Blocklists settings

A blocklist is a published list of host names or addresses that Outbound downloads and turns into rules. The Blocklists page shows your subscriptions, refreshes them on a schedule, and adds new ones. How the entries become rules and where they rank against your own rules is on Blocklists and rule groups.

While rule editing is not allowed, the page shows “Managed by your organization” at the top. That covers an organization that forbids editing, and the settings lock while Protect rule editing is on. Add and Remove stop working. Refresh All stays available in the first of those cases, because it only re-downloads lists that already exist. While this session’s settings lock is on, the list and the buttons along the bottom, including Refresh All, are disabled. The filter field stays usable. See Security.

With no subscriptions the page says “No blocklists yet. Outbound downloads each list over HTTPS and keeps it up to date.”

Adding a list

Add from Catalog… opens Popular Blocklists, a library of 60 well-known privacy, advertising and malware lists with each one’s publisher, licence, format and measured size. Select one or several and add them together. See Blocklists and rule groups.

For any other list, Add Blocklist… opens a sheet:

• Name, prompt “optional”. Leave it empty and the list is named after the address’s host, or the whole address when it has no host.
• Address, prompt “https://example.com/hosts.txt”. Only https is accepted. An address that starts with http:// gets “Only https addresses are accepted.” Any other address that is not a usable https URL gets “Enter an https address such as https://example.com/hosts.txt.” An address you already subscribe to gets “You are already subscribed to “ and the address.
• Rules: “Block these hosts” (the default) or “Allow these hosts”. An allow list’s entries are not rules until you accept them, so a refresh cannot turn a downloaded allow into something the filter enforces on its own.
• SHA-256, prompt “optional”. “With a SHA-256, Outbound refuses the list when its content is not exactly the one you pinned. Leave it empty if the list changes.” The field wants 64 hexadecimal digits. Surrounding spaces and letter case are ignored, and an optional sha256: prefix is accepted. Anything else gets “A SHA-256 is 64 hexadecimal digits.”

Add saves the subscription and Outbound starts the download at once. Cancel closes the sheet without saving.

Reading a row

Each subscription shows its name, “Blocks” or “Allows”, and its address. Disabled marks a list you turned off. A pin icon, with the help “Pinned to a SHA-256”, means the list is pinned. The status line joins three parts with “ · “: “Last fetched” and the date and time, or “Not fetched yet”; the rule count as a plain number of rules when a count is known; and “Refreshes every day” for the usual one-day interval. A failed refresh puts the error under the status line. Each row’s actions are Refresh, Copy Address and Remove….

A list’s details

Select a list and its details appear below the list:

• Enabled: turn the list off without unsubscribing. “This list is disabled. Cached entries are kept, and the list still refreshes on schedule.”
• Source URL, with a copy button, and Action: Block, Allow or Ask.
• Refresh Interval: Every Hour, Every 6 Hours, Every 12 Hours, Every Day or Every Week. A subscription saved with another interval shows it as Custom.
• Last Fetched (or Never) and Next Refresh (or Due Now, or Not scheduled).
• Entries: how many names and addresses the list holds.
• Pinned SHA-256, when the list is pinned.
• Browse Entries…: search the list’s entries, see how often each one decided a connection, and switch single entries off. Review New Entries… appears when a refresh added entries waiting for review.
• Refresh Now.

Example data.

A search field (“Filter blocklists”) is decided when the page appears, and again when the list goes from empty to non-empty. It shows when there are more than eight lists then, and it stays while you are typing in it. It does not pop in on its own in the middle of looking just because the count crossed eight. Every word you type must appear in the name, the address, the host, or “Blocks” or “Allows”.

Refreshing

Refresh re-downloads one list. Refresh All re-downloads every list. With the filter empty its help is “Download every blocklist again”. With a filter typed, the help is “Downloads every blocklist again, also the ones the filter hides”.

Outbound looks at the lists about once a minute and fetches one when its interval is due. A new subscription uses an interval of one day (86,400 seconds). Choose another in the list’s details; the downloaded list does not set one. A subscription saved with some other interval shows it instead: “N days”, or “N h”, or “N min” (at least one minute). A failed refresh is tried again after 15 minutes. The notification kinds “Blocklist or rule group updated” and “Blocklist or rule group update failed” report the outcome if you have them on. See Notifications.

Downloads send If-None-Match when the list was fetched before, so an unchanged list is not downloaded again. A download larger than 64 MB is refused. A block or ask list can hold up to 2,000,000 entries, and an allow list up to 200,000. A refresh that shrinks a block list below 10% of its largest size (the larger of the entries installed now and the most the list has ever had) is refused and the previous rules stay. The error reads: “The list shrank to N entries from as many as M; a drop below 10% is refused and the previous rules stay in effect. Remove and add the list again if the smaller list is expected.” Exactly 10% is accepted.

Removing a list

Remove… asks “Remove “name”?” with the button “Remove and Delete Its Rules”. The message is “This removes the subscription and the entries it enforces. Edit › Undo restores the subscription.” Edit › Undo brings the list and its rules back. To stop a list for a while without losing it, turn it off in its details instead.