9 ms·

Adblock Plus “typo correction” feature adds affiliate IDs to links

sdfjkl 13y ago
So what's a good alternative (Firefox)? I'm using GlimmerBlocker, but due to being a proxy, it can't filter HTTPS pages. Adblock Edge looks like a decrapified fork of Adblock Plus.
- gasull 13y ago
  Firefox addons for privacy and security with usable settings: - AdBlock Edge. Filter subscriptions: EasyList, EasyPrivacy, Disable Malware, Fanboy's Annoyance List, Prebake - NoScript. Use "allow scripts globally" or otherwise most websites won't work. It will still protect against know attacks. - Cookie Monster. Then set global/default preference to saving cookies for session only. - FireGloves. Uncheck "disable plugin and mimeType lists" in Cloak Settings. - HTTPS Everywhere - LastPass
  - shaggy 13y ago
    Is there some mistake in your NoScript item? Installing the plug-in and then using "allow scripts globally" is the equivalent of never installing the plug-in. It provides almost no value at all when run that way.
    - gasull 13y ago
      No. It stills protects against known attacks, like XSS attacks. If you block scripts by default you'll have to configure what scripts to allow every time you visit a new site, or every time the site adds new assets.
  - 83a 13y ago
    requestpolicy <- simply blocks all traffic to external webserver
    - gasull 13y ago
      RequestPolicy suffers of the same problem as NoScript with default settings: it blocks everything and you have to waste time configuring what JS files are allowed in each site you visit. Your browsing becomes 10,000% more inefficient.
- eliasmacpherson 13y ago
  I use noscript as well as adblock plus.
- ra 13y ago
  Ghostery. Can't recommend it highly enough; also works on Chrome, Safari, Opera and IE.
  - asb 13y ago
    Ghostery users should be aware of: http://www.businessinsider.com/evidon-sells-ghostery-data-to-advertisers-2013-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/evidon-sells-ghostery-data-to... (no judgement on the practice implied, just flagging it as something for potential users to consider).
    - JonnieCache 13y ago
      Ghostery alternative: https://disconnect.me https://disconnect.me
      - jrochkind1 13y ago
        Disconnect has generally been working better for me than Ghostery did too; although some parts of the Disconnect UI I still find more confusing and harder to use than analagous parts of ghostery.
      - fakeer 13y ago
        Last time I checked it was not fully open source. Is it yet?
      - WickyNilliams 13y ago
        And open source apparently! https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect
    - nivla 13y ago
      But isn't that only if you enable Ghost Rank, which is disabled by default?
      - dombili 13y ago
        That's correct.
- chmod775 13y ago
  I just founds this, it's a fork of Adblock Plus: https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/?src=search https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/?sr...
- chalst 13y ago
  The easiest to audit is to change /etc/hosts to send malware sites to 127.0.0.1. I use Dan Pollock's hosts file, which is well-commented: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ I keep a Git repository with the contents that I update from time to time - this makes it easier to do diffs against past versions: https://github.com/chalst/pollockhostsfork https://github.com/chalst/pollockhostsfork
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - chalst 13y ago
      On the hardware I've looked at, loopback requests are handled in well under a microsecond - I guess this case is not worth optimising. On Linux, 127.0.0.0 is a broadcast address, while on Windows, it is a sink address.
  - dbcooper 13y ago
    If you want a smaller HOSTS file (useful with Windows) that only targets advertisement and tracking servers, I've found HP Hosts' ad_servers.asp list to be good. http://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.asp http://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.asp
- mjn 13y ago
  I use the venerable (but still actively maintained) Privoxy, which is a proxy but still does most of what I want on HTTPS pages. It can't examine the page contents themselves, but it can block 3rd-party requests by hostname, which gets most of the web-bugs and such.
  - claudius 13y ago
    I had some problems with loading times/pipelining in Opera (12.x) and Privoxy and hence changed to AdBlock (which appears to be the same as AdBlock Chrome referred to above). Browsing became much smoother afterwards.
    - anoymous9352 13y ago
      Privoxy is associated with SPI, which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. A far cry from that shady AdBlock garbage. If you sacrifice privacy/security for convenience, don't be surprised when it has later repercussions. Privoxy is also highly configurable unlike AdBlock. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be at the mercy of some jerkoff named Wladimir, who seems to have basically zero accountability and a very lax sense of ethics.
beedogs 13y ago
Site also seems to be suffering a mafia-like DDoS attack.
dbcooper 13y ago
Lets try an experiment with Amazon referrers. (a) Take a "randomly" sourced blog post for a book review: http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/14/the-unwinding-is-george-packer-john-dos http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/14/the-unwinding-is-george-pa... (b) Check links to amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmagazineA/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmaga... (c) Click through and check URL: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmagazineA/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmaga... Looks OK. Anything I'm missing?
- angry-hacker 13y ago
  It has something to do with their feature called typo corrections, only available for Firefox right now (I have only ABP for Chrome/FireFox). It has to be enabled, if it is enabled by default for all user or not, I'm not sure. typoRules.js downloads urlfixer.org/download/rules.json?version=2 where the redirect is made if you type for an example: amazon.comm, I get (FireFox only) redirected to their affiliate amazon.com link. For an example, amazon.co.ukk gets redirected to http://www.amazon.co.uk/?tag=uf07d-21 http://www.amazon.co.uk/?tag=uf07d-21 Edit: Some of the lines of that file: "domainReferrals":{"amazon.co.uk":"tag=uf07d-21","amazon.com":"tag=uf024-20","amazon.de":"tag=uf0e6-21","amazon.es":"tag=uf07-21","amazon.fr":"tag=uf02b-21","amazon.it":"tag=uf08d-21","ozon.ru":"partner=urlfixer"},"
  - dbcooper 13y ago
    I tried with typo corrections on, but did not see any differences.
    - angry-hacker 13y ago
      I edited my answer a bit, try for an example amazon.co.ukk, still no difference?
  - dbcooper 13y ago
    reply to edit: If I change the .com to .comm it changes the URL to: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmagazineA/?tag=uf024-20 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmaga... So this is only for mistyped (edit) manually typed referrer URLs?
nwh 13y ago
Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilegeeks.de%2Fadblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilegeeks.de%2Fadblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk%2F&aqs=chrome.0.69i57j69i58.2627j0&sourceid=chrome&espv=205&ie=UTF-8 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp... Google translated Google cache: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwebcache.googleusercontent.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dcache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilegeeks.de%2Fadblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk%2F%26oq%3Dcache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilegeeks.de%2Fadblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk%2F%26aqs%3Dchrome.0.69i57j69i58.2627j0%26sourceid%3Dchrome%26espv%3D205%26ie%3DUTF-8 http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=ht...
hartator 13y ago
Changing Amazon referencial links... Seriously? and this guy is asking for donation putting forward his wife and his life.
- bliker 13y ago
  I think you are talking about AdBlock, Adblock Plus is different.
  - glitch273 13y ago
    Are those two programs made by different people? I thought one was just the paid version of the free one.
    - jtome 13y ago
      Adblock just very noisly requests a donation, it doesn't require you to actually pay. Adblock plus does not do either.
    - jasonlotito 13y ago
      Yes.
    - colkassad 13y ago
      They are different, but can anyone be blamed for confusing the two?
    - bliker 13y ago
      Adblock Plus - company in question. AdBlock - Donationware. They also run this http://chromeadblock.com/catblock/download/ http://chromeadblock.com/catblock/download/ It replaces ads with pictures of cats. Hilarious
bliker 13y ago
if you have a minute you can go there and report abuse https://chrome.google.com/webstore/report/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb https://chrome.google.com/webstore/report/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkda... and https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/#id=1865 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/...
- hilti 13y ago
  Just did it.
sciurus 13y ago
These are the ads Adblock Plus allows: https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.txt https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.tx...
sp332 13y ago
When I click the page, it just loads google translate recursively. http://imgur.com/JJJ231i http://imgur.com/JJJ231i
