More effort to block in-game ads

[Bluscream]

I wish some of you would be gamers so you can put some effort in blocking in-game ads (html motd's for example).

Example in-game ad providers:

• MOTDgd
• Pinion

GMod's and Steam Overlay's user agent string: https://github.com/Facepunch/garrysmod-issues/issues/2005#issuecomment-143894474

[Bluscream]

Pinion

[Example Login](https://cp-ng.pinion.gg)


GMod plugin and config: pinion-adverts-gmod.zip pinion-config.zip

Setup: Step 1 – Config File Upload pinion.cfg to the /garrysmod/cfg/ directory. Step 2 – Load Plugin Extract the contents of the Pinion Garry's Mod LUA script (remember to preserve the folder structure) and navigate to your game install on your server. Upload the "lua" folder you extracted from the zip file to your server, it should merge with the lua folder that's already in the /garrysmod/ directory. If it asks to overwrite any files let it do so. Step 3 – Reboot Reboot your game server for the changes to take effect. Step 4 – Confirmation Join your game server; upon joining please confirm the MOTD loads correctly with Pinion content.

[Bluscream]

MOTDgd

[Example Login](https://motdgd.com/portal/)


Instructions a) Download the plugin by clicking here, then extract it and place the ‘motdgdadverts’ folder in your ‘garrysmod/addons’ folder

b) Open ‘garrysmod/addons/motdgdadverts/lua/motdgd_config.lua’ and edit as necessary

Example MOTDGD request

``` URL: http://motd.motdgd.com/ads?user=4881&fv=1&ip=89.163.144.161&pt=27777&gm=garrysmod&st=STEAM_0:1:31090466&v=2.07&sec=15 Source: motd.motdgd.com Data type: Document Rule: English filter: .com/ads?$popup ```  

[ameshkov]

First of all, do we need to add more executables to the list of filtered apps in order to get to these requests?

[Bluscream]

Yes, each game binary must be added the filtered apps list to allow filtering. But that's some effort gamer could do for adblocking I think. Or maybe subscribe'able "Filtered Apps" lists (like Browsers, Games, etc.)

[Bluscream]

Any news on this?

[ameshkov]

Adding games to the filtered apps one by one would be too hard. We should completely re-think this approach, and I don't yet understand how. As we know, filtering a game might mess with its multiplayer as every millisecond matters.

On the other hand, as I understand, in most cases it should be enough to block ads on a DNS/hosts level, which is possible without messing with the game traffic. @Bluscream am I right?

[Bluscream]

That applies for now but when the blocking of this kind of ads gets popular it's more likely that we need to go deeper anyway