[tor-talk] Adblock for everyone

[Johny Carson]

Andrew Lewman:
> On Sun, 6 Oct 2013 05:18:18 -0400 (EDT)
> Alice Anderson <foxacidproblem at aol.com> wrote:
> 
>> Why you have HTTPSEverywhere and Noscript by default but not
>> Adblockplus on TBB package? it really helps and blcok major tracking
>> companies like Google Facebook ... Tor is not perfect, as almost all
>> web pages have inserted at least one of these trackers on their
>> page's source, one mistake is enough to compromise our privacy.
>> Adblock solve this problem by just blocking these third parties.
>> another danger of these third parties is FoxAcid codes! Facebook
>> button is the best place for FoxAcid calls. please insert adblock by
>> default on TBB package, if not explain why?
> 
> Adblock whitelists certain advertising companies and ads themselves:
> 
> See https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads and
> http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2280451/Google-Paying-to-Have-Ads-Whitelisted-on-AdBlock-Plus
> 
> See #5 under
> https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser/design/#philosophy
> 
> "No filters
> 
> Site-specific or filter-based addons such as AdBlock Plus, Request
> Policy, Ghostery, Priv3, and Sharemenot are to be avoided. We believe
> that these addons do not add any real privacy to a proper
> implementation of the above privacy requirements, and that development
> efforts should be focused on general solutions that prevent tracking by
> all third parties, rather than a list of specific URLs or hosts.
> 
> Filter-based addons can also introduce strange breakage and cause
> usability nightmares, and will also fail to do their job if an
> adversary simply registers a new domain or creates a new url path.
> Worse still, the unique filter sets that each user creates or installs
> will provide a wealth of fingerprinting targets.
> 
> As a general matter, we are also generally opposed to shipping an
> always-on Ad blocker with Tor Browser. We feel that this would damage
> our credibility in terms of demonstrating that we are providing privacy
> through a sound design alone, as well as damage the acceptance of Tor
> users by sites that support themselves through advertising revenue.
> 
> Users are free to install these addons if they wish, but doing so is
> not recommended, as it will alter the browser request fingerprint. "
> 
> 

It's trivial to turn-off their whitelist, but that still leaves a
AdBlock that doesn't really block ads . . .