Set of default filters to increase privacy

Post edited to clarify. I hadn’t even said what is this for.

I’m planning on installing Request Control in several devices (all of them using Firefox), and I think it could benefit from a good set of default rules to increase privacy.

My scenario is: several platforms transform links in comments to redirectors, e.g. YouTube (any link to sites other tan YouTube will point https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=ACTUAL_TARGET_URL) and Disqus. This links, supposedly created to increase privacy, may track your movement from site to site and/or inform targeted ads agencies.

Also, I’m under the impression that Request Control already strips URLs from &utm metadata, but there are other sites that use different codes.

My plan is to write rules to avoid these redirectors, to allow users like myself to install Request Control, subscribe to this list, and then forget about it. Kind of like uBlock Origin works actually.

I know that you haven’t been interested in this…

[The default rules are just examples. You’re supposed to create your own rules.] (https://github.com/tumpio/requestcontrol/issues/106#issuecomment-523075116)

but I’d nevertheless like to publish these rules somewhere, probably FilterLists. Would you be interested in bundling these rules in your project, or linking to them somewhere in your add-on / README.md?

(I originally suggested to add a mechanism to subscribe to filters, but it doesn’t really matter much… all I’d had to do is to download the list locally and import it, still pretty convenient.)

[ArenaL5]

@ThurahT Thank you for your concern. I’m very fortunately doing alright; I hope you are, too.

The filter you’re looking for is already part of Request Control’s defaults and should work with your example URL.

I deleted the GitHub Gist because it was obsolete and @tumpio already merged my latest updates into the master branch (along with updates from other contributors). To use the newest filters, you can either build Request Control from source, or import the 13 rulesets at this folder.

If you’re only adding filters for Disqus, you might be interested in this one as well (it’s in the same file); it downloads embedded images from their original location instead of Disqus’s servers.

Feel free to report back if you have any problem or suggestion.

[ArenaL5]

Glad I could help!

Also, you don’t need to know JavaScript to create your own rules. Regexps, on the other hand… you should, but the basics are much easier than you think. You can always test your rules with the Test selected button anyways.

EDIT: To be precise, the rulesets can’t have any JavaScript. JavaScript would be useful if you want to improve Request Control itself, or for other addons.