GrapheneOS Organization Discusses Adblocking & Adblocker Tests

Ad blocking test at https://d3ward.github.io/toolz/adblock is extremely flawed. It tests domains which are not used for ads/tracking and doesn't take into account that mainstream ad blocking is blocking specific paths hosted at those domains. Mainstream ad blockers also cheat at these tests.

Here's where uBlock Origin simply fudges the results for the test by blocking everything tested by d3ward.github.io:

https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/blob/master/filters/filters.txt#L14202-L14206

Brave uses uBlock Origin filters as their base set of filters and then extends it, so it's cheating at the test through that too.

Here's where Adguard cheats at the test, which is at least done case-by-case with explanations:

https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdguardFilters/blob/daba77058c72b983f2a46b97dca5b669710a7414/SpywareFilter/sections/specific.txt#L4491-L4521

Some of the tested domains are simply not used on other sites. In other cases, it is used that way but blocking it would break sites so they don't do it.

Author is willing to fix issues but since ad blockers are cheating it'd need to be moved to another domain after fixing it.

Vanadium will not include rules for cheating at content filtering tests because we think it would be a breach of user trust, regardless of flaws in a test.