4e5386354f
- FFB.md: Fix typos, normalize tags/categories to lowercase, replace *** with --- for horizontal rules, trim trailing whitespace - contacting-me.md: Add mailto link for email, improve spacing and formatting - domainandemail.md: Fix typos (regitrar, programmaticaly, Malgun, teir), normalize tags/categories, clean up nested list formatting, remove redundant horizontal rules - rss.md: Reword intro sentence, clarify RSSHub description, fix trailing whitespace, remove duplicate selfhosted tag - stack.md: Convert frontmatter from TOML (+++) to YAML (---), normalize tags/categories, minor copy edits - rosterhash.md: New post about RosterHash fantasy football schedule viewer project - rr-rss-nag.md: New post explaining how to bypass RoyalRoad piracy nags in FreshRSS feeds using CSS selectors - security-groups.md: New post walking through the evolution of formatting AWS security groups in Terraform across three iterations
116 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
116 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
title: "Bypassing RoyalRoad's piracy nags in RSS Feeds"
|
|
date: "2024-11-20"
|
|
tags:
|
|
- rss
|
|
- freshrss
|
|
categories:
|
|
- selfhosted
|
|
---
|
|
# Issue
|
|
|
|
[Royal Road](https://www.royalroad.com/home) likes to annoy pirates. This is (arguably) good.
|
|
|
|
Royal Road doesn't care if they annoy RSS users. This is **bad**.
|
|
|
|
Here's a walkthrough of the problem and the fix.
|
|
|
|
### The Problem:
|
|
|
|
First, let's look at the full picture of why this is happening.
|
|
|
|
The Original Website HTML (Simplified)
|
|
|
|
When you visit the Royal Road chapter in your browser, the full page's HTML looks something like this. Your browser loads the <head> section and the <body> section.
|
|
```HTML
|
|
|
|
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<style>
|
|
.cjZhYjNmYjZkZmFjZTQ2YTk4OWQwYjRiMjRjZDQyOGRl {
|
|
display: none;
|
|
}
|
|
</style>
|
|
</head>
|
|
|
|
...
|
|
|
|
<body>
|
|
<div class="chapter-content">
|
|
|
|
<p class="cnMxYzY0ZjllNmVj...">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: 400">Nathan got the message...</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="cnNiYTMwZmE4YjE2..."> </p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="cnNiOWQ0MDU1MDA2...">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: 400">Sarya waved her hand...</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="cnM0NjAwNWU4Y2Vl..."> </p>
|
|
|
|
<span class="cjZhYjNmYjZkZmFjZTQ2YTk4OWQwYjRiMjRjZDQyOGRl">
|
|
<br>The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report...<br>
|
|
</span>
|
|
|
|
</div>
|
|
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
On the live website, your browser reads the `<style>` tag in the `<head>` and knows to hide the spam `<span>`. You never see it.
|
|
|
|
### What FreshRSS Sees (The Problem)
|
|
|
|
I've told FreshRSS to only grab the content from `.chapter-content` which is the actual content of a post. So, FreshRSS requests the page and then scrapes only this part:
|
|
|
|
```html
|
|
|
|
<p class="cnMxYzY0ZjllNmVj...">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: 400">Nathan got the message...</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="cnNiYTMwZmE4YjE2..."> </p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="cnNiOWQ0MDU1MDA2...">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: 400">Sarya waved her hand...</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="cnM0NjAwNWU4Y2Vl..."> </p>
|
|
|
|
<span class="cjZhYjNmYjZkZmFjZTQ2YTk4OWQwYjRiMjRjZDQyOGRl">
|
|
<br>The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report...<br>
|
|
</span>
|
|
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Since FreshRSS never saw the `<head>` or the `<style>` tag, it has no idea it's supposed to hide the spam `<span>`. It just displays all the text it found, resulting in this output in your feed reader:
|
|
|
|
Nathan got the message...
|
|
|
|
Sarya waved her hand...
|
|
|
|
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report...
|
|
|
|
This is the core of the issue: the content is hidden by a CSS rule that FreshRSS isn't loading, and the class names are random, so you can't just block the class.
|
|
|
|
### The Fix: CSS Selectors
|
|
|
|
You need to tell FreshRSS how to remove the unwanted elements based on their structure, not their random class names.
|
|
|
|
Go to: **Advanced** -> **CSS selector of the elements to remove**.
|
|
Paste this in the box:
|
|
|
|
```css
|
|
.chapter-content > span
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
|
|
This selector targets any `<span>` element that is a direct child (using `>`) of `.chapter-content`.
|
|
|
|
The spam text `<span class="cjZhY...">...</span>` matches this rule.
|
|
|
|
The actual story text `<span style="font-weight: 400">...</span>` is safe because it's a "grandchild" (it's inside a `<p>` tag), not a direct child.
|