firefox (android) - referer whitelisting persistance

[CthulhuChild]

I am trying to be nuanced with my self-blocking of Reddit, but as others have noted sometimes Reddit is a good source for research/answering questions.

Ideally, I'd let Reddit load (even when it would be blocked due to time of day/time expired) when I click a link from Google. And using the "treat referrals as allowed " option I can add >google.com and now click Reddit links from Google.

The problem is once IN Reddit I can keep clicking links. Load conversations, view user profiles, etc. only directly selecting a new community section seems to reactivate the lock.

It feels like the referer is "sticking" so it keeps treating almost all clicks as a link coming from Google (and thus not triggering the block). This is a problem for me since if I can navigate off the Reddit page I found in research I may be very tempted to do so for bad reasons.

I've mostly solved this by allowing an override phrase that makes me promise I am doing research and notnwasting time, but it would be far more elegant if I could get to Reddit from a search result, but ONLY from search results.

(This may also be the result of interference from other extensions, ie privacy badger, or Firefox itself in strict privacy mode)

[proginosko]

Interesting. I've found that browsers not 100% reliable in reporting the referrer to LB, so my guess is that the browser is at fault for causing the referral to 'stick'. You are using Firefox, correct?

[proginosko]

I just confirmed it with some testing. (You can try it yourself by opening the browser console with Ctrl-Shift-K and typing document.referrer at the console prompt.) For some links within Reddit, Firefox continues to report google.com as the referrer. I'm not sure what to suggest as a workaround for now.

[CthulhuChild]

Correct re Firefox. Honestly I don't have any solution that isn't kludge, beyond having leechblock wipe the referrer whenever it lands on a page that would be blocked but is allowed via referral. Is that something you'd want me to write up and push or does that sound sufficiently likely to break something someday that you don't want it in the code?

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On Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 18:15 James Anderson ***@***.***> wrote: I just confirmed it with some testing. (You can try it yourself by opening the browser console with Ctrl-Shift-K and typing document.referrer at the console prompt.) For some links within Reddit, Firefox continues to report google.com as the referrer. I'm not sure what to suggest as a workaround for now. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#557 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAASELXUTGCSOHVLCRDU4BL2PFMMBAVCNFSM6AAAAABWUQQPL6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTEMJTGI2TCNI> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.*** com>

[proginosko]

One solution would be to have LB simply keep track of the previous page URL and treat that as the referrer, instead of the actual referrer property. This behavior could be implemented as an optional setting (probably under "Advanced Options").

[CthulhuChild]

See, that is a much better solution and I am embarrassed I didn't think of it.

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On Sun, Feb 16, 2025, 13:40 James Anderson ***@***.***> wrote: One solution would be to have LB simply keep track of the previous page URL and treat *that* as the referrer, instead of the actual referrer property. This behavior could be implemented as an optional setting (probably under "Advanced Options"). — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#557 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAASELQE76ZNHCXOMTDPFE32QEATFAVCNFSM6AAAAABWUQQPL6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTEMRRG44DENQ> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.*** com>