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Many comments are bitterly unfair against ABP. Wladimir/Eyeo changed how we use the web, gave us means to fight back against abusive advertising. They built a b

by mgbmtl 9y ago

Many comments are bitterly unfair against ABP. Wladimir/Eyeo changed how we use the web, gave us means to fight back against abusive advertising. They built a business model to make the extension sustainable and find a strategy to legitimate themselves, fight in the courts, etc. Not to mention that ABP never tried to close the market. Alternatives were easy to build thanks to EasyList. Today there are many alternatives to ABP. I am extremely grateful for his work. He's going on a well deserved vacation. I wish him success in his future projects. (In case anyone wonders, I am not affiliated. Just a happy user of ABP.)

ycombobreaker 9y ago
As is frequently the case, I would give credit to Opera. They didn't have a central list but the browser had an easy-to-use element blocker that was suitable for blocking many obnoxious ads of the era. The central list ideas I've seen come out of projects built on squid proxies with known-advertiser black holes. ABP may have packaged things up nicely, I dont remember that evolution of history. And they may have other good will now to balance out the "acceptable ads" monetization. But the tools to "fight back against abusive advertising" should be credited elsewhere, IMHO.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  Interestingly, Opera was proprietary with its own rendering engine (Presto) and you could buy a license or you could run it for free with an ad showing (back then, ads were more profitable as well). Bummer they never open sourced Presto. Maybe that inspired Brave. Though you can't "buy" Brave.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    There is also Vivaldi, funded by the same guy that formed co-founded Opera back in the day. https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/ Sadly it is not much more than a reskinned Chrome, same with current Opera and Brave. BTW, Opera offered "tabs" before it was a thing by making use of MDI. And it carried forward until they scrapped Presto. Similarly Vivaldi right now offers to split the viewport into multiple areas to show tabs side by side.
    - Ndymium 9y ago
      Vivaldi is much more than a reskin of Chrome though. It has customisable UI (with color themes), vertical tabs, tree style tabs, tiled tabs, tab stacks, mouse gestures, tab hibernation, session saving for later, reader mode (and a bunch of others) builtin, speed dial, custom history page, web panels (a docked website on the side of the browser). Haven't used Chrome in a while though so not sure if some of those have been added there. Cons are that it's slower (not that noticeable for me anymore since latest stable) and doesn't have sync (is coming in next version).
      - digi_owl 9y ago
        I call them reskins because they can't really affect anything beyond the UI. For example Google has implemented a more restrictive policy regarding Flash in recent Chrome releases, and it has found its way into said browsers basically unmodified.
        Feniks 9y ago
        Yep. On paper we have a LOT of different browsers. In reality everything relies more or less on Chrome and Firefox.
    - Fnoord 9y ago
      MDI was awesome, and split view was innovative. Especially once you mastered the shortcuts. You can compare it to splitting windows in Screen or Tmux. Nowadays, we're in a different world though. Multiple monitors is pretty much default for web development on PCs (not laptops/ultrabooks/tablets/smartphones though). Although newer Android versions also contain splitview.
  - rasz 9y ago
    Someone did it for them and published last Opera 12.x snapshot https://blogs.opera.com/security/2017/01/legacy-opera-presto-source-code-appearance-online-sharing-sites/ https://blogs.opera.com/security/2017/01/legacy-opera-presto... there are people on Russian Opera fan forums still developing patches and improvements to that code base.
Fnoord 9y ago
Come on, as if ABP innovated so much? ABP wasn't the first. I remember using an adblocker native in Firefox back around 2004 (and IIRC I even used on on Mozilla milestones). Back then, there were already /etc/hosts based alternatives (which also have always worked in Windows btw) as well, and a so-called personal firewall could also block ads. These existed for Windows 9x. We're talking end of '90s here. As for the current direct comparison: uBlock yields better performance and doesn't have a shady track record [1]. Other than "I've always used this" or "I benefit if other people use this" (ie. am affiliated which you're not) I just do not see your point. So could you explain us why you pick ABP over uBlock? [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-vs.-ABP:-efficiency-compared https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-vs.-ABP:-effic...
- def_true_false 9y ago
  > doesn't have a shady track record Care to expand on that?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Macha 9y ago
    The eventual setup of their acceptable ads policy ended up being seen as pay-to-whitelist by users and advertisers. It felt that way to advertisers especially when the fee was 30% of ad revenue rather than say, a processing fee for time spent verifying it met the criteria. A lot of them were more ok to ignore ad blocking before they were held to ransom. Users were unhappy at an adblocker's default config allowing ads.
    - def_true_false 9y ago
      I can see why people would be upset, but it doesn't seem especially shady to me - they were upfront about what they are doing and why. I do remember that multiple forks appeared immediately, but I don't see how trusting someone else in addition to the ABP developers is an improvement... until UBO there was nothing to switch to, and UBO had other advantages.
Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
You're right, we owe them a debt for starting this thing. But there are lines you don't cross - they crossed them, and lost all credibility as a result.
stirner 9y ago
ABP’s filter list syntax is underspecified with vague, conversational English; some members of the community have tried to formally document the more common pieces of syntax but it’s far from complete. Instead of using a simple-to-parse CFG or regular expressions, ABP appears to have arbitrarily added new bits of syntax as they please. I’d encourage you to attempt to make an ABP filter list decoder before calling ABP alternatives “easy”.
Feniks 9y ago
Pretty sure ABP wasn't the first adblocker. Just the one that made it to mainstream popularity.
nasredin 9y ago
I have very strong feelings WRT the creator of ABP. --- The creator of ABP ("Wladimir"?) is a scammer, con man, and malware distributor. He created an adblocking extension. He then used the auto-update feature to update his extension to include "acceptable ads". I was not warned about this. I discovered this accidentally after going into ABP settings. "Acceptable ads" IS the antithesis of adblocking. Do you know the malware that masquerades as anti-virus software, etc., euphemistically called "potentially unwanted programs / PUP"? ABP is EXACTLY the same. Vladimir gained my trust by providing an adblocking software. He then betrayed that trust. He is a con man in my book. /rant

