntu and with full access to my BTDUN connection) but the form factor of my N800 (And soon my N810) is far superior for a quick surf while waiting for a train :)

And I'm sure we're all for improving the mobile web experience ;)

Re: Ad blocking in OS2008
 

It's not crashing for anyone on Eurogamer. What it's doing is replacing the ads with a rather intrusive set of text and links that it doesn't seem to be doing with ads on every other site I've tested it with. I was just curious as to why.

Re: Ad blocking in OS2008
 

That's not Privoxy, that's the site. It depends on EXACTLY what Privoxy is blocking.
If it's a lazy-assed web developer who used nothing more than an inline frameset pulling a "page" from another site or rotating ad directory then you're going to get that text. If it's something else Privoxy tends to "crunch!" it and make it like it was never there.
Either way, it's not Privoxy's fault, it's the fault of the lazy web developer who built the site. Eurogamer has some pretty piss-poor site design going for it. I wouldn't put it on my resume if I was a web dev looking for a job.

Re: Ad blocking in OS2008
 

Eurogamer is putting up a message that says "Privoxy blocked <site> See why or Go there anyway" I don't think you meant it to sound like that.

Privoxy must be putting up the message for a reason. I'm just curious to know why. It might indeed be the site doing something to trigger that behaviour in Privoxy but I for one would like to figure out what it is. Mainly because it's annoying and I want to make it stop.

You do realise that your posts come across as very angry for some reason? Am I doing something wrong by wondering why a program behaves in a certain way?

Re: Ad blocking in OS2008
 

I tried privoxy today (downloaded from http://eko.one.pl/maemo/dists/bora/u....6-2_armel.deb), but disabled it for now. The main problem I had is that it was significantly increasing loading time for some sites and and did not work well with Ajax. For example: http://slickdeals.net - without privoxy it takes 5-10 seconds to render it, then when I click some deal, it takes 2 seconds to load just new frame without re-rendering the entire page. With privoxy enabled I get "connecting" message for 10 seconds, then it renders it 5-10 seconds and clicking on any deals makes browser reload the entire page.

Re: Ad blocking in OS2008
 

The code on reddit that displays the ad is:
reallystatic.reddit.com is not in my hosts and it appears it is used elsewhere on the site so blocking that host may break the site. I use a combination hosts file and css. I use ad-blocking.css from Gozer.org and do not see the ad.

Re: Ad blocking in OS2008
 

Perhaps. The only time I bothered to try it on the device was back when MicroB first came out, and it constantly needed restarting (making browsing completely impossible while it was down). This has probably changed, but the CSS/hosts setup works well enough for me on the NITs (and I have a smart browser to take care of it on OS X ;)).

I hate to bring up a stupid suggestion, but did you restart? :)

Re: Ad blocking in OS2008
 

You have to check :) Yes I did ;) Privoxy seems to be doing the job for me at the moment. Your discovery of the Reddit ad code does tend to highlight the limitations of the hosts file method though. I'll use privoxy for a few days and see if I run into any problems.

Re: Ad blocking in OS2008
 

I could never use Microb on 2007. I found it slow, very buggy and much more prone to crashing than Opera. However Microb on OS2008 once I sorted out one problem of my own making has only crashed once and doesn't seem anywhere near as sluggish as it used to be.