Are you bored, time-rich, live in Straya OR have a VPN, & interested to diagnose a troublesome streaming site?
-
Teehee, i don't really expect much if any positive response, but thought, "well why not; i seem to have exhausted my own diagnostic capability, so what's the worst that could happen [ ]?".
Are you:
- bored?
- time-rich?
- live in Straya OR have a VPN?
- willing to create a free Oz national tv/streaming site account?
- intellectually stimulated by [legally] solving site unblocking challenges?
If anyone's able to reply "yes" to all those, well golly, have i got a deal for you!
In Straya we have a domestic free tv/streaming site, with a large tv show & movie library, & all free to access IF one is in Straya [either physically, or otherwise via VPN (shhhhhh, schtum!)]. Whilst the site homepage is universally accessible, streaming itself is only possible once users have logged in with their [free] user-account.
Once upon a time, in Ye Olden Days of Yore, this site streamed with no ads at all during the shows/movies. Sadly though for several years, due to deliberate government policy mendacity, ads now occur at approx 42 nanosecond intervals . As i am medically-allergic to all ads [true! i have a certificate written in purple crayon proving it!], especially when so frequent that they destroy a show's flow, i either diagnose a way around them, or abandon the site.
When i use Firefox, i've managed to finesse a solution that is working fabulously for me [only a one-second black screen occurs now, instead of minutes of annoying ads, each time]. Unfortunately, however, i cannot use Vivaldi for this site. With the identical* uBlock Origin settings as i use in Firefox, sometimes i cannot even start a stream, or otherwise, once it encounters the first ad-break, the page enters an apparently permanent buffering cycle, thus killing the whole point.
* We historically mentioned this previously in various forum threads... uBO is less functional in chromium-browsers than Firefox due to fundamental design weaknesses in chromium. I suspect this might be at play here, & if so, possibly Vivaldi might never be able to be used for this site [well, sans-ads, anyway]?
I would love to be proven wrong on that previous sentence, which is the objective of this thread / challenge.
If anyone's interested, i'll later post the url + my uBO settings for this site. For now though i shan't bother, coz tbh i don't really expect any takers...
So,
!=nobody
? -
@guigirl It reminds me something: I found out some years ago that ABC had a good foreign movies library but I was blocked & couldn't do anything as I'm not an Australian resident. Thought I'd like to help you, my VPN doesn't provide me with an Australian server (I should upgrade for that).
-
@hlehyaric In another thread, you Fiendish Off-Topicer, i mentioned i'm seriously thinking about dumping NF. A major part of that pending decision is that via VPN + my uBO settings, i have free access to the public tv streaming sites in multiple countries. Atm i'm relishing a brilliant Norwegian series [admittedly atm via the Oz service for which i made this thread, but the point is that i can go directly to lots of other countries' places when desired].
So, from your perspective, quite apart from helping others who greedily ask for help, heehee, you could really expand your own "library", with a more global VPN. I absolutely know that you know that, it's just that i feel quite enthusiastic about the possibilities we all have, via our geekiness.
-
@guigirl said in Are you bored, time-rich, live in Straya OR have a VPN, & interested to diagnose a troublesome streaming site?:
bored?
time-rich?
live in Straya OR have a VPN?
willing to create a free Oz national tv/streaming site account?
intellectually stimulated by [legally] solving site unblocking challenges?Not really, but willing to play around.
Some might say so, but i like to think i keep myself busy
I do live in Straya!
Possibly?
Yes.So based on that what do i win??
-
@7twenty said in Are you bored, time-rich, live in Straya OR have a VPN, & interested to diagnose a troublesome streaming site?:
what do i win??
A democracy sausage, soon...
Well, if you would be willing to have a sticky-beak at this, i'd be grateful, irrespective of success or not. The site is SBS On-Demand / World Movies, https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/ .
These are my uBO rules for this site; as said, they solve the problem in FF, but sadly not V.
no-large-media: help.sbs.com.au false no-large-media: www.sbs.com.au false no-remote-fonts: help.sbs.com.au false no-remote-fonts: www.sbs.com.au false no-scripting: help.sbs.com.au false no-scripting: www.sbs.com.au false help.sbs.com.au p15.zdassets.com * noop help.sbs.com.au static.zdassets.com * noop help.sbs.com.au theme.zdassets.com * noop www.sbs.com.au * 3p-frame noop www.sbs.com.au * 3p-script noop www.sbs.com.au 2mdn.net * noop www.sbs.com.au akamai.net * noop www.sbs.com.au akamaiedge.net * noop www.sbs.com.au sbsvoddai-vh.akamaihd.net * noop www.sbs.com.au sbsvodns-vh.akamaihd.net * noop www.sbs.com.au akamaized.net * noop www.sbs.com.au cdn.bitmovin.com * noop www.sbs.com.au licensing.bitmovin.com * noop www.sbs.com.au cdnjs.cloudflare.com * noop www.sbs.com.au conviva.com * noop www.sbs.com.au pubads.g.doubleclick.net * noop www.sbs.com.au securepubads.g.doubleclick.net * noop www.sbs.com.au ensighten.com * noop www.sbs.com.au fbcdn.net * noop www.sbs.com.au google.com * noop www.sbs.com.au accounts.google.com * noop www.sbs.com.au apis.google.com * noop www.sbs.com.au googlevideo.com * noop www.sbs.com.au redirector.googlevideo.com * noop www.sbs.com.au ssl.gstatic.com * noop www.sbs.com.au imasdk.googleapis.com * noop www.sbs.com.au imrworldwide.com * noop www.sbs.com.au sbs.com.au * noop www.sbs.com.au sbsod.com * noop www.sbs.com.au image-resizer.pr.sbsod.com * noop www.sbs.com.au theplatform.com * noop
In FF i have to disable Enhanced Tracking Protection [but leave uBO On, duh] for this site. In V if i leave the native tracker-blocker fully on, the site won't even load [i mean, any individual streaming selection]; on tracker-block middle-option it loads but behaves per my OP; with it all fully disabled it's still no good.
