Facebook Connect surrogate request

[Mark Z]

How about a “Facebook Connect” surrogate? Without http://connect.facebook.net/en_us/all.js videos on http://screen.yahoo.com are broken here, as are selected videos elsewhere. As this condition has been mentioned previously in this forum by someone else, I know my experience is not unique. This Facebook script is appearing on more and more sites and privacy implications of allowing this script to run at all seem enormous, considering other things such as the consequences of the mere presence of the Facebook Like button all over the web. A Facebook Connect surrogate script in NoScript seems to me to be the best solution from a usability, privacy and user-choice standpoint.

[GµårÐïåñ]

Agreed, Facebook is like a flesh eating bacteria that is spreading everywhere and has now been linked to everything, which is asinine. The problem in my view of making a surrogate for it, is that the implementation is so varied that there is no way to account for all variations of the implementation and also how they have weaved this crap into their code.

So the best method is to just sever it and if you use the Antisocial list from Adblock Plus, that should do it for you, also Ghostery has a pretty decent Facebook Social blocker, so give those a shot in the meantime. If Giorgio decided to add something, I am sure it will be superior to the rest and more of a scalpel but in the meantime try the machete and see if it does the trick for you. I have been doing it this way and not seen any issues, so give it a shot.

If you want me to give you more feedback, provide me links to stuff that won't work unless you allow it and let me see if my setup allows for it, that way I can tell you how I am doing it and that might help for now.

[@ GµårÐïåñ]

If you want me to give you more feedback, provide me links to stuff that won't work unless you allow it and let me see if my setup allows for it, that way I can tell you how I am doing it and that might help for now.

http://screen.yahoo.com

[GµårÐïåñ]

Very interesting, taking a quick look at the code, not digging too much, I don't see why the link to Facebook would even be necessary I mean the container is constructed like this:

Code: Select all

<div id="yui_3_5_1_1_1339633713264_236" class="bd">
                <div id="ymh-video-header" class="clearfix hide-video-count"><h2><span class="title"></span><span class="count"></span></h2></div>
                <div id="ymh-player-swf">
                    <noscript>
                        <div>
                            <object width="630" height="354">
                                <param name="movie" value="http://d.yimg.com/nl/vyc/site/player.swf?lang="></param>
                                <param name="wmode" value="opaque"></param>
                                <param node="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
                                <param name="flashVars" value="vid=29643736&locale="></param>
                                <embed width="630" height="354"
                                    src="http://d.yimg.com/nl/vyc/site/player.swf?lang="
                                    type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
                                    flashvars="vid=29643736&autoPlay=1&volume=100&enableFullScreen=1&locale=&mute=0&embedCode=default&repeat=0&startScreenCarouselUI=hide&browseCarouselUI=hide&adRuleId="
                                    wmode="opaque">
                                </embed>
                            </object>
                        </div>
                    </noscript>
                </div>
            </div>

So it should have no direct need to access Facebook other than I see for sharing and commenting purposes. But that shouldn't prohibit the load of the actual resources unless I am missing some minor flag somewhere in the rest of the busy page code that flips a boolean or something that says, go or not. Unfortunately my machete setup doesn't allow it, something like this I would just open in Dragon inside a sandbox and be done with it. Sorry I couldn't be more help but maybe Giorgio will have a solution.

[Dudeman]

Adblocker works just fine with Yahoo. It's Ghostery that doesn't work well with Yahoo videos like this: http://news.yahoo.com/video/baby-bikini ... 15053.html

Ghostery used to work, so my guess is that it's an arms race between those trying to track and those trying to avoid being tracked.

[GµårÐïåñ]

Ghostery has been implementing "surrogates" using a very poor model and extremely bad implementation causing content breaks for years now. I would not be surprised at all if the problem is Ghostery, in fact I would probably bet on it.