I originally discovered Adblock Plus when I first downloaded Firefox many years ago. Since then I’ve installed the Adblock plugin right after Firefox, etc. It’s become so standard that I almost think Firefox should just bundle them together. Including it in it’s default install exe.
Adblock Plus works as if it were a local content policy, filtering each request you make with Firefox. Each URL, each domain, each link you navigate to is check based on a static blacklist of expressions and URLs. If a match is found, Adblock Plus simply discards the content from rendering. The discarding and allowing content to load is managed by the Content Policy engine within Firefox. Adblock Plus simply utilizes this in order to block the unwanted contents. Or at least this is my comprehension of how it works. :-p
Setting up your own Network wide Adblocker
The purpose of this guide and tutorial is to instruct you on how to set up your own network based adblocker. Expections after completion is every client browser on the network will benefit from adblocking. I will include as much as possible, and feel free to ping me with questions or comment down below.
You will need:
- Computer that will be running the Web Proxy. (For this article, see specs below)
- OS that will host the Proxy Software. (For this article, Ubuntu 12.04 32-bit Server)
- Proxy software that allows rewrite engines/programs. (squidGuard)
- Content-Control-Software or URL Redirect Application(This will consume your blacklists)
- URL and RegExp Blacklists consumable by your Content-Control-Software (Here are some free ones)
- Optional: ipTables for transparent proxy redirection
- Patients and enthusiasm :-p