The Adblock Project

[hank]

Since early in December, using daily builds of OSX Firebird, Adblock quit asking where to install itself, apparently defaulted to within the Firebird application, and so disappeared every night. I've been reinstalling it every morning. (So did FlashClicktoView).

Differently, the NukeAnything extension still has asked every time where it should be installed AND has survived reloading the nightly build).

I just reverted to the last stable build, dated /20031026 of Firebird 0.7.1., because of other problems with recent nightly builds (Login button won't work on Mozillazine or Spamcop, again, the last 2 nightlies).

And when I went to getAdblock today - to install into the October 26th build of Firebird, Adblock asked me politely as it used to do where it should be installed.

So -- some interaction between nightly OSX builds and Adblock? Or ????

I believe this is something that got lost during the later nightly builds of the OSX version of Firebird -- but I don't know enough to describe or report it, or even be sure it's not something wrong with my OSX on my Mac.

Anyone else see this who understands it better?

[hank]

I found the files in the application package and tried moving the adblock.jar file to the User profile, and changing line in installed-chrome (flashblock does ask where it should be installed, with the recent OSX nightly releases, so I copied that info).

All that accomplished was that the Firebird Preferences/Extensions now lists Adblock -- buti it doesn't function.

Reinstalling again, guess in needs to be in the application? Or did I miss something else I'd have to change manually to get it to work in the Users Profile?

[hank]

Oh, I see the 'manual installer' link right below the nightly build link; I'll do that one for tomorrow.

[John Parsons]

AFAIK the first time you install Adblock you need to do a full install (using the XPI ) as it needs to register it with the XPCOM. After it's been registered you can then update by using the JAR file and copying it into your profile or MOZ folder depending on where the install was put.

HTH

John

[hank]

I don't know enough to understand that advice, sorry. I'm not a programmer, and I'm using Mac OSX. Here's what I see:

On the Macintosh, with OSX, I have:
-- in the boot system volume /Mozilla/global.regs and version.regs.
Is that what you mean by "Moz"? If so, is there any way to know if Adblock is being registered as you describe?

-- in the boot system volume /Applications/Firebird/Mozilla Firebird
"Mozilla Firebird" is a "Package" -- looks like a directory with several
subdirectories including /Contents/MacOS/chrome
within "chrome" is adblock.jar, installed-chrome.txt and much else.
The "installed-chrome.txt" includes this line, pointing to the Flashblock extension -- the olnly extension that DOES reliably survive when I reinstall Firebird:
content,install,url,jar:file:///Users/hank/Library/Phoenix/Profiles/default/if0la70l.slt/chrome/flashblock.jar!/content/flashblock/

When Adblock installs, it creates a pointer to the file inside the application package, and I think that's why no matter what I do, Adblock isn't being noticed in my /Users/~/Profiles folder. Each time I replace Firebird and reinstall Adblock automatically, it gets put inside the Firebird package, a pointer to it created there, and it never notices anything later put into the User profile.

I tried editing that file by adding a line referring to Adblock in the same Users directory where Flashblock gets put, but manuallly copying that Jar file for Adblock alongside Flashblock isn't enough to get it noticed there.

But remember, I'm not a programmer, I am guessing. It's more likely i am doing something wrong.

[Guest]

I'm seeing the same thing, though I'm not a programmer either. I updated to a newer Firebird and was dismayed to see annoying banner ads covering most of the page I was trying to read, despite thinking I'd installed in my profile. Then I thought about it after reading this post and realized I'd never seen the "where do you want it?" query.

Using Dec 26 nightly, latest nightly Adblock (32 I think?).

[hank]

If I understand what John Parsons said above (use the XPI so Adblock is properly registered the first time) -- I think that's exactly the problem we are having.

If "using the XPI" is the automatic install that's tied to this link:

http://adblock.mozdev.org/dev.html#Install

What that does (with Firebird since early December builds, but not with the October 26th Firebird milestone (?) build) --- is put the extension into the application (and add its path to the list kept in the application).

If this is a known Firebird bug already, I've failed to recognize it, and I wouldn't know yet who to report it to, aside from asking here. If someone tells me to forget about it because it'll be fixed in time, I will (wry grin).

Meanwhile I'll keep trying to figure out how to manually move the extension and what change to make in the reference so it can be found after moving it, and report in. It's an education, of a sort.

Pointers welcome to anything I should be reading to understand this.

[rue]

hank:
The problem is the buildID variable -- it's supposed to allow installers to determine which build you're running; but for non-milestones, it appears more often set to zero.
.
The install-routine has been silently updated to account for this.