dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
uniqs
11577

Zhen-Xjell
Prolific Bunny

join:2000-10-08
Bordentown, NJ

Zhen-Xjell to nmop$

to nmop$

Re: Ad/Cookie Blocking App Reviews

Thanks for the recommendation, but I know to disable and close Proxomitron (and I did). And I also know what I have seen when I installed CE. For me, those were my findings. If PRO and CE work for you, then that is great. Apparently, AdSubtract is not consistent then in its delivery of "protection".

nmop$
join:2001-05-05

nmop$

Member

Just out of curiousity, have you changed the port number for adsubtract to 4444 just to see if it would work? You do agree that AS will not work under any circumstance if the wrong port setting is specified, right?

If you don't believe me that your installation is ATYPICAL and INCORRECT please read this article explaining this:

»adsubtract.custhelp.com/ ··· 8=&2900=

Zhen-Xjell
Prolific Bunny

join:2000-10-08
Bordentown, NJ

Zhen-Xjell

I concede after reading the FAQ. Very interesting, I had no intention of finding this out in my review, but this now confirms that the installation of AdSubtract leaves much to be desired. It then appears to be grabbing whatever proxy setting one has set already, instead of creating the correct settings itself. This is something that they'll have to address certainly.

Now that this little "feature" has been exposed, I'll have to conduct a second round review on AdSubtract CE.

Nmopepisdn, thanks for your assistance with this review. Without your help, this little "bug" would not have been caught.

Ok, give me time to re-run the test, and I'll repost my findings once again with the new port 4444 settings. This means I need to over-ride what AdSubtract is telling me to use by default, port 8080.

Zhen I have a similar problem as KBB.
If I check the appropriate option to allow proxy thru 1.1, all works fine during the current session. However upon a reboot, that setting is reset once again to NOT checked. I tried having AdSubtract start with windows and manually and it always seems to reset itself. Any ideas on why and or other people having a similar problem?


Let me re-check my configuration. I have not been looking for something like this. However, when I check right now, page compression is ON.

wiregauze
join:2001-04-17

wiregauze to Zhen-Xjell

Member

to Zhen-Xjell
I am a licensed user of AdSubtractPro for about a year. Before then, I also tried the CE version.

Nice thing about ASP is its extremely easy per-site configuration.

Unfortunately, I had to dump AdSubtract (Pro and CE) due to weird system crashes with no apparent reason on 98/NT/Win2k. It took several months till I concluded there's something wrong in AS because it doesn't make sense that a simple proxy crashing w2k... Don't ask me why; I still don't know. Several help requests to AdSubtract.com returned no real solution to me.

I had to try running my systems with every different permutations over ZA / NIS, ASP / WebWasher, NAV / McAfee, and 98/NT/2k. My conclusion was, whenever ASP was involved, I was having mysterious crashes!

After dumping ASP (It's too late for a refund, isn't it? agrrr...), I started using WebWasher. WW was ok except it has very limited per-site configuration. But, no more crashes!

I knew ASP was using proxomitron(PROX) code, but I paid little attention on it because my experience with ASP crashes told me anything related ASP was a bad, bad thing......

Looking at Z-X's recent review abot PROX, I decided to try it (thanx, Z-X ).

Before jumping into PROX, I decided to give ASP one more shot. This time, Tiny - ASP - InoculateIT (or NAV) - 98/2k combination. Guess what? Crashes returned ! Again, replacing ASP with WebWasher eliminated further crashes. I couldn't believe I spent 30 bucks over this !

So much for ASP... Anyway, I installed PROX. Tried for several days for now. It was proved that it's ASP specific code that's causing crashes, not the licensed part from PROX -- PROX's been running without single glitch so far.

Proxomitron:
1. nearly infinitely configurable.
2. A LOT faster than AdSubtract considering how much filtering it does.
3. 100% control over popups, cookies, javascripts, while ASP or WebWasher failed on certain cases.

Having said that, PROX is not for everyone. Just not yet. It is too technical for the mass. I, too, having problems in certain cases, like some pictures at tomshardware.com show only a big hammer instead of actual photos... (I'm working on it )

BTW, thanks again, Z-X . If it weren't you, I'd be still using WebWasher...

-- wiregauze

AdSubtractPro license
    name: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
    code: 4EEB-XXXX-XXXX-C84G

Zhen-Xjell
Prolific Bunny

join:2000-10-08
Bordentown, NJ

Zhen-Xjell

Thanks Wiregauze for the information. I admit when I first started down this road, I knew of the HOSTS file and WW. I tried both and was happier with the use of WW compared to HOSTS.

During this review, I was skeptical of the applications I listed for testing, but clearly Proxo thus far has come out on top.

TheSelkie
@t-dialin.net

TheSelkie to wiregauze

Anon

to wiregauze
i think the hammers at tomshardware are connectet to the "referer" header.
check if you got some header filter that modifies the referer.

i'd guess tomshardware protects himself from other pages using his images by checking it
(just a guess)
System

to kkb2

Anon

to kkb2
to all you having problems with the "compressed pages":

i bypassed proxomitron, looked at the log file, browsed to dslreports.com
-> i saw my browser sending a "accept-encoding: gzip deflate"
checked my header filters and saw that this header was being filtered

unchecked that filter, turned on proxomitron again

-> compressed pages working even with proxomitron
(if it matters i have enabled http1.1 over proxy)

-------
edit:
just checked tomshardware.com:
the hammers apear because of the referer! so either bypass header filter for tomshardware or just disable referer filter (so i did, causes many problems in my experience)
[text was edited by author 2001-06-07 18:47:07]

kkb2
Object of the Panopticon
join:2000-06-11
Colorado

kkb2

Member

Works like a champ! Thanks for the tip.

