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An Ad Blocker Opens the Gate, Ever So Slightly
- tuananh 15y agomore revenue stream?
- thealistra 15y agoWell it's time to find good alternatives. I'm personally using adsuck: https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/adsuck https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/adsuck It's a caching dns server with 'sucking out' ads. It's very nice, but has some drawbacks. You have to kill SIGUSR1 the process to reread the file with blocked sites, where in adblock you just added an exception.
- greedoshotlast 15y agoI'm looking for alternatives as well for ad block plus. Anyone used Privoxy before?
- ortatherox 15y agoon OSX I use Glimmer Blocker
- andrewflnr 15y agoCan someone please explain why this got downvoted?
- MichaelApproved 15y agoWhy look for alternatives instead of changing the default setting of a program that works really well?
- aw3c2 15y agoBlocking ads on DNS level sounds not too useful for me. What if you want to block just a URL pattern on a domain but not the whole domain (eg somesite.tld/annoying-flashy-banners/* or somesite.tld/tracking.js )?
- jerrya 15y agoThe way “acceptable ads” works, Mr. Palant and Mr. Faida explained, is that Web sites agree to publish certain advertisements that meet Adblock Plus’s standards on intrusiveness — no beeping or flashing, nothing that slows the computer’s operations. They are then added to the “white list” of acceptable advertisements. Well, I'm okay with this. I don't block Slashdot ads, though Slashdot gives me that option. I don't block ads at FARK because FARK enforces non-intrusive ads. There are other sites that ask me not to block their ads, and I usually white list them as long as their ads are not intrusive, and that follows what adblock plus seems to be seeking: no pop-ups, not flashing, no marquee, no flash crap, I don't mind websites making money, I prefer the ones I like stay in existence. I only ask that their ads let me read the damn site and not attack my senses.
- derefr 15y agoI'd be fine with it if one of the requirements was "does not take more than 100ms to load." For me, the point of AdBlock is that pages aren't blocked from rendering by needing to pull down external dependencies. (Ads are one example, but analytics scripts and "like" buttons also count.)
- throwaway64 15y agoThey still allow ads with javascript, which means a major reason to block ads (rouge ads that deliver exploits and malware) are still an issue that their users are not protected against by default.
- jerrya 15y ago
- drivebyacct2 15y agoThe glad for open source and love that someone can fork something if they want to or feel they need to, but I have a hard time understanding bits like this: >While some have couched their concerns within long notes about their affection for the project, others, like “felix,” kept it short: “ ‘acceptable ads’ is an oxymoron ... i accept no ads. you fail; goodbye.” There has been a movement proposing to “fork” the project — that is, run a version of Adblock Plus before the changes, as is allowed for open-source projects. It sounds like the defaults are being changed and it's easy to switch back to "block all". Seems like the "fork" would be a boolean value in a default config file.
- AndyKelley 15y agoDon't underestimate the power of defaults: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/01/the-power-of-defaults.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/01/the-power-of-defaul...
- drivebyacct2 15y agoI get that, I think here though, the idea is that those defaults are probably fine for the average user that can't be bothered to check the config. (On a tangential note, as that link talks about reinstallation and rote reconfiguration, this would be an example of where unix-style/philosophy is so nice. Configure it once, back up your config files in version control and you're good to go even if you reinstall.)
- fl3tch 15y agoPalant said explicitly in a blog post that he turned the whitelist on by default because the vast majority of people don't change the default. The forum has also been inundated by complaints (I've been following this) from people who installed ABP for 4, 5, 6 of their non-tech savvy friends who don't know what's going on, why ABP stopped working, and how to change it back. Thus, Palant has unwittingly caused (perhaps) hundreds of thousands of people to be inundated with tech support requests from their friends. That's part of the backlash.
- w1ntermute 15y ago
- CurtHagenlocher 15y agoIf it were possible for everybody to block all advertising all the time, it would kill today's internet more effectively than SOPA.
- naner 15y agoIf all ad-supported sites went down tomorrow, the Internet would still work fine and there would still be content. Just not as much.
