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Indeed, almost the entire ad-blocking market is controlled by the company behind Adblock Plus (eyeo GmbH), who has contracts with Google. It appears they also o

Indeed, almost the entire ad-blocking market is controlled by the company behind Adblock Plus (eyeo GmbH), who has contracts with Google. It appears they also own AdBlock, and uBlock (not confused with uBO), so during the last years they basically tried to capture the entire market. The fact that Eyeo has >150 employees tells us something about the amount of money to be made from ad blocking. Although they have only published the numbers from 2016, it seems they are quickly approaching around €50 million yearly revenue, with almost 50% of pure profit. For Google this Acceptable Ads Program may be more than a 100 million dollar business. The only real nuisance is uBO and the future possibility that someone comes along and uses Google's own software to eliminate their core business model. Basically in this entire environment if an extension does not take part in extracting money out of people, it becomes a problem for most parties involved. Someone at Google in the higher ups probably realized at one point that giving the user so much freedom and control could theoretically backfire enourmously. Google indirectly controls ABP, but they want the ABP model to apply to all blockers, so that they both get money from non-blocking users as well as from blocking-users. In the perfect world of Google content-blocking does not exist beyond mere visual ad-blocking of the most annoying ads. ABP already allows cookies and network connections, so google still knows everything about those users. Personally I use a combination of pi-hole, third-party cookie blocking and uBO, which takes care of basically all cross-site tracking. But when I recently had a look at another system of someone who uses ABP I noticed that the blocking really is only visual, theres still a profile that is being sold to data brokers, you just don't see the stuff they recommend to you. The default settings of ABP are also extremely anti-user. ABP/Eyeo is a wolf in sheep's clothing. uBO users on the other hand are basically invisible to the survaillance capitalists.

