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Personally I don't use Ad Blockers just due to the fact my own personal ethics feels I am stealing when I do use it. When I am teaching I have ad blocker insta

by baldfat 11y ago

Personally I don't use Ad Blockers just due to the fact my own personal ethics feels I am stealing when I do use it. When I am teaching I have ad blocker installed because I don't want to get in trouble for what advertisement will be shown, especially YouTube. AdBlock Plus and their paid white list is the worst and I don't know why people use them.

sparaker 11y ago
I don't use AdBlock Plus but i do use AdBlock. I think its my decision to choose which ads i watch and which i don't. It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not.
- Kiro 11y ago
  > It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not. So what's your view on sites blocking people with AdBlock?
  - Perdition 11y ago
    They can try if they want but it will cost them lots of money for no benefit.
  - nathanlied 11y ago
    Perfectly acceptable. I believe it's within everyone's right to filter what hits their browser (and what their browser gets in the first place) as much as it is the website's right to serve whomever they want. They should attempt to use technical means, though, as it's unlikely that a simple 'Do you use adblock?' prompt is going to work very well.
    - a3n 11y ago
      As I noted elsewhere in this thread, I whitelisted Reddit when they noticed my ad blocker and they politely asked me to think about it. It can be done. One solution among probably many.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    Their website, their right, their choice. Of course, people protesting/boycotting/etc. those who block people who block ads is also their right and their choice.
  - kazinator 11y ago
    > So what's your view on sites blocking people with AdBlock? It's the web equivalent of an a entitled-feeling child throwing a tantrum. People who use ad-blocking software, and temporarily disable it on your page just to view the content, are not going to click on the ads. Furthermore, if you take additional measures to make them click on the ads ("please visit our sponsor first"), that constitutes click fraud. Users who click on an ad just to view the content are not interested in what is being advertized at all, and will not convert to buyers. Morally, it is within a hair's breadth of sending Javascript to the user's browser which simulates that user clicking on the ad (so that it looks like a real visit, as the ad syndicate knows), which would be blatant click fraud.
- k-mcgrady 11y ago
  >> It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not. In other words it's not stealing unless you get caught? Edit: Relax people. Let's not get into another debate on copying vs. theft. I was merely pointing out that the parents analogy (which was the one that referenced stealing) was bad.
  - tokenizerrr 11y ago
    Is Google stealing from them when they crawl their pages but don't load in the ads? What about when I wget their page? Am I stealing from them now? Maybe when I disable javascript in my browser? Am I now a thief? No, I am not. It's not stealing whatsoever, ever. Even if they detect you're not loading in all the content they want you to load. If they manage to detect this, then they can choose to block your access to the content. Or perhaps rework their revenue model if it turns out it isn't working.
    - npizzolato 11y ago
      Not the op but, I often disable adblock on sites I enjoy because I feel similarly. I'm not really interested in a semantic debate about what is or is not "stealing," but it certainly deprives others of revenue for creating content I get value from. When that content is otherwise free except for ads, it makes me feel rather shitty to go out of my way to block their revenue stream. Edit: that said, I do still keep adblock on for sites with rather abusive or obnoxious ads.
      - a3n 11y ago
        Virtually every ad is abusive or obnoxious, because they track you. That's probably the leverage that makes online ads worthwhile. That's for better targeted ads, what could be wrong with that (unless maybe you see an ad for sex toys while you're looking at a site with your kid, oops). But data about you can be misused, or stolen and misused, and it's better in general to just not let the data be collected; you don't really know what they're doing with it. Interesting observation: ad networks collect data about us, they can clearly identify us as individuals (which is why you see those sex toy ads after visiting a sex toy site, for hypothetical example). But there was never a privacy statement involved.
- eli 11y ago
  It's actually not easy to detect adblock use. Popular ad blockers actively try to evade detection. If the intent is to let publishers decide whether to allow adblock users or not, it should send an easily detectable flag.
  - roma1n 11y ago
    Why would a piece of software on my machine needlessly be under remote control ?
    - a3n 11y ago
      It wouldn't control anything on your machine. It allows the web site to control whether they send content to you or not. I use AB Edge. I've visited Reddit, they posted a "we notice you use an ad blocker, if you like us, please think about whitelisting us." They could have just refused to serve the content. Either way would have been acceptable; it's my browser and I control what I see, it's their content and they control where it goes. In that case I whitelisted Reddit. Nothing on Reddit remote-controlled my machine, it just initiated a brief "conversation."
      - eli 11y ago
        Unfortunately for publishers, it's pretty hard to implement that sort of ad block detection reliably.
  - tracker1 11y ago
