ublock origin - blocking Scripting News

[richb-hanover]

Dave - a quick look shows that it's choking on the "http://counters.scripting.com/counter?group=scripting&referer=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fscripting.com%2F..." link.

Here's how I found this

• Go to http://scripting.com - see the ublock origin icon with a "1"
• Click the ublock origin icon - see the dropdown for the site
• Click the Logger icon (rectangle with black bar at top) See the list of URLs fetch.
• The pink one is the one that's blocked. Click it
• This opens a details pane that makes it look as if "Easy Privacy" is blocking the string ".com/counter?".
• Perhaps you could tweak your software to request something like "scripting.com/scriptingcounter?..."

Good luck!

Update: Initially mentioned at: http://chat.scripting.com/story?day=2023/01/19/&id=8346

[kyefox]

I use uBlock Origin and this list and have no trouble loading Scripting News. It does block this script, but everything works fine.

[scripting]

@kyefox — how long has this been going on?

[kyefox]

@kyefox — how long has this been going on?

I didn't even notice until this issue popped up on your Mastodon link blog poster. uBlock Origin is like that: mostly invisible until something goes wrong, then it's the culprit 99% of the time there's a problem. This specific filter is a wildcard (" .com/counter?") so doesn't actually have anything to do with your site.

The correct action would be for them to add Scripting News to trusted sites until they can figure out why the rule is breaking the site for them and apparently no one else. I'm sure we're not the only two using one of the top script blockers with one of the default lists.

[scripting]

It’s like their software trying to prevent hacks is itself a hack.

[richb-hanover]

I see it the other way 'round. I am delighted by ublock origin because it employs curated lists of suspect patterns in URLs to block certain sites. It does a great job of cleaning up my browsing experience.

One of those lists is EasyList (https://easylist.to/easylist/easylist.txt) that has the pattern .com/counter? that matches one of the URLs on Scripting.com. I assume (but don't know for certain) that EasyList learned that some bad actor was using the .com/counter? pattern, so they blocked it.

It is regrettable that you chose that same string for your counter (at http://counters.scripting.com/counter?...) But a change of the URL on your server side to a different path/pattern would seem to solve this problem. Or am I misunderstanding the situation? Thanks.

[kyefox]

Changing the URL to bypass a filter used by people who've chosen not to be counted doesn't seem very pro-social. It shouldn't be breaking the site for you.

[scripting]

I don’t think I’ll change the url.

If I won’t be corralled by Google why should I accept it from this bullshit.

This is a crazy system.