Question Custom blocklists

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HI @oeck team,

Just thought I'd pose the question of whether it might be possible to allow us to add our own blocklist URLs at some stage in the future?
I saw that we can manually add a domain to be blocked, but I use several blocklists similar to those implemented by the pihole project, and it would be awesome if they could be used in the blocking section on the VPN.
Here is an example of one of the blocklist URL I use in ublock origin.

Cheers,
dooley
 

Peter

Staff member
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Hi @dooley,

This actually may be possible. We will discuss when we get some time of the best way to implement this feature. If you could provide us with all of the "lists" you use, we can take a look.

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.
 
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A couple of sites that compile various lists are here:

Another good source of block lists is https://nextdns.io/

I look forward to watching oeck develop and mature, it's going to be a blast :)

Cheers,
dooley
 

Peter

Staff member
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Thank you very much for that information. We will see how we can best implement this whilst preventing the features abuse.
 

Peter

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Hi @dooley,

How many of these lists do you use? The problem here is making it neat and tidy and easy to use with Oeck. @Cameron and I have an idea of how we would implement such a feature, but even this has limits. Are you using one or two lists, or are you using ten?
 
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Hey Peter,

Generally I use around a half dozen lists.
Some lists have a much wider coverage than others, and the creators or said lists usual have a variety to cover various options, due example, one list might just block porn, whereas another from the same creator might just block malware. Then they may have one list that blocks porn, malware, ads, parked domains, spam sources and tracking telemetry all in one list.
 

Peter

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Hi dooley,

We also use aggregated lists for Cerberus. Porn blocker, Malware blocker, Ad blocker and Social Network blocker are all aggregated lists specific to those categories. The lists you have provided most likely have a 99% crossover.

What are your thoughts on if we add the lists you provide into our normal blockers, provided they can be broken down by category? For example, a single list with all categories included can not be used by us.

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.
 
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I think your probly right on that the crossover of the lists would be high. That said, there are some that block specifically things like Microsoft tracking and telemetry, tracking by Samsung, Apple, Huawei etc

Would it be possible to enable the end user to supplying a URL to add a list on an as needed basis?
I'm pretty sure the formatting of the lists are pretty standard, adding the URL linking to the lists of domains to be blocked would then enable the Oeck system to parse the content of the text file that is the source of the list.

Just my 2 bobs worth :)
 

Peter

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Hi @dooley,

It is possible for us to allow you to simply add a url for a .txt file or similar in your custom blocker. However, the problem with this is, it gets out of hand very quickly. If for example you added something with 50,000 lines of domains, and so did another 1,000 members, you can see how fast this gets out of hand.

If you could provide us with a "wish list" of lists we can probably work something out. However, each list must fall into a category. It can't be a list with all categories included. For example, a user may wish to access adult content but block malware. An "all in" list will block them from both.

That being said, we are open to ideas and suggestions and would very much like to look into this.
 
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I can see where you are coming from, I hadn't considered the exponential growth and the load it would place on the serves. I'll have a dig around and present a few extras lists for consideration, there are some that focus on tracking protection and other areas that aren't covered at the moment.

Thanks for taking the time to entertain the suggestion too, I really appreciate it.
 

Peter

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Hi @dooley,

If there are some that focus on areas that are not covered it is even better. We can easily add them to Cerberus. So instead of Porn, Social, Ads and Malware we can add another category or two. This will not only give you most of what you want, but other members can also benefit from it too.

No problem in taking the time to entertain it. It is a good idea and we're in beta at the moment. This is a great time to test stuff like this :)

EDIT: FYI - Tracking = Ads

We also have lists that block trackers for various things.
 
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Here are a few for consideration.

Blocks common tracking scripts such as Omniture, Webtrends, Foresee, Coremetrics, Google-Analytics, Touchclarity

Anti Tracking/Telemetry
Homepage: https://gitlab.com/quidsup/notrack-blocklists

Mobile Specific Tracking/Advertising.

Google Gone

The "One Size Fits All" blocklist, allegedly blocking Ads, Mobile Ads, Phishing, Malvertising, Malware, Tracking, Telemetry, CryptoJacking, Analytics, Spyware, Ransomware, Exploid, Fraud, Abuse, Scam, Spam, Hijack, Misleading Marketing.
Probably a bit of a crossover with current Cerberus lists but I use it and it works well for me.

(y)
 

Peter

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Hi @dooley,

Blocks common tracking scripts such as Omniture, Webtrends, Foresee, Coremetrics, Google-Analytics, Touchclarity
https://www.fanboy.co.nz/enhancedstats.txt
We can add this to Malware or Ads. We may make a new category called "tracking" as well.

We can add this to Malware or Ads. We may make a new category called "tracking" as well.

We can add this to Malware or Ads. We may make a new category called "tracking" as well.

Google Gone
We won't add this. For specific blocks of certain websites such as Google, it is better suited to simply using the custom blocker.

The "One Size Fits All" blocklist, allegedly blocking Ads, Mobile Ads, Phishing, Malvertising, Malware, Tracking, Telemetry, CryptoJacking, Analytics, Spyware, Ransomware, Exploid, Fraud, Abuse, Scam, Spam, Hijack, Misleading Marketing.
Probably a bit of a crossover with current Cerberus lists but I use it and it works well for me.
We can not add this one as it is a mixed-list.

I will review with @Cameron and see what we come up with. But most likely we will be able to implement them without issue.
 

Peter

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Hi @dooley,

Assuming all goes well with our testing and these lists don't "break" anything, such as websites and services, we will be integrating them into Cerberus. This will be made available after our next network update. OISD will not be added due to it not being made available as categories.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.
 

Peter

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Awesome @Peter , Cant wait to see what it looks like and have a play with it.
Hi @dooley,

It will look the same. You can just enable the adblocker and it won't look any different. However, your lists will also be in the block-list. If you have any more that you want included, post them here. We will add them if we can ( remember, they must be able to be categorized though, so no all-in-one ).

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.
 

Peter

Staff member
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Awesome @Peter , Cant wait to see what it looks like and have a play with it.
Hi @dooley,

We have added;

These have been implemented into the Malware option. The changes will take affect upon the next network update - probably this weekend at some point.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Regards,
Peter @ Oeck.