Ad blocker settings

[yesxb09]

Hi, I was wondering about a feature in brave shields. I would like to block just the trackers on a page, but allow ads. Am I missing something or did the devs just not ad that? The only option I see is; allow all ads and trackers, block ads and trackers, or aggressive mode.

[Saoiray]

@yesxb09

I would like to block just the trackers on a page, but allow ads.

These almost always go hand in hand. Most ads also are trackers. So there’s no way to differentiate between them.

[anon57438784]

Ads are tracking you, that’s how it works, by allowing ads you are allowing trackers and vice versa, so it is hard to know which one isn’t.

You can use Adblocker like “block trackers and ads” = Standard, which will only apply rules to third-party connections for the default lists, not regional or custom lists/rules.

But you can also whitelist a connection like a script, then you can use @@|| as in: @@||example_url_of_netwrork_connection.js" you can easily get the URLs being blocked through Brave Shields panel or Devtools → network.

You can also use domain= to limit the rule to certain domain(s) as in: @@||example_url_of_netwrork_connection.js$domain=example2.com

You can also use @@||example.com^$ghide to remove generic cosmetic rules.

Brave isn’t able to create exceptions for cosmetics, but if you run adblocker on standard it will show the elements (default lists only), to create exceptions for anything else you can run :style() like: example.com##.class_div_ads:style(display: block !important;), but obviously for this you need to know which cosmetic rules are being applied to the page which is not easy in Brave.

So it can be done, if you want. The easiest thing to do is to run Brave adblocker in standard mode, so it only applies rules (default lists, again) to cosmetics and third-party connections, and you allow first-party elements like on Search engines where you see the ads and all that.

Any other browser, like Opera that tells you it can block Trackers and Ads separetely is misleading you because what it does is use Easylist for ‘ads’ and EasyPrivacy for “trackers”, and then disabling the lists, but technically it doesn’t know if an ad is tracking you or of Easylist has an important rule to block that has nothing to do with ads and trackers but malicious url for example.