Opera FAQs, Tips, Tricks & Tweaks

Cool tips for Opera browser since 2005

Opera ad block filters

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Get a faster browser, download Opera

Try Opera or Opera Mini to see the difference.

If you are new to content blocking in Opera, see tutorial.

Easy way to block ads is to disabling the IFrames & JavaScript globally and enabling them for required sites in site preferences.

To block particular JavaScript or IFrame ad in a page, open info panel, note path under Scripts or Inline frames and add it to content blocker. Tools > Preferences... > Advanced > Content > Blocked Content... > Add...

To block flash use Flashblock for Opera 9.

From Opera 9.50, you can enable/disable content blocker globally using Block Ads button or per site basis using site preferences. F12 > Edit Site Preferences... > Content > Enable content blocking

  • Large urlfilter.ini file will increase startup time of Opera.
  • You will get blank page when you try to visit a site blocked by content blocker in version below 11 and the following message in version 11.
    Web Address Blocked

    The address XYZ is blocked by the content blocker. To undo the block, open the context menu for the page, select the content blocker, and remove the address from the list of blocked content.

    To undo the block, right-click on the page, select "Block Content", and click the "Details" button to edit the list of blocked content.

A frequently updated filters can be downloaded from

Optimized filter to block most of the ads
Add the following under [exclude] section of urlfilter.ini file (see this if you don't have one) after closing Opera.

*-ad.cgi*
*-ads/*
*.ad-*
*.ad.*
*.adbrite.*
*.adrevolver.*
*.ads.*
*.adsonar.*
*.adtomi.*
*.advertising.*
*.atdmt.*
*.banner*
*.blogads.*
*.buysellads.*
*.casalemedia.*
*.chartbeat.*
*.click*
*.directtrack.*
*.doubleclick.*
*.etology.*
*.fastclick.*
*.google.*/adfetch*
*.googlesyndication.*
*.infolinks.*
*.kontera.*
*.linkbuddies.*
*.mochibot.*
*.overture.*
*.pheedo.*
*.qksrv.*
*.quantserve.*
*.roar.*
*.slickkicks.*
*.tradedoubler.*
*.tradepub.*
*.trafficzap.*
*.tribalfusion.*
*.vibrantmedia.*
*.zedo.*
*/accresults.*
*/ad.*
*/ad/*
*/ad_*
*/adbot.*
*/adc_*
*/adclient.*
*/adcouncil/*
*/adframe.*
*/adgifs/*
*/adgraph/*
*/adimages/*
*/adinfo*
*/adlog.*
*/adlog/*
*/adrotator.*
*/ads.*
*/ads/*
*/ads_*
*/advert*
*/adview.*
*/affiliates/*.js
*/banner/*
*/banners/*
*/hotfreebies.html*
*/housead/*
*/liveads/*
*/pagead/*
*/phpads/*
*/pop.cgi*
*/pop.htm
*/pops/*
*/poptest.*
*/popup/*
*/printads/*
*/redir.asp*
*/skyscraper/*
*/softad/*
*/sponsor/*
*/sponsors/*
*/tw/adt*
*120x240*
*120x600*
*120x90*
*160x600*
*234x60*
*336x280*
*468x60*
*728x90*
*_ad.js
*_ad_*
*_ads.js
*_ads_*
*_advert*
*_adx_*
*_banner_*
*_borders/*
*_superad*
*a.p.f.qz.*
*a.r.tv.*
*ad-flow*
*ad.trafficmp.*
*ad_type*
*adbot*
*adclick*
*adclix*
*adclub*
*adcycle*
*adflight*
*adframe*
*adimage*
*adknowledge*
*adlink*
*adlogix.*
*admaximize*
*admex*
*admonitor*
*adpulse*
*adrunner*
*adserv*
*adsoftware*
*adswap*
*adtomi.*
*aureate*
*avenuea*
*banner.*
*banners.*
*bluestreak.*
*burstmedia*
*burstnet*
*clickxchange*
*darkblue.*
*darkbluesea.*
*dbbsrv.*
*exitpopup*
*flycast*
*focalink*
*headerpopup*
*hitexchange*
*hitlist*
*hitsites*
*houseads_*
*i.us.rmi.yahoo.*
*imaginemedia*
*intellitxt*
*jsads*
*linkads*
*linkexchange*
*linkpopup*
*linkshare*
*linksynergy*
*media.fastclick*
*paypopup*
*popieen.*
*popme.*
*popunder*
*popupad*
*ps.interpolls.*
*radiate*
*secure.webconnect*
*smartsize_*
*spinbox.versiontracker.*
*spylog*
*subs.timeinc.*
*toolbar.google.*
*trafic.ro/*
*us.a1.yimg.*
*us.f.yahoofs.*
*valueclick*
*x.mycity.*
*z.about.*
*zdmcirc*


