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Wow, the first half was all good and informative, than the second half the authors started to dump all his opinion as known, absolute facts. The fact is that G

by pavs 17y ago

Wow, the first half was all good and informative, than the second half the authors started to dump all his opinion as known, absolute facts. The fact is that Google, a multi billion dollar company which make ~90% of its revenue through ads, not only allows ad blocking extensions to be installed in its browser (which is rapidly gaining market share) but also not-so-evil enough not to tinker with the Top 10 extension list and allow an ad blocking extension to be listed as the second most downloaded extension. (2 of the top 10 extensions are ad blockers: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/list/popular https://chrome.google.com/extensions/list/popular). To top it off, they are forthcoming about the ad blockers and how they view it and discussed it openly with everyone, by justifying it as a good thing. They agree with something most of us already know is that the single biggest reason we use ad blocking extensions is because of the intrusive and extremely annoying ads. If ads were non-intrusive and fast and targeted most people wouldn't bother with ad blockers. Google, the biggest online ad company gets it. This is good news. And this is what the author writes? "And of course, there's no guarantee that Google will always allow ad blockers." Is the author really this ignorant? You don't even have to rely on extension to block ads. Hello privoxy: http://www.privoxy.org/ http://www.privoxy.org/

axod 17y ago
Agreed. Google should really be applauded. I'm bored of all this "Ah but google have access to all my data. What if they turn evil". There was a recent story about Google adding a cookie so that people without google accounts/not logged in, got some extra functionality. Instead of being applauded for improving the product, people started moaning that they were harvesting data from everyone. Tracking peoples movements on the web so they can sell that data. I don't know why there's this recent "But what if Google start being evil" meme, but I think I'll trust them until they do show signs of abusing that trust.
- hyperbovine 17y ago
  OT, but why do people keep saying "Google have too much power," "Google have 60 billion dollars", etc. ? It's a singular noun. The circle is round. Google is powerful. It is turning evil. We are hungry. etc. This is not meant to flame, I'm really curious why/when the usage shifted.
  - naz 17y ago
    British English
    - whatusername 17y ago
      Really? I would have written those sentences as: "Google has too much Power", "Google has 60 billion dollars" The usage of have seems wrong to me
      - axod 17y ago
        Both are common/valid, at least in the UK, but the plural is more common here than singular afaik.
  - pavs 17y ago
    I don't know about axod, but some of us don't have English as our first language. Its not always easy to have perfect grammar that comes naturally to a native speaker, but I personally try to be as correct as possible often going through 4-5 edits and going back to it to make sure that people, other than me, can read what I am typing. Still, mistakes slips through. Its a work in progress, some do better than others. I waited almost a year before I decided to register an account (this place and other forums) and contribute to the discussion, when I was sure that I can put words together in a sentence that people can understand; only to find out that the best way to write proper English (or any language for that matter) is to write often and make mistakes so that others can point them out and you learn from that.
  - txxxxd 17y ago
    Companies are treated as singular nouns in American English and as plural nouns in British English.
alain94040 17y ago
Excuse my ignorance, but that this ad blocker block google ads in search results, or rather Flash ads? I'm asking because, if you push this argument further, you could think that it's good for Google to have all ads served by competitors disappear, to leave only google ads everywhere.
- pavs 17y ago
  I haven't used privoxy in a while because I don't want to globally block ads and I want to have site-wide filtering system which is easier in extensions and a bit of a work with privoxy. There are supposedly better alternative to privoxy someone once mentioned, I can't remember it. Blocking google text ads with privoxy: http://www.willamowius.de/privoxy.html http://www.willamowius.de/privoxy.html The thing with privoxy and most other good ad blocking extensions/software is that you can edit the filter list to block almost everything you could possibly think of. So no matter whatever your argument is Google can not stop you from blocking whatever ads you want to block, regardless of the operating system you use (yes even Google Chrome OS, which is a debain/ubuntu based system. Emphasis on Ubuntu because Canonical/Ubuntu developers actively worked on it prior to the official Chrome OS announcement. Not to mention Chrome OS is opensource and you can rip it apart and do whatever you want to do with it).
  - eli 17y ago
    They could make life a lot harder for AdBlock plugins if they wanted to, but site usability would take a hit and it would always be a cat and mouse game.

by pavs 17y ago

axod 17y ago

Agreed. Google should really be applauded. I'm bored of all this "Ah but google have access to all my data. What if they turn evil". There was a recent story about Google adding a cookie so that people without google accounts/not logged in, got some extra functionality. Instead of being applauded for improving the product, people started moaning that they were harvesting data from everyone. Tracking peoples movements on the web so they can sell that data. I don't know why there's this recent "But what if Google start being evil" meme, but I think I'll trust them until they do show signs of abusing that trust.

hyperbovine 17y ago
OT, but why do people keep saying "Google have too much power," "Google have 60 billion dollars", etc. ? It's a singular noun. The circle is round. Google is powerful. It is turning evil. We are hungry. etc. This is not meant to flame, I'm really curious why/when the usage shifted.
- naz 17y ago
  British English
  - whatusername 17y ago
    Really? I would have written those sentences as: "Google has too much Power", "Google has 60 billion dollars" The usage of have seems wrong to me
    - axod 17y ago
      Both are common/valid, at least in the UK, but the plural is more common here than singular afaik.
- pavs 17y ago
  I don't know about axod, but some of us don't have English as our first language. Its not always easy to have perfect grammar that comes naturally to a native speaker, but I personally try to be as correct as possible often going through 4-5 edits and going back to it to make sure that people, other than me, can read what I am typing. Still, mistakes slips through. Its a work in progress, some do better than others. I waited almost a year before I decided to register an account (this place and other forums) and contribute to the discussion, when I was sure that I can put words together in a sentence that people can understand; only to find out that the best way to write proper English (or any language for that matter) is to write often and make mistakes so that others can point them out and you learn from that.
- txxxxd 17y ago
  Companies are treated as singular nouns in American English and as plural nouns in British English.

alain94040 17y ago

Excuse my ignorance, but that this ad blocker block google ads in search results, or rather Flash ads? I'm asking because, if you push this argument further, you could think that it's good for Google to have all ads served by competitors disappear, to leave only google ads everywhere.

pavs 17y ago
I haven't used privoxy in a while because I don't want to globally block ads and I want to have site-wide filtering system which is easier in extensions and a bit of a work with privoxy. There are supposedly better alternative to privoxy someone once mentioned, I can't remember it. Blocking google text ads with privoxy: http://www.willamowius.de/privoxy.html http://www.willamowius.de/privoxy.html The thing with privoxy and most other good ad blocking extensions/software is that you can edit the filter list to block almost everything you could possibly think of. So no matter whatever your argument is Google can not stop you from blocking whatever ads you want to block, regardless of the operating system you use (yes even Google Chrome OS, which is a debain/ubuntu based system. Emphasis on Ubuntu because Canonical/Ubuntu developers actively worked on it prior to the official Chrome OS announcement. Not to mention Chrome OS is opensource and you can rip it apart and do whatever you want to do with it).
- eli 17y ago
  They could make life a lot harder for AdBlock plugins if they wanted to, but site usability would take a hit and it would always be a cat and mouse game.