EasyList Czech and Slovak, written by tomasko126, as well as Latvian List, written by anonymous74100, have now become officially affiliated with EasyList and are also a recommended subscriptions for Czech and Slovak and Latvian users. The subscriptions are listed on the EasyList homepage, from where they may be viewed or installed.

If you want to provide feedback, including reporting adverts or problems, please use the Adblock Plus issue reporter or open a topic in the EasyList forums for Latvian List. For EasyList Czech and Slovak you can use the issue reporter as well or its bug tracker.

The Easy team is very happy to announce today that both major ad blocking lists, EasyList and Fanboy's List, become one list! Also, EasyPrivacy and Fanboy's Tracking List were merged.

With this change all users will have a consistent Internet browsing experience and will no longer have to bother whether they have to choose EasyList or Fanboy's List or which one of them is better.

Fanboy, who has many years of experience in ad blocking, is a gain for the Easy project and will from now on be the main author. Welcome to the team!

Fanboy's Annoyance List was already included in the EasyList repository some weeks ago. Also, a new filter list solely for blocking social media integration, Fanboy's Social Blocking List, was created and is officially featured on the Adblock Plus features page. It was adapted from the Annoyance List which means you do not need it if you already have Fanboy's Annoyance List.

You do not need to do anything to get the new list(s), everything will be done automatically.

If you encounter any issues, please report them in our forum.

Most sites do not mind if users have adblocking software installed in their browser. There are however a couple of sites that take counter measurements, trying to convince users to disable their adblockers. Our policy states the following about those so-called anti-adblock measurements: "Anti-Adblock should only be challenged if the system limits website functionality or causes significant disruption to browsing". Since this can be interpret in numerous ways, here's a more detailed explanation for webmasters about what we allow or disallow.

This is what we allow and/or require from anti-adblock measurements:

• It must use small, static images and/or text only.

• The font and markup must be similar to the other parts of the page.

• The text must be polite and understandable, or at least in the same tone as the other parts of the website.

• It must be clear that the message is shown because the user is using adblocking software.

• It must not interrupt the normal reading flow of the page content.

• It must be clear that any action requested in the anti-adblock message, like disabling the adblocking software, whitelisting your site or asking a donation as a replacement for the ads, is completely voluntarily.

• It may suggest disabling adblockers entirely, but if it does, it must also include detailed and easy-to-read instructions to disable them on your domain only.

• When the user clicks an anti-adblock message, more content may be shown (including overlays, animated images and all otherwise forbidden content types, like plugins), provided they can be closed.

• The user must be the only one in control of the filters required for the purpose of the anti-adblock message. It must not be possible for external sources to add, modify or remove any rules remotely.

This however is what we do not allow:

• Animations (including changing text messages), sounds and other content that will constantly distract the user.

• Content that uses plug-in resources or frames.

• Redirects (automatic page forwarding) and pop-ups to a different page.

• Content that overlaps the normal page content or prevents the normal reading flow in any other way, like messages in the middle of a text.

• Content with a height over 150px or a combined size of approximately 10% of an average screen.

• Content for which it is not immediately clear it's targeted to users of adblocking software.

• Measurements that limit the access to the site and/or cause annoying side effects (like additional delays) and/or prevent normal content to be shown.

Well, that isn't too hard, is it? If you follow these guidelines, we're all happy. We (the list authors), because we don't have to add or adjust rules for your site. The visitor, because (s)he won't be the victim of terrible anti-adblock measurements. And the site admins, because they don't have to adjust their site every time we block their message, while still being able to tell users about their adblockers.

There are just two more side notes that should be mentioned:

• If your anti-adblock message does not follow the guidelines, or there is discussion about its compliance, it is up to the list author(s) to determine if we block it or leave it as it is. When your anti-adblock message is being blocked specifically, while it's following all guidelines, please leave a notification in our forums or send an email to our email address; if we agree, it'll be unblocked.

• In case your anti-adblock message is being removed by a filter that is also used to block or hide ads or other content that should be blocked anywhere else, it will not be whitelisted, even if you perfectly follow all guidelines.

Ads caused by malware or adware extensions or plugins on your computer will not be fixed by EasyList. If you arrived at this page for other reasons than curiosity about this blog, it is likely that a list author send you here because your computer is infected with such an extension or plugin.

