GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 790189
Facebook share button is broken when "Try to block advertisements." is selected.
Last modified: 2018-04-13 15:13:50 UTC
In GNOME Web 3.26.2, the Share button on Facebook doesn't work (spinning circle instead of loading the sharing options) if Web's ad blocker is on. Turning off "Try to block advertisements." and reloading the page fixes the Share menu.
Are you sure it's caused by "try to block advertisements" (undesired) and not "try to block web trackers" (expected behavior)?
(In reply to Michael Catanzaro from comment #1) > Are you sure it's caused by "try to block advertisements" (undesired) and > not "try to block web trackers" (expected behavior)? Yes. The first thing I tried was to uncheck "Try to block web trackers." and that didn't help. I think it's just using EasyPrivacy anyway, which doesn't break the Share button in other browsers. Just to clarify, this is the Share button on Facebook itself, so not third party. It shouldn't be considered a tracker unless it's third party (on an unrelated website).
So either it's being blocked by EasyList (quite possible), or it's falling victim to our incomplete adblock implementation (also quite possible).
I looked into this with dconf-editor and the problem seems to go away if you remove the Fanboy's Annoyances List from the list of filter subscriptions. I didn't remember adding that one, so I looked at what the default setting is, and it's in the defaults.
Hmmmm I thought that was supposed to be tied to the "block web trackers" option... I'll investigate.
(In reply to Michael Catanzaro from comment #5) > Hmmmm I thought that was supposed to be tied to the "block web trackers" > option... I'll investigate. OK... it *is* tied to that option, except there's no migration. If you turn that setting on and then off again, it should go away. I was lazy to not add a migrator. I'd better do so, or this is going to be super confusing.
We probably also need to change the text of that option to clarify that it will break social media buttons, since not many people will realize those fall under "web trackers." (In reply to Michael Catanzaro from comment #6) > OK... it *is* tied to that option, except there's no migration. If you turn > that setting on and then off again, it should go away. Can you confirm? > I was lazy to not add a migrator. I'd better do so, or this is going to be > super confusing. I think this scenario can only happen if you have the do not track (block web trackers) setting turned off before upgrading (and you've never manually modified that adblock filters setting); can you confirm that was the case for you? If so, then I can add a migrator to remove it from the filters list in that case.
Okay, I put the setting back to the default and then unchecked "Try to block web trackers." and reloaded the page and the Share button works again. As another option, maybe it could have its own preference for "Try to block web annoyances. (May break social media sites.)" or something, since it really doesn't seem to be related to tracking, as such. On this system (Ubuntu 17.10), I had a clean profile because Web isn't part of the default software, so there was no upgrade for it to migrate from.
(In reply to Ryan Farmer from comment #8) > On this system (Ubuntu 17.10), I had a clean profile because Web isn't part > of the default software, so there was no upgrade for it to migrate from. Did you disable the do-not-track setting manually, using dconf editor? If you used the preferences dialog, it should have removed the annoyance filter, so I don't see how this could have happened in the absence of an upgrade.
(In reply to Ryan Farmer from comment #8) > Okay, I put the setting back to the default and then unchecked "Try to block > web trackers." and reloaded the page and the Share button works again. > > As another option, maybe it could have its own preference for "Try to block > web annoyances. (May break social media sites.)" or something, since it > really doesn't seem to be related to tracking, as such. Well, the social buttons are tracking you around the web, so it's really a prerequisite to the tracking prevention, I think. Anyway, I thought about adding a migrator, but it doesn't seem worth it, so I think I'll just clarify the label on the setting, OK?
Created attachment 363640 [details] [review] prefs-dialog: Clarify tracker blocking option
Is there any progress on this issue? I just noticed that it's still an issue on a freshly installed copy of GNOME.
Forgot about this... I'll push the change to clarify that the block web trackers option will block social media buttons. The expected behavior is: * Block trackers (including social media buttons) setting is enabled by default * If you uncheck that box, social media buttons will no longer be blocked Social media buttons should probably only be blocked on third-party websites, not on the websites themselves. E.g. if the like buttons are blocked on facebook.com, then (a) I'd be astounded that nobody else has ever complained, and (b) I'd wonder if bug #778054 could be the problem.
Attachment 363640 [details] pushed as a57231e - prefs-dialog: Clarify tracker blocking option