Ta!
-
No luck.
Not using the Vivaldi blocker but using the rules above in UBO i just get the buffering logo, but no ads!!
Turning off UBO it works, with ads.
Never seen that syntax for UBO rules though.
-
@7twenty Oh well, ta anyway.
Afaik iirc tla, this might be the first time i've been unable to succeed in working around a site's blocks in V, for which by contrast i have managed to bypass in FF. I mean, there's lots of sites i can't beat with both browsers, but not many/any til now where the score at full-time is FF 1, V 0.
Given i like using my browser as an omnibus solution for everything, this is a big disincentive for me to use V as my default -- yes ofc it is easy to use V for most stuff then fire up FF when i want to stream that site, but i find this a psychologically uncomfortable option, when otoh i now know that FF does indeed meet my standard for an omnibus solution.
-
@guigirl said in Are you bored, time-rich, live in Straya OR have a VPN, & interested to diagnose a troublesome streaming site?:
there's lots of sites i can't beat with both browsers, but not many/any til now where the score at full-time is FF 1, V 0.
Yeah, that really doesn't make sense to me. Even moreso when you're using the same extensions etc.
-
@7twenty said in Are you bored, time-rich, live in Straya OR have a VPN, & interested to diagnose a troublesome streaming site?:
doesn't make sense to me
I'm guessing it might be related to this
- https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/37901/ad-blockers-or-not-your-choice-matters/110
- https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/65407/privacy-is-not-dead-you-have-choices-in-browsers-and-search-engines/7
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-best-on-Firefox
- https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dashboard:-Settings#uncloak-canonical-names
-
@guigirl
I see you have doubleclick in your blocklist. Why not block it everywhere by putting it in the "My Filters" list in uBlock Origin as "||doubleclick.*"? That way, I block the entire domain so the browser never contacts it at all. I have blocked other Google ad servers that way as well, in addition to google-analytics (which is just nosy). -
@Streptococcus Ta, but afaik [correct me if i'm wrong], i do not need to do that, coz...
My global uBO config is Hard Mode, https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-hard-mode, so by definition ALL those nasties are blocked globally ootb without needing me to take individual site blocking action. Then, on a per-site basis, i simply use uBO's GUI to iteratively unblock just enough individual elements to achieve minimal acceptable site functionality. That's been my policy ever since i returned to uBO from uM yonks ago [specifically when @gorhill archived uM], & it's been working very well for me, afaict.
-
@guigirl
I had no idea that there were ready-made modes for uBlock Origin. I have a lot of subscriptions plus a personal blocklist in "My Filters" for things that I do not trust and do not want to bother checking if they are blocked by a subscription. So far, that works for me. -
@guigirl said in Are you bored, time-rich, live in Straya OR have a VPN, & interested to diagnose a troublesome streaming site?:
a more global VPN. I absolutely know that you know that, it's just that i feel quite enthusiastic about the possibilities
As an old pensioner I must use "free" VPN (Proton) as well as other "freee" services... or else reduce my food intake.
The internet seems to be something now for the Elite. A poor old schmuck like moi cannot afford to support all the products (software) I use. Must pick only the most valuable to me. -
This status update is entirely surprising to me, & tbh atm still inexplicable.
I have now managed to get this site working properly in Lappy's V-Stable, & Tower's V-Snappie [as well as, still, FF & FF-Nightly, respectively].
Two days ago, in Nightly, i was dismayed to discover that the site had begun blocking me coz it somehow detected that my uBO was active. For brevity i'll omit here all the numerous, but fruitless, troubleshooting steps i took in trying to solve it, but suffice to say, one important breakthrough did emerge from those hours, which prompted me to try something ostensibly pointlessly stupid, which could not possibly work... but it did.
Last night, simply by Exporting Tower's Nightly's uBO settings, then immediately reimporting them [making absolutely no actual change to them at all !], made the site happy again in Nightly.
Given that made no sense at all [yet worked], i then decided to try my luck importing that same uBO file into Tower's Snappie... consequently Snappie is also happy on that site. Just now, i repeated the trick on Lappy's Stable... & again it somehow now works!
I'm pleased, but massively confused & frustrated -- logic suggests that replacing a verion of uBO's settings with the identical file, should make no improvement at all. Bloody logic.
Am off now for breakfast at Milliways.
-
@guigirl By the time you get there, it will be suppertime.
-
@Ayespy said in Are you bored, time-rich, live in Straya OR have a VPN, & interested to diagnose a troublesome streaming site?:
it will be suppertime
But that would be... impossible impossible impossible impossible impossible impossible.