514130 - Omnibus ad-blocking bug for September/October/November/December 2009

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Camino Graveyard :: Annoyance Blocking, defect)

Comment 1

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

There are a couple ads on this page:

http://heraldnet.net/article/20090901/NEWS01/709019890

which appear to be coming from this HTML snippet:

<span class="advertisingctr">ADVERTISEMENT</span><br>
<!-- macro ads_artbox336x280 -->
<!-- Ad Placeholder 02 -->
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">
  aj_server = 'http://ads.heraldnet.com/servlet/ajrotator/'; aj_tagver = '1.0';
  aj_zone = 'heraldnet'; aj_adspot = '164952'; aj_page = '0'; aj_dim ='164951'; aj_ch = ''; aj_ct = '166957'; aj_kw = '';
  aj_pv = true; aj_click = '';
</script><script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript" src="http://img1.cdn.adjuggler.com/banners/ajtg.js"></script>

The source of the images themselves is 

http://optimized-by.rubiconproject.com/static/earthshare/images/psabanners/all/adc_es_green_728x90.jpg

and 

http://optimized-by.rubiconproject.com/static/earthshare/images/psabanners/all/336x280.png

We might want to block the classified ads from adicio.com on the right side, too.

Comment 2

[philippe (part-time)]

On http://politiken.dk/
monster banner with aggressive flash.

---
<div class="monster_banner">

<object id="FlashID1x" width="930" height="180" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"....

<embed width="930" height="180" src="http://track.adform.net/Banners/403410/403410.swf?bv=1"
---

Comment 3

[philippe (part-time)]

Far Eastern Economic Review
http://www.feer.com/politics/2009/september53/Is-the-DPJ-Anticapitalist

Left hand column:
<div class="advertisment">
    <div class="advert_120_240">

Right hand column:
<div class="advertisment advert_250_250">
    <div style="width: 250px; height: 250px; margin-top: 5px;">

Top banner
<div id="top_banner">
    <div style="width: 728px; height: 90px; margin: 0pt auto;">

All contain
<a href="http://www.wsj-asia.com/php/phpads/ .....><img />

I block with these:
a[href*="/phpads/"] img
div[class*="advertisment"]

Comment 4

[Smokey Ardisson (offline for a while; not following bugs - do not email)]

MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32772500/ns/world_news-weird_news/

div[id="dcol-sponsored"]

Not sure how much I like that one, but…

Comment 5

[Smokey Ardisson (offline for a while; not following bugs - do not email)]

Sneaky Google ;) 

http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.governance/browse_thread/thread/f19d36f672ce3088

<div id="google_ads_site" class="g3rtn-ad-site">

We could also go after 

<div class="ad-item">

to just zap the ad items themselves.

Comment 6

[Smokey Ardisson (offline for a while; not following bugs - do not email)]

There also appear to be unblocked adds on http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10596635

Some subset of div[id="adSpace6"] should take that out.

Comment 7

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

On

http://www.winonadailynews.com/news/local/article_c851438e-9e7c-11de-9a59-001cc4c002e0.html

there are textual ads below the "ShareThis" button:

div id="yahoo-contentmatch"

Comment 8

[philippe (part-time)]

Now this annoying. All those advertisements are blocked… :-(

http://www.aresluna.org/attached/computerhistory/ads/international/apple

<a href="http://www.aresluna.org/attached/computerhistory/ads/international/apple/pics/byte8303">
<img class="screenshot" border="1" alt="Apple Logo advertisement from Byte 3/1983" title="Apple Logo advertisement from Byte 3/1983" src="pics/computerhistory/ads/international/apple/byte8303.jpg"/>

blocked by img[src*="/ads/"],

Comment 9

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

On the right:

http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2009/09/first-they-came-for-our-functional-highflow-toilets.html

'p360-ad' and 'rightrailads' from this snippet:

<!-- ad code -->
<div id="rightrailads">
<script>
yld_mgr.place_ad_here("slot_2");
</script>
</div>

Comment 10

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

On 

http://30daysonjetblue.com/

the "Donate", "Orphans' Promise", and "How can I help" buttons (on the right side) are all blocked, because the webmaster has brilliantly put them into a div called "ads".

I'm not sure if there's anything we can do about that or not, but keep in mind

http://twitter.com/quinnnorton/statuses/4777907603

when deciding.

Comment 11

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/News/article.php?ID=71873

has the world's most annoying ads at the bottom of the page.

<div id="adTicker" style="width:100%; text-align:center;">
    <div id="adScroll">

is the code.

cl

Comment 12

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

Comment 7 again, this time on 

http://www.missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_a4d9a80c-be01-11de-9bb6-001cc4c03286.html

so that's apparently fairly widespread.

