AdBlock Tracker & Usergroup Swap [Paid] v2.4.2

[Wutime]

Wutime updated AdBlock Tracker & Usergroup Swap with a new update entry:

v2.2.0 - Large feature update - please review

Please refer to the images posted along with this version update for a visual explanation.

• NEW: AdBlock display for users AdBlocking [ link('account/adblock-tracker') ] (default=off)
• NEW: AdBlock tracking details for OS and Device Type
• NEW: Statistics available in native XenForo daily stats display
• Added cron to delete entries older than X days for device type (default=30)
• Added option to "Preserve last X entries per device type" (default=10)
• Added option "flood...

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Wutime]

The latest update will help educate and inform your users about their status changes due to AdBlock. Notifying your users of the change in status is still up to your own implementation (Notices based on Usergroup, etc), but the new display should help. You can link to the display with the following route: account/adblock-tracker

There's lots of new options so please review post install.

The following images should help shed light on the latest update.









Statistics are also available in the native XF system:



Note, only "Role Assigned" and "Role Removed" have been enqueued to back log.

The remaining statistics are new values from new database tables so the statistics will accumulate starting tomorrow and moving forward.

Thanks to @Stuart Wright for recommendations and input.


.

 

[Wutime]

It will log and display different devices if the user was roaming between devices:

 

[tajhay]

Can someone who ran the older versions as well as the new ones please provide an overview if the addon is much improved to warrant the higher price? Little concerned that dev ignored doing any updates or providing comms when asked about updates to the point xenforo deleted it, and its resurfaced with lots of updates albeit with a price 3x as original price with updates now provided for 12 months. So essentially 45 USD every 12 months, who no discount for returning license holders etc.

Not having a dig at the dev, they can choose to price it how they want. IMO the updates and support has to warrant it. And we have history with these addons.

 

[Stuart Wright]

Can someone who ran the older versions as well as the new ones please provide an overview if the addon is much improved to warrant the higher price? Little concerned that dev ignored doing any updates or providing comms when asked about updates to the point xenforo deleted it, and its resurfaced with lots of updates albeit with a price 3x as original price with updates now provided for 12 months. So essentially 45 USD every 12 months, who no discount for returning license holders etc.

Not having a dig at the dev, they can choose to price it how they want. IMO the updates and support has to warrant it. And we have history with these addons.

I was very vocal when the addon was halted because I considered it a very useful tool to encourage members to allow ads and was, frankly, annoyed.
I have chatted with @Wutime privately about this addon to ascertain whether he is committed to continuing with it and how it could be improved.
This latest update mitigates the confusion that users have over why they are considered AdBlockers despite turning off adblock.
I am convinced that the developer will continue with it for some time and I've put my money where my mouth is by purchasing the addon again and running it on AVForums.
I'll say it again. The cost of developing these addons is significant and unless they sell in huge numbers, the authors will never recoup their investment. That's certainly the case for our addons.
For how feature rich this addon is, I think $45 is nothing. If you're running ads, depending on how much traffic you have, this could pay for itself with recovered ad revenue in weeks or days.

 

[Stuart Wright]

Wutime updated AdBlock Tracker & Usergroup Swap with a new update entry:

v2.2.0 - Large feature update - please review



Read the rest of this update entry...

Upgraded to 2.2.0 on AVForums running XF 2.2.16.
I'm allowing ads.

Getting console errors when either
Display AdBlock history on account page
or
Display AdBlocking device history (depends on setting above)
are enabled.
And once I start getting console errors, I have to deactivate the addon to stop them.
On one occasion they did not start again until after re-enabling the addon and enabling one of the above options.
On a second occasion, they started again immediately upon re-enabling the addon.
Maybe Cloudflare caching is affecting the behaviour.

