7 ms·

Show HN: Adboost – A browser extension that adds ads to every webpage

128 points by surprisetalk 9mo ago

swyx 9mo ago
... why OP, why
nothingneko 9mo ago
need that rental gravity
baxtr 9mo ago
Can I buy a subscription to get rid of the ads?
darepublic 9mo ago
Unfortunately the ads are fake
nashashmi 9mo ago
Those ads look better than the modern adware business. Simple. CSS graphics. Text.
antonyh 9mo ago
I was kind of hoping this would let me have ads that I get paid for.
polarbearballs 9mo ago
It'd be cool if we could add a feature that places an ad inside the ad. Sort of like Ad-ception.
63stack 9mo ago
What would happen (theoretically) if ublock would be changed to not only hide the ads, but click on each and every one of them. Would that disincentivize ad networks to run ads because the data would be poisoned?
- rahimnathwani 9mo ago
  Adnauseam (https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/) does this
  - rvnx 9mo ago
    It's also illegal in many jurisdictions (e.g. in the US, viewed as a scheme to defraud advertisers by generating invalid clicks that cause financial harm, by depleting their budgets and push them to spend for fake traffic), but in practice it's way easier to just blacklist that IP / user. The big networks filter such traffic, the small networks benefit from it. https://www.reddit.com/r/legal/comments/1pq6kgp/is_it_legal_to_trick_ads_into_thinking_they_are/ https://www.reddit.com/r/legal/comments/1pq6kgp/is_it_legal_... You may also get accidentally get your own website blacklisted or moved to a lower RPM tier, or provoke shadow-ban websites that you like to visit, or... generate more ad revenue for them.
    - Terretta 9mo ago
      Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face. Any jurisdiction where this is supposedly illegal, it hasn't been court tested seriously.* Per your link: "What you're describing is essentially the extension AdNauseam. So far they have not had any legal troubles, but they technically could." That stance or an assertion it's not illegal is consistent throughout the thread, provided you aren't clicking your own ads. "The industry" thinks you shouldn't be allowed to fast forward your own VCR through an ad either. They can take a flying .. lesson. * Disclaimer: I don't know if that's true, but it sounds true.
      - y-curious 9mo ago
        Telling me this is illegal has made me want to download it more. “IT IS ILLEGAL TO ATTACK THIS NONCONSENSUAL SPAM SIR”
        Tor3 9mo ago
        Some years ago I was by chance listening to a radio program about advertising. They interviewed a marketing guy and he insisted that it was illegal for you to visit the bathroom or the kitchen while the ad was running (on TV or on the radio). Completely nuts.
dankobgd 9mo ago
Seems like every website ever is using this by default already
b33j0r 9mo ago
Ok, so I don’t have an NFL team. I played in high school and like the sport, but find it difficult to be loyal to a color and a logo. I also never watch ads at home on any platform. So. Am I the only one who kind of likes watching the commercials more than the game when my family or friends make me watch football? They are entertaining when you only see them every now and then. Now, banner ads are not in the same category. But above is a real use-case for enjoyment of ads.
- tialaramex 9mo ago
  They get old fast. A few really iconic adverts I could imagine watching once per decade indefinitely, but for most the first time is enough, and where an agency made several similar ads I probably don't need to see all of them even once. Here's an example of an iconic ad I grew up with that I could imagine wanting to see again some day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPFrTBppRfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPFrTBppRfw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accrington_Stanley_F.C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accrington_Stanley_F.C. -- for US readers, the UK has a "football pyramid" in which there's a hierarchy, the elite sport teams you've probably heard of compete in a national league, but every year the worst of those teams can be replaced by the best of those from the league below, and this repeats in layers like a pyramid, until eventually you're talking about friends or co-workers, who play other similar teams in their local area maybe in some public park for the love of the game. Accrington Stanley is in the middle of that pyramid, it's hiring professional players and has a dedicated ground to play football, but we're not talking superstar lifestyles or billion dollar stadiums.
  - b33j0r 9mo ago
    The only thing I agree with the current US president about is that American Football should be called something else. - Helmetball - Gridiron - Scrimmage - Brain-B-Gone - Turnover (if you are Bo Nix) - Fumblederp - Kicks and Giggles
