Defender doesn’t work anymore even with SailJail disabled. Is there another way to block ads on SailfishOS 4.4?
Thank you 
3 Likes
You can manually update your /etc/hosts file from here, however the current hosts file has not been updated for almost a year now.
ps make sure you keep a copy of the original /etc/hosts file.
6 Likes
I use the Steven Black hosts blocklist project on linux desktops and on my pinephone running pmos. I haven’t tried it on sailfish, since defender exists – or existed, but I’d think that all the dependencies would be installable.
2 Likes
Modifying /etc/hosts from winhelp2000 served me for many years. AFAIR the maintainer halted that project for health reasons. As @robthebold I switched to StevenBlack’s project.
Unfortunately this doesn’t work for AlienDalvik / Android apps, even if you copy or map them to the LXC container, any hints to filter ads on Android?
2 Likes
This worked brilliantly for me up until 4.3 (didn’t try 4.4 yet).
Just follow comments for the setup, but it should be fairly easy.
Edit: it doesn’t work on SFOS 4.4
Even manually copying hosts file doesn’t seem to work for me. What a bummer.
Did you try hosty?
It works fine for me on sfos 4.4, and you have instructions about how to install it on sailfishos
3 Likes
I wish if I could use ublock/adblock plus in the browser!
hosts based adblocking nowadays does not worth too much…
4 Likes
Could you perhaps share a step-by-step on how to use hosty for noobs?
1 Like
Yes, of course, you must follow next steps to INSTALL hosty:
- Enable “Developer Mode” from Settings. Terminal will be installed in your phone
- Open Terminal and run next commands.
devel-su pkcon install p7zip-full gawk gzip nano
devel-su pkcon install gnu-bash #NOTE:This action will remove busybox-symlinks-bash package under your responsibility
devel-su ln -s /usr/bin/gpg2 /usr/bin/gpg - Install cronie or vixie-cron from openrepos.net
- Install
sudofrom Terminal:
devel-su pkcon install sudo - Edit “sudoers” using “nano” and add “defaultuser” to properly use of hosty:
devel-su nano /etc/sudoers
Adding at the end of the file:
defaultuser ALL=(ALL) ALL - Just run:
curl -L git.io/hosty | sh - During installation hosty will ask if you want to automatically run hosty from time to time to update your hosts file with the latest list of domains.
We answer the following questions:
Do you want to always run the latest version of hosty? Y
Do you want to automatically update your hosts file with latest ads list? n - Once hosty ends its installation, just run again:
curl -L git.io/hosty | sh
To RUN hosty, just run sudo hosty from Terminal. You probably want to run it periodically to update your hosts file with latest domains list or you can use sailcron for that.
NOTE: I use hosty since sfos 4.2, but I remember that I had to install and unistall defender II to get working properly. I’m on sfos 4.4
11 Likes
That’s amazing! Thank you so much! I’ll try to do it ASAP.
Edit: it’s working like a charm after I removed the hosts-AdBlock app and rebooted the device
Did you install/uninstall defenderII?
1 Like
I removed it and it’s working as advertised. Amazing! Thank you so much!
1 Like
I’ll be the “party pooper” and say that the above method described by carmen -while it works- isn’t the most user friendly way of doing something. 
We need ublock.
1 Like
Not only that. So much heated security and privacy discussions e.g. like in the other thread about SFOS 4.4 and AML and then we let the unsecure practice of the “curl <random_url> | sh” still live.
3 Likes
Hi. Thanks for this detailled info…
Does it require anything special with the OS Updates ??
What about an inbuild Solution for the SailfishOS-Browser?
The Browser using the ESR78-Firefox-Engine, so there is no way to add Plugins like Adblock?
1 Like
I found out why Defender doesn’t work anymore. First, database where cookies are stored is now locked when the browser is running. You must close the browser for Defender to work.
Second issue, database’s schema has changed. And a column doesn’t exist anymore. I already found a solution, but I need more time to provide a PR.
If someone with python knowledge has time: here is the repository : https://github.com/peterleinchen/harbour-defender
1 Like
No, it works for me since sfos 4.2, and never stopped working in every update
If I understand well how defender works, it downloads hosts files from the selected ones, and then process all entries and add them to SFOS host file.
On first update it’s quite fast, but on subsequent updates, it takes a very, very long time because, it seems, it checks if the entry already exists.
Wouldn’t be a good idea to write a new system adbocker, maybe in C++ or QML, with a faster efficient update mechanism ? I can try and help, though the first step is to properly define the need block ads, updates, etc.) and architecture of the software.
1 Like