Comment 13

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

Text ads similar to comment 7 and comment 12, but from a different HTML snippet, on

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/10/22/with-a-rebel-dell-psystar-tries-some-more-more-more/

coming from

<div id="slMiddle" class="sponsorArea"></div>

Comment 14

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

Ads all over

http://www.loopinsight.com/2009/10/28/wilcox-says-the-iphone-will-lose-smartphone-war-i-dont-think-so/

coming from buysellads.com in a div with class="adblock".

Comment 15

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

On

http://www.ainonline.com/news/single-news-page/article/embraer-e-jets-fit-in-at-many-arab-airlines/

there are a bunch of small ads, all coming from /oa/www/delivery/ on the site.

Comment 16

[philippe (part-time)]

On front page of http://mixi.jp/

embed[type="application/x-shockwave-flash"][src*="ads.mixi.jp"],
img[src*="ads.mixi.jp"] {display: none !important;}

Mixi is the Jpn Facebook.

Comment 17

[philippe (part-time)]

While hecking for something in ad_blocking.css I noticed we have
iframe#google_ads_frame,

http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsblame.cgi?file=mozilla/camino/resources/application/ad_blocking.css#378

This could be expanded to iframe[id^="google_ads_frame"] 

(on the forums, the two adv blocks have #google_ads_frame1 & #google_ads_frame2)

Comment 18

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

We do an *atrocious* job of ad-blocking on this page:

http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/camino_browser_for_the_mac_gets_updated_rendering_engine/

Comment 19

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

Blocking sponLinkDiv_1 on http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091213/D9CILPFO0.html would get rid of the Sponsored Links section there.

Comment 20

[Smokey Ardisson (offline for a while; not following bugs - do not email)]

Attachment: Sep-Oct-Nov-Dec 2009 omnibus ad-blocking patch

I had a little time tonight between things (well, it took longer than I expected), but in an effort to prevent the first-ever 5-month bug, I blocked some ads.  Some commentary:

(In reply to comment #8)
> Now this annoying. All those advertisements are blocked… :-(

[...]

> blocked by img[src*="/ads/"],

We're not going to undo that rule ;) I also don't think that site merits its own exception.

(In reply to comment #10)
> http://30daysonjetblue.com/
> 
> the "Donate", "Orphans' Promise", and "How can I help" buttons (on the right
> side) are all blocked, because the webmaster has brilliantly put them into a
> div called "ads".

Not going to neuter div[class="ads"], either.

(In reply to comment #11)
> http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/News/article.php?ID=71873

Zapping the classifieds is a little iffy, but the rotation is annoying, I'll grant you.  Tentatively included.

(In reply to comment #12)
> Comment 7 again, this time on 
> 
> http://www.missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_a4d9a80c-be01-11de-9bb6-001cc4c03286.html

I also blocked a "page-peel" flash ad that was being served when I visited.

(In reply to comment #13)
> http://www.tuaw.com/2009/10/22/with-a-rebel-dell-psystar-tries-some-more-more-more/
> 
> <div id="slMiddle" class="sponsorArea"></div>

Blocked with div[class="sponsorArea"]; it's not stellar, but should be safe enough.

(In reply to comment #14)
> Ads all over

Your definition of "all over" and mine appear to differ. ;)

(In reply to comment #15)
> http://www.ainonline.com/news/single-news-page/article/embraer-e-jets-fit-in-at-many-arab-airlines/
> 
> there are a bunch of small ads, all coming from /oa/www/delivery/ on the site.

I'm not convinced that "/oa/www/delivery/" is a common ad pattern (and those ads are otherwise unblockable), so I'm not going to include that.

Comment 21

[philippe (part-time)]

(In reply to comment #20)

> > <div id="slMiddle" class="sponsorArea"></div>
> 
> Blocked with div[class="sponsorArea"]; it's not stellar, but should be safe
> enough.

I'm actually a little worried about that one. The semantics of 'sponsor' is far broader than advertiser.

Comment 22

[Stuart Morgan]

Comment on attachment 418602 [details] [diff] [review]
Sep-Oct-Nov-Dec 2009 omnibus ad-blocking patch

sr=smorgan

Comment 23

[Smokey Ardisson (offline for a while; not following bugs - do not email)]

(In reply to comment #21)
> (In reply to comment #20)
> 
> > > <div id="slMiddle" class="sponsorArea"></div>
> > 
> > Blocked with div[class="sponsorArea"]; it's not stellar, but should be safe
> > enough.
> 
> I'm actually a little worried about that one. The semantics of 'sponsor' is far
> broader than advertiser.

We'll keep an eye out for problems with that.  Since we have a while yet before 2.0.2, I went ahead and landed this on 2_0 branch so that anyone using those nightlies will also be able to help catch things, too.

Landed on cvs trunk and CAMINO_2_0_BRANCH.

Comment 24

[Smokey Ardisson (offline for a while; not following bugs - do not email)]

Since there have been no reported problems after nearly a month, landed on MOZILLA_1_8_BRANCH in advance of 1.6.11.