by mgbmtl 9y ago

ycombobreaker 9y ago

As is frequently the case, I would give credit to Opera. They didn't have a central list but the browser had an easy-to-use element blocker that was suitable for blocking many obnoxious ads of the era. The central list ideas I've seen come out of projects built on squid proxies with known-advertiser black holes. ABP may have packaged things up nicely, I dont remember that evolution of history. And they may have other good will now to balance out the "acceptable ads" monetization. But the tools to "fight back against abusive advertising" should be credited elsewhere, IMHO.

Fnoord 9y ago
Interestingly, Opera was proprietary with its own rendering engine (Presto) and you could buy a license or you could run it for free with an ad showing (back then, ads were more profitable as well). Bummer they never open sourced Presto. Maybe that inspired Brave. Though you can't "buy" Brave.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  There is also Vivaldi, funded by the same guy that formed co-founded Opera back in the day. https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/ Sadly it is not much more than a reskinned Chrome, same with current Opera and Brave. BTW, Opera offered "tabs" before it was a thing by making use of MDI. And it carried forward until they scrapped Presto. Similarly Vivaldi right now offers to split the viewport into multiple areas to show tabs side by side.
  - Ndymium 9y ago
    Vivaldi is much more than a reskin of Chrome though. It has customisable UI (with color themes), vertical tabs, tree style tabs, tiled tabs, tab stacks, mouse gestures, tab hibernation, session saving for later, reader mode (and a bunch of others) builtin, speed dial, custom history page, web panels (a docked website on the side of the browser). Haven't used Chrome in a while though so not sure if some of those have been added there. Cons are that it's slower (not that noticeable for me anymore since latest stable) and doesn't have sync (is coming in next version).
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      I call them reskins because they can't really affect anything beyond the UI. For example Google has implemented a more restrictive policy regarding Flash in recent Chrome releases, and it has found its way into said browsers basically unmodified.
      - Feniks 9y ago
        Yep. On paper we have a LOT of different browsers. In reality everything relies more or less on Chrome and Firefox.
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    MDI was awesome, and split view was innovative. Especially once you mastered the shortcuts. You can compare it to splitting windows in Screen or Tmux. Nowadays, we're in a different world though. Multiple monitors is pretty much default for web development on PCs (not laptops/ultrabooks/tablets/smartphones though). Although newer Android versions also contain splitview.
- rasz 9y ago
  Someone did it for them and published last Opera 12.x snapshot https://blogs.opera.com/security/2017/01/legacy-opera-presto-source-code-appearance-online-sharing-sites/ https://blogs.opera.com/security/2017/01/legacy-opera-presto... there are people on Russian Opera fan forums still developing patches and improvements to that code base.

Fnoord 9y ago

Come on, as if ABP innovated so much? ABP wasn't the first. I remember using an adblocker native in Firefox back around 2004 (and IIRC I even used on on Mozilla milestones). Back then, there were already /etc/hosts based alternatives (which also have always worked in Windows btw) as well, and a so-called personal firewall could also block ads. These existed for Windows 9x. We're talking end of '90s here. As for the current direct comparison: uBlock yields better performance and doesn't have a shady track record [1]. Other than "I've always used this" or "I benefit if other people use this" (ie. am affiliated which you're not) I just do not see your point. So could you explain us why you pick ABP over uBlock? [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-vs.-ABP:-efficiency-compared https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-vs.-ABP:-effic...

def_true_false 9y ago
> doesn't have a shady track record Care to expand on that?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Macha 9y ago
  The eventual setup of their acceptable ads policy ended up being seen as pay-to-whitelist by users and advertisers. It felt that way to advertisers especially when the fee was 30% of ad revenue rather than say, a processing fee for time spent verifying it met the criteria. A lot of them were more ok to ignore ad blocking before they were held to ransom. Users were unhappy at an adblocker's default config allowing ads.
  - def_true_false 9y ago
    I can see why people would be upset, but it doesn't seem especially shady to me - they were upfront about what they are doing and why. I do remember that multiple forks appeared immediately, but I don't see how trusting someone else in addition to the ABP developers is an improvement... until UBO there was nothing to switch to, and UBO had other advantages.

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago

You're right, we owe them a debt for starting this thing. But there are lines you don't cross - they crossed them, and lost all credibility as a result.

stirner 9y ago

ABP’s filter list syntax is underspecified with vague, conversational English; some members of the community have tried to formally document the more common pieces of syntax but it’s far from complete. Instead of using a simple-to-parse CFG or regular expressions, ABP appears to have arbitrarily added new bits of syntax as they please. I’d encourage you to attempt to make an ABP filter list decoder before calling ABP alternatives “easy”.

Feniks 9y ago

Pretty sure ABP wasn't the first adblocker. Just the one that made it to mainstream popularity.

nasredin 9y ago

I have very strong feelings WRT the creator of ABP. --- The creator of ABP ("Wladimir"?) is a scammer, con man, and malware distributor. He created an adblocking extension. He then used the auto-update feature to update his extension to include "acceptable ads". I was not warned about this. I discovered this accidentally after going into ABP settings. "Acceptable ads" IS the antithesis of adblocking. Do you know the malware that masquerades as anti-virus software, etc., euphemistically called "potentially unwanted programs / PUP"? ABP is EXACTLY the same. Vladimir gained my trust by providing an adblocking software. He then betrayed that trust. He is a con man in my book. /rant