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Still no mention about ads. Using HTTPS means you have to load ads over HTTPS and a huge number of ad networks are not reachable over HTTPS and another large nu

by r1ch 11y ago

Still no mention about ads. Using HTTPS means you have to load ads over HTTPS and a huge number of ad networks are not reachable over HTTPS and another large number of assets / tags are hard coded to fetch HTTP resources. For any ad supported website, HTTPS will cause a significant loss of ad revenue. Given how long it's taking the industry to transition away from Flash I'm not holding my breath about this being fixed any time soon.

manigandham 11y ago
This is a big reason. Unfortunately the industry is full of old and/or poor tech that is already fragile as it is. All modern ad networks (like ours) are completely HTTPS ready but the transition will be slow due to momentum with existing vendors.
- lindx 11y ago
  Solution: block HTTP ads.
  - manigandham 11y ago
    Solution to what? Publishers still have to enable HTTPS on their sites and they'll only do that once all the resources on the page are HTTPS compatible.
    - pmlnr 11y ago
      To this: http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm
      - manigandham 11y ago
        While I agree with the gist of that article/presentation, it's more on the silly side compared to many other more detailed and accurate pieces about the growing weight of the modern web. While blocking ads will help some (and certainly some ad providers have gone way too far with their bandwidth/cpu requirements), the web is just a richer media experience than before. The mainstream does not just want text and 80-90% of the page weight ends up being images, even on that article itself. There are other advancements like HTTP/2 and modern CDNs and better image formats like FLIF that will solve this problem much more effectively without going back to a textual world. Still don't see what any of this has to do with HTTPS encryption everywhere though...
- angry-hacker 11y ago
  Well, even Amazon (affiliate) ads server their image over http. So for whatever reason, even the owner of AWS can't serve their ads over https. Do you need to use their widgets in the first place is another question.
  - manigandham 11y ago
    The reasons are as described - a big company with outdated or poor tech policies. Just because AWS is advanced doesn't mean every use of it is. Clearly Cloudfront supports HTTPS and has for a long time so they can enable it if they want to.
Eridrus 11y ago
I'm surprised by this. Both Google and Amazon forced the adtech provider I work for to move to HTTPS and fix all the associated errors mid last year.
- idunno246 11y ago
  agreed, google forced us 100% https. i cant imagine theres that much difference in ad revenue anymore
dgoldstein0 11y ago
the advertisement problem is a subset (albeit a rather large one) of mixed content; the article does make some references to it.
yeldarb 11y ago
Facebook (in addition to Google, as mentioned above) has already required all 3rd party ads to be served over https both on their core site and on all apps on their desktop platform.

by r1ch 11y ago

manigandham 11y ago

This is a big reason. Unfortunately the industry is full of old and/or poor tech that is already fragile as it is. All modern ad networks (like ours) are completely HTTPS ready but the transition will be slow due to momentum with existing vendors.

lindx 11y ago
Solution: block HTTP ads.
- manigandham 11y ago
  Solution to what? Publishers still have to enable HTTPS on their sites and they'll only do that once all the resources on the page are HTTPS compatible.
  - pmlnr 11y ago
    To this: http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm
    - manigandham 11y ago
      While I agree with the gist of that article/presentation, it's more on the silly side compared to many other more detailed and accurate pieces about the growing weight of the modern web. While blocking ads will help some (and certainly some ad providers have gone way too far with their bandwidth/cpu requirements), the web is just a richer media experience than before. The mainstream does not just want text and 80-90% of the page weight ends up being images, even on that article itself. There are other advancements like HTTP/2 and modern CDNs and better image formats like FLIF that will solve this problem much more effectively without going back to a textual world. Still don't see what any of this has to do with HTTPS encryption everywhere though...
angry-hacker 11y ago
Well, even Amazon (affiliate) ads server their image over http. So for whatever reason, even the owner of AWS can't serve their ads over https. Do you need to use their widgets in the first place is another question.
- manigandham 11y ago
  The reasons are as described - a big company with outdated or poor tech policies. Just because AWS is advanced doesn't mean every use of it is. Clearly Cloudfront supports HTTPS and has for a long time so they can enable it if they want to.

Eridrus 11y ago

I'm surprised by this. Both Google and Amazon forced the adtech provider I work for to move to HTTPS and fix all the associated errors mid last year.

idunno246 11y ago
agreed, google forced us 100% https. i cant imagine theres that much difference in ad revenue anymore

dgoldstein0 11y ago

the advertisement problem is a subset (albeit a rather large one) of mixed content; the article does make some references to it.

yeldarb 11y ago

Facebook (in addition to Google, as mentioned above) has already required all 3rd party ads to be served over https both on their core site and on all apps on their desktop platform.