[tor-talk] Adblock for everyone

[Joe Btfsplk]

Thanks for your insight.

On 10/6/2013 10:18 AM, Andrew Lewman wrote:
>
> Adblock whitelists certain advertising companies and ads themselves:
These white lists can easily be disabled, but then that conflicts w/ 
Tor's concept of damaging sites' acceptance of Tor (interesting point).
However, fingerprinting NOT with standing, millions? of Firefox & other 
browser users, having Adblock Plus, Ghostery, etc., enabled, are never 
turned away from websites, AFAIK.

Just curious - by that analogy, should Fx, Chrome & others maybe 
disallow using extensions that block ads or other things, as it may 
cause some sites' non acceptance of browsers that allow such extensions?
Could be wrong, but I'd bet if sites "reject" TBB, it might be because 
of several other reasons that come before blocking ads. But...
> Users are free to install these addons if they wish, but doing so is
> not recommended, as it will alter the browser request fingerprint. "
>
That brings up a good question.  I assume that TBB freely gives up info 
to sites that use the query:  "navigator.plugins" - where sites can 
query whether specific plugins are installed:
|var isSupported = navigator.plugins['Shockwave Flash'];|... if users 
install any plugins.

Since TBB doesn't ship with plugins, why does TBB honor requests for 
plugin info, at all?
Would TBB ignoring requests for "navigator.plugins" from sites break too 
many browser functions or ?

As I understand, in Fx there's no equivalent method to find out all 
installed EXTENSIONS (distinguished from plugins; collectively called 
"addons").  But presence of SOME extensions are detectable by their 
effect on a web site's function, such as ads or trackers being blocked.  
Correct?  But, not all extensions in Fx (TBB) are detectable - correct?

Thanks.