    Put a div tag with a class of "ad" on it... then test it's display style property 100ms after the load event... For that matter, wrap your primary content in a div with a class of "ad" ... then users won't even see the content, and you can replace it with a notice to disable adblock and refresh the page.
    - eli 11y ago
      I tried that: https://github.com/elidickinson/ad-block-test https://github.com/elidickinson/ad-block-test Much harder to get right than you'd think and if you're a big site it's worse: the block lists will be updated to "whitelist" your test ad. It's difficult for publishers to even accurately measure what impact ad blocking is having on their business.
mp3geek 11y ago
If you want to disable "Acceptable Ads" in Adblock Plus, its still there. Nothing stopping you.
easytiger 11y ago
> Personally I don't use Ad Blockers just due to the fact my own personal ethics feels I am stealing when I do use it. Sadly, I'm going to have to assert that's indicative of a dull mind. Controversial I'm sure but
webjprgm 11y ago
Do you also consider TIVO to be stealing?
chengiz 11y ago
I had no idea ABP accepted money from advertisers to be put on their whitelist. I know they have to make money somehow but this just seems suspiciously like extortion to me.
summerdown2 11y ago
How do you feel about disabling javascript by default, and making things click-to-play? I ask because I think the line between "advert used for site finance," and "drive-by malware" can sometimes be blurry. For example: http://www.cnet.com/news/malware-delivered-by-yahoo-fox-google-ads/ http://www.cnet.com/news/malware-delivered-by-yahoo-fox-goog... I think that when I click on a link I agree to see the content they provide. I'm not sure I really want to agree to third-party stuff without knowing what it is - and I'm very sure I don't want to start loading third party scripts automatically.
- baldfat 11y ago
  I used no javascript extensions for a while BUT it was not worth the hassle to me.
- eli 11y ago
  Fair enough, but if your browser is susceptible to drive-by malware, you're going to have a bad time on the internet whether you block ads or not. I think hacked sites are a far more common malware vector than ads.
  - imglorp 11y ago
    Ad providers are prime hacking targets because it's a vector to deliver malware to reputable sites showing reputable ads. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ad+network+hacked&t=ffnt https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ad+network+hacked&t=ffnt
    - eli 11y ago
      I'd be curious if anyone has data on this, but I think hacking sites is a much more common vector. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wordpress+hacked+malware&t=ffnt https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wordpress+hacked+malware&t=ffnt If an Ad Blocker is the only thing standing in the way of you and an exploit, you're gonna have a bad day.
      - nate_meurer 11y ago
Grue3 11y ago
>AdBlock Plus and their paid white list is the worst and I don't know why people use them. Because they actually fight to protect our freedoms in courts. A "paid white list" is a small price to pay (considering you can turn it off entirely).
blfr 11y ago
You can disable that white list of "unobtrusive advertising" by unchecking a single tick box. I use it because it works and has worked for a long time. I tried µBlock but it was leading to weird short lockups of my Firefox after a longer session.
a3n 11y ago
It's not that simple. Except for the simplest ones that might just be an image, ads are not just ads like in magazines and on TV. Ads use your resources to download more content. They use your resources for animation and sound. They also track you. Content providers are free to not serve you content if they detect ad blockers. If they have trouble detecting ad blockers, they are free to not be in business. They are free to move to a subscription model. They are operating willingly on the current open web. It's not your problem.
kazinator 11y ago
Am I stealing if I pick out the nice apples from the bin at the grocery store, and leave behind the ones with rotten spots?
- cfinke 11y ago
  Ad-blocking is more akin to eating the good parts of an apple and then not paying the grocery store because you didn't want the rotten spots.
  - teaneedz 11y ago
    Only if the store sold Apples under the expectation that everyone could eat their Apples first before paying and genetically modified the Apples to have hidden rotten parts.
  - kazinator 11y ago
    No it isn't, because no payment is required to view the page in question. How it works is that your browser downloads a page. That page contains scripts and links. Thanks to blocking software working on your behalf, the browser picks and chooses what of that cruft it should activate and what it should ignore. Nobody has a right to make your computer fetch unwanted content and throw it in your face. It's like looking at a tray of hors d'oeuvres, and choosing a few that you like, avoiding ones you don't find palatable. Anyway, not long ago, I obtained a full refund for a bag of apples that were rotten, even though I ate some of it. That is normal.
    - cfinke 11y ago
      > No it isn't, because no payment is required to view the page in question. The "payment" is the implicit agreement to view the ads. > How it works is that your browser downloads a page. That page contains scripts and links. Thanks for the lesson on how Web browsers work. I wish I knew all of that when I worked at Netscape; maybe it would still be around.
      - nate_meurer 11y ago
kazinator 11y ago
Does your personal ethics allow you to go to the washroom during a commercial break?

by baldfat 11y ago

sparaker 11y ago

I don't use AdBlock Plus but i do use AdBlock. I think its my decision to choose which ads i watch and which i don't. It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not.