FergusArgyll 9mo ago
{ headline: "We Value Your Privacy", body: "That's why we collect it so carefully. Accept the cookies.", style: "darkpattern", }, https://github.com/surprisetalk/AdBoost/blob/main/content.js#L69 https://github.com/surprisetalk/AdBoost/blob/main/content.js...
CapmCrackaWaka 9mo ago
I misread the title as “AdaBoost” and got excited for some old school ML discussions on HN. My disappointment is immeasurable.
- novakinblood 9mo ago
  I had the exact same reaction!
drcongo 9mo ago
Just use Google Chrome.
rvnx 9mo ago
Is there planned support for popups ?
cortesoft 9mo ago
This reminds me of a company my best friend’s brother worked for, alladvantage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage They paid you to put a little ad banner at the bottom of your screen, and paid you like 5 cents an hour that you had the banner up and you were browsing the web. It tried to watch your browsing to make sure you were actually there, but of course we wrote some script to programmatically visit random web sites. Then they added mouse tracking, so we added mouse movement to our scripts. The most insidious part was that it was also an MLM… you would also get paid for usage by people you referred, too, and then even by people those people referred, with diminishing returns from each level. So like 1 cent an hour for my referrals and .5 cents an hour for their referral referrals. We were broke high school kids, so we put so much time and effort into recruiting people and getting them set up with the auto scripts. By the end we were making in the low 3 figure a month. We knew people who were making even more. Of course, it soon went out of business because of the dotcom bust as well as the ridiculous business model and rampant user fraud, but it was fun while it lasted.
- funkyfiddler369 9mo ago
  they paid you nothing for the things you taught/did for them :D but it does sound fun. let's see if all these large coding models and agents are a similar scheme.
- giarc 9mo ago
  I remember allAdvantage. I remember hitting like $20 or some low figure which was their base payout. For a 12 year old kid that would have been awesome. Lo and behold I got an email saying they had increased their minimum pay out to $50 and I never used it again.
  - ahartmetz 9mo ago
    I must have been early because I received a payout of a few € once.
- pseudohadamard 9mo ago
  Friends of mine did something like that too during the dotcom days, not Alladvantage but some similar, well, dotcom. They were getting so much free stuff they had to invent entire families and sublets to not attract any suspicion.
catchmeifyoucan 9mo ago
I've been waiting for something like this for ages. Hope there's auto-playing video ads too
- levocardia 9mo ago
  Yes, I especially love it when the auto-playing video automatically goes to the lower-right hand corner of the screen when you scroll down so you don't miss anything. So convenient! Can't wait for this exciting new feature.
  - ronsor 9mo ago
    It's better when the auto-playing video automatically reopens itself in case you accidentally close it.
renewiltord 9mo ago
Back in the day, a funny extension was the one that put a Jimmy Wales donation banner on every page https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/11/25/jimmy_wales_chrome_extension/ https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/11/25/jimmy_wales_chr...
gibsonsmog 9mo ago
This is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. I love it.
high_priest 9mo ago
Can it be used to insert content from an intranet server? It would be nice to have the ability to insert ads with company content, so people slacking at work get to involunarily learn about some opportunities or company policy.
ronsor 9mo ago
Thanks. I never knew how much I needed Weather Premium until now.
purplecats 9mo ago
this is unironically useful bc if it works well, can use that algo to instead of serving ads, enrich ai responses by adding image and media previews appropriately at the right spots (layout modifications)
mitkebes 9mo ago
Pretty sure I've removed scammy browser extensions that injected ads before, so this probably isn't "the only browser extension that adds ads to webpages".
srinath693 9mo ago
Finally, an honest product. Every other browser extension that injects ads into your pages pretends it isn't doing that.
gitaarik 9mo ago
But who do earns money from the clicks? I would like to give this to people who argue that you shouldn't use ad blockers because ads help the website's owners financially and that's a way to support the owner. If this extension would send the money to the owner of the site where the ad is displayed, then I could refer them to this plugin so they can have ads everywhere and help all website owners ; )