Hutchy
Premium Member
join:2000-10-14
australia430

Hutchy to Zhen-Xjell

Premium Member

to Zhen-Xjell
Zhen-Xjell i have tried Proximation & AdSubStract and did not like them. But i am using Naviscope And i am very Impressed with it. A bit more configuring required than AdSubStrat. But more easier to use than Proximation. Thanks

Zhen-Xjell
Prolific Bunny

join:2000-10-08
Bordentown, NJ

Zhen-Xjell

The Selkie, thanks for the great tip. Judgedredd, glad you were able to test out some more of the apps, I appreciate you sharing those experiences.
Zhen-Xjell

Zhen-Xjell

ADSUBTRACT CE REVIEW (PART TWO)

The first review revealed that the installation and configuration of this product is not intuitive at all, even though it is all GUI based. One must search and find the information required to get this application up and running, and even then one must still ask questions or be brazen to do some testing to get it running.

After finding out that the port should be set to 4444 instead of 8080, I began a second review on AdSubtract CE. As per their own readme file for IE 5.x:

In the dialog box that appears, check the box next to the text Use a proxy server. Press the Advanced button. On the HTTP line, enter the proxy server address 127.0.0.1 and the port number 4444.

So, I installed AdSubtract CE (ACE) once again, and without restarting my IE browser, made sure that 127.0.0.1 and port 4444 were in the HTTP line. I could access the URLs for the test, and everything got through. Other applications reviewed were able to work instantly and required no subtle execution order.

Shutting down IE and restarting found the HTTP line to contain "AdSubtract" port 4444 in the HTTP line. This is not what the readme file states. At this point, neither AdSubtract nor 127.0.0.1 in the proxy line worked.

Restarting IE and AdSubtract a number of times, I finally found it working. I first started IE and then AdSubtract, found "AdSubtract" in the HTTP line once again (this is due to a default setting in the AdSubtract program), and this is how I was able to start running my review. This configuration I admit is somewhat confusing from their instructions. In addition, ACE is supposed to set the HTTP line settings, but running ACE first and restarting IE multiple times did not lend to this theory. Not consistent at all.

Out of all the URLs in the test list, the only site that was able to get a cookie through was ABCNews.com. Even the adult site was blocked. Just like WebWasher, not near 100% cookie blockage, but close enough. Setting IE to prompt on cookies is a nice "catch-all" solution for anything AdSubtract did not block.

A comment, Proxomitron blocked this cookie because of its Onload unload filter. The "onload=" function has been known to set cookies.

It also appeared that no advertisements got through, so the program performed well in this department as well.

AdSubtract is all GUI based, and has a unique GUI that may take a few times reading the tabs to fully understand.

All in all, the GUI has a stats reporting tool that when refreshed displays all the cookies and ads blocked to date. During this test, I visited all URLs in the test (including privacy.net) once, except for Yahoo which was twice. ACE blocked 103 Ads and 76 cookies. That is a lot for just a handful of test websites.

The ACE GUI also provides a cookie management screen for the cookies and TIF folders. This is another application, besides Proxo, that filters the TIF location. Cookies can be assigned values. For instance, DSLR was set to a friendly value which keeps it from being deleted.

The company that developed ACE has licensed code from Proxomitron in the program.

If this program was free, I would recommend installing it right away for cookie and ad filtering. However, there are many more alternatives on the Internet that offer free cookie and ad blocking services.

I'm sure this application is used by many folk, and that is what you must determine, is ACE right for you? Be wary, I have read comments that ACE is prone to crashing. Unlike Proxo, ACE cannot just be copied to a directory and run, ACE needs to be "installed".

Next and final review: JunkBuster. Stay Tuned.
Zhen-Xjell

Zhen-Xjell

PROXO DEFAULT CONFIG FILE: MINE

Posted tonight, here: »Proxomitron Default Config File
System

Anon

webpage encoding

well it was not such a good tip

encoded (compressed) pages are not filtered by proxomitron!!

you should reenable the filter and setup a list of pages you want to allow to compress (or encode) its pages!!

my mistake

Hutchy
Premium Member
join:2000-10-14
australia430

Hutchy

Premium Member

Re: Ad/Cookie Blocking App Reviews

I found Naviscope to have too many Bugs in it. So i have swapped to AdSubStract Pro. ZX Will get back to you with any feed back on this Program as soon as i can.

Zhen-Xjell
Prolific Bunny

join:2000-10-08
Bordentown, NJ

Zhen-Xjell

Thanks for the input friends. Hope to hear from you soon Judgedredd.

Timeframe has shifted for the JunkBuster review... perhaps this weekend.

ethics$
Premium Member
join:2000-12-27
Brooklyn, NY

ethics$ to Zhen-Xjell

Premium Member

to Zhen-Xjell

Re: PROXOMITRON REVIEW

ZX,

In the future, if you are doing a review can you PLEASE start a new thread?!?!

It took me 30 minutes to locate this for reference...

{damn rabbit}

Zhen-Xjell
Prolific Bunny

join:2000-10-08
Bordentown, NJ

Zhen-Xjell

You got it... I'll just post a link from this thread to the new one.. which will be the last one: Junkbuster.

rtoday
join:2000-11-05
California

rtoday

Member

A very belated thanks for the reviews and followups, ZX! Keep 'em coming.

Zhen-Xjell
Prolific Bunny

join:2000-10-08
Bordentown, NJ

Zhen-Xjell

Thanks!

Here is the Junkbuster Review: (click me)

Using the defaults, I was moderately successful if and when a page actually loaded.

ADD:

In addition, my final comments on this whole series is here.
[text was edited by author 2001-06-16 22:25:10]