InformAction Forums

Ads that come from "Adblade" are on a site I frequent (Salon.com). These show up despite not authorizing them.

Today I clicked to Allow them, and this eliminates them!

Has Adblade figured out a workaround to defeat NoScript, or is this a bug?

Neither. NoScript is a security tool which happens to have some utility for ad blocking. Most of the adblade ads I see on salon.com are served directly as images, not scripts. For serious ad blocking, I use Adblock Plus (supplemented with NoScript for security, of course).

I think you missed my point. When I allow Adblade, the ads disappear. Something is awry.

I've been using NoScript for several years, on three platforms. I know how it works.

I think I got your point and answered your questions succinctly, i.e. Adblade has not "figured out a workaround to defeat NoScript" and it isn't a bug in NoScript. I spent 30 minutes trying to reliably duplicate your problem without success before I initially replied. Without explicit steps to reproduce your experience, the rest of us are just shooting in the dark.

That said, even if it's not a bug or even unique, I do find your experience interesting, especially since I couldn't reproduce it.

When I allow Adblade, the ads disappear

The images served from web.adblade.com did not disappear for me when I allowed salon.com and adblade.com. Would you provide explicit steps that we can follow to duplicate this behavior? Maybe I'm looking at different ads than you are. Be sure to describe your problematic ads distinctly. Also, please test with the latest version, NoScript 1.9.9.75, if you're not using it already. It's available at http://noscript.net/getit#devel. That's the version Giorgio and I are both using and is recommended by Giorgio.

Of course I did my testing in a dedicated test profile that has only NoScript installed.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100413 Firefox/3.6.4
NoScript 1.9.9.75, default settings except salon.com and adblade.com allowed.

No Adblade domain for me or in the Google Cache…

BTW: Have you tried marking it as untrusted and setting the setting "Block every object coming from a site marked as untrusted"?

I'm using the current version of NoScript. Here's an example of a URL:


http://letters.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet ... l?show=all

Block rubiconproject,get an ad asking you to take a survey. Allow rubiconproject and the ad disappears.

I tried to find you the earlier example with adblade but it's either gone or I can find the exact page right now; the above example is working in exactly the same way, though.

Oh, also, I have no other adblockers or security add-ons besides NoScript. Besides allowing salon.com on that page, I allow Google (but not googleanalytics or anything else).

In general, I don't mind letting ads on sites I use. I just hate the ones that flash and move around, or jump over or under. Noscript has been great at removing the annoyances for me. It's the one add-on I make sure to put on any new computer.

My comments here aren't complaints! I just think this is odd behavior and thought I'd report it. If you don't see it as odd or problematic, I won't mind being ignored.

elisadavis wrote:I won't mind being ignored.

No problem. You're reports are welcome.

I was trying to help you get rid of the ads "that flash and move around, or jump over or under" that NoScript doesn't eliminate. Giorgio and I recommend Adblock Plus. http://noscript.net/faq#qa1_4

Q: Can adblockers work with NoScript?
A: Even if NoScript does block many advertisements as a side effect, its main focus is on security, hence it misses some fine-grained controls over ads delivery which you can find in proper adblocking products. Fortunately, Adblock Plus is compatible with NoScript: you can use them together for a secure and quiet browsing.

You don't have to use a general Adblock Plus filter subscription which blocks ads from most of the web. I might be able to help you use Adblock Plus to eliminate your problematic ads on salon.com, but I can't reliably duplicate your issue, and salon.com sucks up so much cpu and bandwidth that the process is terribly slow. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

I found that if you go into the frame source on any Adblade ad you can see the code that runs the ad. From there I found that I could block the following websites in my leach block setting in Mozilla's Firefox to successfully block the ads. No Hocus Pocus.

• web.adblade.com
  *adblade.com
  web.adblade.net

If you want a step by step process or more about "LeechBlock", then go to this URL. It is a very effective tool for ad blocking.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4476

I hope this helps.

BTW - Chrome is the platform LeechBlock was designed to work with, but FF has it as a fully functional ad-in.