I think this is the relevant error from the console

forums/:358 PHP:
console.error.console.error @ forums/:358
defaultAjaxError @ core-compiled.js?_v=6ba91453:43
n @ core-compiled.js?_v=6ba91453:39
c @ jquery-3.5.1.min.js?_v=6ba91453:2
fireWith @ jquery-3.5.1.min.js?_v=6ba91453:2
l @ jquery-3.5.1.min.js?_v=6ba91453:2
(anonymous) @ jquery-3.5.1.min.js?_v=6ba91453:2
load
send @ jquery-3.5.1.min.js?_v=6ba91453:2
ajax @ jquery-3.5.1.min.js?_v=6ba91453:2
ajax @ core-compiled.js?_v=6ba91453:41
eval @ VM10730:8
Promise.then
eval @ VM10730:8
UwnLzNMGGZPpXf @ VM10730:1
eval @ VM10730:9
(anonymous) @ pubads_impl.js:32
load
(anonymous) @ script.js:1
eval @ VM10730:1
eval @ VM10730:9
eval @ VM10729:1
eval @ VM10729:1
(anonymous) @ forums/:6286
gg:1

But I'm not sure.
I'm keeping the addon disabled for now. We can't upgrade to XF 2.3 until all our addons are compatible and so far it's 20 compatible out of 104.

 

[Wutime]

I'm looking at it now.

Quick questions:

1. Are you tracking guests, or just users?
2. Regarding CF cache, you're only caching pages for guests, or?
3. What does "I'm allowing ads." mean?

Unrelated, but I noticed under certain cache setups (XON Redis), that the tracker might not work because the JS is corrupted.

 

[Wutime]

Wutime updated AdBlock Tracker & Usergroup Swap with a new update entry:

v2.2.2

• FIX: JavaScript load issues
• FIX: Using cache corrupts javascript and prevents tracking (redis, maybe others)
• Update: (temporary) Caching completely disabled as it interferes with JS packer encryption

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Wutime]

Upgraded to 2.2.0 on AVForums running XF 2.2.16.

Try the recent v2.2.2, it should fix the issues encountered.

It seems any effort to cache other than a file cache corrupts the JS.

I've removed the cache feature until I can find a way that's consistent across all possible XF cache scenarios: file, db, redis, et cetera. The feature still appears in options, but it's actually disabled for now.

 

[Stuart Wright]

I'm looking at it now.

Quick questions:

1. Are you tracking guests, or just users?
2. Regarding CF cache, you're only caching pages for guests, or?
3. What does "I'm allowing ads." mean?

Unrelated, but I noticed under certain cache setups (XON Redis), that the tracker might not work because the JS is corrupted.

Standard Cloudflare cache for everyone.
And I'm allowing ads means I'm not adblocking
I've installed 2.2.2 and it seems good, now. The user account information is excellent, thank you.

 

[Wutime]

Standard Cloudflare cache for everyone.

That type of cache is fine, so no problem.

And I'm allowing ads means I'm not adblocking

Oh, hah, duh

 

[Stuart Wright]

Would it be possible to add the browser to this list?
I'm testing using Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Safari is blocking ads despite adblock being paused, so I need to get to the bottom of that.
I noticed that the exact browser causing the issue is not named. That would be useful if you could consider it as a suggestion for the next update.
Thanks.

 

[Wutime]

Would it be possible to add the browser to this list?

Yeah, just keep in mind drive space which I'll post next. Might helpful for anyone to keep in mind.

I'm testing using Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Safari is blocking ads despite adblock being paused, so I need to get to the bottom of that.

Are you running a VPN with your Safari device?

PIA has a MACE feature for instance. It does DNS level AdBlocking.

Totally tripped me up and sent me on a fishing expedition when testing until I realized I had MACE enabled in my VPN settings. It's the reason I put the warnings for enabling DNS level AdBlock detection... completely possible some visitors may not realize they even have that enabled because people often setup their VPN and don't think twice weeks/months/years later.

I noticed that the exact browser causing the issue is not named. That would be useful if you could consider it as a suggestion for the next update.