The following will block most of the counters. Don't add the following filters if you want to show Opera in browser statistics.

*.123count.*
*.123counted.*
*.2o7.net*
*.3dstats.*
*.4count.*
*.a-counters.*
*.acestats.*
*.addfreestats.*
*.aflashcounter.*
*.amazingcounters.*
*.analytics.live.*
*.christianstats.*
*.clickcounters.*
*.clickwit.*
*.coolwebcounter.*
*.count-all.*
*.counted.*
*.counter-intelligence.*
*.counter.*
*.counter4all.*
*.counterbot.*
*.countercentral.*
*.counters.*
*.counting4free.*
*.countmypage.*
*.countville.*
*.cqcounter.*
*.dataplain.*
*.debuging.*
*.devstats.*
*.digits.*
*.downloadcounter.*
*.dstats.*
*.easycounter.*
*.evostats.*
*.extreme-dm.*
*.extremewebstats.*
*.fakecounter.*
*.fastcounter.*
*.fastonlineusers.*
*.fhcotn.*
*.fishclix.*
*.flowcounter.*
*.free-hit-counter.*
*.free-hit-counters.*
*.free-stats.*
*.free-web-counters-online.*
*.freehitcounter.*
*.freeinvisiblecounters.*
*.freestats.*
*.freestatscounter.*
*.freeweblogger.*
*.fxcounters.*
*.geo.yahoo.*
*.goldstats.*
*.google-analytics.*
*.gostats.*
*.guesttrace.*
*.histats.*
*.hit-counter.*
*.hit-o-meter.*
*.hit-tracker.*
*.hitbox.*
*.hitmatic.*
*.hits-counter.*
*.hitscreen.*
*.hitstats.*
*.hypercounter.*
*.ideal-tracker.*
*.jellycounter.*
*.linkcounter.*
*.logclicks.*
*.magicounter.*
*.masterstats.*
*.max-stats.*
*.megastats.*
*.metacount.*
*.my-stats.*
*.myfreecounter.*
*.nedstat.*
*.nedstatbasic.*
*.nextgenstats.*
*.okcounter.*
*.onestat.*
*.onlinecount.*
*.opentracker.*
*.our-counter.*
*.paycounter.*
*.pinkcount.*
*.pluslog.*
*.pmstats.*
*.procounter.*
*.prostats.*
*.pstats.*
*.q-counter.*
*.qcounter.*
*.realtracker.*
*.refcount.*
*.reliablestats.*
*.relmaxtop.*
*.rightstats.*
*.s-tracking.*
*.scorecardresearch.*
*.servustats.*
*.shinystat.*
*.shockcounter.*
*.site-stats.*
*.sitemeter.*
*.sitestats.*
*.sitetracker.*
*.sitetrafficanalyzer.*
*.sitetrafficstats.*
*.statcounter.*
*.stats4all.*
*.stats4me.*
*.stats4you.*
*.statsbank.*
*.statsession.*
*.statsforyoursite.*
*.statsrjnc.*
*.statswhere.*
*.stattrax.*
*.supercounters.*
*.superstats.*
*.td-soft.*
*.tdstats.*
*.the-counter.*
*.thecounter.*
*.trackyourstats.*
*.trafficexaminer.*
*.trafficfile.*
*.trafficserverstats.*
*.true-counter.*
*.trustats.*
*.tulipstats.*
*.ultimatecounter.*
*.ultrastatsnet.*
*.urgentclick.*
*.usertracer.*
*.vioclicks.*
*.virtualmall.*
*.vstats.*
*.w3counter.*
*.web-stat.*
*.webcounter.*
*.webhitcounter.*
*.webhits.*
*.websitestatistics.*
*.websitetracker.*
*.websitetrafficreport.*
*.webstat.*
*.webstats4u.*
*.webtistic.*
*.webtrends.*
*.whowasthere.*
*.wundercounter.*
*.wysistat.*
*.xcounters.*
*.xstats.*
*.xxxcounter.*
*.yahoostats.*
*.yourstats.*
*counter*.bravenet.*
*counter.hitslink.*


To block Snap Preview Anywhere bubble, add the following to content blocker.

