Ublock: $object-subrequest filters being applied to objects

[laniakea64]

Describe the issue

Filters using the $object-subrequest option are being applied to objects themselves.

One or more specific URLs where the issue occurs

http://bartbonte.com/factoryballs3/

Steps for anyone to reproduce the issue

new profile

1) install uBlock Origin, restart browser
2) Dashboard > My filters, add

*$object-subrequest

3) visit any page with a Flash object

Expected results: Flash object loads

Actual results: Flash object is blocked. Logger sometimes reports that it was blocked by *$object in "My Filters", and sometimes does not report the resource at all.

Commenting out *$object-subrequest and the Flash object loads as expected.

Your settings

[If you fail to provide this info, I will mark the issue as invalid. Lists all settings which differs from default settings]

• OS/version: Linux x86_64
• Browser/version: Firefox 52.2.0 ESR and Firefox 54.0
• uBlock Origin version: 1.13.4
• Flash version: 26.0.0.131

Your filter lists

default

Your custom filters (if any)

*$object-subrequest

[lewisje]

I haven't seen it mentioned in the wiki, but uBO does treat $object-subrequest like $object because the webRequest API does not make a distinction; fortunately, the Firefox version of webRequest will still make such a distinction, as the old nsIContentPolicy does.

[gorhill]

There is no Flash plugin in my Firefox 54.

[laniakea64]

@gorhill I tested on Xubuntu 16.04, with the Firefox tarballs direct from Mozilla -
https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/
https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/organizations/all/

I get Flash from installing the adobe-flashplugin package, from the Canonical Partners repository.

[gorhill]

When I try the URL with Chrome, I do not see any subrequest made by the Flash object.

I would like to get real cases where not supporting object_subrequest causes _actual_ issues, as I do not want to spend time working on code which do not have real purpose for majority of users, because:

• It's unlikely filter list maintainers will care about object_subrequest given that this would work only for Firefox;
• Flash is on its way out -- it's not available by default in Firefox;
• I would need actual, real cases which make the case that support of object_subrequest is important for a large enough number of users.
  
  
  
  • This means that whatever actual cases for which there are such subrequests worth blocking, there would be no other way to do this with existing filter options.
  
  

[laniakea64]

Flash is on its way out -- it's not available by default in Firefox;

I didn't do anything special to get Flash available in Firefox. Just having it installed was enough.

• I would need actual, real cases which make the case that support of object_subrequest is important for a large enough number of users.
  
  
  
  • This means that whatever actual cases for which there are such subrequests worth blocking, there would be no other way to do this with existing filter options.
  
  

What I had in mind was blocking object-subrequests by default (by adding *$object-subrequest as a custom filter), and unblocking individual object-subrequests as needed with dynamic filtering.

While this cannot be done with existing filter options, it is probably not something most users would do. As such, I guess you're saying this can be closed until we have a more "standard" use case.