I'll add it, but let me list out some data consumption numbers for device tracking.

I'm pretty sure for busy forums the defaults I've set in the add-on are likely too generous.

 

[Wutime]

Here's the data consumption numbers based on visitor views.

Currently device tracking logs both clears and detections; the former could probaby be done away with, but for now, it logs both.

Look-ups are a non issue because they only occur on the user account display, and only for those users AdBlocking (the ones viewing the page).

Here's the database consumption with the addition of one more ENUM and an index for 'browser type'.

Daily Storage Calculation​

daily_visitor_views	current_data	browser_enum	current_indexes	browser_index	total (bytes/day)	total (MB/day)
10,000	30 bytes	2 bytes	70 bytes	10 bytes	1,120,000	1.07 MB
20,000	30 bytes	2 bytes	70 bytes	10 bytes	2,240,000	2.14 MB
30,000	30 bytes	2 bytes	70 bytes	10 bytes	3,360,000	3.20 MB
40,000	30 bytes	2 bytes	70 bytes	10 bytes	4,480,000	4.27 MB
50,000	30 bytes	2 bytes	70 bytes	10 bytes	5,600,000	5.34 MB
100,000	30 bytes	2 bytes	70 bytes	10 bytes	11,200,000	10.68 MB
200,000	30 bytes	2 bytes	70 bytes	10 bytes	22,400,000	21.36 MB
300,000	30 bytes	2 bytes	70 bytes	10 bytes	33,600,000	32.05 MB
400,000	30 bytes	2 bytes	70 bytes	10 bytes	44,800,000	42.73 MB
500,000	30 bytes	2 bytes	70 bytes	10 bytes	56,000,000	53.41 MB

Explanation:​

• daily_visitor_views: Number of rows inserted per day for tracked users (exclude ignored usergroups and guests)
• current_data: Size of existing data per row.
• browser_enum: Size of the new browser_enum column per row.
• current_indexes: Size of existing indexes per row.
• browser_index: Size of the new index for the browser_enum column per row.
• total (bytes/day): Total storage required per day in bytes.
• total (MB/day): Total storage required per day in megabytes (MB), converted from bytes.

Therefore choose appropriate values for your "device history" consumption tolerance:

• (option) Device details are stale after (days)
• (option) Always preserve this many records

 

[tajhay]

As an admin, i should be able to go into a user's adblocking history page but i dont see it. Can only see mine. Is there a permission im missing?

 

[Wutime]

As an admin, i should be able to go into a user's adblocking history page but i dont see it. Can only see mine. Is there a permission im missing?

Didn't think of it. But good point. I'll add it.

 

[tajhay]

Didn't think of it. But good point. I'll add it.

Can we also please have a widget that we can put at the top of the page that shows the adblock current clear page views,, require total clear page views, system status, last page view status info? Or potentially have that info in variables so we can create notices for the adblock group with that information.

 

[Wutime]

Wutime updated AdBlock Tracker & Usergroup Swap with a new update entry:

v2.2.3

• Added: Browser logging with device type (limited to common 98%+)
• Added: Link to AdBlock history from "AdBlock Tracker Log" in admin
• Added: AdBlock History to user edit tab on user edit page of admin
• Fix: Lightly adjusted columns on "AdBlock Tracker Log" page to make it a bit more legible
• Added: overlay to AdBlock history for username for username (IP shows for Guest only)

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Stuart Wright]

@Wutime are you certain that the Ignore these usergroups option works 100%? I have some moderators who are in the adblock usergroup.

Also when editing a user, the Adblock history tab throws the following error:

Oops! We ran into some problems.
The requested page could not be found. (Code: invalid_action, controller: Wutime\AdBlockTrackeretected, action: ViewGordonB)

 

[Wutime]

@Wutime are you certain that the Ignore these usergroups option works 100%? I have some moderators who are in the adblock usergroup.

Also when editing a user, the Adblock history tab throws the following error:

checking into both...