Collapse empty ad spaces (element hiding) #508
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jonathanKingston
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Oct 6, 2022
jonathanKingston
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Oct 6, 2022
This PR adds the element-hiding.js content script, which is injected into pages to hide empty ad spaces. This is similar functionality to what most ad blockers call 'cosmetic filtering' with one key caveat: we are only hiding spaces where ads didn't load due to blocked tracker requests. To accomplish this we use a heuristic to check each ad container selector for visible content, and only hide if no visible content (eg non-tracking ads) is found. Initially this feature will only be enabled in the macOS app, with other client support to come as follow ups. This feature is v1, we will likely follow up with a more sophisticated approach in the near future. This script functions based on Privacy Configuration rules so that coverage may be expanded remotely without requiring updates to this repo or clients. To see this functionality in action, navigate to a site that has a large blank space at the top of the page where a tracking banner ad didn't load, and see that the empty space is hidden shortly after page load. A few example sites to check are bloomberg.com, cyclingtips.com, and fandom.com. Asana link: https://app.asana.com/0/0/1203092629639220/f Corresponding privacy config PR: duckduckgo/privacy-configuration#508
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Asana Tasks:
Description
This PR establishes a new config for the element hiding feature, which hides empty ad spaces where tracking ads were blocked. This will initially only be enabled in the macOS app, with other client support coming soon.
Config details
exceptionskey contains a list of hostnames where this element hiding is disabledsettingskey contains:hide-empty- checks if element contains visible content, if not hides elementclosest-empty- same as hide-empty, but recursively moves up the DOM tree hiding empty elements until it reaches a non-empty elementhide- hides matching elements without checking if empty first. Should only be used if we know for certain that matching elements always contain blocked adsoverride- disables matching global rule, allows us to turn off a global rule on a specific domain if we find it's causing breakage there