HiTechHiTouch said:

Further on boxes, check, and colors.

It first appeared that the buttons on the Blocked and Redirected lists were always the same. While experimenting, I've been able to produce Blocked list buttons of empty white box and red checked box. I can toggle them.

This leads to the quesion of what do the changable colors on the blocked list buttons mean?

Similar on the redirected list.

Finally, when I use the search feature, there doesn't seem to be a way to turn it off, i.e. restore all entries to the display. But save that problem for later.

If I can get a good explanation of things, I will write a help page.

Next topic is how the allow, block, and redirect lists interact. For example, which order are they searched? When a wild card is on one list, will it catch an exact match to an entry on another? How do the "pre loaded" (source) lists take precedence, and how can entries be overridden since they don't seem to be deletable from the user lists.

Click to expand...

Answering to one of your questions:
Allowed is stronger than blocked

First off all, if you don't have any hosts source, than all sites are allowed.
Hence you actually don't need to put anything to the Allowed list

But as the name says, this is an ad blocker. Hence the purpose is to use the hosts sources that will BLOCK certain sites

But once you start using someone's hosts source (by default, I'm talking about the blocking lists), you have no influence on which sites will be blocked by the hosts source or not

If it blocks to less, you will another hosts source to your list, and later maybe more and more hosts sources there

However, at some moment you may find that you can no more shop at eg Amazon, because one (or more) of your hosts sources blocks the Amazon. You could spend time to find which hosts source blocks the Amazon and remove it from your hosts sources list. But the Amazon may soon appear in another hosts source...
Or, you may otherwise like that hosts source that blocks the Amazon because it blocks a zillion of other sites you really want them to be blocked

Hence you better put Amazon to your own Allowed list. Then you don't need to worry about in which of your hosts sources Amazon is blocked (or might become blocked in the future, upon the hosts sources updates)

AdAway first reads and compiles the list of Allowed sites. Then it goes to the blocked lists. Whenever it finds the Amazon site (that you did put to the Allowed list) in any of the blocked lists, it will ignore it, knowing that you specifically asked to allow that Amazon site

That's the use case behind the Allowed list. And the reason why it is, and why it must be stronger than Blocked list.
And the same policy (allowed is stronger than blocked) applies also to other ad blockers

amine4ever said:

.... What's your chrome score...

i don't use brave browser. my chrome score below.

prplx said:

why do adaway and all similar apps not block all ads? like it's better than nothing obviously but I have tried adaway, block this and blokada and all of them suck at blocking ads... plus I use vivaldi browser which has its own adblocker inside the browser and it's no better

the only decent ad blocker is Adguard, I use it on the computer and my tablet and it's amazing but on my phone I can't because I have oneplus and it keeps turning off due to "battery optimization"

the question is why is there such a difference between adguard and the other ad blockers? (and I'm not even talking about cookie messages and other annoyances which are blocked in adguard but not in the other ones obviously)

Click to expand...

It's by design, ie, due to the different technologies used for blocking

AdGuard is much more sofisticated, it acts like a firewall, filtering out a bad traffic from the good traffic on the sockets level

On the other side, Blokada or AdAway work similarly like a private DNS that does not allow to resolve a DNS host name to the IP address, for the host names (sites) on the blocked list

That way AdGuard can block ads ('bad' traffic) coming from the given IP address, while at the same time allowing the 'good' content coming from the same IP address

On the other side, AdAway and Blokada can only block you to resolve the known 'bad' sites (DNS host names) to the corresponding IP addresses

Hence if you put a certain host name to the blocked list (Blokada, AdAway), then the app (or browser) will not be able to resolve that hosts name to the IP address and no connection will be established at all - hence no ads ('bad' traffic) but also no wanted/'good' content from that site.
On the other side, if you don't put that host name (site) to the blocked list, then the app/browser will be able to resolve the host name to IIP address and then both the good and bad traffic from that IP address will be allowed

As you see, that's the main difference - Blokada and AdAway divide the sites to blocked and allowed (old names: 'black' and 'white', now forbidden as not politically correct, but I need them now to better visually describe the differencies in technologies), while AdGuard allows also the 'grey' sites where some traffic from those sites is allowed and some not

Also, Blokada and AdAway cannot prevent to establish a connection (and therefore cannot block any traffic from that site), if an app goes to some hard-coded IP address (they only block on the DNS level - not allowing to resolve the 'bad' host names to their IP addresses)

Such IP address does not need to be hard-coded in the app. The app establishes the connection to its server (you don't block that), but then the server (while providing a 'good' content) provides also the IP address where the app will then go to pick-up the ads.
Again, Blokada or AdAway cannot block that because the DNS resolving step is omitted

HiTechHiTouch said:

I did spend time skimming and selectively searching this thread with no joy trying to find a consise explanation of the colors and meanings for the presence/absence of check marks in the user lists.

When I look at the allowed list, items have either an empty white box or a red box with red check. Since it is the "allowed list" I'd expect unchecked white box items to be tests that when successful (match) allows the address to be passed through the proxy.

When I see a box with a red check, I get confused, and think that red check also means allowed. This is enforced because at the bottom of the list with the three list types (blocked - allowed - redirected) I see a red check + allowed. This implies that red check on a list item would make it allowed. But that conflicts with the idea that the list is of allowed and disallowed items, where all items checked or unchecked items are allowed. ???

Further research reveals that the red in the three list types (blocked - allowed - redirected) identifies the list being displayed, and is not a block or allow legend!


May I politely suggest...

1. Change the color to the three list symbols at the bottom page footer to all white. Then divide the footer into three parts, and reverse video the active third (where previously you set the symbol color to red).

2. On the Blocked list, change the (constant) symbol White Checked Box to Red Circle-Slash ('general not' or 'forbidden').

3. In the Allowed List, change the red check box to an red circle-slash (forbiden) and change the white box to be a green plus. (Remember some people have red-green color blindness, so it's not enough just the change the color).

4. On the Redirected list, change the (constant) symbol White Checked Box to white redirection arrows.

5 . Consider floating a legend line to the top or bottom of the DNS requests list "tap symbol to add url to Blocked/Allowed/Redirected lists".

Likewise, float a legend line on the Blocked, Allowed, and Redirected lists.

Click to expand...

HiTechHiTouch said:

Further on boxes, check, and colors.

It first appeared that the buttons on the Blocked and Redirected lists were always the same. While experimenting, I've been able to produce Blocked list buttons of empty white box and red checked box. I can toggle them.

This leads to the quesion of what do the changable colors on the blocked list buttons mean?

Similar on the redirected list.

Finally, when I use the search feature, there doesn't seem to be a way to turn it off, i.e. restore all entries to the display. But save that problem for later.

If I can get a good explanation of things, I will write a help page.

Next topic is how the allow, block, and redirect lists interact. For example, which order are they searched? When a wild card is on one list, will it catch an exact match to an entry on another? How do the "pre loaded" (source) lists take precedence, and how can entries be overridden since they don't seem to be deletable from the user lists.

Click to expand...

When you first open the blocked list you will see the current list that is being blocked.

In the upper right, there is a search icon and switch window icon.
The switch window icon will switch between the current list and you personal blocking list.

The hosts sources, blocked, allow and redirect lists are setup the same way.
Only the entries that you select will be used.

• Combines all the entries from the blocking hosts sources and your personal blocking list.
• Removes duplicate entries.
• Removes all the entries that are in your allowed hosts sources and your personal allow list.
• Set the new current list to use for blocking.