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Hundreds of Blocks by Ad Blocker Extension After Forum Sign In
For the past week or so I've noticed my uBlock Origin extension accumulating hundreds of content blocks after I sign in to the Dell forum. I am currently using Firefox v127.0.2 with uBlock Origin for Firefox v1.58.0.
When I first browse to this Dell forum I see about a dozen blocks by uBlock Origin, which is typical of what I see on other sites like https://www.google.ca/. If I don't sign in to the forum the block count is relatively stable.
However, as soon as I sign in and start composing a reply my uBlock Origin block count rapidly increases to hundreds of blocks and keeps increasing as long as I remain on the same browser tab. I can sometimes reach over 500 block counts while composing / editing a single reply.
Before I sign in to the Dell forum I usually click Decline All in the pop-up Cookie Consent Tool to decline all optional cookies. I don't know if Dell is now using a ridiculous number of "essential" third-party cookies on this web site to monetize the forum, if they are trying capture data from my browser in real time to train an AI chat bot, or what exactly is causing this behaviour, but whatever they're doing is very alarming. It looks to me like Dell is prioritizing the collection and sharing of data from my browser with third-party partners over the personal privacy of their customers.
I hope that Dell will address this issue ASAP, given that Google as already started deprecation of Manifest V2 browser extensions for Chromium browsers - see the Nov 2023 Malwarebytes Lab blog Chrome pushes forward with plans to limit ad blockers in the future. Fortunately, I expect my uBlock Origin extension to continue working in my default Firefox browser since Mozilla currently has no plans to deprecate Manifest V2 - see the Mozilla Add-ons Community blog Manifest V3 & Manifest V2 (March 2024 update).
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.4529 * Firefox v127.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24050.7-1.1.24050.5 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.1.6.117-1.0.1270 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783
DELL-Chris M
Community Manager
Community Manager
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54.7K Posts
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July 5th, 2024 14:11
I have notified Brad of your Post.
lmacri
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July 6th, 2024 13:04
Hi @DELL-Chris M :
Thanks. Dell-Brad L has contacted me and I've captured some HAR (HTTP Archive) logs of my network activity while I'm using the Dell forum for tech support.
Unfortunately, I'm not seeing consistent behaviour from day to day when I use this forum (for example, I'm back to having to complete two CAPTCHAs before I can sign in this week) , so I'm not sure how useful my HAR logs will be.
DELL-Chris M
Community Manager
Community Manager
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54.7K Posts
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July 8th, 2024 15:52
Dell Community is a hosted forum by Sprinklr. UBlock is incorrectly identifying the hosted Forum architecture as “advertising/marketing”.
lmacri
3 Apprentice
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July 9th, 2024 19:40
Hi @DELL-Chris M :
On my system it looks like these repeated blocks occur for the domain boomerang.dell.com (see image below), and they only start after I sign in to the forum. I'm not an expert at reading HAR files so I don't know if the blocked connections are to an insecure http: site so hopefully tech support will be able to narrow down the exact cause of the blocks.
Regardless, this problem just started a few weeks ago, and I'm not sanguine about whitelisting the entire sprinklr.com domain after viewing the list of third-party partners and cookies used on this forum in the pop-up Cookie Consent Tool.
(edited)