- georgemcbay 15y agoConsidering that both Google and Bing are "ad-supported sites", the big problem for most people (including me) wouldn't be that there would be less content but that it would be too painful to find.
- kaybe 15y agoWell, search engines are singular sites, they could just ask for a monthly fee or some cents per search. That or we could find some way to host a search engine in a distributed way on private servers or even the clients. I'm quite sure a way would be found.
- greenyoda 15y agoLess content could actually turn out to be better. For example, many of the content farms and linkbait blogs would disappear. That could be a good thing.
- mike-cardwell 15y agoNo it wouldn't. Hacker News would still exist, most blogs would still exist. Shopping websites would still exist. Sites which make money via affiliate links and referrals would still exist. Netflix would still exist. Many sites which rely on advertising would convert to other methods of making money, and would be successful. Some would convert and fail, but not all. Email would still exist, IM would still exist. Usenet would still exist. IRC would still exist. Facebook and Twitter would probably die. RSS would still exist. Projects like Diaspora would have more chance of succeeding with no competition from privacy abusing ad reliant services like Facebook. The Internet wouldn't die. The Internet would continue to thrive, and would probably end up providing a much nicer user experience. Most of the services which die, would be the ones that treat the user as the product for sale, and can't make money if that user is no longer a product. That would be a good thing.
- ianlevesque 15y ago> Adblock Plus’s lead developer, Wladimir Palant, has tried to quell the anger, replying personally to the disappointed commenters and explaining that the introduction of “acceptable ads” is true to his vision for the ad-blocking project. The project was never meant to rid the Internet of all advertising, he says, but of annoying advertising. This may have been his goal, but a lot of users (myself included) obviously don't want ANY advertising. It's not that I don't want to support content creation, I would just rather pay real dollars for the services I use than be sold as a commodity to advertisers. I put my money where my mouth is, subscribing to premium ad-free versions of music sites, and paying for online subscriptions to news sites. I also donate to Wikipedia. These are all great ways to support websites that don't involve being subjected to advertising. I don't mind if website operators want to use advertising as a revenue model, but they should be offering a "pay me to opt out". When this becomes widespread, Adblock Plus will be unnecessary. > “I just talked to a tech Web site here in Germany, they have seven employees and 40 percent of their users have ad-blockers,” he said. “There was a tech convention in America, and they couldn’t afford to send more than one journalist because so many of their ads are being blocked.” They should charge for their site. Some nontrivial number of those 40% users would pay, and a paid user is ridiculously more profitable in most cases than the highest CPMs.
- avolcano 15y ago> They should charge for their site. Some nontrivial number of those 40% users would pay, and a paid user is ridiculously more profitable in most cases than the highest CPMs. I don't think you understand why ads are the funding of choice for most of the internet. Imagine the last time you read a random article on a tech blog. You probably were linked to it on HN, or a friend linked it on Twitter, or on Reddit, or whatever. It's likely not something that is in your news feed. For most people, that is how they find content. There's a minority of users who will use RSS or follow specific sites on Twitter, but 99% of users will be linked to it, or maybe Google it, or otherwise stumble across it. They have no actual ties to that site, and will likely read what they are linked and then leave the site until it shows up on HN/Reddit/Twitter again. Now, there are a few sites that have loyal followings. I'm subscribed to GiantBomb.com, for example, because I love its content. But for most sites, putting content behind a paywall would destroy them. No one will pay to read a random article they were linked - and people won't link articles that they know their friends would have to pay to read. Instead, sites must make money from incoming traffic - and thus, ads. If you have 500 regular readers but see 10,000 coming in from a Reddit post, you'll get money from those page views. And, of course, this is also why "pay to opt out" is flawed: you're not going to pay every site you visit over the course of the day (possibly 200+, if you're an avid news/social bookmarking reader) to remove those ads, no matter how convenient. I know we like to pretend that web users will reward the best content by paying, but that model ignores the way the web works. It's not like there's 20 sites we all read; there's a ton we see every day.