Please check all your extensions and plugins by disabling them one-by-one, restarting the browser each time after you did so, until the strange behaviour or ads are gone. In that case, the extension/plugin you disabled last is bad and should be removed. You can remove suspicious/unwanted extensions/plugins directly of course. Virus scanners often do not find such extensions or plugins!

It also recommended to scan your computer with any of these removal tools, even if you have found the responsible extension or plugin in the previous step to make sure there are no left-overs on your system:

• AdwCleaner

• Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

• Spybot - Search & Destroy

Also, to prevent such issues in the future: the next time you install an extension/plugin, consider if you really need it and if the site looks trustworthy. That will save you a lot of trouble in the future and likely keeps your browsing faster too. Apart from that, always download software from the software developers' website. Also, when asked so during the installation of any kind of software, do not install any additional toolbars, coupon notifiers, shopping widgets, etc. they offer.

Additional information can be found in this troubleshooting guide from Mozilla Support.

To be honest, it is for quite a while already but I somehow missed to announce it properly.

Liste AR, written by smed79 and Liste FR author Crits, has now become officially affiliated with EasyList and is also a recommended subscription for Arabic users. The subscription is listed on the EasyList homepage, from where it may be viewed or installed.

It is recommended to use it together with Liste FR.

If you want to provide feedback about Liste AR, including reporting adverts or problems, please use the Adblock Plus issue reporter or open a topic in the EasyList forums.

The Do-Not-Track support in EasyPrivacy will be removed very soon as the functionality will no longer be supported in Adblock Plus.

Mozilla Firefox can send the Do-Not-Track header to websites on its own. Please read this article on Mozilla's support site to learn how you can activate it.

Problem:

Video ads on hulu.com show up before the actual video starts.

Affects:

• hulu.com

• any other page where Hulu videos are embedded

Cause:

Hulu videos on external sites are embedded in a HTML frame (example: huffingtonpost.com). While the video ads on Hulu itself can still be blocked (a countdown shows up instead of a video ad), embedded videos on external sites will no longer play unless videa ads are allowed. This forced us to add specific whitelists for these ads.

Solution:

Unfortunately, there is no way to block the ads on Hulu and allow them on external sites as the latter are embedded in a HTML frame. If you do not watch Hulu video on external sites, you can disable the whitelists and still watch videos on hulu.com without ads. Here is a step-by-step instruction how to disable them:

1. Click on the "ABP" icon in Firefox (it is most likely in the left corner at the bottom) and choose "Filter preferences...".

2. Click on this button on the right.

3. Click on the "Find" button that appeared on the top.

4. Type hulu.com/published and disable these two exception rules @@||hulu.com/published/*.flv and @@||hulu.com/published/*.mp4 by unticking them like shown in this screenshot.

5. Close the filter preferences window of Adblock Plus.

Problem:

Einige Webseiten funktionieren nicht korrekt, wenn Ghostery installiert ist und so eingestellt ist, dass es Zählpixel etc. automatisch blockiert.

Betroffene Seiten:

• RTL NOW

• Vox NOW

• Super RTL NOW

• RTL 2 NOW

• RTL Nitro NOW

Ursache:

Ghostery hat keine Whitelist-Funktiom, mit der man nur bestimmte Elemente freigeben kann. Ghostery kann nur eine Website komplett oder bestimmte Drittanbieter global whitelisten/freigeben. Einige Seiten müssen aber bestimmte Resourcen von Drittanbietern laden, damit sie korrekt funktionieren (z. B. beim Abspielen eines Videos).

Lösung:

Klicken Sie auf das Ghostery-Symbol (blauer Geist), dann auf "Edit Blocking Options" und schließlich auf "Don't Block on [Adresse der Seite]" und laden Sie die Seite neu.

Oder falls Sie die alte Ansicht von Ghostery verwenden: nachdem Sie auf das Ghostery-Symbol geklickt haben, klicken Sie auf "Whitelist domain" und laden Sie die Seite neu.

Problem:

Werbung taucht vor dem oder im Video auf.

Betroffene Seiten:

• Clipfish.de

• Spiegel.tv

• RTL NOW

• Vox NOW

• Super RTL NOW

• RTL 2 NOW

• RTL Nitro NOW

Ursache:

Die betroffenen Seiten haben eine Erkennung eingebaut, die überprüft, ob die Werbung geladen wurde oder nicht.

Lösung:

Eine richtige Lösung gibt es aktuell nicht. Man muss die Werbung zulassen, um das eigentliche Video zu sehen. Andernfalls kann man das Video nicht sehen.

