Custom Filters: How To/Instructions

Background: Brave GitHub issue report Individual script feature missing again

diracdeltas commented 08/09/22
#23285 (comment) [Reference comment in another issue report]

umatrix and noscript are reasonable alternatives

if you don’t feel like installing an extension and know what scripts you want to disable or selectively enable, you can write a custom adblock filter in brave://settings/shields/filters. we can help you with the syntax for that if you want to go this route, but umatrix/noscript are much more usable for most people

I don’t use add-on extensions. I want to find out more about writing custom filters for brave://settings/shields/filters. I want to find out if, generally, this is something I can (easily) learn to do or if I should ask for help right out the gate.

I searched Help Center but the article How do I manage Ad-Block filters in Brave? is still in development. I found some information I think might apply as far as the syntax for writing custom rules, but I just don’t know.

Listing information links below. Does anyone know if these links are relevant to creating custom rules in brave://settings/shields/filters? If not, do you know of any sources of helpful information. Looking for “Beginner Guides”, “How To”, or instruction type information that can get me started (or discourage me attempting lol) on creating custom content filters in Brave.

help.eyeo.com Related Content: Customization & Settings

CUSTOMIZATION & SETTINGS

Anything useful for a non-programming, non-tech savvy end-user in this list?
https://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?p=113219#p113219

Going to add some general background on custom filters I am interested in creating. I play a few word games daily. I do not save or track any of my results. I just play the game and exit. Before, with v1 Shields, I could just enable javascript for the main site and I could play the game without loading all the other scripts. I want to be able to load the main script for the site and block all the others. Any comments?

Games I Play Daily

  1. Games/Puzzles on NYTimes website:
    • Wordle
    • LetterBoxed
    • NYT Mini Crossword
  2. Waffle
  3. Quordle
  4. Squareword

Games I Play Frequently (but not every day)

  1. Crosswordle
  2. Absurdle

Any help appreciated! Thanks. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I am going to look into uBlock Origin for now. Might circle back to Adblock Plus later.

General information surrounding decision in this topic: Bring back one time script blocking.

If anyone has any comments, suggestions, information, whatever, please post!

Thanks. :smiley:

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Found your link here… I’m not that up to speed on tech side of things, But I do muddle through following instructions I find on sites like this. I use Linux, but I have no formal training, just learn as I go and hope I can remember some of it lol. I don’t really like extensions either, just right now they are a bit of a necessity for me. I was disappointed with the recent changes in brave. Brave was a kind of an all in one that worked well.
I’ll take a look at the links and see how it goes. If I figure anything out I’ll post it here.

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Ditto lol

Kindred spirit. Yeah! :slightly_smiling_face:

I also don’t like having to install an add-on to have something work. Besides being worried about security risks, having to update, troubleshoot, whatever one-more-thing is exasperating. My system is ancient and I don’t want to add anything that might cause my already marginal performance to take a hit.

Me too. Thanks for posting. Take care. :smiley:

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@anon57438784 Thank-you so much. Complete novice at this and your post has helped tremendously. You do make it sound easy. :slightly_smiling_face:

I am trying to only allow the scripts necessary to play the games mentioned and no other scripts. So, for example, for Wordle, if I only allowed the nytimes . com script once, and not any of the others, I could play the game. Ditto for all the other games as well. I want that functionality back. I do not want to allow other scripts that are not needed.

One of the problems is that with the current v2, I did not know how to determine what scripts were being loaded when I disabled block scripts. From your post, it looks like all I have to do is allow scripts, then go look in devtools and block any of the scripts loaded that I do not need to play my game. However, it also appears there may be some scripts that I will not see in devtools unless I use uBlock logger. Did I understand correctly? Is there a way to block all scripts loaded except the one I want without using the logger? For example, using Wordle again, can I allow nytimes .com and block everything else using ||example.com^$scripts,3p and it will do the same thing as what I was doing with v1 without actually having to determine the names of the specific scripts?

Just skimming the adblockplus “how to” it looks like it is probably possible to block everything except nytimes .com without looking in devtools or the logger but I don’t know enough right now. I’ll have to read, study, and understand more, maybe become an informed beginner and not a complete novice. lol

Thank-you for providing links to relevant documentation too. I was at a loss of where to begin and I don’t have enough knowledge to evaluate the usefulness or accuracy of what I was reading. The Adblock and Adguard documentation linked looks like the most useful at my skill (lack of) level and I will start there. The other, not so much. Is that Greek? :wink:

Thank-you again for taking the time to provide some basics and some information for going forward. Greatly appreciated. :smiley:

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@anon57438784 I just briefly skimmed through things and need to look over everything you wrote and linked in extreme detail. Forgive me what I’m about to ask is there, but asking just in case it might be able to have a “simplified” answer.

I noticed you mentioned the logger and looking through dev tools, but what I don’t understand necessarily is how to know what to block? For example, I just was at https://moviesjoy.to/ today, which is a website someone shared about before. We had put in a script but now I’m seeing pop-ups and all when I click on the screen or navigate. What I’d like to learn is, how the heck do I identify these and block them?

Not sure if it’s just a matter of seeing where the URL for the ad is and blocking, if it’s in the code, or what? Also guess I’m trying to see if it’s simple enough for the average user to do? Obviously can seem to be intimidating to some people.

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@anon57438784 Haven’t had a chance to breakdown and dig in to the information you posted. Hopefully I can get to it next week.

I did go look at the scripts being loaded in devtools with block scripts disabled. Really nothing much there. I’m wondering now if v2 doesn’t automatically block those scripts that I was blocking in v1 and I just wasn’t savvy enough to check and compare. Wish I had documented those scripts… too late now. lol

I still want to learn about scripts, and devtools (this one has been on my list for a couple of months!), hopefully sooner than later.

Thank-you again for the information and update. :slightly_smiling_face:

Thanks for the replies Emi, I want to take my time to go through everything you posted and try to learn more and get an understanding. I am doing my best to keep up, but as an old guy it gets tougher all the time lol. For these things I depend on Brave or extensions to keep my privacy but now I am interested in learning whats happening under the hood.

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