Kiro 11y ago
> It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not. So what's your view on sites blocking people with AdBlock?
- Perdition 11y ago
  They can try if they want but it will cost them lots of money for no benefit.
- nathanlied 11y ago
  Perfectly acceptable. I believe it's within everyone's right to filter what hits their browser (and what their browser gets in the first place) as much as it is the website's right to serve whomever they want. They should attempt to use technical means, though, as it's unlikely that a simple 'Do you use adblock?' prompt is going to work very well.
  - a3n 11y ago
    As I noted elsewhere in this thread, I whitelisted Reddit when they noticed my ad blocker and they politely asked me to think about it. It can be done. One solution among probably many.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Their website, their right, their choice. Of course, people protesting/boycotting/etc. those who block people who block ads is also their right and their choice.
- kazinator 11y ago
  > So what's your view on sites blocking people with AdBlock? It's the web equivalent of an a entitled-feeling child throwing a tantrum. People who use ad-blocking software, and temporarily disable it on your page just to view the content, are not going to click on the ads. Furthermore, if you take additional measures to make them click on the ads ("please visit our sponsor first"), that constitutes click fraud. Users who click on an ad just to view the content are not interested in what is being advertized at all, and will not convert to buyers. Morally, it is within a hair's breadth of sending Javascript to the user's browser which simulates that user clicking on the ad (so that it looks like a real visit, as the ad syndicate knows), which would be blatant click fraud.
k-mcgrady 11y ago
>> It's not stealing, Webmasters can detect if someone is using AdBlock or not. In other words it's not stealing unless you get caught? Edit: Relax people. Let's not get into another debate on copying vs. theft. I was merely pointing out that the parents analogy (which was the one that referenced stealing) was bad.
- tokenizerrr 11y ago
  Is Google stealing from them when they crawl their pages but don't load in the ads? What about when I wget their page? Am I stealing from them now? Maybe when I disable javascript in my browser? Am I now a thief? No, I am not. It's not stealing whatsoever, ever. Even if they detect you're not loading in all the content they want you to load. If they manage to detect this, then they can choose to block your access to the content. Or perhaps rework their revenue model if it turns out it isn't working.
  - npizzolato 11y ago
    Not the op but, I often disable adblock on sites I enjoy because I feel similarly. I'm not really interested in a semantic debate about what is or is not "stealing," but it certainly deprives others of revenue for creating content I get value from. When that content is otherwise free except for ads, it makes me feel rather shitty to go out of my way to block their revenue stream. Edit: that said, I do still keep adblock on for sites with rather abusive or obnoxious ads.
    - a3n 11y ago
      Virtually every ad is abusive or obnoxious, because they track you. That's probably the leverage that makes online ads worthwhile. That's for better targeted ads, what could be wrong with that (unless maybe you see an ad for sex toys while you're looking at a site with your kid, oops). But data about you can be misused, or stolen and misused, and it's better in general to just not let the data be collected; you don't really know what they're doing with it. Interesting observation: ad networks collect data about us, they can clearly identify us as individuals (which is why you see those sex toy ads after visiting a sex toy site, for hypothetical example). But there was never a privacy statement involved.
eli 11y ago
It's actually not easy to detect adblock use. Popular ad blockers actively try to evade detection. If the intent is to let publishers decide whether to allow adblock users or not, it should send an easily detectable flag.
- roma1n 11y ago
  Why would a piece of software on my machine needlessly be under remote control ?
  - a3n 11y ago
    It wouldn't control anything on your machine. It allows the web site to control whether they send content to you or not. I use AB Edge. I've visited Reddit, they posted a "we notice you use an ad blocker, if you like us, please think about whitelisting us." They could have just refused to serve the content. Either way would have been acceptable; it's my browser and I control what I see, it's their content and they control where it goes. In that case I whitelisted Reddit. Nothing on Reddit remote-controlled my machine, it just initiated a brief "conversation."
    - eli 11y ago
      Unfortunately for publishers, it's pretty hard to implement that sort of ad block detection reliably.
- tracker1 11y ago
  Put a div tag with a class of "ad" on it... then test it's display style property 100ms after the load event... For that matter, wrap your primary content in a div with a class of "ad" ... then users won't even see the content, and you can replace it with a notice to disable adblock and refresh the page.
  - eli 11y ago
    I tried that: https://github.com/elidickinson/ad-block-test https://github.com/elidickinson/ad-block-test Much harder to get right than you'd think and if you're a big site it's worse: the block lists will be updated to "whitelist" your test ad. It's difficult for publishers to even accurately measure what impact ad blocking is having on their business.

