Request Regarding Partial Blocking of Inline Manual Analytics

Browser Support Ad-Blocking
1

Description of the issue:
Hello,

I’m the founder of Inline Manual (https://inlinemanual.com), a platform that helps companies create in-app onboarding guides and walkthroughs for their users. Part of this experience includes tracking whether a user has already seen a particular guide, for example, a first-time onboarding message.

We’ve noticed that Brave is partially blocking our analytics services, specifically the __ptm endpoint. This endpoint is responsible for storing user progress and guide completion. As a result, users end up seeing the same content repeatedly, since we cannot persist information about what they’ve already viewed.

Interestingly, the /profile endpoint is not blocked, which leads to a misleading scenario: we can load the user and assume everything is functioning normally, so we proceed to launch the relevant content based on their preferences. However, we can’t save their progress due to the __ptm block.

Ideally, we’d love for Inline Manual to not be blocked at all, especially since our tracking is strictly limited to improving user experience and not used for advertising. We make this clear in our Terms & Conditions.

That said, if full access isn’t possible, would it be feasible to block the entire https://analytics.inlinemanual.com domain instead? While not ideal, this would at least prevent users from seeing repeat content, improving their overall experience.

Thanks so much for your time and consideration. Happy to provide more context if needed.

Best regards,
Marek

Exact URL of the website in question:
https://analytics.inlinemanual.com

Did the issue present with default Shields settings? (yes/no)

Yes

Does the site function as expected when Shields are turned off?

Yes

Does the ad appear when using a Private window as well? (yes/no)

Yes

What OS are you using when you see the ad?

MacOS

Brave version (check About Brave):

v1.76.82

2

@marekso

Sounds like an issue for @Mattches of Brave Support and / or @fanboynz of the Brave team - they are going to know how to proceed.

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3

Thank you @289wk for pointing this post in the right direction. :slight_smile:

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4

@marekso thanks for reaching out. Yeah so if the user turns Shields down they should not see this issue but I think this is something that would be reasonable to not block. Let me rope in @fanboynz to take a look here.

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5

I’m not seeing any issues here, I’d probably need a login to test with. Nothing specific to inlinemanual.com domain.

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6

That would be awesome.

Visit our test site: https://inline-sup-team.netlify.app/
Pick a user.
Click sign in.

You should be able to see a Walkthrough with a first step:

image
image1920×1090 79.7 KB

Click Got it, or Close “X” in the top right corner.

Refresh the page.

If the Shield is on, the Walkthrough shows up again and in the network tab you will see blocked __ptm calls.

If the Shield is off, the Walkthrough won’t play again, as we were able to send the event to __ptm and now we know the Walkthrough was seen.

FYI, when the __ptm event goes through, switch to another user by going back to the domain and selecting a different user to test with again.

Thank you, we appreciate it.

7

Ah right, I see. We block third-party ping (for many years now)

inline-sup-team.netlify.app post ping https://analytics.inlinemanual.com/__ptm

make it 1p or just don’t use 3p ping.

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Thank you Ryan,
If I understand correctly, 3p ping is 3rd party ping?
And Brave can fetch data (not being blocked, 3rd party /profile endpoint - https://analytics.inlinemanual.com/profile) but it blocks any outgoing 3p pings (like __ptm)?

Our issue is that the /profile is not being blocked, so the implemented Player gets the profile, and thinks this is all good, so it acts like whatever it does on the client side, it gets written via the __ptm. Hence why the walkthroughs appear over and over.

So, if we can’t unblock analytics.inlinemanual.com pings (not sure if I am using the right terminology, sorry), then could we block the entire analytics.inlinemanual.com endpoint, whatever the request is?

Thanks in advance.

9

If is a tracker sure, blocking ||analytics.inlinemanual.com^ is fine here