Zirro 13y ago
A blog post on the Adblock Plus-website from 44 days ago mentions a "joint campaign" by several German newspapers against ad blockers. I imagine this is part of it, although that's doesn't necessarily mean that they are wrong and/or exaggerate their accusations. See here: https://adblockplus.org/blog/our-thoughts-on-the-unity-of-german-newspapers-against-ad-blockers https://adblockplus.org/blog/our-thoughts-on-the-unity-of-ge...
- ibotty 13y ago
  no that is something different. (at least the joint campaign had pretty much no arguments, whereas the submission raises a few doubts, to say the least.)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
0x0 13y ago
Is this in any way related to the "AdBlock" extension (not "...plus")? https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock/gighmmpiob...
- colkassad 13y ago
  Apparently not: "AdBlock is not to be confused with Adblock Plus. The developer of AdBlock for Chrome claims to have been inspired by AdBlock Plus, which is a community supported development effort, but otherwise the two efforts are unrelated."[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdBlock_(Chrome) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdBlock_(Chrome)
  - jpreiland 13y ago
    Huh... well that clears up a lot. I've tried both and was curious as to why the "Plus" version of an extension allowed tons of ads when the regular "AdBlock" did a perfect job of never showing me ads. I guess that answers that question.
  - nathan_long 13y ago
    Correct. Adblock is supported by donations only. https://chromeadblock.com/pay/ https://chromeadblock.com/pay/
  - fuzzywalrus 13y ago
    Thanks, I was getting mighty confused about adblock and thinking, "I didn't think this was even a German property"
SifJar 13y ago
I'm struggling to fully understand the article due to the poor Google Translation. Anyone offer some concise clarification as to what ABP is actually doing? Is it "just" that they are changing Amazon referral links on websites to their own referral links so they get money instead, or is there more to it than that? Are they even actually doing that? (Or is it just that they aren't blocking referral links made with software by one of ABP's creators?) EDIT: I came across this from a few months back: http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of-shaking-down-websites/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of-sha... Seems to be about some similar stuff
- Hopka 13y ago
  They are also allegedly not filtering a set of white-listed ads, most of which come from companies that pay 30% of their ad revenue to the company behind AdBlock Plus.
  - jrabone 13y ago
    ABP has had an option to enable some white-listed ads for a while. It's ticked by default, but it's not exactly hidden...
  - SifJar 13y ago
    I came across this article which seems to back that up: http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of-shaking-down-websites/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of-sha... (from a few months ago)
- lazyjones 13y ago
  Allegedly they are changing Amazon referral links and on top of that they automatically convert non-affiliate links to affiliate links with their own ID wherever possible.
- hnha 13y ago
  that paragraph is difficult to understand even in german, to me it sounds like not apb, but another addon ( http://urlfixer.org http://urlfixer.org ) is the one with the amazon link tampering.
philtar 13y ago
Can anyone actually confirm this?
- engtech 13y ago
  You have to enable the typo option and the amazon referrer rewrite happens. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194
  - drchaos 13y ago
    I think the word "rewrite" is misleading in that context. ABP does not rewrite existing referrers (which would in fact be "mafia style"), instead it adds its own referrer when correcting/rewriting links with a typo: amazon.com/?tag=someReferrer will not be changed amazon.comm will be rewritten to amazon.com/?tag=uf024-20
    - bdcravens 13y ago
      Not much better, arguably worse. If my intention was to go to Amazon.com, they're now "helping" me and writing a cookie that wouldn't have been there, and earning $ in the process. A bare WWW request should never result in affiliate income.
      - DanBC 13y ago
        I tend to agree with you, but I'd be happy for Pinterest to convert any non-affiliate links to affiliate links. They'd need to make it very clear what they were doing before doing it. I get value from Pinterest's collection, so I'm happy for them to skim a little bit of money from my purchase. Shopping is hellish, and Pinterest makes it easier for me. I am aware that they got into trouble for using skimlinks to convert links. (I think they were converting affiliate links to their affiliate links which is pretty dodgy.)
mparramon 13y ago
http://adblockplus.org/en/features http://adblockplus.org/en/features : "Adblock Plus will always block annoying ads. Still, many websites rely on advertising revenues so we want to encourage websites to use plain and unobtrusive advertising instead of flashy banners. That's why the Adblock Plus community has established strict guidelines to identify acceptable ads, and Adblock Plus allows these out of the box. You can always disable this feature if you want to block all ads." Could this be related? Link to the guidelines: http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#criteria http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#criteria Edit: I just contacted Till Faida about this, will keep this post updated.
MattDL 13y ago
Isn't it possible to just check the source code of FireFox addons? Would be good if somebody could confirm if that is the case.
- grimtrigger 13y ago
  Can anyone confirm/deny if the article points to any specific code? It's down.
radiospiel 13y ago
The original, german text does not state that ABP actually rewrites amazon affiliate links. It mentions "Amazon" once, in a sentence which could be translated at "..how to justify drying up financial base (which are amazon links) for thousands of small blogs.." (That doesn't mean ABP does not change amazon referral links, though)
- edwintorok 13y ago
  Could it be a typo, i.e. that adblock plus charges (money) for allowing people's amazon refs through the filter? Although if you check exceptionrules.txt there are only 3 domains that have amazon links whitelisted. EDIT: apparently the 2nd page of the article writes about the possibility of changing links.
  - janfoeh 13y ago
    It's not a typo. Here is a manual translation of the paragraph containing the allegation: Schaut man sich den Quellcode von Adblock Plus an, dann stolpert man ueber die “typoRules.js”" welche Vertipper in der Adresszeile des Browsers ueber eine dann nachgeladene Datei http://urlfixer.org/download/rules.json korrigiert. Den Spass gibt es uebrigens auch als separates Add-On http://urlfixer.org, ebenfalls vom feinen Herrn Palant! Und jetzt anschnallen, denn dabei werden fuer alle internationalen Amazon-Shops automatisch die eigenen Amazon-IDs angehaengt! "If you take a look into Adblock Plus' source code, you will trip over a "typoRules.js", which corrects typos made in your browsers' URL bar with the help of the subsequently loaded file http://urlfixer.org/download/rules.json http://urlfixer.org/download/rules.json. By the way, you can obtain this funny little gadget as a standalone add-on from http://urlfixer.org http://urlfixer.org as well, from the same honorable Mr. Palant! Now fasten your seatbelts, because this automatically adds their own Amazon IDs for all international Amazon shops!
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
      - 13y ago
Uchikoma 13y ago
From the article: Investors in Adblock Plus / Owners of the company behind Adblock Plus also invest/own ad-network companies, which they put on the white list while they keep out competitors. The article claims one can buy oneself onto the whitelist.
hesselink 13y ago
I have Adblock Plus installed, but comparing an Amazon affiliate link in Firefox with Adblock Plus, with one in Chrome (no Adblock Plus) shows no difference.
- philhippus 13y ago
  There are several points at which the link can be changed from when it loads to after it is clicked. Did you compare every scenario?
  - hesselink 13y ago
    I compared before clicking, and the final page I ended up on at Amazon's site. Both were the same.
rmk2 13y ago
> Fuenfzehn Mitarbeiter, davon zwei Geschaeftsfuehrer, weitere Stellenanzeigen sind geschaltet, Bueros im Koelner Clusterhaus? Und das einzige Produkt ist eine kostenlose Browser-Erweiterung? Wie kann das funktionieren? Fifteen employees, two of those managers, further job ads are taken out, offices in Cologne's Clusterhaus? And the only product is a free of charge browser extension? How does that work? Additionally, this part seems important as well: > Viel wichtiger: das ist also Till Faidas Verstaendnis von akzeptablen Werbeanzeigen: gefakte Testberichte und Auszeichnungen, pseudoneutrale Bewertungen auf anonymisierten Blogs. Artikel, geschrieben von der PR-Abteilung und Geschaeftsfuehrung eines Unternehmens, suchmaschinenoptimierter Content-Dreck fuer das eigene Produkt. Scam nennt man sowas in Fachkreisen! More importantly: so this is Till Faida's understanding of acceptable advertisements: faked test reports and awards, pseudoneutral ratings on anonymised blogs. Articles, written by the PR-department and by the management of a company, search-engine-optimised content-dreck [i.e. crud] for their own product. Expert circles tend to call this scam! [the translation isn't the prettiest but hopefully quite close to the original in both meaning and intent] [edit] The whole "mafia" argument seems to stem from these questionable practices of "anonymous" and thus seemingly neutral feedback, originating from within the company itself. [edit 2] fixed first translation, since I forgot the half-sentence "weitere [...]"
