[Ann] dbab, The Best-Ad-Blocking Method in a Package
Hi,
FYI, I've just packed The Best Ad Blocking Method [1] into a Package [2],
[3]
[1] http://sfxpt.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/the-best-ad-blocking-method/
[2] http://sfxpt.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/the-best-ad-blocking-method-in-
a-package/
[3] http://mentors.debian.net/package/dbab
Taken from the blog:
... the time it takes for someone to setup the best ad blocking method
has been hatched down from the previously over an hour to just a few
minutes this time ...
Here is the preview of how to use the package. It’s called dbab, which
stands for Dnsmasq-Based Ad-Blocking.
- If you don’t have a local web server on your local DNS server, then
install dbab and you are done. Everything should work out of the box for
such situation.
- If you do have a local web server on your local DNS server, then after
installing dbab, you need to add a second IP address to your eth0 using a
virtual interface. See below.
== Advantages
First of all, let’s recap why this is the best method for ad blocking.
Over the years, I’ve been using privoxy (which needs to overcome some
hurdles every time I install it to work along with my squid local http
caching server), and Adblock Plus (which is an-easy-to-install browser
plugin). However, they all work more-or-less the same way, a pattern
matching of all known ad urls is required. This will be CPU intensive
because of the large quantity of them, and the use of regular expressions
matching. Adblock Plus, the easiest choice, is actually the worst choice
because it is JavaScript based, and is the slowest. Furthermore, all
these method will more or less alter the rendered web page, to remove the
ads. This will be even slower, and might cause side effects as well.
The dbab is however, using an entirely different approach for ad
blocking. It’s advantages are:
- *Work at the DNS level*. Leave the web pages intact, without any
pattern matching, string substitution, and/or html elements replacing.
- *Serve instantly*. All ads will be replaced by a +1x1+ pixel gif image
served locally by the Pixelserv server.
- *Maintenance free*. You don't need to maintain the list of ad sites
yourself. The block list can be downloaded from pgl.yoyo.org
periodically. If you don't like some of the entries there, you can define
your local tweaking that filters them out.
- *Easily customized*. It's trivial to add your own entries to the ad
blocking list if the existing ones are not enough for you.
...
Hope you enjoy it, and please post back if you bump into any issues.
Thanks
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