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Which is it, the super secret consortium that won't even let you download the full list of bad sites, or Easy List/Privacy? Why don't they just use EasyList and
by kodablah 9y ago
Which is it, the super secret consortium that won't even let you download the full list of bad sites, or Easy List/Privacy? Why don't they just use EasyList and report offenders there instead of this new consortium? The answer to that rhetorical question will let you know why I'll remain on uBO. They didn't need to build this in, but they did and gave the current ad-blocking community the finger instead of support.
- d2wa 9y agoRead the article. They do use EasyList + EasyPrivacy.
- kodablah 9y agoI did read the article. That's why I included it in my comment. It should be exclusive. Not using only some of that list (e.g. no cosmetic blockers) and then using some super secret list the world doesn't have access to. Shouldn't have half of one and half of the other without the possibility of fine-tuned configurability. Otherwise, you are just an opaque piece of the system that I will supplement with a more transparent version.
- bitcurious 9y agoThey use EasyList+EasyPrivacy but only websites that they judge as having intrusive advertising. You can't manually enable adblocking on any website, nor add for example "youtube.com" to the blacklist.
- mastax 9y ago>Which is it, the super secret consortium that won't even let you download the full list of bad sites, or Easy List/Privacy? Why don't they just use EasyList and report offenders there instead of this new consortium? The lists serve different purposes. EasyList is a lit of ad-serving URLs to block. The uh, consortium list is a black/white list of which sites don't follow the standards. The standards are not about bad ads, but about sites that use ads in bad ways. The standards can't be automatically enforced since software can't reliably determine if an ad is a popunder or otherwise intrusive due to placement. Sites would quickly use CSS/JS hacks to work around the classifier.
- kodablah 9y agoEasyList is also a list of ad-serving sites to block and a list of elements to hide. Can you help me understand why the blacklist can't be just placed in a normal ad blocking list like EasyList? If it's by site anyways, I'm not sure the actual difference for the blocker itself. It's not like the EasyList standards can be automatically enforced by software either. I think "serve different purposes" could be rephrased to "serve different overseers". I can't find a reason for the tech difference.
- falcolas 9y agoThey don't want to block ads on sites, unless the site is on the other list. That is, if site foo.com and bar.com both serve ads, but foo.com is on the "blacklist", the ad blocking will be enabled on foo.com. However, ad blocking will remain disabled on bar.com. It's not Google's intention to block all ads on all sites - only ads on "bad" sites. If they can reduce the number of adblock installs by reducing the overall number of invasive ads, they can keep their own ad business from folding.
- kodablah 9y agoAh, I see now, EasyList is selectively applied after first determining whether the site "deserves" it. That's an evil use of the hard work of EasyList maintainers IMO. I wonder if I can find a way to make Chrome think every site is "bad". If not, uBO still for me.
- username223 9y agoYeah, this seems like it already is, or will soon become, solidly evil. If Google decides to flag your site, all of a sudden you don't get ad revenue from anyone. An AdWords sales-drone can then contact you to explain how you can remove yourself from Google's "naughty" list, e.g. by giving them more inventory, or giving their competitors less.
- bzbarsky 9y agoI will bet you that once this rolls out Chrome is going to make it pretty hard to use something like uBO effectively...