Sujan 13y ago
FYI: The article is separated on 2 pages: http://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk/2/ http://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-... http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilegeeks.de%2Fadblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk%2F2%2F&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:de:official&client=firefox-a http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%... The allegation concerning rewriting links is on this second page, for example.
Sujan 13y ago
The allegations concerning changing referal links are based on a source file of the extension. Did anybody check that? Any real proof or is this just a leftover?
- engtech 13y ago
  You have to enable the typo option and it happens. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194
mikejarema 13y ago
Interestingly, Amazon is changing the terms of their Associates program to (among other things) specifically prohibit browser plugins from being eligible for sales commissions: 7. Except as agreed between you and us in a separate written agreement referencing this Participation Requirement, you will not use any Content or Special Link, or otherwise link to the Amazon Site, on or in connection with: a. any client-side software application (e.g., a browser plug-in, helper object, toolbar, extension, or component or any other application executable or installable by an end user) on any device, including computers, mobile phones, tablets, or other handheld devices; - https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/compare?ref_=pe_173690_30619550 https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/oper...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
bad_user 13y ago
I cannot verify the claims, but I'll state the reasons once again about why I'm not using ad blockers: 1) free websites and web services need revenue and as long as the ads are tasteful, I don't mind them 2) I actually want websites to annoy me with lots of stupid ads, as I want to stop using such websites, because I want to reward publishers that don't do that Ad blockers are trying to fix a symptom of the disease and in doing so they only help spreading and growing that disease.
- zeckalpha 13y ago
  How do ad blockers affect revenue? Don't they still fetch the ads but just limit the presentation of the ads? So it would be indistinguishable from someone who just does not click on the ads?
  - caust1c 13y ago
    Most block the loading of the url that contains the ad content. The website owners rarely host the ads they're displaying. In that regard, it's very easy to detect if someone is using AdBlock or not.
    - orclev 13y ago
      Only if you own both the site and the ad network otherwise you'll be unable to tell if they made a request for the ad or not. There are also ways of getting false positives with that sort of test, for instance if for whatever reason the server that has the ad on it isn't reachable from the client (say a problem in one of the major backbones, or a bad DNS entry). The usual approach I've seen sites take is they have some sort of "Please disable your ad-blocker" image that they load everywhere ads go, and then just overlay the ad image on top of that one when it loads.
  - namdnay 13y ago
    No, one of the advantages of ad blockers is that they cut down on the amount of traffic, you don't download the ads. In fact, several websites show you a warning message, or refuse to load, if you're running an adblocker.
oomkiller 13y ago
On a related note, has anyone considered the fallout of a popular extensions like Adblock/Adblock Chrome etc being compromised?
Sujan 13y ago
Objection here from Till Faida (CEO) here: http://t3n.de/news/adblock-plus-geschaftsfuhrer-476502/ http://t3n.de/news/adblock-plus-geschaftsfuhrer-476502/ (German)
flashfabrixx 13y ago
The link refers to a given interview (http://j.mp/138mDHs http://j.mp/138mDHs) with Till Filda (Owner of Ad Block Plus) who gives the information that user can opt-out of the build in "Acceptable Ads program". In his words the reason for an acceptable ads program seems to be showing acceptable ads (non flashing, blinking, annoying, ...) to the user which seems legit. Can't understand the 'Mafia' term in this. It's a free product this is their business model. You as a user choose if you accept (or opt-out) this or leave the product behind.
NIL8 13y ago
This seems a lot like cookie-stuffing. AdBlock and AdBlockPlus are free to run their company any way they want (within reason). However, this is a serious breach of trust. They should inform me of any change or re-direct they perform - before they do it.
izietto 13y ago
NoSCript http://noscript.net/ http://noscript.net/ is way better
- anoymous9352 13y ago
  It's also completely and utterly pointless. Just disable JavaScript and build your own minimal whitelist. Chrome supports this natively, without you having to trust yet another jackass plugin author. Probably 90% of authors will get an instant hardon for "monetization" the second their plugin reaches a million or so users, regardless of it's original premise.
Kerrick 13y ago
This must be why Amazon Associates changed their Terms of Service starting July 1. https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/compare https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/oper... > “7. Except as agreed between you and us in a separate written agreement referencing this Participation Requirement, you will not use any Content or Special Link, or otherwise link to the Amazon Site, on or in connection with: > a. any client-side software application (e.g., a browser plug-in, helper object, toolbar, extension, or component or any other application executable or installable by an end user) on any device, including computers, mobile phones, tablets, or other handheld devices; > [...]
nilved 13y ago
Who's been using Adblock Plus after they whitelisted sites behind your back? It jumped the shark. Move on to one of the dozens of lightweight, superior forks.
- pi18n 13y ago
  Recommend us one?
Tobu 13y ago
I can't find any reference to Amazon in the source code. The source code is over there (GPL): https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/ https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/ The article seems to say this is related to the typo feature, but https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/file/tip/defaults/typoRules.json https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/file/tip/defaults/typ... has never changed since the introduction of the feature in 2012-11.
- edwintorok 13y ago
  typoRules.js downloads http://urlfixer.org/download/rules.json?version=2 http://urlfixer.org/download/rules.json?version=2, which contains (among others): "domainReferrals":{"amazon.co.uk":"tag=uf07d-21","amazon.com":"tag=uf024-20","amazon.de":"tag=uf0e6-21","amazon.es":"tag=uf07-21","amazon.fr":"tag=uf02b-21","amazon.it":"tag=uf08d-21","ozon.ru":"partner=urlfixer"},
  - Tobu 13y ago
    Okay. It seems that if I enable the typo feature (which is disabled by default, I've just checked in a clean profile) and go to amazon.comm, I get redirected to http://amazon.com/?tag=uf024-20 http://amazon.com/?tag=uf024-20 ABP notifies me of the redirection, and I can accept or blacklist it.
    - edwintorok 13y ago
      Yeah it seems to be default off, and they're not hiding the fact that this is a monetization source: https://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adblock-plus https://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adbl... However it appears to add that tag only if I typo the name, if I follow a good Amazon link (with or without the affiliate) then it doesn't get 'corrected'. Although since the rewrite rules are downloaded from a remote location (over HTTP, not even HTTPS!) they could in theory decide to rewrite any links in the future, without many people noticing.
      - Tobu 13y ago
rmk2 13y ago
AdBlock Plus confirms most points via heise.de (updated half an hour ago): http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Schwere-Vorwuerfe-gegen-Werbeblocker-AdBlock-Plus-1897152.html http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Schwere-Vorwuerfe-geg... > In einer Stellungnahme bestätigen die Macher von AdBlock Plus die von Pallenberg aufgezeigten Zusammenhänge weitgehend. "Ein Großteil der Informationen zu der Zusammenarbeit mit unseren Partnern ist korrekt recherchiert, einiges nicht", heißt es in einer Stellungnahme von Mitgründer Till Faida, den Pallenberg in seinem Artikel kritisiert hatte. "Im Gegensatz zu Sascha Pallenberg sehen wir in der Vernetzung keinen Gewissenskonflikt." The makers of AdBlock Plus largely confirm Pallenberg's connections in a statement. "The bulk of the information about the cooperation with our partners is investigated correctly, some isn't", according to a statement by co-founder Till Faida, who Pallenberg had criticised in his article. "Unlike Sascha, we do not see a moral conflict in this interconnectedness." >Das Unternehmen ist überzeugt, dass sich Werbeformen wie die "Acceptable Ads" langfristig durchsetzen wird. Das Whitelisting sei für kleine und mittelgroße Webseiten kostenlos. "Dabei haben wir immer transparent geäußert, dass große Unternehmen unsere Initiative finanziell unterstützen." Eine Bevorzugung dieser Firmen gebe es jedoch nicht, die Kriterien seien für alle gleich. Auch die Kriterien der Entscheidungen durch die Community seien "vollkommen transparent". The company is convinced that advertisement forms like "Acceptable Ads" will prevail in the long run. Whitelisting is free of charge for small and medium-sized websites. "We have always transparently communicated that big companies support our initiative financially." However, preferential treatment of these companies does not exist, the criteria are the same for everybody. The criteria for decisions by the community are also "completely transparent." [1] [1]: The whole paragraph is difficult to translate since it makes extensive use of indirect speech, which is marked by the German Konjunktiv, without a clear marker of a speaker. The whole paragraph is a mixture of direct quote and paraphrasing of the company's own words and thus represents entirely the company's view and assurance that everything is fair, transparent and openly communicated. [edit] tense in the first paragraph [had criticised]