*spa.snap.com*


To save images from Flickr, add the following to content blocker.

*.yimg.com/*/spaceball.gif


If you don't have urlfilter.ini file, create a text file with the following, place it inside profile and restart Opera.

Opera Preferences version 2.1
; Do not edit this file while Opera is running
; This file is stored in UTF-8 encoding

[prefs]
prioritize excludelist=1

[include]
*

[exclude]
Remove this line and add ad block filters here.


Updates:
2007
Feb 1
Apr 7 (*i.imdb* removed as it blocks CSS. Thanks to M3CSL.), 22
Jun 12
Sep 3, 12
Oct 2 (*popup_* & *.mochiads.* removed), 8 (*_popup.* & */tracker/* removed. Thanks to Lex1.)
Nov 16

2008
Feb 24
Apr 13 (*/ads.* blocks Lifehacker CSS), 23
May 20
Jun 15, 28 (*.google.*cleardot.gif & *doubleclick* removed. Thanks to mp3geek.)
Jul 2, 3
Aug 8

2009
Jan 28
Mar 18, 30 (*view.atdmt* changed to *.atdmt.*. Thanks to Chas4.)
Aug 14

2010
Feb 24
Apr 2, 5
Aug 29
Dec 24

2011
Apr 23 (*.adserver.* & *.googleadservices.* removed as *adserv* blocks them. Thanks to kulma. *.2o7.net* moved to counters.)

a href="opera:config#URL Filter File" title="Path to URL Filter File"/p

How to correct wrong favicons in Opera bookmarks & personal bar?Spotlighted again in Opera Community

Comments

Steve DarkenDarken Saturday, October 21, 2006 9:01:52 PM

Great! Thanx for the infos. smile

Anonymous Tuesday, November 7, 2006 2:52:39 PM

Anonymous writes: Hey! Why you keep so big list? Most of advert blocked by simple words: banner click count hotlog spylog linkexchange http://ad* All another you can add on the way.

Tamil Tuesday, November 7, 2006 3:09:11 PM

banner
click
http://ad*

This will block good ones. For example http://adobe.com/

Tamil Thursday, January 18, 2007 9:32:51 PM

Originally posted by Nordoelum:

What link is the best to choose?

http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/urlfilter.ini

(undisclosed)Liberalist Wednesday, February 28, 2007 1:47:21 PM

This was really helpful, thank you very much, Tamil!

(undisclosed)Liberalist Friday, March 9, 2007 5:27:25 PM

Apparantly, your list creates an issue with the RTF (rich text editor) of Gmail. So it might be helpful for Gmail users to have an alternate list (which doesn't block google ads and other sites). However, since it is still such a long list, I won't post it as a comment, but would rather e-mail it to you so you can edit the site accordingly.

osolomio Wednesday, March 21, 2007 7:04:40 PM

Useful Info popups have no content because of Urlfilter

Originally posted by osolomio:

I had this happen to me yesterday but got by without , and didn't open other browser to confirm as Opera prob. Today when the same thing happened I did open the page in IE7 and the pop-up had content.

Well the fault lay in my "urlfilter.ini". I copied and pasted this from this forum, or should I say from a members blog. I'll have a look around and see if I can find it again and maybe alert the poster of this outcome. All in all I'm very happy with the benefits of the urlfilter and been using it for a few months now.
*/poptest.*
*/popup.*------ this gave me empty needed info popups
*/popup/*
*/printads/*
*/redir.asp*

My post: http://my.opera.com/community/forums/findpost.pl?id=1961681

Tamil Wednesday, March 21, 2007 11:58:10 PM

Originally posted by osolomio:

*/popup.*------ this gave me empty needed info popups

Thanks, it is removed.

anewuser Saturday, April 7, 2007 12:25:27 AM

Hi.

have you seen sites like yahoomail, it still suffers from ads when view email. It might be script based, but was wondering if by any chance something could be added to the list?

