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celenityy / BadBlock

Cleaning up the internet, one domain at a time.
https://codeberg.org/celenity/BadBlock
GNU General Public License v3.0
17 stars 1 forks source link
adblock adblock-list adguard-blocklist adguardhome ads annoyances anti-fingerprinting anti-tracking dns filterlist filterlists hostsfile metrics pi-hole pi-hole-blocklists privacy privacy-protection telemetry tracking ublock-origin-filters

readme

Welcome to BadBlock!

NOTE: This project can be found on both Codeberg, which will act as the main & preferred way to contribute, and GitHub.

Table of Contents

1. What is BadBlock?

2. Why BadBlock?

3. What does BadBlock block?

4. How to use BadBlock/Formats Available

5. The Lists

6. BadBlock Combined Lists

7. BadBlock Individual Lists

8. The Whitelists

9. Combined Whitelist

10. Individual Whitelists

11. Should I use any other lists, and if so, what?

12. General Recommendations

13. Credit

What is BadBlock?

BadBlock is a collection of comprehensive domain blocklists that I personally maintain covering a variety of different services, applications, & platforms with the goal of blocking... well, as the name suggests, stuff that is bad™ (More details below).

BadBlock started as simply a collection of my blocklists that I hosted on Codeberg for my person use. However, I noticed that people started taking notice of the project, and it's gradually grown & evolved over time to become what you see here today.

BadBlock is NOT a compilation of other blocklists from various sources. These are all domains derived from my own research & analysis. You should NOT rely on BadBlock as your only blocklist, recommendations will be provided below.

BadBlock also maintains comprehensive Whitelists, with the goal of ensuring that important domains are never blocked, & unblocking false positives from other lists.

Something interesting & unique about BadBlock is that the lists here are very granular in nature. BadBlock offers 3 primary combined blocklists (BadBlock Lite, BadBlock, & BadBlock+), which are built from various individual lists in the project. The combined lists are simply the presets and what I recommend people use for convenience, but by all means, feel free to mix, match, and use any of these lists however you please. :)

Why BadBlock?

Out of all the thousands of blocklists out there, why should you specifically use lists from BadBlock? What does BadBlock bring to the table? In my opinion, there are a few things that make BadBlock stand out:

It should be noted that BadBlock also wishes to improve content blocking as a whole for everyone. (No fun in keeping all the domains for myself! :p) As such, I make an effort to report domains to other lists where relevant & applicable, such as HaGeZi's, and I work with other list maintainers where possible.

So, what does BadBlock block?

BadBlock will generally focus on blocking the following types of domains where relevant & applicable on all of the BadBlock lists:


Additionally, depending on the list you choose, BadBlock will also cover:


BadBlock will NOT block:


*1 The keyword here is important, because this doesn't necessarily apply to every feature that claims to be "security" related. For instance, in the combined BadBlock lists & Microsoft lists, Smartscreen is blocked. The reason is simple: It's extremely invasive from a privacy perspective, as it directly sends every URL you visit, names & data about the apps you use on your device, & other sensitive information to Microsoft, without any obfuscation or attempt at anonymizing the data. Not to mention this is not made clear or transparent to the user at all, & always enabled by default. Therefore, I have no problem blocking it due to the extreme privacy risk it poses. However, on the contrary, BadBlock doesn't block Google's Safe Browsing, as it is generally not a concern for privacy unless you enable the "Enhanced" mode on certain browsers, and provides real-world benefits.
*2 Legitimate functionality can be defined as things that provide an actual benefit to the end user, that the user is actively choosing to take advantage of, and that is not harming their privacy or security to an unacceptable extent. For instance, BadBlock will not block google.com in any of the lists - Even though it's highly questionable from a privacy standpoint and I don't recommend using it, it also serves as a legitimate search engine that provides value to end-users.
*3 These domains are generally harmless from a privacy perspective, as they only act when directly clicked. It only causes unnecessary breakage & headache, without any clear real-world benefits. There will be exceptions to this however when a domain used for referrals is also used for actual advertising/tracking & called on its own (ex. Adjust domains & Google AdService Domains).


I will repeat: If you run into any false positives or undesired breakage as a result from these lists, please file an issue and report it.

How to use? / Formats available

BadBlock currently offers lists in the following formats:


⚠️ I am NOT planning to create "HOSTS" files at this time. I would recommend reading the reasons OISD lists here, as I strongly agree with them. HOSTS files are very time consuming to maintain, unnecessarily large, and above all else: just not effective at blocking.

⭐️ I would generally recommend using AdGuard Home as your DNS content blocker of choice if possible, as it is free and open source, and offers the strongest amount of customization & features. You can see my recommended set-up for AdGuard Home here. These lists are also compatible with various other content blockers & firewalls, such as uBlock Origin, AdGuard, Brave Shields, Cromite, Little Snitch, Pi-hole, & more. BadBlock lists are currently not available on any cloud DNS blocking solutions (ex. NextDNS, ControlD, & AdGuard DNS), but I hope that will eventually change as the project gains traction, as I feel that BadBlock lists could prove to be a valuable and necessary addition to those services. In the event any of those services are interested, I will gladly provide any assistance necessary :).