tommis 13y ago
There is NO proof or evidence of tampering with amazon refs. Still a lot of people are reporting the extension or looking for alternatives in this thread. Seriously: Not everything you read on the web is true. This smells like a smear campaign, nothing more - until real evidence or proof is shown of the claims.
- engtech 13y ago
  You have to enable the typo option and it happens. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194
cletus 13y ago
The essence of this is you need to decide the answer to two questions: 1. What are your personal ethics? 2. Who do you trust? To put (1) in context, the content on the Internet is largely provided free but is ad-supported. When it comes to display advertising, it's sold almost entirely on a CPM basis (it may be resold on an eCPC or eCPA basis). It is at best only partially sold on an intent basis (meaning it's enticing you to click on the ad or otherwise take some kind of action). The relevance is that the most common "defence" of ad-blocking is "I never click on ads anyway". While that might be true (let's just say that the people who claim to have never clicked on an ad is a proper superset of the people who have never clicked on an ad) it's also irrelevant since that may not be the intent and the publisher is getting paid to display the ad, not for you to click on it (unlike, say, search advertising, which is intent based). So the ethical part here is you need to decide if you're OK with denying publishers income yet still consuming their content. If you are against ads for whatever reason and don't consume the content, that's a position I can respect, otherwise it just strikes me as rationalized freeloading but YMMV. As for (2), the big players like Google who dominate display advertising are regulated and deeply concerned (believe it or not) about privacy and the user experience. That's why you can opt out of personalized ads [1], for example. I may be biased [2] but I trust Google far more than I trust some fly-by-night operation. Again, YMMV. Recently there was a story about Ghostery reselling user data to advertisers [3]. How much can you really trust these basically unaccountable groups (in comparison)? I should point out that there are two issues here that intertwine: 1. Ad-blocking; 2. Privacy. My personal code of ethics is I don't block ads because honestly I mentally block them out anyway. Going to the Westin site then seeing ads for the Westin everywhere doesn't particularly bother me. If a site has particularly egregioius ads (I include popups, most interstitials and any ads you need to dismiss in this category) then all bets are off. Block away. Banner ads however? Sure, why not? But where I draw the line is with uselessly giving away your privacy in a way that doesn't benefit publishers at all. I include all the various "Like" and "Share" buttons here. All of these track for no benefit to the publisher (other than the hope that you might use one). Those I'll happily block. Likewise if you're Quora and you blur answers because I'm not logged in with Facebook, well you'll get technically circumvented as well and I may just block any ads you have just because you're being offensive. Anyway, just consider that ad-blockers have access to a wide range of your data as well and ask yourself what they are doing or might do with that data. Is it really worth denying publishers income to not see an ad for shoes? Really? [1]: http://www.google.com/ads/preferences http://www.google.com/ads/preferences [2]: Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer working in display advertising [3]: http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/06/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actually-sells-data-to-advertisers/ http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/06/ad-blocking-extension-g...
JoshTriplett 13y ago
What I find disturbing: the author of Adblock Plus famously went on a rant a long time ago about how people approached him to pay him to do various things with his popular extension, such as change default search engines. He refused, very publically, and bemoaned the likelihood that other extension authors might not. And then the oxymoronic "Acceptable Ads" happened, and the painfully bad "typo correction" anti-feature (no, I really mean wikimedia, not wikipedia), and now this which ties into the "typo correction" bits. All of which are either on by default or pester the user to turn them on. And every one of these creates a new support issue for me with people I set up Adblock Plus for.
antoviaque 13y ago
For Firefox users, there is Adblock Lite, a fork created after the "Acceptable ads" story on AdBlock Plus a few months ago: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock_lite/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock_lite/ "Adblocklite is a fork of the Adblock Plus version 1.3.10 (classic UI) extension for blocking advertisements on the web. This fork will provide the same features as Adblock Plus 2.X and higher while keeping the old UI but without "acceptable ads" feature."
fhd2 13y ago
(Edit: The headline used to be "Adblock Plus is changing Amazon refs", but it has been fixed. I commented on the new one below [6].) I'm a developer at Eyeo, working on Adblock Plus. Adblock Plus is not changing Amazon links. TFA is ripe with FUD, but it doesn't even go this far. Maybe this was a major misunderstanding of the typo correction feature [1], which is opt-in, only implemented in Firefox and merely corrects typos in URLs, always telling what it corrected. I was never really sure how it fits into ABP, but I fail to see how this could be considered shady. Other than that, the only thing Adblock Plus does is block content. Which content that is depends on the filter lists you use. There are defaults, but you're free to use any you like, or create your own. It's usually ads, but ABP is also pretty good at blocking any kind of tracking [2]. Back to TFA. The main allegations are: 1. The CEO and the angel investor at Eyeo have ties to the ad industry 2. Adblock Plus is letting ads through if sites pay for it 3. Adblock Plus is burning money One at a time: 1. This is true. Eyeo was founded to find a middle ground between users blocking ads and sites monetising from ads. The idea is that there are decent ads that most people wouldn't want to block, in the sea of horrible ads - "acceptable ads" [3]. "The ad industry" is not a single evil entity that wants to blind us all, some people in it actually want to make ads better. Hence Wladimir joined forces with them. 2. Every site can have their ads whitelisted, and ads that violate the criteria [4] will not be whitelisted. Some sites are supporting us financially, others don't. I think the main controversy is that this feature is opt-out rather than opt-in. 3. I disagree. More than half of the employees on the payroll are working remotely, deliberately. We wouldn't even all fit into the office, which is nice, but cheap (it's a building that's going to be demolished in 1-2 years). We're barely profitable, nobody's getting rich. We manage the infrastructure that delivers the filter lists - which are used by literally every other ad blocker out there, for free, and that's fine. Everything we create is open source [5], everything can be forked, and that's fine. [1] http://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adblock-plus http://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adblo... [2] http://adblockplus.org/en/features#tracking http://adblockplus.org/en/features#tracking [3] http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads [4] http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#criteria http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#criteria [5] https://hg.adblockplus.org/ https://hg.adblockplus.org/ [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5947553 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5947553
dekz 13y ago
https://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adblock-plus https://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adbl... >Whenever typo correction brings you to the site of a large online shop an affiliate ID will be added to the address. This makes sure that if you buy something there we get a small amount of money from the shop. Mentioned on their website.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