jwr 7y ago
> uBlock (not confused with uBO) This naming is a catastrophe. I just tried to find out which is which and it isn't easy, even if you know what you're looking for. I'd think that uBlock Origin should consider changing the name. Yes, "it means giving up", but it's a battle they can't win anyway, and at least users will be able to tell which one is owned by eyeo. EDIT: AdBlock and AdBlock Plus are similarly confusing.
- Quiark 7y ago
  If uBO changes name to for example "Ant Block", somebody will come and create "Ant Block Plus"
  - brlewis 7y ago
    Change it to "Ant Block", offer a paid "Ant Block Pro" so that the name is used in commerce, and register a trademark.
    - DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
      And Plus, and Ultimate, and Super, and so on...
ljm 7y ago
This is why it’s so unfortunate and frustrating that people are depending so much on Chromium/Blink. Electron, various browsers that are just skins over the embedded framework... We were still dealing with legacy IE6 (and IE 7/8 by that point also) in 2013! Almost a decade since we got Firefox and the first version of Chrome. The web has empirically suffered through homogeneity and the lack of strong competitors in the browser space, not helped by the underlying HTML/JS spec becoming exponentially more convoluted to the point where building your own renderer is nigh impossible. And since everyone is standardising on a Google, their decisions on ad blocking and supporting APIs are automatically going to flow down into every dependent product. It’s frustrating that MS copped out and went Chromium. Like we never learned this lesson the first time. We still have WebKit and Firefox and (sooner or later), more of Servo at least. These need to be protected if we don’t want Google and the ad network to totally control the browsing experience. Although, controversially, we as a web dev collective have learned nothing if we continue to only develop for a single browser. Not for the web itself, but for one particular rendering engine. “Only works in Chrome,” is poor engineering for anything more than a prototype or proof of concept.
- amelius 7y ago
  > “Only works in Chrome,” is poor engineering for anything more than a prototype or proof of concept. Can't we, developers, do the opposite? Like introduce a small annoyance, like showing a pop-up, when visitors use Chrome? It could say something like "today is free web day, upgrade your browser to Firefox or any other libre browser"
  - thrower123 7y ago
    It's largely proven by decades of experience at this point that you cannot make the average software user care about ideological concerns. Especially if you use terms like libre that don't makes any sense to people that haven't drunk the FOSS koolaid.
    - amelius 7y ago
      Ok, then it could be played a little harder, for example by introducing a (small) performance penality for visitors that use chrome.
bscphil 7y ago
>almost the entire ad-blocking market is controlled by the company behind Adblock Plus (eyeo GmbH), who has contracts with Google. It appears they also own AdBlock, and uBlock (not confused with uBO), so during the last years they basically tried to capture the entire market. This makes me wonder if there's any way we can give gorhill a bunch of money in donations. He's in a much more important position than I previously realized, and despite the statement in the uBlock readme ("Free. Open source. For users by users. No donations sought.") I think it would be an excellent idea to make sure he has permanent financial stability for as long as he continues to work on uBlock. If he wants a multi-million dollar corporate buyer to come along, I'm sure he can get it. But as long as he's incentivized to continue building a truly pro-user ad blocker, we should at least make sure he's not in a situation where he could be forced to sell out.
- greenyoda 7y ago
  If he explicitly says "No donations sought", wouldn't it be kind of rude to throw money at him?
  - bscphil 7y ago
    That may be fair (though there's some ambiguity to me in the word "sought"), but I hope he knows that if he loses his day job or has health problems or something like that he can go to the community. uBlock origin is worth hundreds of dollars a year to me, and I'm by no means rich.
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    Well, I'm not seeking money when I walk down the street, but I wouldn't consider it rude if someone decided to throw some at me. (assuming cash, not coins thrown at my head though even then, if they're quarters, I'm picking those up)
  - Technetium 7y ago
    https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don't-you-accept-donations%3F https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don't-you-accept-... Here is the official explanation of why donations are not accepted.
adsthrowaway 7y ago
Adblock plus have a committee that is supposed to be independent companies that they consult but they invested in some of them and made those people the head of each group so its not even independent eyeo is a pure scam and they make 99% profit because they have no costs
dotancohen 7y ago
There is an additional danger here. Currently, we can go use Firefox or Joe's homemade browser to to back the features that Chrome removes, such as the ability for an ad-blocker to access and remove content. But we've already seen just last month [1] that Google actively prevents Firefox from using some features of Google products (need to find the HN link). Thus Google as a content provider can easily steep people into using the Google web browser. This is really starting to smell similar to the Microsoft - IE debacle all over again. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19669586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19669586
- butterpeanut 7y ago
  This thing about Google preventing Firefox from using some features (Edge as well I believe) - I'm assuming this is all done using the user agent header? or are they detecting Chrome through another means. I guess I'm wondering how effective spoofing the user agent header would be in resolving that.
rusk 7y ago
Just want to emphasise this point: > I recently had a look at another system of someone who uses ABP I noticed that the blocking really is only visual, theres still a profile that is being sold to data brokers It's quite shocking, anti-intuitive, and really shows what the web advertising business is really all about.
tripzilch 7y ago
> Someone at Google in the higher ups probably realized at one point that giving the user so much freedom and control could theoretically backfire enourmously. That's ... well, so much for the internet ... :-( It's really against what I imagine to be some of the core principles of the internet.
tomxor 7y ago
> Someone at Google in the higher ups probably realized at one point that giving the user so much freedom and control could theoretically backfire enourmously. If that is the case, it seems very short sighted. While this change is obviously not in the interest of any user, there are multiple ways around it.. the alternative solutions are not so easy right now, but they will become more user friendly as they rise to the surface as the new way to block ads. The affect on Google's revenue will be short term (if any), but I suspect the affect on Google's public image will be significant and lasting. It doesn't seem worth the risk to Google for such a short term gain.

jwr 7y ago

> uBlock (not confused with uBO) This naming is a catastrophe. I just tried to find out which is which and it isn't easy, even if you know what you're looking for. I'd think that uBlock Origin should consider changing the name. Yes, "it means giving up", but it's a battle they can't win anyway, and at least users will be able to tell which one is owned by eyeo. EDIT: AdBlock and AdBlock Plus are similarly confusing.

Quiark 7y ago
If uBO changes name to for example "Ant Block", somebody will come and create "Ant Block Plus"
- brlewis 7y ago
  Change it to "Ant Block", offer a paid "Ant Block Pro" so that the name is used in commerce, and register a trademark.
  - DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
    And Plus, and Ultimate, and Super, and so on...

ljm 7y ago

This is why it’s so unfortunate and frustrating that people are depending so much on Chromium/Blink. Electron, various browsers that are just skins over the embedded framework... We were still dealing with legacy IE6 (and IE 7/8 by that point also) in 2013! Almost a decade since we got Firefox and the first version of Chrome. The web has empirically suffered through homogeneity and the lack of strong competitors in the browser space, not helped by the underlying HTML/JS spec becoming exponentially more convoluted to the point where building your own renderer is nigh impossible. And since everyone is standardising on a Google, their decisions on ad blocking and supporting APIs are automatically going to flow down into every dependent product. It’s frustrating that MS copped out and went Chromium. Like we never learned this lesson the first time. We still have WebKit and Firefox and (sooner or later), more of Servo at least. These need to be protected if we don’t want Google and the ad network to totally control the browsing experience. Although, controversially, we as a web dev collective have learned nothing if we continue to only develop for a single browser. Not for the web itself, but for one particular rendering engine. “Only works in Chrome,” is poor engineering for anything more than a prototype or proof of concept.