mp3geek 11y ago

If you want to disable "Acceptable Ads" in Adblock Plus, its still there. Nothing stopping you.

easytiger 11y ago

> Personally I don't use Ad Blockers just due to the fact my own personal ethics feels I am stealing when I do use it. Sadly, I'm going to have to assert that's indicative of a dull mind. Controversial I'm sure but

webjprgm 11y ago

Do you also consider TIVO to be stealing?

chengiz 11y ago

I had no idea ABP accepted money from advertisers to be put on their whitelist. I know they have to make money somehow but this just seems suspiciously like extortion to me.

summerdown2 11y ago

How do you feel about disabling javascript by default, and making things click-to-play? I ask because I think the line between "advert used for site finance," and "drive-by malware" can sometimes be blurry. For example: http://www.cnet.com/news/malware-delivered-by-yahoo-fox-google-ads/ http://www.cnet.com/news/malware-delivered-by-yahoo-fox-goog... I think that when I click on a link I agree to see the content they provide. I'm not sure I really want to agree to third-party stuff without knowing what it is - and I'm very sure I don't want to start loading third party scripts automatically.

baldfat 11y ago
I used no javascript extensions for a while BUT it was not worth the hassle to me.
eli 11y ago
Fair enough, but if your browser is susceptible to drive-by malware, you're going to have a bad time on the internet whether you block ads or not. I think hacked sites are a far more common malware vector than ads.
- imglorp 11y ago
  Ad providers are prime hacking targets because it's a vector to deliver malware to reputable sites showing reputable ads. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ad+network+hacked&t=ffnt https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ad+network+hacked&t=ffnt
  - eli 11y ago
    I'd be curious if anyone has data on this, but I think hacking sites is a much more common vector. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wordpress+hacked+malware&t=ffnt https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wordpress+hacked+malware&t=ffnt If an Ad Blocker is the only thing standing in the way of you and an exploit, you're gonna have a bad day.
    - nate_meurer 11y ago

Grue3 11y ago

>AdBlock Plus and their paid white list is the worst and I don't know why people use them. Because they actually fight to protect our freedoms in courts. A "paid white list" is a small price to pay (considering you can turn it off entirely).

blfr 11y ago

You can disable that white list of "unobtrusive advertising" by unchecking a single tick box. I use it because it works and has worked for a long time. I tried µBlock but it was leading to weird short lockups of my Firefox after a longer session.

a3n 11y ago

It's not that simple. Except for the simplest ones that might just be an image, ads are not just ads like in magazines and on TV. Ads use your resources to download more content. They use your resources for animation and sound. They also track you. Content providers are free to not serve you content if they detect ad blockers. If they have trouble detecting ad blockers, they are free to not be in business. They are free to move to a subscription model. They are operating willingly on the current open web. It's not your problem.

kazinator 11y ago

Am I stealing if I pick out the nice apples from the bin at the grocery store, and leave behind the ones with rotten spots?

cfinke 11y ago
Ad-blocking is more akin to eating the good parts of an apple and then not paying the grocery store because you didn't want the rotten spots.
- teaneedz 11y ago
  Only if the store sold Apples under the expectation that everyone could eat their Apples first before paying and genetically modified the Apples to have hidden rotten parts.
- kazinator 11y ago
  No it isn't, because no payment is required to view the page in question. How it works is that your browser downloads a page. That page contains scripts and links. Thanks to blocking software working on your behalf, the browser picks and chooses what of that cruft it should activate and what it should ignore. Nobody has a right to make your computer fetch unwanted content and throw it in your face. It's like looking at a tray of hors d'oeuvres, and choosing a few that you like, avoiding ones you don't find palatable. Anyway, not long ago, I obtained a full refund for a bag of apples that were rotten, even though I ate some of it. That is normal.
  - cfinke 11y ago
    > No it isn't, because no payment is required to view the page in question. The "payment" is the implicit agreement to view the ads. > How it works is that your browser downloads a page. That page contains scripts and links. Thanks for the lesson on how Web browsers work. I wish I knew all of that when I worked at Netscape; maybe it would still be around.
    - nate_meurer 11y ago

kazinator 11y ago

Does your personal ethics allow you to go to the washroom during a commercial break?