So what's a good alternative (Firefox)? I'm using GlimmerBlocker, but due to being a proxy, it can't filter HTTPS pages. Adblock Edge looks like a decrapified fork of Adblock Plus.

gasull 13y ago
Firefox addons for privacy and security with usable settings: - AdBlock Edge. Filter subscriptions: EasyList, EasyPrivacy, Disable Malware, Fanboy's Annoyance List, Prebake - NoScript. Use "allow scripts globally" or otherwise most websites won't work. It will still protect against know attacks. - Cookie Monster. Then set global/default preference to saving cookies for session only. - FireGloves. Uncheck "disable plugin and mimeType lists" in Cloak Settings. - HTTPS Everywhere - LastPass
- shaggy 13y ago
  Is there some mistake in your NoScript item? Installing the plug-in and then using "allow scripts globally" is the equivalent of never installing the plug-in. It provides almost no value at all when run that way.
  - gasull 13y ago
    No. It stills protects against known attacks, like XSS attacks. If you block scripts by default you'll have to configure what scripts to allow every time you visit a new site, or every time the site adds new assets.
- 83a 13y ago
  requestpolicy <- simply blocks all traffic to external webserver
  - gasull 13y ago
    RequestPolicy suffers of the same problem as NoScript with default settings: it blocks everything and you have to waste time configuring what JS files are allowed in each site you visit. Your browsing becomes 10,000% more inefficient.
eliasmacpherson 13y ago
I use noscript as well as adblock plus.
ra 13y ago
Ghostery. Can't recommend it highly enough; also works on Chrome, Safari, Opera and IE.
- asb 13y ago
  Ghostery users should be aware of: http://www.businessinsider.com/evidon-sells-ghostery-data-to-advertisers-2013-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/evidon-sells-ghostery-data-to... (no judgement on the practice implied, just flagging it as something for potential users to consider).
  - JonnieCache 13y ago
    Ghostery alternative: https://disconnect.me https://disconnect.me
    - jrochkind1 13y ago
      Disconnect has generally been working better for me than Ghostery did too; although some parts of the Disconnect UI I still find more confusing and harder to use than analagous parts of ghostery.
    - fakeer 13y ago
      Last time I checked it was not fully open source. Is it yet?
    - WickyNilliams 13y ago
      And open source apparently! https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect
  - nivla 13y ago
    But isn't that only if you enable Ghost Rank, which is disabled by default?
    - dombili 13y ago
      That's correct.
chmod775 13y ago
I just founds this, it's a fork of Adblock Plus: https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/?src=search https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/?sr...
chalst 13y ago
The easiest to audit is to change /etc/hosts to send malware sites to 127.0.0.1. I use Dan Pollock's hosts file, which is well-commented: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ I keep a Git repository with the contents that I update from time to time - this makes it easier to do diffs against past versions: https://github.com/chalst/pollockhostsfork https://github.com/chalst/pollockhostsfork
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - chalst 13y ago
    On the hardware I've looked at, loopback requests are handled in well under a microsecond - I guess this case is not worth optimising. On Linux, 127.0.0.0 is a broadcast address, while on Windows, it is a sink address.
- dbcooper 13y ago
  If you want a smaller HOSTS file (useful with Windows) that only targets advertisement and tracking servers, I've found HP Hosts' ad_servers.asp list to be good. http://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.asp http://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.asp
mjn 13y ago
I use the venerable (but still actively maintained) Privoxy, which is a proxy but still does most of what I want on HTTPS pages. It can't examine the page contents themselves, but it can block 3rd-party requests by hostname, which gets most of the web-bugs and such.
- claudius 13y ago
  I had some problems with loading times/pipelining in Opera (12.x) and Privoxy and hence changed to AdBlock (which appears to be the same as AdBlock Chrome referred to above). Browsing became much smoother afterwards.
  - anoymous9352 13y ago
    Privoxy is associated with SPI, which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. A far cry from that shady AdBlock garbage. If you sacrifice privacy/security for convenience, don't be surprised when it has later repercussions. Privoxy is also highly configurable unlike AdBlock. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be at the mercy of some jerkoff named Wladimir, who seems to have basically zero accountability and a very lax sense of ethics.

beedogs 13y ago

Site also seems to be suffering a mafia-like DDoS attack.

dbcooper 13y ago

Lets try an experiment with Amazon referrers. (a) Take a "randomly" sourced blog post for a book review: http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/14/the-unwinding-is-george-packer-john-dos http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/14/the-unwinding-is-george-pa... (b) Check links to amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmagazineA/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmaga... (c) Click through and check URL: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmagazineA/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmaga... Looks OK. Anything I'm missing?

angry-hacker 13y ago
It has something to do with their feature called typo corrections, only available for Firefox right now (I have only ABP for Chrome/FireFox). It has to be enabled, if it is enabled by default for all user or not, I'm not sure. typoRules.js downloads urlfixer.org/download/rules.json?version=2 where the redirect is made if you type for an example: amazon.comm, I get (FireFox only) redirected to their affiliate amazon.com link. For an example, amazon.co.ukk gets redirected to http://www.amazon.co.uk/?tag=uf07d-21 http://www.amazon.co.uk/?tag=uf07d-21 Edit: Some of the lines of that file: "domainReferrals":{"amazon.co.uk":"tag=uf07d-21","amazon.com":"tag=uf024-20","amazon.de":"tag=uf0e6-21","amazon.es":"tag=uf07-21","amazon.fr":"tag=uf02b-21","amazon.it":"tag=uf08d-21","ozon.ru":"partner=urlfixer"},"
- dbcooper 13y ago
  I tried with typo corrections on, but did not see any differences.
  - angry-hacker 13y ago
    I edited my answer a bit, try for an example amazon.co.ukk, still no difference?
- dbcooper 13y ago
  reply to edit: If I change the .com to .comm it changes the URL to: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmagazineA/?tag=uf024-20 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374102414/reasonmaga... So this is only for mistyped (edit) manually typed referrer URLs?

nwh 13y ago

Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilegeeks.de%2Fadblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilegeeks.de%2Fadblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk%2F&aqs=chrome.0.69i57j69i58.2627j0&sourceid=chrome&espv=205&ie=UTF-8 https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp... Google translated Google cache: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwebcache.googleusercontent.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dcache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilegeeks.de%2Fadblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk%2F%26oq%3Dcache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilegeeks.de%2Fadblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk%2F%26aqs%3Dchrome.0.69i57j69i58.2627j0%26sourceid%3Dchrome%26espv%3D205%26ie%3DUTF-8 http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=ht...

hartator 13y ago

Changing Amazon referencial links... Seriously? and this guy is asking for donation putting forward his wife and his life.

bliker 13y ago
I think you are talking about AdBlock, Adblock Plus is different.
- glitch273 13y ago
  Are those two programs made by different people? I thought one was just the paid version of the free one.
  - jtome 13y ago
    Adblock just very noisly requests a donation, it doesn't require you to actually pay. Adblock plus does not do either.
  - jasonlotito 13y ago
    Yes.
  - colkassad 13y ago
    They are different, but can anyone be blamed for confusing the two?
  - bliker 13y ago
    Adblock Plus - company in question. AdBlock - Donationware. They also run this http://chromeadblock.com/catblock/download/ http://chromeadblock.com/catblock/download/ It replaces ads with pictures of cats. Hilarious

bliker 13y ago

if you have a minute you can go there and report abuse https://chrome.google.com/webstore/report/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb https://chrome.google.com/webstore/report/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkda... and https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/#id=1865 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/...

hilti 13y ago
Just did it.

sciurus 13y ago

These are the ads Adblock Plus allows: https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.txt https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.tx...