128 points by surprisetalk 9mo ago

swyx 9mo ago

... why OP, why

nothingneko 9mo ago

need that rental gravity

baxtr 9mo ago

Can I buy a subscription to get rid of the ads?

darepublic 9mo ago

Unfortunately the ads are fake

nashashmi 9mo ago

Those ads look better than the modern adware business. Simple. CSS graphics. Text.

antonyh 9mo ago

I was kind of hoping this would let me have ads that I get paid for.

polarbearballs 9mo ago

It'd be cool if we could add a feature that places an ad inside the ad. Sort of like Ad-ception.

63stack 9mo ago

What would happen (theoretically) if ublock would be changed to not only hide the ads, but click on each and every one of them. Would that disincentivize ad networks to run ads because the data would be poisoned?

rahimnathwani 9mo ago
Adnauseam (https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/) does this
- rvnx 9mo ago
  It's also illegal in many jurisdictions (e.g. in the US, viewed as a scheme to defraud advertisers by generating invalid clicks that cause financial harm, by depleting their budgets and push them to spend for fake traffic), but in practice it's way easier to just blacklist that IP / user. The big networks filter such traffic, the small networks benefit from it. https://www.reddit.com/r/legal/comments/1pq6kgp/is_it_legal_to_trick_ads_into_thinking_they_are/ https://www.reddit.com/r/legal/comments/1pq6kgp/is_it_legal_... You may also get accidentally get your own website blacklisted or moved to a lower RPM tier, or provoke shadow-ban websites that you like to visit, or... generate more ad revenue for them.
  - Terretta 9mo ago
    Don't tell me I'm not allowed to click buttons you put in my face. Any jurisdiction where this is supposedly illegal, it hasn't been court tested seriously.* Per your link: "What you're describing is essentially the extension AdNauseam. So far they have not had any legal troubles, but they technically could." That stance or an assertion it's not illegal is consistent throughout the thread, provided you aren't clicking your own ads. "The industry" thinks you shouldn't be allowed to fast forward your own VCR through an ad either. They can take a flying .. lesson. * Disclaimer: I don't know if that's true, but it sounds true.
    - y-curious 9mo ago
      Telling me this is illegal has made me want to download it more. “IT IS ILLEGAL TO ATTACK THIS NONCONSENSUAL SPAM SIR”
      - Tor3 9mo ago
        Some years ago I was by chance listening to a radio program about advertising. They interviewed a marketing guy and he insisted that it was illegal for you to visit the bathroom or the kitchen while the ad was running (on TV or on the radio). Completely nuts.

dankobgd 9mo ago

Seems like every website ever is using this by default already

b33j0r 9mo ago

Ok, so I don’t have an NFL team. I played in high school and like the sport, but find it difficult to be loyal to a color and a logo. I also never watch ads at home on any platform. So. Am I the only one who kind of likes watching the commercials more than the game when my family or friends make me watch football? They are entertaining when you only see them every now and then. Now, banner ads are not in the same category. But above is a real use-case for enjoyment of ads.

tialaramex 9mo ago
They get old fast. A few really iconic adverts I could imagine watching once per decade indefinitely, but for most the first time is enough, and where an agency made several similar ads I probably don't need to see all of them even once. Here's an example of an iconic ad I grew up with that I could imagine wanting to see again some day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPFrTBppRfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPFrTBppRfw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accrington_Stanley_F.C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accrington_Stanley_F.C. -- for US readers, the UK has a "football pyramid" in which there's a hierarchy, the elite sport teams you've probably heard of compete in a national league, but every year the worst of those teams can be replaced by the best of those from the league below, and this repeats in layers like a pyramid, until eventually you're talking about friends or co-workers, who play other similar teams in their local area maybe in some public park for the love of the game. Accrington Stanley is in the middle of that pyramid, it's hiring professional players and has a dedicated ground to play football, but we're not talking superstar lifestyles or billion dollar stadiums.
- b33j0r 9mo ago
  The only thing I agree with the current US president about is that American Football should be called something else. - Helmetball - Gridiron - Scrimmage - Brain-B-Gone - Turnover (if you are Bo Nix) - Fumblederp - Kicks and Giggles

FergusArgyll 9mo ago

{ headline: "We Value Your Privacy", body: "That's why we collect it so carefully. Accept the cookies.", style: "darkpattern", }, https://github.com/surprisetalk/AdBoost/blob/main/content.js#L69 https://github.com/surprisetalk/AdBoost/blob/main/content.js...