- extension 15y agoRather than whitelisting specific advertisers, why not come up with some acceptably non-annoying ad templates and tell the filter to let through things that match the template? Advertisers can just fill in the template and they'll know their ads will be shown. Make the template invisible if there's no ad blocker. I think this might be the ultimate solution to the online advertising issue: the advertisers provide abstract content and the users decide if and how they want to look at it.
- nas 15y agoSounds like an idea. The security principle of "enumerating the good" rather than "enumerating the bad" is an old one. You could define an HTML subset that would be acceptable, perhaps putting total size limits on certain things. That approach would also have effect of keeping the decision of what's acceptable unbiased.
- exolab 15y agoThere are size-limits on ads. Actually there have always (read: for the last 10+ years) been limits. Also, ad servers are usually rigorously tested with regards to performance, speed etc. Not all sites enforce these limits, but major publishers are very aware of users' interests. The problem is that if you visit an average website, there will probably be 20+ servers involved in serving the page, the javascripts, analytics, ads, etc. One of those systems occasionally underperforms, which would not be a problem if everything but the main content was simply loaded asynchronously, possibly in the order of importance a website owner attaches to each content type.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- mrobataille 15y agoRemember the people who thought music piracy was over after Napster got shut down? Once the masses get used to a certain convenience, and that convenience is taken away, someone will inevitably spring up to provide it again. So it really doesn't matter what direction ABP takes - just the fact that it set a precedent for an ad-free experience is enough to ensure someone will provide it in the future.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- HSO 15y agoIn an interview, Mr. Faida focused on the plight of those smaller Web sites that had suffered collateral damage from ad-blocking programs. […] “I just talked to a tech Web site here in Germany, they have seven employees and 40 percent of their users have ad-blockers,” he said. “There was a tech convention in America, and they couldn’t afford to send more than one journalist because so many of their ads are being blocked.” So? The very concept of ads is flawed. There are two things consumers want: a) discovery, b) reviews. Both are best served by independent parties, filters, “editors”, gatekeepers who earn the trust of consumers by doing, guess what, good introductions and good reviews. Sometimes, consumers take it upon themselves to spread the word or write good reviews. Other times, consumers should pay for these things. And producers should concentrate on making good products. Advertising is conscious, paid-for, explicit manipulation of other people. Why is it so hard for some people to not whitewash it and see it for what it is?
- oldstrangers 15y agoAs someone who relies on advertising for my livelihood, and as someone who runs both ABP and Ghostery, I can awkwardly sympathize with both sides. Ultimately though, I still 100% believe that the end user should have ultimate say in what does and does not come across their computer. If they want to block something, that's their right. It's my burden to create the value, not the users. So yes, ABP allowing ANY kind of advertisements kind of pisses me off. It's like creating a safety switch for a gun that allows certain kinds of bullets to be fired.
- nextparadigms 15y agoI don't know if there's a good alternative for Adblock Plus on Firefox, but for Chrome there's one called simply "Adblock", which has been there since the beginning on Chrome, before Adblock Plus, and I'm happy with it.
- slowpoke 15y agoI'm not up to date on this, but wasn't it actually impossible to really block ads on Chrome? As in, they aren't even loaded (that's what ABP does afaik), not merely hidden from display. I seem to remember this was the case a while ago, and I'm unsure if that has changed - Google being an ad company and all. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
- nextparadigms 15y agoIt can block ads for over a year now. Google introduced some code that came from webkit, that allowed Adblockers to block all ads, and they let it be.
- corin_ 15y agoI don't use any adblocker software and also make a living from (good quality) advertising, but yes I agree that users should have the right to chose. However, two issues with your logic: 1.) Users have the right to install the ad-blocking plugins available, that doesn't mean the ABP devs have an obligation to provide it. They too have rights, one of which is to change ABP in any way they like, or to kill it off alltogether. 2.) With this change, ABP users STILL have the ability to block all adverts, so this ABP change hasn't actually prevented them from doing that if they wish.