sp332 13y ago

When I click the page, it just loads google translate recursively. http://imgur.com/JJJ231i http://imgur.com/JJJ231i

Zirro 13y ago

A blog post on the Adblock Plus-website from 44 days ago mentions a "joint campaign" by several German newspapers against ad blockers. I imagine this is part of it, although that's doesn't necessarily mean that they are wrong and/or exaggerate their accusations. See here: https://adblockplus.org/blog/our-thoughts-on-the-unity-of-german-newspapers-against-ad-blockers https://adblockplus.org/blog/our-thoughts-on-the-unity-of-ge...

ibotty 13y ago
no that is something different. (at least the joint campaign had pretty much no arguments, whereas the submission raises a few doubts, to say the least.)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

0x0 13y ago

Is this in any way related to the "AdBlock" extension (not "...plus")? https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock/gighmmpiob...

colkassad 13y ago
Apparently not: "AdBlock is not to be confused with Adblock Plus. The developer of AdBlock for Chrome claims to have been inspired by AdBlock Plus, which is a community supported development effort, but otherwise the two efforts are unrelated."[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdBlock_(Chrome) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdBlock_(Chrome)
- jpreiland 13y ago
  Huh... well that clears up a lot. I've tried both and was curious as to why the "Plus" version of an extension allowed tons of ads when the regular "AdBlock" did a perfect job of never showing me ads. I guess that answers that question.
- nathan_long 13y ago
  Correct. Adblock is supported by donations only. https://chromeadblock.com/pay/ https://chromeadblock.com/pay/
- fuzzywalrus 13y ago
  Thanks, I was getting mighty confused about adblock and thinking, "I didn't think this was even a German property"

SifJar 13y ago

I'm struggling to fully understand the article due to the poor Google Translation. Anyone offer some concise clarification as to what ABP is actually doing? Is it "just" that they are changing Amazon referral links on websites to their own referral links so they get money instead, or is there more to it than that? Are they even actually doing that? (Or is it just that they aren't blocking referral links made with software by one of ABP's creators?) EDIT: I came across this from a few months back: http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of-shaking-down-websites/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of-sha... Seems to be about some similar stuff

Hopka 13y ago
They are also allegedly not filtering a set of white-listed ads, most of which come from companies that pay 30% of their ad revenue to the company behind AdBlock Plus.
- jrabone 13y ago
  ABP has had an option to enable some white-listed ads for a while. It's ticked by default, but it's not exactly hidden...
- SifJar 13y ago
  I came across this article which seems to back that up: http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of-shaking-down-websites/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of-sha... (from a few months ago)
lazyjones 13y ago
Allegedly they are changing Amazon referral links and on top of that they automatically convert non-affiliate links to affiliate links with their own ID wherever possible.
hnha 13y ago
that paragraph is difficult to understand even in german, to me it sounds like not apb, but another addon ( http://urlfixer.org http://urlfixer.org ) is the one with the amazon link tampering.

philtar 13y ago

Can anyone actually confirm this?

engtech 13y ago
You have to enable the typo option and the amazon referrer rewrite happens. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194
- drchaos 13y ago
  I think the word "rewrite" is misleading in that context. ABP does not rewrite existing referrers (which would in fact be "mafia style"), instead it adds its own referrer when correcting/rewriting links with a typo: amazon.com/?tag=someReferrer will not be changed amazon.comm will be rewritten to amazon.com/?tag=uf024-20
  - bdcravens 13y ago
    Not much better, arguably worse. If my intention was to go to Amazon.com, they're now "helping" me and writing a cookie that wouldn't have been there, and earning $ in the process. A bare WWW request should never result in affiliate income.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      I tend to agree with you, but I'd be happy for Pinterest to convert any non-affiliate links to affiliate links. They'd need to make it very clear what they were doing before doing it. I get value from Pinterest's collection, so I'm happy for them to skim a little bit of money from my purchase. Shopping is hellish, and Pinterest makes it easier for me. I am aware that they got into trouble for using skimlinks to convert links. (I think they were converting affiliate links to their affiliate links which is pretty dodgy.)

mparramon 13y ago

http://adblockplus.org/en/features http://adblockplus.org/en/features : "Adblock Plus will always block annoying ads. Still, many websites rely on advertising revenues so we want to encourage websites to use plain and unobtrusive advertising instead of flashy banners. That's why the Adblock Plus community has established strict guidelines to identify acceptable ads, and Adblock Plus allows these out of the box. You can always disable this feature if you want to block all ads." Could this be related? Link to the guidelines: http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#criteria http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#criteria Edit: I just contacted Till Faida about this, will keep this post updated.

MattDL 13y ago

Isn't it possible to just check the source code of FireFox addons? Would be good if somebody could confirm if that is the case.

grimtrigger 13y ago
Can anyone confirm/deny if the article points to any specific code? It's down.

radiospiel 13y ago

The original, german text does not state that ABP actually rewrites amazon affiliate links. It mentions "Amazon" once, in a sentence which could be translated at "..how to justify drying up financial base (which are amazon links) for thousands of small blogs.." (That doesn't mean ABP does not change amazon referral links, though)

edwintorok 13y ago
Could it be a typo, i.e. that adblock plus charges (money) for allowing people's amazon refs through the filter? Although if you check exceptionrules.txt there are only 3 domains that have amazon links whitelisted. EDIT: apparently the 2nd page of the article writes about the possibility of changing links.
- janfoeh 13y ago
  It's not a typo. Here is a manual translation of the paragraph containing the allegation: Schaut man sich den Quellcode von Adblock Plus an, dann stolpert man ueber die “typoRules.js”" welche Vertipper in der Adresszeile des Browsers ueber eine dann nachgeladene Datei http://urlfixer.org/download/rules.json korrigiert. Den Spass gibt es uebrigens auch als separates Add-On http://urlfixer.org, ebenfalls vom feinen Herrn Palant! Und jetzt anschnallen, denn dabei werden fuer alle internationalen Amazon-Shops automatisch die eigenen Amazon-IDs angehaengt! "If you take a look into Adblock Plus' source code, you will trip over a "typoRules.js", which corrects typos made in your browsers' URL bar with the help of the subsequently loaded file http://urlfixer.org/download/rules.json http://urlfixer.org/download/rules.json. By the way, you can obtain this funny little gadget as a standalone add-on from http://urlfixer.org http://urlfixer.org as well, from the same honorable Mr. Palant! Now fasten your seatbelts, because this automatically adds their own Amazon IDs for all international Amazon shops!
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - 13y ago

Uchikoma 13y ago

From the article: Investors in Adblock Plus / Owners of the company behind Adblock Plus also invest/own ad-network companies, which they put on the white list while they keep out competitors. The article claims one can buy oneself onto the whitelist.

hesselink 13y ago

I have Adblock Plus installed, but comparing an Amazon affiliate link in Firefox with Adblock Plus, with one in Chrome (no Adblock Plus) shows no difference.

philhippus 13y ago
There are several points at which the link can be changed from when it loads to after it is clicked. Did you compare every scenario?
- hesselink 13y ago
  I compared before clicking, and the final page I ended up on at Amazon's site. Both were the same.

rmk2 13y ago

> Fuenfzehn Mitarbeiter, davon zwei Geschaeftsfuehrer, weitere Stellenanzeigen sind geschaltet, Bueros im Koelner Clusterhaus? Und das einzige Produkt ist eine kostenlose Browser-Erweiterung? Wie kann das funktionieren? Fifteen employees, two of those managers, further job ads are taken out, offices in Cologne's Clusterhaus? And the only product is a free of charge browser extension? How does that work? Additionally, this part seems important as well: > Viel wichtiger: das ist also Till Faidas Verstaendnis von akzeptablen Werbeanzeigen: gefakte Testberichte und Auszeichnungen, pseudoneutrale Bewertungen auf anonymisierten Blogs. Artikel, geschrieben von der PR-Abteilung und Geschaeftsfuehrung eines Unternehmens, suchmaschinenoptimierter Content-Dreck fuer das eigene Produkt. Scam nennt man sowas in Fachkreisen! More importantly: so this is Till Faida's understanding of acceptable advertisements: faked test reports and awards, pseudoneutral ratings on anonymised blogs. Articles, written by the PR-department and by the management of a company, search-engine-optimised content-dreck [i.e. crud] for their own product. Expert circles tend to call this scam! [the translation isn't the prettiest but hopefully quite close to the original in both meaning and intent] [edit] The whole "mafia" argument seems to stem from these questionable practices of "anonymous" and thus seemingly neutral feedback, originating from within the company itself. [edit 2] fixed first translation, since I forgot the half-sentence "weitere [...]"

