Archivebox: Architecture: Block ads and trackers during archiving

[brandonocasey]

Type

• [ ] General Question or Disussion
• [x] Propose a brand new feature
• [ ] Request modification of existing behavior or design

What is the problem that your feature request solves

Archive pages without ads or trackers

Describe the ideal specific solution you'd want, and whether it fits into any broader scope of changes

A flag that defaults to off for archiving without ads/trackers.

What hacks or alternative solutions have you tried to solve the problem?

None

How badly do you want this new feature?

• [ ] It's an urgent deal-breaker, I cant live without it
• [x] It's important to add it in the near-mid term future
• [ ] It would be nice to have eventually

---

• [x] I'm willing to contribute to development / fixing this issue
• [x] I like ArchiveBox so far / would recommend it to a friend

[wintdkyo]

One potential solution outside of ArchieveBox would be to have some type of a network-wide DNS ad blocking, such as a Pi-hole

[knowncolor]

I haven't tried this, but you might be able to achieve similar by installing certain extensions uBlock Origin, Decentraleyes, etc.

[pirate]

Currently, adblocking during PDF/Screenshot/DOM archiving is already possible by using a CHROME_USER_DATA_DIR with a profile that has an adblocker installed. In the future it will be doable in a few more ways though:

At the network level:

• [ ] Using a proxy for all archiving that removes ads e.g. chromium --proxy-server=http://localhost:8080 --ignore-certificate-errors --disable-web-security https://some.site.withads.com
• [ ] Using a DNS resolver that blocks ads (e.g. Pi-hole)

At the application level:

• [X] Using a chrome extension like Ublock Origin and/or Ghostery (this is already possible)
• [ ] Using user scrips loaded during archiving to manually remove ads from specific sites

As we get closer to integrating pyppeteer (#177), pywb (#130), and custom user scripts (#51) I'll check back and update this issue with progress.