The Lists

⚠️ See here for a list of notable domains that BadBlock blocks, which you might wish to unblock depending on your use case. The most notable of these include Apple's Find My & Google's Find My Device.

BadBlock Combined Lists

⚡️ BadBlock Lite

The essentials! It includes the following lists:

🔇 BadBlock (Recommended for most people)

The premier block list. It includes the following lists:

🔥 BadBlock+

Complete coverage. It includes the following lists:

Individual Lists

📦 Amazon

Block Amazon advertising, tracking, telemetry, promotions, & more!

Included in:

🍪 Annoyances

Block Cookie banners, Live Chat widgets, & more!

Included in:

🔎 Anti-Monitoring

Stop the spying!

Included in:

Apple

Block Apple advertising, telemetry, promotions, & more!

Included in:

🦁 Brave

Block Brave telemetry, analytics, advertising, sponsored content, & more!

Included in:

🗑️ Crap

Block toxic domains!

Included in:

💰 Data Brokers

Stop the People Search! Blocks data brokers, people search sites, & more!

Included in:

🔒 DRM

Stop Digital Restrictions Management!

Included in:

🎮 Gaming

Block gaming telemetry, analytics, advertising, tracking, & more!

Included in:

🔤 Google

Block Google advertising, tracking, promotions, & more!

Included in:

🪟 Microsoft

Close the Windows! Block M$ advertising, tracking, promotions, & more!

Included in:

🦖 Mozilla

Block Mozilla telemetry, analytics, advertising, sponsored content, & more!

Included in:

🕵️ NSA Blocklist - Next Generation

Block Big Brother!

Included in:

⚠️ Needs further testing, beware

📡 Radar

Block advertising, analytics, unwanted data collection, tracking, & more as they arise!

Included in:

⚠️ Unsafe

Block nasty domains!

Included in:

The Whitelists

In addition to the blocklists detailed above, BadBlock also offers a selection of extensive whitelists, which I would also highly recommend using if possible. The goal of the lists is to ensure that domains required for important functionality or legitimate features are never blocked, as well as unblocking other harmless domains & false positives that other lists may block.

[!NOTE] You should NOT use any Whitelists if you are using a browser-based content blocker, such as uBlock Origin. These are ONLY intended for users blocking on a DNS level.

Combined Whitelist

✋ BadBlock - Whitelist

Unblock the good!

Includes all individual whitelists below!

Individual Whitelists

For those with special use-cases, you can also take advantage of our individual Whitelists.

🤖 BadBlock - Android Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (Android Edition)

🍎 BadBlock - Apple Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (Apple Edition)

🌐 BadBlock - Browser Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (Browser Edition)

🦾 BadBlock - CAPTCHA Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (CAPTCHA Edition)

🖆 BadBlock - Certificate Validation Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (Certificate Validation Edition)

💌 BadBlock - Email Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (Email Edition)

📞 BadBlock - Helpline Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (Helpline Edition)

🛜 BadBlock - LAN Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (LAN Edition)

🐧 BadBlock - GNU/Linux Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (GNU/Linux Edition)

🏠 BadBlock - Misc. Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (Misc. Edition)

📶 BadBlock - Mobile Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (Mobile Edition)

🔔 BadBlock - Push Notifications Whitelist

Never miss a message!

🔒 BadBlock - Safe Browsing Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (Safe Browsing Edition)

⏰ BadBlock - Time Servers Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (Time Edition)

🪟 BadBlock - Windows Update Whitelist

Unblock the Good! (Windows Update Edition)

Should I use any other lists, and if so, what?

Yes, you should not solely rely on any BadBlock lists. I believe that it's a good idea to use a combination of high quality lists for your blocking purposes, to get the widest & most comprehensive protection possible.

I would generally recommend using the following lists in addition to any BadBlock lists, depending on what's best available to you:

HaGeZi's Lists

HaGeZi maintains a number of comprehensive & high quality blocklists here. I'm of the belief that his lists are currently some of the, if not the, best out there. The domains blocked are carefully considered, curated from a variety of high quality sources, & have minimal false positives. HaGeZi is also very active at responding to any issues that arise.

I would highly recommend using the following lists from HaGeZi:

Additional Lists To Consider

General Recommendations

*1 Note for Hypatia: You should install Hypatia through the DivestOS Official Repo instead of F-Droid's main repo, as it will allow you to receive quicker updates directly from the developer. It's also recommended to use F-Droid Basic as your F-Droid client of choice.

Credits

Thanks to Divested Computing Group for creating & maintaining Simple Hosts Merger, which is used for creating the combined BadBlock lists in the wildcard domain formats. - 💰 Donate

Thanks to HaGeZi for inspiration to create a table of contents & better organize, & also just being cool in general...