Thanks in advance.

Gofo Wednesday, April 25, 2007 4:08:18 AM

hmm, How exactly is your optimized filter different from fanboy's urlfilter.ini? Does it block less ads, or has it simply been optimized without losing effectiveness?

Tamil Wednesday, April 25, 2007 4:21:21 AM

Originally posted by Gofo:

has it simply been optimized without losing effectiveness?

yes

Gofo Wednesday, April 25, 2007 6:30:57 AM

I don't think it's exactly like that. If you go to www.reference.com, for example, you get an ad, which is blocked by fanboy's urlfilter.

Anyway, I don't mean to be a pest, sorry.

Do you know how I can UNblock google ads when using fanboy's urlfilter? I've been trying and I can't get it right.

Tamil Wednesday, April 25, 2007 6:54:45 AM

Do you know how I can UNblock google ads when using fanboy's urlfilter? I've been trying and I can't get it right.

Remove the following lines.
*google_ad*
*googlead*
*google-analytics.com/*

Gofo Wednesday, April 25, 2007 7:03:28 AM

That's what I initially tried because it's the obvious thing to do, I also removed *adsense* and *pagead* but google ads still don't show up (at least on www.archlinux.org they don't).

Tamil Wednesday, April 25, 2007 7:09:52 AM

at least on www.archlinux.org they don't

Ad on that page comes from http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js

szbj Wednesday, May 9, 2007 9:56:31 AM

Useful,thanks:up:

Anonymous Saturday, June 2, 2007 9:18:31 PM

Anon writes: Great stuff! I was using AdMuncher until it started crashing (otherwise a really great program!), but this is way better!

Anonymous Friday, June 29, 2007 12:19:22 AM

Nxqd3051990 writes: is this file backup by opera backup ( by you - tamil ) ? nXqd

Tamil Friday, June 29, 2007 12:21:21 AM

Originally posted by Nxqd3051990:

is this file backup by opera backup ( by you - tamil ) ?

yes

Nxqd3051990 Friday, June 29, 2007 12:30:48 AM

Great man bigsmile
nXqd

Anonymous Tuesday, July 10, 2007 3:54:13 AM

हनुमान भक्त writes: हे भाई हनुमान जी ओपेरा को कहाँ ले जा रहे है। क्या उनको भी इन्ट्र्नेट ब्राऊजिंग की जरूरत पड गयी। वैसे कौन सा जानकारी चाहिये उन्हे? कुछ पता है?

Anonymous Tuesday, July 10, 2007 4:22:46 AM

Anonymous writes: Thanku for help to remove AIDS by Google.

Tamil Tuesday, July 10, 2007 4:25:11 AM

Originally posted by हनुमान भक्त:

हे भाई हनुमान जी ओपेरा को कहाँ ले जा रहे है। क्या उनको भी इन्ट्र्नेट ब्राऊजिंग की जरूरत पड गयी। वैसे कौन सा जानकारी चाहिये उन्हे? कुछ पता है?

Could you translate it to English?

mp3geek Wednesday, July 11, 2007 4:53:19 AM

Thanks for the support Tamil smile

Anonymous Sunday, July 22, 2007 11:51:51 AM

Anonymous writes: you may want to change link #2 from pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/ to pgl.yoyo.org/as/ (or more precisely: http://pgl.yoyo.org/as/serverlist.php?hostformat=operafilter&showintro=0&mimetype=plaintext) or remove the entry *adserv* in your list... :)

Tamil Sunday, July 22, 2007 2:01:02 PM

you may want to change link #2 from pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/ to pgl.yoyo.org/as/

Both contains same filters. confused

Anonymous Sunday, July 22, 2007 2:53:49 PM

Anonymous writes: no...the idea was to change the URL from pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/ to the alternate one pgl.yoyo.org/as/ ; otherwise using your urlfilter.ini above will prevent this site from loading because of the expression *adserve*

Tamil Sunday, July 22, 2007 3:00:47 PM

doh Thanks.

Jimjjulagay Monday, July 30, 2007 2:54:55 AM

For a while now, about.com to me always looked weird. It was always just all text as if it had no styles, looked like it was in user mode (which it was not). I finally found out that deleting urlfilter.ini, fixes this. I like this ad filter list, but can you fix it so that about.com works? thanks.

