The great tracker blocker conundrum

[jon]

In the spirit of keeping Vivaldi free for all our users, we are trying out some changes to the way our tracker blocker works. These changes relate to ways in which our tracker blocker was affecting our partnership with search engines in unexpected ways.

Click here to see the full blog post

[maximvasiljev]

Thanks for the clarification!

[Stardust]

I hate ads, tracking, profiling etc and I will keep blocking them forever.

[Catweazle]

@jon, I perfectly understand the problem with Vivaldi's current business model, I would even accept contextual ads in the links and search engines that Vivaldi includes as support.

But trackers are something else and it depends a lot on what data is tracked, it is useless if the Vivaldi supporters sell the data to the same data mogules as others who make a living from surveillance advertising and even traffic with our shoe numbers. This will make a tracking blocker redundant and useless.
It is only acceptable if this data is strictly anonymized for technical and statistical reasons.

Among others I use Startpage as second search and I know that it shows ads, but also leads muy searches using a proxy, so that it dont show relevant data to others, same as my primary search ANDI, even without ads, even more private as Startpage (they are working on a paid pro version with webclipper and enterprise functions for its incomming) but other affiliate links and searches don't.

Maybe the business model from Andi can be also be an alternative business model for Vivaldi, with a paid pro version with specific collaboration and other usefull functions for companies, instead of affiliate links. which tracks the user and make questionable the Vivaldi privacy policy.

[julien_picalausa]

@catweazle: Hey. I suggest you read the accompanying blog post linked at the end of this article. It goes much more in depth about what the technical details of which requests get allowed for ad attribution and why we believe that this should not meaningfully impact your privacy. Hopefully, it will alleviate your concerns.

[apohelia]

Thank you for the explanation. The settings are hidden too deep. It's normally very hard to find them.

[Catweazle]

@julien_picalausa, calm, I do not lose confidence in Vivaldi, I have no problem with this or clicking on an affiliate ad, if I am interested. I only see the problem in affiliated links and search engines that continue to make money with logged user data. It is not a problem with Vivaldi, or contextual ads, but rather they are a problem which logs and sells data to third parties, apart from using it for their own business.

It is certainly a good way to block these practices and not the tracking as is, clicking in an ad. It's really the only way to do it, other than not including links that don't have this ethic.
At least if Vivaldi wants to continue with this system as a business model with affiliate links there is no other way arround.

[Cretec]

Give me a paid option, I hate ads.

[Ruarí]

@cretec: by all means switch off anything you dont like and setup a donation if you prefer. That effectively provides exactly what you are asking for.

[Ruarí]

@stardust: no problem, if you prefer fund via donation, the option is there.

[FanboyNZ]

Could you opensource the scriptlets $attribute-ads/$ad-attribution-tracker/$ad-query-trigger being used? Just for full transparency.

/FanboyNZ / Adblock Community

[Stardust]

@Ruarí said in The great tracker blocker conundrum:

@stardust: no problem, if you prefer fund via donation, the option is there.

I haven't donated but I like to contribute with bug reports and feature requests..

[amsjac]

@jon tbh completely missed that option in the ad blocker settings. Of course, Vivaldi needs a sustainable business model, and its great to see transparency being maintained

[julien_picalausa]

@fanboynz: The implementation of those rules is part of the adblocker implementation (all in C++). The source bundle for this snapshot in which this feature was introduced is available at https://source.vivaldi.com/vivaldi-snapshot-source_7.1.3543.3.tar.xz . The full source of the adblocker is included there. I'll happily answer questions about it.
Meanwhile, the rules list we use for this can be found at https://downloads.vivaldi.com/lists/vivaldi/partners-current.txt

[FanboyNZ]

@julien_picalausa

/vivaldi-source/components/ad_blocker

See references too kAdQueryTrigger, kAdAttributionTracker but nothing specific to the scriplet

Also referenced but not included.

vivaldi/components/ad_blocker/abp_snippets_lists/main.inc
vivaldi/components/ad_blocker/abp_snippets_lists/isolated.inc

[julien_picalausa]

@FanboyNZ @fanboynz: Hey. I'm not sure what scriptlet you are looking for here. There is no scriptlet, or any injected JS code involved in the implementation.

$attribute-ads/$ad-attribution-tracker/$ad-query-trigger are just new rule options. They are parsed in

components/ad_blocker/adblock_rule_parser.cc

, then translated to an intermediate format by

components/request_filter/adblock_filter/flat_rules_compiler.cc

, indexed in

components/request_filter/adblock_filter/adblock_rules_index_builder.cc

, used when processing the request in both

components/request_filter/adblock_filter/adblock_request_filter.cc
components/request_filter/adblock_filter/adblock_rules_index.cc

. The state indicating whether ad attribution is triggered and which domain it applies to is stored in both

components/request_filter/adblock_filter/adblock_tab_handler.cc
components/request_filter/adblock_filter/adblock_request_filter_tab_helper.cc

Unless I'm forgetting something, this is all of the relevant code.

[disu1950]

So Uncheck “Allow ads from our partners"

-who r ur partners?
good for Vivaldi but not for his users.. oO
"as we get paid by search providers that show ads. If they get no revenue, we get no revenue"
what about ur users...?
what they get ?
abused by missleading ads oO
MORE FOSS LESS $ plz

[mib2berlin]

@disu1950
Hi, I always had “Allow ads from our partners" enabled, I get one of the best browser, ad free mail account, the company doesn't sell my user data or log it, a nice community.
What do you get from other browser companies?

[DoctorGTesting]

@disu1950 FOSS does not pay dev team and infrastructure. Full Stop.

[disu1950]

@mib2berlin
i understand n agree with u..
just saying google allready had build in ads on android phones and they are shamelless ...
i hold vivaldi no.1 browser so far above all i tryed...
but generaly no matter what u try to block some ads allweys appear...
and some site wont let u if dont off ads/blocks...
but ads leads to adawares they can decesive users...

@DoctorGTesting
i am aware ... devs do gj for vivaldi... +