[meta] Filter Hit Statistics Tool

[trev]

Background

We currently have to ship a growing file with updated filter data. It contains a lot of unused or outdated filters, either because ad implementation changed or websites has been shut off. We are carrying a lot of "waste" in this file which slowly decreases performance.

What to change

We need a tool which extracts relevant data from a large enough sample of ABP users and then analyses filter hit statistics over the whole sample. In the end, the tool should show us which filters can be erased (because of near zero usage).

Users should be able to opt-in into this and send sufficiently anonymized hit statistics to us. We also need to decide whether/how we will ask users to opt in.

Things to consider:

• We are currently only saving filter hit statistics in Firefox so implementing this in Firefox first is the most logical choice.
• Private browsing mode: we aren't saving any hit statistics there, meaning that we probably don't want to show the opt-in option for users using private browsing mode permanently. Same goes for users who disabled hit statistics altogether via "Count filter hits" option in Firefox.
• Clearing browsing history also clears hit statistics, meaning that we probably don't want to show the opt-in option for users clearing history on shutdown either.
• Moving filter hit statistics out of patterns.ini and into a separate file might be a good idea, the hit count is already responsible for much of the file size there.
• Sebastian suggested using Nginx Upload Module to receive data. IMHO that's premature optimization, we will unlikely get so many submissions that a regular FCGI script cannot handle them.

Ticket	Status	Resolution	Summary	Component	Owner
#394	closed	rejected	Collect filter hit statistics	Adblock-Plus-for-Firefox	saroyanm
#395	closed	fixed	Filter hit statistics backend	Sitescripts	kzar
#396	new		[abp-backend] Add a filter hit statistics backend server	Infrastructure
#2220	closed	rejected	[Collect filter hit statistics] Update Privacy Policy in adblockplus.org	Websites

[fiaefuzz]

How do I add myself to Cc? Hoping commenting does the trick....

[sebastian]

The backend implemented by #395 has been ​dropped, in favor of a more naive server-side solution, storing the raw data which are then analyzed by other means, IIRC.

And the client-side implementation (#394), which is under review for over 3 years, became obsolete since the legacy Gecko extension it targets is deprecated now.

It seems likely that we will revisit this feature at some point, starting over at zero, but probably not too soon. However, this issue as it stands is outdated, and therefore must be rewritten or rejected.

[kzar]

Like Sebastian mentioned this issue should be rewritten or rejected, since it's been another 3 months with no rewrite I'll reject for now.