A.RuzanovLex1 Tuesday, July 31, 2007 4:14:40 PM

*/adc_* blocked css on http://www.accuweather.com/
*/sponsor/* blocked download from ifolder.ru

East-Texas Monday, August 20, 2007 2:39:27 AM

This list works a little better than the one I did.
A lot were the same, but some of mine were a little over-kill on some some sites.

The hardest to kill so far are the CSS Style Ads.

Anonymous Sunday, August 26, 2007 10:01:39 PM

Anonymous writes: how do add this filter to opera?

Tamil Monday, August 27, 2007 3:01:45 PM

how do add this filter to opera?

See line Add the following under [exclude] section of urlfilter.ini file.

Anonymous Wednesday, August 29, 2007 11:34:01 PM

Anonymous writes: Does this filter block the cookies or just the image from loading?

Tamil Thursday, August 30, 2007 3:03:38 AM

Does this filter block the cookies or just the image from loading?

It will block everything.

Anonymous Monday, September 3, 2007 4:28:37 PM

Anonymous writes: I added all these sites to my urlfilter file a couple of days ago and all was good. I went to add some more sites and discovered the file was gone?!? Anyone have an idea of how it would just disappear like that?

Tamil Monday, September 3, 2007 4:32:01 PM

Did you add after closing Opera?

Anonymous Monday, September 3, 2007 4:40:36 PM

Anonymous writes: I believe so Tamil. how can i rebuild it? just reinstall opera?

Tamil Monday, September 3, 2007 4:46:47 PM

Download this, replace [exclude] section with my filters, close Opera and place it inside your profile.

Anonymous Monday, September 3, 2007 9:32:42 PM

Anonymous writes: Thanks Tamil

Anonymous Monday, October 1, 2007 7:06:54 PM

Darko writes: Hi Tamil! First things first: Great list!! This is the first time I use advanced adblocking (aside from Opera's standard popup blocker) and it feels just great! But I want to add two things to maybe make your list better: :) When you go to www.web.de (a German email provider) and click on "Freemail", you get a popup that's not blocked. You can, however, block its content by adding something like "*adclient.*" to the list, as its web address is "http://adclient.uimserv.net". Next thing: I went to an online computer shop the other day and wanted to look at a picture of an item more closely. But it was a popup again and to do that I had to remove "*popup_*" as it's address was something with "popup_image". Thanks again, I hope I could help. Darko

Anonymous Monday, October 1, 2007 7:07:56 PM

Anonymous writes: Hello?

A.RuzanovLex1 Sunday, October 7, 2007 8:38:07 PM

«*_popup.*» breaks TinyMCE (tiny_mce_popup.js)
«*/tracker/*» breaks many Torrents.

mp3geek Saturday, October 27, 2007 3:13:58 AM

Darko,

*adclient* is listed among the filters I have, so it should be blocked. I did visit the site anyways, and no popup smile

S Pshrivipha Sunday, October 28, 2007 1:57:33 PM

Very helpful information, Tamil. I have used this list for a while now, and it works like a wonder. However, *banner.* blocks top banners of many websites, for instance, banner.jpg gets blocked.

I especially liked the ad-counter list as separate. Cuz I want opera to be counted among browser statistics.

Thanks again.

Anonymous Saturday, November 10, 2007 3:30:00 PM

Anonymous writes: is there a way to not filter a whole website that i need while using this list to block others? Thanks :D

Tamil Sunday, November 11, 2007 3:30:47 AM

is there a way to not filter a whole website that i need while using this list to block others?

That option will be available in upcoming Opera 9.50 .

chuuey Monday, November 12, 2007 5:04:06 PM

ah.. i see, thanks for the information then bigsmile

mp3geek Saturday, November 17, 2007 12:21:11 AM

The whitelist function is very limited, I've been playing with the feature in Opera 9.5 beta, you can whitelist an entire site, but not part of site (like a directory from a site) or use any whitecards. Disappointing sad

Anonymous Sunday, December 9, 2007 2:56:44 AM

saltandblues writes: A note for Linux users: after you've blocked an image and restarted Opera, you'll find urlfilter.ini in ~/.opera (hidden).

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