amelius 7y ago
> “Only works in Chrome,” is poor engineering for anything more than a prototype or proof of concept. Can't we, developers, do the opposite? Like introduce a small annoyance, like showing a pop-up, when visitors use Chrome? It could say something like "today is free web day, upgrade your browser to Firefox or any other libre browser"
- thrower123 7y ago
  It's largely proven by decades of experience at this point that you cannot make the average software user care about ideological concerns. Especially if you use terms like libre that don't makes any sense to people that haven't drunk the FOSS koolaid.
  - amelius 7y ago
    Ok, then it could be played a little harder, for example by introducing a (small) performance penality for visitors that use chrome.

bscphil 7y ago

>almost the entire ad-blocking market is controlled by the company behind Adblock Plus (eyeo GmbH), who has contracts with Google. It appears they also own AdBlock, and uBlock (not confused with uBO), so during the last years they basically tried to capture the entire market. This makes me wonder if there's any way we can give gorhill a bunch of money in donations. He's in a much more important position than I previously realized, and despite the statement in the uBlock readme ("Free. Open source. For users by users. No donations sought.") I think it would be an excellent idea to make sure he has permanent financial stability for as long as he continues to work on uBlock. If he wants a multi-million dollar corporate buyer to come along, I'm sure he can get it. But as long as he's incentivized to continue building a truly pro-user ad blocker, we should at least make sure he's not in a situation where he could be forced to sell out.

greenyoda 7y ago
If he explicitly says "No donations sought", wouldn't it be kind of rude to throw money at him?
- bscphil 7y ago
  That may be fair (though there's some ambiguity to me in the word "sought"), but I hope he knows that if he loses his day job or has health problems or something like that he can go to the community. uBlock origin is worth hundreds of dollars a year to me, and I'm by no means rich.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  Well, I'm not seeking money when I walk down the street, but I wouldn't consider it rude if someone decided to throw some at me. (assuming cash, not coins thrown at my head though even then, if they're quarters, I'm picking those up)
- Technetium 7y ago
  https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don't-you-accept-donations%3F https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Why-don't-you-accept-... Here is the official explanation of why donations are not accepted.

adsthrowaway 7y ago

Adblock plus have a committee that is supposed to be independent companies that they consult but they invested in some of them and made those people the head of each group so its not even independent eyeo is a pure scam and they make 99% profit because they have no costs

dotancohen 7y ago

There is an additional danger here. Currently, we can go use Firefox or Joe's homemade browser to to back the features that Chrome removes, such as the ability for an ad-blocker to access and remove content. But we've already seen just last month [1] that Google actively prevents Firefox from using some features of Google products (need to find the HN link). Thus Google as a content provider can easily steep people into using the Google web browser. This is really starting to smell similar to the Microsoft - IE debacle all over again. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19669586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19669586

butterpeanut 7y ago
This thing about Google preventing Firefox from using some features (Edge as well I believe) - I'm assuming this is all done using the user agent header? or are they detecting Chrome through another means. I guess I'm wondering how effective spoofing the user agent header would be in resolving that.

rusk 7y ago

Just want to emphasise this point: > I recently had a look at another system of someone who uses ABP I noticed that the blocking really is only visual, theres still a profile that is being sold to data brokers It's quite shocking, anti-intuitive, and really shows what the web advertising business is really all about.

tripzilch 7y ago

> Someone at Google in the higher ups probably realized at one point that giving the user so much freedom and control could theoretically backfire enourmously. That's ... well, so much for the internet ... :-( It's really against what I imagine to be some of the core principles of the internet.

tomxor 7y ago

> Someone at Google in the higher ups probably realized at one point that giving the user so much freedom and control could theoretically backfire enourmously. If that is the case, it seems very short sighted. While this change is obviously not in the interest of any user, there are multiple ways around it.. the alternative solutions are not so easy right now, but they will become more user friendly as they rise to the surface as the new way to block ads. The affect on Google's revenue will be short term (if any), but I suspect the affect on Google's public image will be significant and lasting. It doesn't seem worth the risk to Google for such a short term gain.