but the program absolutely refuses to let me enter that string and instead substitues “http://kontera.com” but if it did a correct match then it won’t find “http://www.kontera.com”. This is quite rude since I may be searching on a substring where “kontera.com” is anywhere within the URL, like for “usa.kontera.com”. It should use the string that I enter and not alter it. Apparently I have to use “*kontera.com”. I would prefer the ABSENCE of the, um, forced help in entering a URL substring.
Even after it alters “kontera.com” to “http://kontera.com”, I can still navigate to http://kontera.com (because the site defaults to their web server host when a hostname is not specified).
Does the URL blocking feature in the Web Shield actually work?
Well, I think I found the problem. Avast’s string matching doesn’t work on substrings. It must match the ENTIRE string. So something like “/ads/” won’t work to find that substring in a URL. Instead you have to use “/ads/”. The string matching using the old DOS wildcard scheme is so limited that perhaps Alwil should contemplate including the option to use regular expression (following the Javascript variation, or PCRE).
So to fix my problem reported above, I had to change from testing against:
Alas, there is no way when using the deficient DOS wildcarding to ensure the string is only within the domain portion of a URL. “*//*kontera.com” won’t work because “kontera.com” could be in the parameter portion of the URL. “*kontera.com/” might not work if a trailing slash weren’t included in the URL, like when using “http://kontera.com”. It would be handy if options were added that would check for the string only in the domain portion, only in the parameters portion, or across the entire URL.
My old account wasn’t working. First it said it didn’t exist when I tried to login. Tried to use Forgot Password and it said the account didn’t exist. Tried to create a new one but said that account existed. It doesn’t exist. It does exist. (rolls eyes). Contacted a moderator and got my old account deleted so I could recreate it. However, before that got completed, I created the temporary FrustratedUser account to post here since I wouldn’t know when and if my old account would get fixed. Be glad that I didn’t use a more, um, “colorful” username considering I was having problems with the program AND with the forum.
I hate whole-string matching requirements. Substrings make more sense, especially considering the limitation of DOS wildcards. Having to mask out the rest of the string with “*” prefixes and suffixes just adds unnecessary complexity to the expression. But that’s the way it is and I finally figured it out.
Whilst I’m happy that you found a means to achieve what you wanted to do, personally I feel that there are better tools, specifically designed for the purging of ads.
There is adblock plus in firefox and numerous other ad blockers and even work in IE, etc. My firewall also a means of blocking ads, though I don’t use it.
This way the web shield isn’t constantly checking against the wildcard use in the URL blocking (isn’t really designed for the purpose you are trying to use it for) and let it get on for the task it was designed for without possibly slowing down its scanning.
Hi, your browser is actually connecting to the URL: http://kontera.com/, which does not match the string kontera.com, without the trailing slash. Of course, to block other documents from the same web, you’ll have to add the trailing star eg. "http://kontera.com".
This is really questionable. If we matched substrings (without having to explicitly use the wildcard characters) you’d have no way to specify exact matches.