Da viele User von unerwünschten Inhalten, die auf die Softonic Toolbar, PriceGong und Babylon zurückzuführen sind, berichten, habe ich eine Anleitung zusammengestellt, wie man diese Programme entfernen kann. Adblock Plus kann dies nämlich nicht entfernen. Die unerwünschten Inhalte äußern sich wie folgt:

• search.softonic.com ist als Startseite festgelegt

• search.softonic.com ist als Suchmaschine in der Suchleiste festgelegt

• search.softonic.com wird ebenfalls geöffnet, wenn man einen neuen Tab öffnet

• vornehmlich auf Shoppingportalen erscheinen oben und unten rechts in Mozilla Firefox Meldungen, dass Gutscheine für diesen Shop bereitlägen

• "More For You"-Fenster unten links in Mozilla Firefox

• "WindowShopper"-Overlay auf Amazon.de (ggf. auch auf anderen Seiten)

Anleitung: Softonic Toolbar, PriceGong und Babylon entfernen

Schließen Sie zunächst Mozilla Firefox und den Internet Explorer (falls geöffnet). Kopieren Sie daher die nachfolgende Anleitung in ein Word-Dokument/eine Textdatei und speichern Sie sie auf dem Desktop ab.

1. Gehen Sie über den "Start"-Button in die Systemsteuerung und klicken dann auf "Programme und Funktionen" (Windows Vista/7) bzw. auf "Software" (Windows XP).

2. Deinstallieren Sie dort die "Softonic Toolbar for IE", "PriceGong" unf ggf. "Babylon".

3. Am Ende der Deinstallation der "Softonic Toolbar for IE" wird man gefragt, ob man die derzeitige Startseite und Sucheinstellungen behalten möchte. Verneinen Sie dies (diese Aktion hat nur auf den Internet Explorer Einfluss).

4. Starten Sie Mozilla Firefox, klicken Sie auf den "Firefox"-Button oben links (bzw. "Extras" in der Menüleiste), dann auf "Add-ons" und schließlich auf "Erweiterungen".

5. Klicken Sie rechts neben "Softonic.com" auf "Deinstallieren" und starten Sie Firefox neu. Wiederholen Sie dies für die "Babylon"-Erweiterung.

6. Klicken Sie in der Suchleiste oben rechts auf das linke Lupen-Symbol und wählen dann "Suchmaschinen verwalten...".

7. Klicken Sie auf "Search the web (Softonic)" und anschließend auf "Entfernen". Wiederholen Sie dies ggf. für "Search the web (Babylon)".

8. Geben Sie "about:config" (ohne " ") in die Adressleiste ein, bestätigen Sie mit Enter und klicken Sie auf die "Ich werde vorsichtig sein, versprochen!"-Schaltfläche.

9. Geben Sie "softonic" (ohne " ") in das Suchfeld ein und setzen Sie alle Einträge mit einem Rechtsklick und dann auf "Zurücksetzen" zurück. Schneller geht es, wenn man rechtsklickt und dann die R-Taste auf der Tastatur drückt. Wiederholen Sie dies für den Begriff "babylon".

10. Lade Sie sich AdwCleaner (Direktdownload: http://general-changelog-team.fr/fr/downloads/finish/20-outils-de-xplode/2-adwcleaner) herunter, schließen Sie Firefox und starten Sie das Programm.

11. Klicken Sie auf "Search" und schließen Sie danach die Textdatei.

12. Klicken Sie dann auf "Delete" (der Computer wird danach automatisch neugestartet).

13. Klicken Sie auf den "Start"-Button und dann auf "Ausführen..." oder führen Sie die Tastenkombination Windows-Taste + R aus.

14. Geben Sie "%temp%" (ohne " ") in das Feld ein, bestätigen Sie mit Enter und löschen Sie alle Ordner und Dateien, die Sie in dem Fenster sehen.

Vermutlich waren diese Programme installiert, da Sie Mozilla Firefox oder vielleicht auch ein anderes Programm von der Softonic-Seite heruntergeladen haben und bei der Installation die Softonic Toolbar, PriceGong oder Babylon standardmäßig ausgewählt waren. Bitte laden Sie Programme - egal ob Mozilla Firefox oder andere Software - immer von der Herstellerseite herunter. Im Falle von Mozilla Firefox ist es mozilla.com oder auch firefox.com.