[tor-talk] Including Adblock to TBB to save bandwith

[Griffin Boyce]

Greg Norcie wrote:
> Also, from a less philosophical POV, adding any add-ons increases
> attack surface.

   Yeah.  Aside from all of the other legitimate reasons why to not 
bundle an ad blocker with TBB, this is also a large amount of code (and 
filtering rules) that are maintained by an outside entity.  Which makes 
a pretty decent attack vector.

   And also, if you are a filter/autoblocker/adblock/etc, you're 
deferring to someone else's judgment about what you should be able to 
see or read.  I say that as a user of adblock who is okay with the 
tradeoffs (and I whitelist ads on my favorite ad-supported sites).

   I'd be curious about the pros/cons of bundling in something like 
Privacy Badger, which has a bit of a different approach than things like 
Adblock Plus.  But this still goes back to the obvious "blob of outside 
code" and filtering issues that adblock et al have.  I think the best 
answer goes back to user choice -- users can add these and other 
extensions if they'd like, but Tor's software is designed to help bypass 
filters, so baking in filters feels like a step back.

best,
Griffin

-- 
"The apparent safety of modern life is just a shallow skin atop
an ocean of blood, guts and bricked devices."
~Pearce Delphin