Ryan wrote:
> Sometimes I dream of my using Internet Explorer 8.0 only in InPRIVATE mode.
<snip>
The InPrivate Filter in IE8 can be used for blocking ads, ****, malevolent,
intellitext, and other unwanted content in web pages. Alas, Microsoft
defaults this option to Off when IE8 is started and provides extremely poor
documentation on it both in regards to how the site count threshold affects
what sites are recorded (and how they remain recorded at a higher threshold
to remain usable at a lower threshold but not visa versa) and also in how to
compose an .xml file that can be used via RSS subscription or import into
IE8 to add more blocking on specific URL strings.
At
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...20(VS.85).aspx, it states
"Characters in the URL that have special meaning to the regular expression,
such as dots ('.') and path separators ('/'), must be escaped with a
backslash ('\')." However, Microsoft's own example is inconsistent with
their own regex requirement. The dot (".") regex character matches on ANY
character in that position, not just the period character. In Microsoft's
own example of "ads.contoso.com\/.*" (where they meant to match on the
"ads.contoso.com" host with a trailing slash character but the ".*" to match
on zero, or more, characters was superfluous), they omitted to escape the
period characters. That means "adsXcontosoXcom/" would also match. It
should've been "ads\.contoso\.com\/.*" in their example (actually just
"ads\.contoso\.\/" would suffice). They managed to remember to escape the
slash character but forgot to escape the period characters (but did remember
that ".*" is used in regex where * repeats zero, or more, times the prior
character which is the dot to represent any character versus the old "*" DOS
wildcard character). Regular expressions (regex) from the UNIX realm is
just as foreign to Microsoft as it is to their users.
An example of .xml file that can be imported into IE8's InPrivate Filter to
add blocking on URL substrings can be found at
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r221...lock-plus-list.
This list was composed by usurping the block list from AdBlock Plus and
converting it to an .xml file. However, that author doesn't understand
regex. He understands the old DOS wildcarding syntax. As such, he never
escapes the period character which means ANY character will match at that
position in the string. In many cases, the author forgot to escape the
slash character, too. That his may work doesn't mean the syntax was valid
or that he is actually targeting only the URL that he intended with his
patterns.
Of course, no one wants to use a filter that they always have to turn on
before it becomes effective. They want it always on. The InPrivate Filter
in IE8 defaults to Off when it is started. To default to On for this
filter, read the following:
Always enable InPrivate Filtering:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2346892,00.asp (item 6)
http://blogs.msdn.com/dmart/archive/...y-default.aspx
Microsoft added a potentially valuable filter function to IE8 but, as
typical for them, they screwed it up with defaulting it to Off (or not
remembering the user's choice) when IE8 starts and with extremely poor
documentation (and not even being consistent in their own examples which
results in using improper regex syntax). It has promise but not until
Microsoft chooses to actually support it. As with Microsoft Security
Essentials (a replacement for Windows Defender that only had spyware
detection but MSE adds an anti-virus component) that can be simply disabled
with just a "net stop" command or with their Windows Firewall (a basic
firewall with no HIPS features), Microsoft again comes up short with IE8's
InPrivate Filter. "Missed by just t-h-a-t much" (Maxwell Smart, "Get Smart"
TV series).
> ----------------
> This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, ...
Always ask before suggestion. You might find out what you want is already
available.
Linear Mode
