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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 i

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.

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.