3 ms·

It's not very hard to see when particular web requests did not happen, or particular JS did not execute.

by Dwedit 3y ago

blibble 3y ago
you can make the request and hide the result from the user
- tekla 3y ago
  Which defeats about 75% of the reason to use the adblocker.
  - impeplague 3y ago
    In the specific case of YouTube, it does not. The content and ads providers are the same.
  - graphe 3y ago
    I'd say closer to 99.9999% of users who can stream YouTube aren't trying to save data and just want to AdBlock.
  - blibble 3y ago
    if there's no other option it's a still infinitely better than seeing HOT SINGLES IN YOUR AREA or another MANSCAPED ad if it gets to that point I wouldn't mind the adblocker even automatically clicking the ad some percentage of the time, just to punish Google
    - fxtentacle 3y ago
      That's called AdNauseam.
      - blibble 3y ago
        not quite I don't want to punish everyone, only those attempting to coerce me into disabling the ad-blocker
- pavon 3y ago
  For something like YouTube it can probably still be detected by timing. If the browser plays part A of a video, then when it is done immediately requests part B of the video, when there is supposed to be a 2 minute gap to play an ad, that can be detected on the server side. The client could try to get around that by doing things like telling the server it is playing at 2x, and then really playback at 1x, but then the server could send different content (pre-downsampled) depending on the playback rate requested.
dale_glass 3y ago
That doesn't seem to be what is happening, because then uBlock Origin couldn't work around it. Also things like Newpipe and embedding can be used to bypass the block as well. I find all of this weird because it seems all so lacking in fundamentals. I'd expect indeed checking whether the content was actually downloaded. That'd be much harder to work around. In turn that should result in an ad blocker that downloads content but doesn't show it, completing the circle. I think properly doing it would require a specialized web browser, capable of keeping two separate models, one which it pretends to render, and one which is actually renders.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  It is beneficial for Google to drag out any cat and mouse game against ad blockers as long as possible. They are all built and maintained by volunteers, who get yelled at by assholes every time something changes and breaks an ad blocker even for a single night. Google is trying to make this suck for the maintainers, explicitly so they stop maintaining the ad blocker.

It's not very hard to see when particular web requests did not happen, or particular JS did not execute.

by Dwedit 3y ago

It's not very hard to see when particular web requests did not happen, or particular JS did not execute.

blibble 3y ago

you can make the request and hide the result from the user

tekla 3y ago
Which defeats about 75% of the reason to use the adblocker.
- impeplague 3y ago
  In the specific case of YouTube, it does not. The content and ads providers are the same.
- graphe 3y ago
  I'd say closer to 99.9999% of users who can stream YouTube aren't trying to save data and just want to AdBlock.
- blibble 3y ago
  if there's no other option it's a still infinitely better than seeing HOT SINGLES IN YOUR AREA or another MANSCAPED ad if it gets to that point I wouldn't mind the adblocker even automatically clicking the ad some percentage of the time, just to punish Google
  - fxtentacle 3y ago
    That's called AdNauseam.
    - blibble 3y ago
      not quite I don't want to punish everyone, only those attempting to coerce me into disabling the ad-blocker
pavon 3y ago
For something like YouTube it can probably still be detected by timing. If the browser plays part A of a video, then when it is done immediately requests part B of the video, when there is supposed to be a 2 minute gap to play an ad, that can be detected on the server side. The client could try to get around that by doing things like telling the server it is playing at 2x, and then really playback at 1x, but then the server could send different content (pre-downsampled) depending on the playback rate requested.

dale_glass 3y ago

That doesn't seem to be what is happening, because then uBlock Origin couldn't work around it. Also things like Newpipe and embedding can be used to bypass the block as well. I find all of this weird because it seems all so lacking in fundamentals. I'd expect indeed checking whether the content was actually downloaded. That'd be much harder to work around. In turn that should result in an ad blocker that downloads content but doesn't show it, completing the circle. I think properly doing it would require a specialized web browser, capable of keeping two separate models, one which it pretends to render, and one which is actually renders.

mrguyorama 3y ago
It is beneficial for Google to drag out any cat and mouse game against ad blockers as long as possible. They are all built and maintained by volunteers, who get yelled at by assholes every time something changes and breaks an ad blocker even for a single night. Google is trying to make this suck for the maintainers, explicitly so they stop maintaining the ad blocker.