Custom content filters don't work

[mikelward]

Description

No matter how I try, I can't block a website using custom filters.

Steps to reproduce

1. Settings > Brave Shields & privacy
2. Content filtering
3. Create custom filter

Try various syntaxes to block a site, including

facebook.com
m.facebook.com

||facebook.com^
||m.facebook.com^

||facebook.com^$document
||m.facebook.com^$document

https://facebook.com
https://m.facebook.com

Then go to facebook.com or m.facebook.com.

Actual result

The web site loads.

Expected result

It should be blocked.

Reproduces how often

Easily reproduced

Brave version

Brave 1.73.104, Chromium 131.0.6778.204

Device

• Brand/model: Google Pixel 9
• Android version: 15

Channel information

• release (stable)
• beta
• nightly

Reproducibility

• with Brave Shields disabled
• with Brave Rewards disabled
• in the latest version of Chrome

Miscellaneous information

No response

[mikelward]

May also affect iOS. https://community.brave.com/t/blocking-youtube-home-feed-on-mobile/588732/4

[TEMP-ad]

If you want to block the document and get the interstitial page, you need to have the Adblocker in Aggressive mode, Standard doesn't do that even for Custom Adblock rules, even if they are not subject to the Aggressive vs Standard mode.

If not, you are just will just blocking any Type being downloaded from the URL that matches your rule, in this case facebook.com, and most of Facebook resources are downloaded through fbcdn.net, so you will not block too much based on your rules.

So if you add *$script,domain=facebook.com you will block the script from the domain facebook, if you add something to the left, you will then use the URL to match the rule and block whatever script in the domain facebook. example TAXlDwXZgXI.js$script,domain=facebook.com

But if it is the document as I understand based on your rules, then only Aggressive mode blocks documents either ||example^ or example$document

I don't know about iOS though, but iOS is not Chromium, but I guess it has the interstitial page, but no way I can test it. Of course, I wouldn't trust the people in that Community Brave thread either, because people are mostly clueless about how adblockers work and how to make proper rules, etc.

[mikelward]

Thanks for the reply!

you need to have the Adblocker in Aggressive mode

Why? Where is that documented? Why doesn't it just respect my filters? Doesn't enabling aggressive mode have other side effects?

[mikelward]

Confirming it works in aggressive mode, thanks!

[TEMP-ad]

Just to avoid confusion for non-tech people, if people are decent with technology they will enable the Aggressive mode and get the screen, if not, the standard is meant to be able to block the real tracking third-party, and some some first party and then don't cause too many issues or breakages or confusion for users, especially if they are not tech people.

Brave is the only adblocker that has the two modes, so it's a new concept of blocking and trying to reduce issues since 1p tracking can be reduced but not eliminated since you are sharing IPs with their servers and headers and too much info once you visit _their domain.

You can read this was discussed 2 years ago #28388 (comment), issue is still opened so might happen or not, but one reason is like you click on a link and it will first go to a domain that is blocked, then it can cause issues for some users to understand what is going on, when all they want to do is to go to the final/real link, Brave is meant to block the 3p trackers from the first link that will redirect to the real link, so blocking the document will just create a one more step and a screen for some people who might not know what it is going on.

Anyway, always enable Aggressive mode, that should be done by 100% of people, unless people are just not the ones that mess with settings and want to use the browser and don't get some ads like Youtube but will not mind about 1p ones like search engine ones and such.

[mikelward]

I think it would be very helpful to mention this in the UI on the Create Custom Filters dialog.