CapmCrackaWaka 9mo ago

I misread the title as “AdaBoost” and got excited for some old school ML discussions on HN. My disappointment is immeasurable.

novakinblood 9mo ago
I had the exact same reaction!

drcongo 9mo ago

Just use Google Chrome.

rvnx 9mo ago

Is there planned support for popups ?

cortesoft 9mo ago

This reminds me of a company my best friend’s brother worked for, alladvantage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllAdvantage They paid you to put a little ad banner at the bottom of your screen, and paid you like 5 cents an hour that you had the banner up and you were browsing the web. It tried to watch your browsing to make sure you were actually there, but of course we wrote some script to programmatically visit random web sites. Then they added mouse tracking, so we added mouse movement to our scripts. The most insidious part was that it was also an MLM… you would also get paid for usage by people you referred, too, and then even by people those people referred, with diminishing returns from each level. So like 1 cent an hour for my referrals and .5 cents an hour for their referral referrals. We were broke high school kids, so we put so much time and effort into recruiting people and getting them set up with the auto scripts. By the end we were making in the low 3 figure a month. We knew people who were making even more. Of course, it soon went out of business because of the dotcom bust as well as the ridiculous business model and rampant user fraud, but it was fun while it lasted.

funkyfiddler369 9mo ago
they paid you nothing for the things you taught/did for them :D but it does sound fun. let's see if all these large coding models and agents are a similar scheme.
giarc 9mo ago
I remember allAdvantage. I remember hitting like $20 or some low figure which was their base payout. For a 12 year old kid that would have been awesome. Lo and behold I got an email saying they had increased their minimum pay out to $50 and I never used it again.
- ahartmetz 9mo ago
  I must have been early because I received a payout of a few € once.
pseudohadamard 9mo ago
Friends of mine did something like that too during the dotcom days, not Alladvantage but some similar, well, dotcom. They were getting so much free stuff they had to invent entire families and sublets to not attract any suspicion.

catchmeifyoucan 9mo ago

I've been waiting for something like this for ages. Hope there's auto-playing video ads too

levocardia 9mo ago
Yes, I especially love it when the auto-playing video automatically goes to the lower-right hand corner of the screen when you scroll down so you don't miss anything. So convenient! Can't wait for this exciting new feature.
- ronsor 9mo ago
  It's better when the auto-playing video automatically reopens itself in case you accidentally close it.

renewiltord 9mo ago

Back in the day, a funny extension was the one that put a Jimmy Wales donation banner on every page https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/11/25/jimmy_wales_chrome_extension/ https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/11/25/jimmy_wales_chr...

gibsonsmog 9mo ago

This is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. I love it.

high_priest 9mo ago

Can it be used to insert content from an intranet server? It would be nice to have the ability to insert ads with company content, so people slacking at work get to involunarily learn about some opportunities or company policy.

ronsor 9mo ago

Thanks. I never knew how much I needed Weather Premium until now.

purplecats 9mo ago

this is unironically useful bc if it works well, can use that algo to instead of serving ads, enrich ai responses by adding image and media previews appropriately at the right spots (layout modifications)

mitkebes 9mo ago

Pretty sure I've removed scammy browser extensions that injected ads before, so this probably isn't "the only browser extension that adds ads to webpages".

srinath693 9mo ago

Finally, an honest product. Every other browser extension that injects ads into your pages pretends it isn't doing that.

gitaarik 9mo ago

But who do earns money from the clicks? I would like to give this to people who argue that you shouldn't use ad blockers because ads help the website's owners financially and that's a way to support the owner. If this extension would send the money to the owner of the site where the ad is displayed, then I could refer them to this plugin so they can have ads everywhere and help all website owners ; )