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Ask HN: Would it be possible to code an undetectable ad blocker?
I'm lacking the technical knowledge to answer this question, but I would have thought it would be something within the realm of possibility, but since no one has ever done it yet, I guess I'm wrong and I would really like to know why.
My two cents: Wouldn't it be possible to just display ads in a sandbox environment invisible to the user and then display to the user an ad-free experience?
- claudiulodro 9y agoAs someone that has developed ads before, not really. I mean, anything is possible, but nowadays ads are hooked into all sorts of analytics software that determines how long an ad is on screen and things like that. You could try and implement something like what you're proposing, but it would show up as weird metrics on the advertiser's side. Ads are already in a sandbox (iframe), so you could just make a little extension that sets iframes to display: none and give it a whirl if you wanted to test an MVP.
- patrics123 9y agoWhat about visually overlaying all the ad areas with something else ... lets say whitespace or cat-pictures instead? ;-)
- twobyfour 9y agoThat depends on what your purpose is for using an ad blocker in the first place. If you just don't want to see ads, by all means overlay them and your ad blocker will probably go undetected. But a lot of people run ad blockers to save bandwidth or avoid being tracked or to avoid the malware that's been known to be distributed through even the most reputable ad networks. Overlays don't solve those problems.
- guilamu 9y agoI guess we can all agree that we can't make it undetectable if ads are not loaded at all. The idea would be to load them in a sandbox environment (so it would be harmless whatever malware is attached) and then just send the webpage back to the user ad free.
- guilamu 9y agoWould be a nice start indeed.
- guilamu 9y agoThanks for you technical input, it does explains a lot.
- giobox 9y agoWhilst It won't be completely 100% undetectable, in practice I've found Pi-hole gets close to delivering the sort of browsing experience you are looking for. https://pi-hole.net https://pi-hole.net Rather than sandbox the ads, pihole simply kills the DNS request for the ad resources - unlike most ad blockers the vast majority of ad/tracking resources simply never reach your computer, eliminating the need to dump them into a sandbox. In practice I've found it works on preventing ads on most sites that otherwise detect ad blockers and put up a "nag wall". For me anyway it's been much more effective than the browser based solutions, and with none of the DOM manipulation overhead etc. Also has really nice advantage of blocking ads on devices that don't support adblocker extensions - games consoles, tv streaming boxes etc.
- guilamu 9y agoHello giobox, Thank you very much for your answer. I totally missed Pi-hole on HN and let met tell you, I just installed it and it's a real marvel. That's exactly what I needed, the web is suddenly incredibly fast and ad-free, this is a dream come true!