Sujan 13y ago

FYI: The article is separated on 2 pages: http://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk/2/ http://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-... http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.mobilegeeks.de%2Fadblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk%2F2%2F&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:de:official&client=firefox-a http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%... The allegation concerning rewriting links is on this second page, for example.

Sujan 13y ago

The allegations concerning changing referal links are based on a source file of the extension. Did anybody check that? Any real proof or is this just a leftover?

engtech 13y ago
You have to enable the typo option and it happens. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194

mikejarema 13y ago

Interestingly, Amazon is changing the terms of their Associates program to (among other things) specifically prohibit browser plugins from being eligible for sales commissions: 7. Except as agreed between you and us in a separate written agreement referencing this Participation Requirement, you will not use any Content or Special Link, or otherwise link to the Amazon Site, on or in connection with: a. any client-side software application (e.g., a browser plug-in, helper object, toolbar, extension, or component or any other application executable or installable by an end user) on any device, including computers, mobile phones, tablets, or other handheld devices; - https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/compare?ref_=pe_173690_30619550 https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/oper...

deleted 13y ago
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bad_user 13y ago

I cannot verify the claims, but I'll state the reasons once again about why I'm not using ad blockers: 1) free websites and web services need revenue and as long as the ads are tasteful, I don't mind them 2) I actually want websites to annoy me with lots of stupid ads, as I want to stop using such websites, because I want to reward publishers that don't do that Ad blockers are trying to fix a symptom of the disease and in doing so they only help spreading and growing that disease.

zeckalpha 13y ago
How do ad blockers affect revenue? Don't they still fetch the ads but just limit the presentation of the ads? So it would be indistinguishable from someone who just does not click on the ads?
- caust1c 13y ago
  Most block the loading of the url that contains the ad content. The website owners rarely host the ads they're displaying. In that regard, it's very easy to detect if someone is using AdBlock or not.
  - orclev 13y ago
    Only if you own both the site and the ad network otherwise you'll be unable to tell if they made a request for the ad or not. There are also ways of getting false positives with that sort of test, for instance if for whatever reason the server that has the ad on it isn't reachable from the client (say a problem in one of the major backbones, or a bad DNS entry). The usual approach I've seen sites take is they have some sort of "Please disable your ad-blocker" image that they load everywhere ads go, and then just overlay the ad image on top of that one when it loads.
- namdnay 13y ago
  No, one of the advantages of ad blockers is that they cut down on the amount of traffic, you don't download the ads. In fact, several websites show you a warning message, or refuse to load, if you're running an adblocker.

oomkiller 13y ago

On a related note, has anyone considered the fallout of a popular extensions like Adblock/Adblock Chrome etc being compromised?

Sujan 13y ago

Objection here from Till Faida (CEO) here: http://t3n.de/news/adblock-plus-geschaftsfuhrer-476502/ http://t3n.de/news/adblock-plus-geschaftsfuhrer-476502/ (German)

flashfabrixx 13y ago

The link refers to a given interview (http://j.mp/138mDHs http://j.mp/138mDHs) with Till Filda (Owner of Ad Block Plus) who gives the information that user can opt-out of the build in "Acceptable Ads program". In his words the reason for an acceptable ads program seems to be showing acceptable ads (non flashing, blinking, annoying, ...) to the user which seems legit. Can't understand the 'Mafia' term in this. It's a free product this is their business model. You as a user choose if you accept (or opt-out) this or leave the product behind.

NIL8 13y ago

This seems a lot like cookie-stuffing. AdBlock and AdBlockPlus are free to run their company any way they want (within reason). However, this is a serious breach of trust. They should inform me of any change or re-direct they perform - before they do it.

izietto 13y ago

NoSCript http://noscript.net/ http://noscript.net/ is way better

anoymous9352 13y ago
It's also completely and utterly pointless. Just disable JavaScript and build your own minimal whitelist. Chrome supports this natively, without you having to trust yet another jackass plugin author. Probably 90% of authors will get an instant hardon for "monetization" the second their plugin reaches a million or so users, regardless of it's original premise.

Kerrick 13y ago

This must be why Amazon Associates changed their Terms of Service starting July 1. https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/compare https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/oper... > “7. Except as agreed between you and us in a separate written agreement referencing this Participation Requirement, you will not use any Content or Special Link, or otherwise link to the Amazon Site, on or in connection with: > a. any client-side software application (e.g., a browser plug-in, helper object, toolbar, extension, or component or any other application executable or installable by an end user) on any device, including computers, mobile phones, tablets, or other handheld devices; > [...]

nilved 13y ago

Who's been using Adblock Plus after they whitelisted sites behind your back? It jumped the shark. Move on to one of the dozens of lightweight, superior forks.

pi18n 13y ago
Recommend us one?

Tobu 13y ago

I can't find any reference to Amazon in the source code. The source code is over there (GPL): https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/ https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/ The article seems to say this is related to the typo feature, but https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/file/tip/defaults/typoRules.json https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/file/tip/defaults/typ... has never changed since the introduction of the feature in 2012-11.

edwintorok 13y ago
typoRules.js downloads http://urlfixer.org/download/rules.json?version=2 http://urlfixer.org/download/rules.json?version=2, which contains (among others): "domainReferrals":{"amazon.co.uk":"tag=uf07d-21","amazon.com":"tag=uf024-20","amazon.de":"tag=uf0e6-21","amazon.es":"tag=uf07-21","amazon.fr":"tag=uf02b-21","amazon.it":"tag=uf08d-21","ozon.ru":"partner=urlfixer"},
- Tobu 13y ago
  Okay. It seems that if I enable the typo feature (which is disabled by default, I've just checked in a clean profile) and go to amazon.comm, I get redirected to http://amazon.com/?tag=uf024-20 http://amazon.com/?tag=uf024-20 ABP notifies me of the redirection, and I can accept or blacklist it.
  - edwintorok 13y ago
    Yeah it seems to be default off, and they're not hiding the fact that this is a monetization source: https://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adblock-plus https://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adbl... However it appears to add that tag only if I typo the name, if I follow a good Amazon link (with or without the affiliate) then it doesn't get 'corrected'. Although since the rewrite rules are downloaded from a remote location (over HTTP, not even HTTPS!) they could in theory decide to rewrite any links in the future, without many people noticing.
    - Tobu 13y ago

