Universal URL Filter

Warning:

1. There is a bug with this feature. That is, it may prevent some small pictures from being displayed now and then even if the URL of the picture is not in the black list. Enable this feature only if you can live with this bug. The Universal URL Filter is based on IE Namespace Handler provided by Microsoft. The bug could be on the side of Microsoft. Let us know if you know how to solve this bug.

2. The universal url filter may prevent some website from being displayed correctly or working properly. They may happen to have a necessary component with its URL matching the black list.

The Universal URL Filter (UUF) applies to any components inside any web pages opened by SlimBrowser. The major difference between the site filter and universal url filter is: the site filter only applies to the URL of a web page; the universal url filter applies to the URL of any component inside a web page, including the web page itself. If you want filter out some annoying ad banners or flashes on those obtrusive websites, you need universal url filter. When the undesirable components are blocked, they won't be downloaded by SlimBrowser and thus your bandwidth is saved.

Access from menu

  1. Select menu item Tools->Universal URL Filter->Enable Universal URL Filter to enable/disable UUF. You'd better turn it off if you are having problems with UUF.

  2. Select menu item Tools->Universal URL Filter->White List/Black List to edit the black list and white list. As long as web page component matches a black list filter and doesn't match any white list filter, the access to this component will be denied and the content of this component will not be downloaded.

Access from options dialog

You can also access the universal url filter from the URL Filter page of the options dialog (Tools->Options->URL Filter). The options are explained below,

  1. Enable Universal URL Filter
    As suggested by the title.

  2. Make blocked image entirely invisible
    Hide the little square with a red cross inside when an image is blocked.
    Small tip    : SlimBrowser actually replaces the blocked image with a transparent pixel. If you bother, you can replace the image file $instdir\images\blocked.gif with your own image file such that your image will be shown instead of the transparent pixel.

Matching Principle

You can use * to represent zero or more characters, use ! to represent one character. A filter matches a URL if it matches a portion / substring of the URL. That means you don't have to add * at the beginning or end of a filter. "*adserver.domain.com*" has the same effect as "adserver.domain.com".

Important tips:

  1. To find out the URL of an image, right click on the image and select "properties". You can see the URL of the image in the properties dialog.
  2. To find out the URL of flash objects, you need select "View Source" to examine the source code of the html page.
  3. you can add "swf" into the black list filter. That will be able to block 99% flash animation successfully.

You are encouraged to report the domain or URL of obtrusive and notorious ad servers to us so that we can include it into the default black list.