Block social media buttons on webpages?

[MariuxReloaded]

Hi everyone 😊

I was wondering: would it be possible to implement a sort of social media buttons block filter in the Malwarebytes extensions for Chrome and Firefox?
It would be awesome, since those buttons are privacy killers.

Thank you very much in advance 😉

[Amaroq_Starwind]

Good idea on paper, but might make things more cumbersome in practice for those who don't want the feature. I'd suggest making that optional.
Also, it might break some webpages.

[MariuxReloaded]

11 minutes ago, Amaroq_Starwind said:

Good idea on paper, but might make things more cumbersome in practice for those who don't want the feature. I'd suggest making that optional.
Also, it might break some webpages.

Of course, it can be adeed as a third option under the Malware /Scams and Ads / Clickbait toggles 😊

[rakka]

Thanks for the suggestion and we did thought about adding this feature, but removal of social media buttons will break the important functionality (sharing news/media on social networks). This can also change the user experience on a particular website and non everyone will like it.

Keeping it optional is a good way around and we have this part of our product backlog.

[MariuxReloaded]

13 hours ago, rakeshsejwal said:

Thanks for the suggestion and we did thought about adding this feature, but removal of social media buttons will break the important functionality (sharing news/media on social networks). This can also change the user experience on a particular website and non everyone will like it.

Keeping it optional is a good way around and we have this part of our product backlog.

Yes, indeed it's better to offer it as an optional feature, so I'm eager to give it a try, when you'll release it. Thanks 👍😄

[exile360]

I just block all social media sites via my HOSTS file, so any content from their servers (including those images they embed in other pages to track you) are blocked across all browsers/processes on my system.  I do think it would be a good idea to add this functionality for the privacy features of the browser extension though.

[MariuxReloaded]

6 hours ago, exile360 said:

I just block all social media sites via my HOSTS file, so any content from their servers (including those images they embed in other pages to track you) are blocked across all browsers/processes on my system.  I do think it would be a good idea to add this functionality for the privacy features of the browser extension though.

Editing HOSTS file is not recommended, since it could mess up all your system.

In that case, I'd rather suggest a software which actually covers all the Windows environment, including Modern Apps, such as AdGuard

[Amaroq_Starwind]

Yeah. Last time I tried using the hpHosts version of the HOSTS file, I actually completely lost internet access.

 

If your HOSTS file is too big, it disables the DNS service, and in Windows 10, editing the HOSTS file at all can cause all sorts of problems that didn't occur in previous versions of Windows.

[exile360]

Yeah, if using a large HOSTS file you need to disable the DNS Client service (and there are alternatives you can configure to use as a local hosts server to replace its functionality so you don't lose any browser performance, though I personally just use 0.0.0.0 rather than 127.0.0.1 to improve browsing speed when sites are blocked).

As for Windows 10, the last I heard Microsoft actually doesn't let you edit the HOSTS file so I can't speak to that, but I've been using a large HOSTS file for years ever since XP and I currently have over 900,000 entries in my own HOSTS file on Windows 7 x64 and it's never caused me any problems.

[MariuxReloaded]

11 hours ago, Amaroq_Starwind said:

Yeah. Last time I tried using the hpHosts version of the HOSTS file, I actually completely lost internet access.

 

If your HOSTS file is too big, it disables the DNS service, and in Windows 10, editing the HOSTS file at all can cause all sorts of problems that didn't occur in previous versions of Windows.

That's right, it causes serious issues especially on Windows 10

9 hours ago, exile360 said:

Yeah, if using a large HOSTS file you need to disable the DNS Client service (and there are alternatives you can configure to use as a local hosts server to replace its functionality so you don't lose any browser performance, though I personally just use 0.0.0.0 rather than 127.0.0.1 to improve browsing speed when sites are blocked).

As for Windows 10, the last I heard Microsoft actually doesn't let you edit the HOSTS file so I can't speak to that, but I've been using a large HOSTS file for years ever since XP and I currently have over 900,000 entries in my own HOSTS file on Windows 7 x64 and it's never caused me any problems.

Yeah,  you can do it on Windows 10, too, but there will be a lot of problems after editing it.

However, if you don't want to pay for AdGuard, some months ago the AdGuard team has created a new open-source project called AdGuard Home. It is a server-based version of the classic AdGuard, using DNS to filter ads, through your modem-router and/or your devices.

For the moment, it is not possible to block social media buttons but, in the future releases, they'll implement a proxy service to enable that functionality

[Amaroq_Starwind]

That seems a bit overkill, seeing as some people rely on advertisement revenue as their primary source of income.

There are a few extensions which are themselves extensions for uBlock Origin. One of them allows you to Whitelist individual YouTube channels for displaying advertisements (I think it's just called YouTube Channel Whitelist), and another disarms anti-adblock content locks, called Nano Defender. They both require some setup though.

On Google Chrome, there's also an extension called Fair AdBlocker, which limits the maximum number of ads which can be displayed on a webpage and will replace the advertisements with ones that are significantly less-tailored and are also verified to not contain anything malicious. However, there is nothing like that for Firefox, and it is also still susceptible to Anti-Adblocks. Plus, MalwareBytes' own adblocking does conflict with it a little.

I prefer using Fair AdBlocker because it allows people to still gain ad revenue, and I really wish that it was available for Firefox while being made uBlock Origin compatible. Maybe in the future, there will be a MalwareBytes partnership?

[exile360]

I believe, as many in the tech field have already come to realize, that generating revenue via ads will soon become a thing of the past.  I don't know what alternative(s) they might come up with other than exclusively paid content locked behind paywalls and subscriptions, but hopefully they will come up with a more seamless solution that doesn't cost anything.  As it is these ads have become far too frequent, intrusive, deceptive and often downright malicious and so I block them all when possible if for no other reason (not to mention the privacy issues with ad trackers, which they all use these days, meaning they aren't just advertising to you any more, they're also tracking you across the websites you visit; especially the larger ad services like Google and Akamai among others).