rmk2 13y ago

AdBlock Plus confirms most points via heise.de (updated half an hour ago): http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Schwere-Vorwuerfe-gegen-Werbeblocker-AdBlock-Plus-1897152.html http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Schwere-Vorwuerfe-geg... > In einer Stellungnahme bestätigen die Macher von AdBlock Plus die von Pallenberg aufgezeigten Zusammenhänge weitgehend. "Ein Großteil der Informationen zu der Zusammenarbeit mit unseren Partnern ist korrekt recherchiert, einiges nicht", heißt es in einer Stellungnahme von Mitgründer Till Faida, den Pallenberg in seinem Artikel kritisiert hatte. "Im Gegensatz zu Sascha Pallenberg sehen wir in der Vernetzung keinen Gewissenskonflikt." The makers of AdBlock Plus largely confirm Pallenberg's connections in a statement. "The bulk of the information about the cooperation with our partners is investigated correctly, some isn't", according to a statement by co-founder Till Faida, who Pallenberg had criticised in his article. "Unlike Sascha, we do not see a moral conflict in this interconnectedness." >Das Unternehmen ist überzeugt, dass sich Werbeformen wie die "Acceptable Ads" langfristig durchsetzen wird. Das Whitelisting sei für kleine und mittelgroße Webseiten kostenlos. "Dabei haben wir immer transparent geäußert, dass große Unternehmen unsere Initiative finanziell unterstützen." Eine Bevorzugung dieser Firmen gebe es jedoch nicht, die Kriterien seien für alle gleich. Auch die Kriterien der Entscheidungen durch die Community seien "vollkommen transparent". The company is convinced that advertisement forms like "Acceptable Ads" will prevail in the long run. Whitelisting is free of charge for small and medium-sized websites. "We have always transparently communicated that big companies support our initiative financially." However, preferential treatment of these companies does not exist, the criteria are the same for everybody. The criteria for decisions by the community are also "completely transparent." [1] [1]: The whole paragraph is difficult to translate since it makes extensive use of indirect speech, which is marked by the German Konjunktiv, without a clear marker of a speaker. The whole paragraph is a mixture of direct quote and paraphrasing of the company's own words and thus represents entirely the company's view and assurance that everything is fair, transparent and openly communicated. [edit] tense in the first paragraph [had criticised]

tommis 13y ago

There is NO proof or evidence of tampering with amazon refs. Still a lot of people are reporting the extension or looking for alternatives in this thread. Seriously: Not everything you read on the web is true. This smells like a smear campaign, nothing more - until real evidence or proof is shown of the claims.

engtech 13y ago
You have to enable the typo option and it happens. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5946194

cletus 13y ago

The essence of this is you need to decide the answer to two questions: 1. What are your personal ethics? 2. Who do you trust? To put (1) in context, the content on the Internet is largely provided free but is ad-supported. When it comes to display advertising, it's sold almost entirely on a CPM basis (it may be resold on an eCPC or eCPA basis). It is at best only partially sold on an intent basis (meaning it's enticing you to click on the ad or otherwise take some kind of action). The relevance is that the most common "defence" of ad-blocking is "I never click on ads anyway". While that might be true (let's just say that the people who claim to have never clicked on an ad is a proper superset of the people who have never clicked on an ad) it's also irrelevant since that may not be the intent and the publisher is getting paid to display the ad, not for you to click on it (unlike, say, search advertising, which is intent based). So the ethical part here is you need to decide if you're OK with denying publishers income yet still consuming their content. If you are against ads for whatever reason and don't consume the content, that's a position I can respect, otherwise it just strikes me as rationalized freeloading but YMMV. As for (2), the big players like Google who dominate display advertising are regulated and deeply concerned (believe it or not) about privacy and the user experience. That's why you can opt out of personalized ads [1], for example. I may be biased [2] but I trust Google far more than I trust some fly-by-night operation. Again, YMMV. Recently there was a story about Ghostery reselling user data to advertisers [3]. How much can you really trust these basically unaccountable groups (in comparison)? I should point out that there are two issues here that intertwine: 1. Ad-blocking; 2. Privacy. My personal code of ethics is I don't block ads because honestly I mentally block them out anyway. Going to the Westin site then seeing ads for the Westin everywhere doesn't particularly bother me. If a site has particularly egregioius ads (I include popups, most interstitials and any ads you need to dismiss in this category) then all bets are off. Block away. Banner ads however? Sure, why not? But where I draw the line is with uselessly giving away your privacy in a way that doesn't benefit publishers at all. I include all the various "Like" and "Share" buttons here. All of these track for no benefit to the publisher (other than the hope that you might use one). Those I'll happily block. Likewise if you're Quora and you blur answers because I'm not logged in with Facebook, well you'll get technically circumvented as well and I may just block any ads you have just because you're being offensive. Anyway, just consider that ad-blockers have access to a wide range of your data as well and ask yourself what they are doing or might do with that data. Is it really worth denying publishers income to not see an ad for shoes? Really? [1]: http://www.google.com/ads/preferences http://www.google.com/ads/preferences [2]: Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer working in display advertising [3]: http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/06/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actually-sells-data-to-advertisers/ http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/06/ad-blocking-extension-g...

JoshTriplett 13y ago

What I find disturbing: the author of Adblock Plus famously went on a rant a long time ago about how people approached him to pay him to do various things with his popular extension, such as change default search engines. He refused, very publically, and bemoaned the likelihood that other extension authors might not. And then the oxymoronic "Acceptable Ads" happened, and the painfully bad "typo correction" anti-feature (no, I really mean wikimedia, not wikipedia), and now this which ties into the "typo correction" bits. All of which are either on by default or pester the user to turn them on. And every one of these creates a new support issue for me with people I set up Adblock Plus for.

antoviaque 13y ago

For Firefox users, there is Adblock Lite, a fork created after the "Acceptable ads" story on AdBlock Plus a few months ago: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock_lite/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock_lite/ "Adblocklite is a fork of the Adblock Plus version 1.3.10 (classic UI) extension for blocking advertisements on the web. This fork will provide the same features as Adblock Plus 2.X and higher while keeping the old UI but without "acceptable ads" feature."

fhd2 13y ago

(Edit: The headline used to be "Adblock Plus is changing Amazon refs", but it has been fixed. I commented on the new one below [6].) I'm a developer at Eyeo, working on Adblock Plus. Adblock Plus is not changing Amazon links. TFA is ripe with FUD, but it doesn't even go this far. Maybe this was a major misunderstanding of the typo correction feature [1], which is opt-in, only implemented in Firefox and merely corrects typos in URLs, always telling what it corrected. I was never really sure how it fits into ABP, but I fail to see how this could be considered shady. Other than that, the only thing Adblock Plus does is block content. Which content that is depends on the filter lists you use. There are defaults, but you're free to use any you like, or create your own. It's usually ads, but ABP is also pretty good at blocking any kind of tracking [2]. Back to TFA. The main allegations are: 1. The CEO and the angel investor at Eyeo have ties to the ad industry 2. Adblock Plus is letting ads through if sites pay for it 3. Adblock Plus is burning money One at a time: 1. This is true. Eyeo was founded to find a middle ground between users blocking ads and sites monetising from ads. The idea is that there are decent ads that most people wouldn't want to block, in the sea of horrible ads - "acceptable ads" [3]. "The ad industry" is not a single evil entity that wants to blind us all, some people in it actually want to make ads better. Hence Wladimir joined forces with them. 2. Every site can have their ads whitelisted, and ads that violate the criteria [4] will not be whitelisted. Some sites are supporting us financially, others don't. I think the main controversy is that this feature is opt-out rather than opt-in. 3. I disagree. More than half of the employees on the payroll are working remotely, deliberately. We wouldn't even all fit into the office, which is nice, but cheap (it's a building that's going to be demolished in 1-2 years). We're barely profitable, nobody's getting rich. We manage the infrastructure that delivers the filter lists - which are used by literally every other ad blocker out there, for free, and that's fine. Everything we create is open source [5], everything can be forked, and that's fine. [1] http://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adblock-plus http://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adblo... [2] http://adblockplus.org/en/features#tracking http://adblockplus.org/en/features#tracking [3] http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads [4] http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#criteria http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#criteria [5] https://hg.adblockplus.org/ https://hg.adblockplus.org/ [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5947553 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5947553

dekz 13y ago

https://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adblock-plus https://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adbl... >Whenever typo correction brings you to the site of a large online shop an affiliate ID will be added to the address. This makes sure that if you buy something there we get a small amount of money from the shop. Mentioned on their website.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]