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Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

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Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#71

Post by guelo »

rwallace wrote: post #13

Given that advertising pays for a lot of the services we all use, the use of Adblock and similar programs constitutes defection in game theory terms - the more people who do it, the worse off we all are - which means even if you choose to do it yourself (I personally don't), it is against your interests to encourage other people to do it. Also, given that computing is one of very few areas of technology in which our…

I can't think of an ad-based internet service that is promoting the progress of the species. Most of them, like Facebook, would be better if they weren't trying to sell ads.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#72

Post by pomfpomfpomf3 »

rimantas wrote: post #51
rwallace wrote: post #13

Given that advertising pays for a lot of the services we all use, the use of Adblock and similar programs constitutes defection in game theory terms - the more people who do it, the worse off we all are - which means even if you choose to do it yourself (I personally don't), it is against your interests to encourage other people to do it. Also, given that computing is one of very few areas of technology in which our…

And browsing without adblock means theat those who really pay for our services—people buying online ads—are being robbed. They paid specific amount for a specific number of impressions. Ok, I browse without ad-block, buty I never click on ads. That means that all those impressions on the pages I visited are wasted. Sure, their owners get their money, but that's pure waste of money for the advertiser. If majority woul…

I don't believe this is true for Google Adsense since it's CPC (cost per click), not per view.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#73

Post by Dewie »

rwallace wrote: post #53
reedlaw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not encourage people to pay for services they use and enjoy? The ad-supported services have mixed motives at best and tend to compromise on privacy when it affects their bottom-line. Also, there are other reasons for blocking ads besides simple annoyance. They tend to be hosted by 3rd party domains that can track browsing history across sites.

Micro-payments are a bad idea because making decisions costs mental energy, and the energy cost declines more slowly than the amount, so if you have to decide to pay a couple of cents to read an article, you end up spending more than a couple of cents worth of mental energy making the decision. It's a dead loss. Advertising is a better business model all around.

I would like an opt-in "subscription service". I pay x$ per month and a program automatically divides that and donates to the various sites that I've used. There would also be some way to customize it to make sure that certain sites gets more money, and others less. In turn, maybe the websites register my donations via cookies and then cools down on the ads.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#75

Post by Spittie »

nnethercote wrote: post #47
cpeterso wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is adding "add-on compartments" (bug 990729) that allocate separate memory arenas for each add-on. Firefox will be able to use this information to track (most) memory usage for each add-on. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=990729

It can already measure some parts of add-on memory usage, and you can see this by looking for "add-ons" in about:memory. Bug 990729 will improve the accuracy of the measurements.

There is also this addon (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/about-addons-...) which has a somewhat nicer interface.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#76

Post by pjc50 »

jacobgreenleaf wrote: post #64
mike-cardwell wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we make it difficult for services to be ad funded, perhaps alternative methods of funding will emerge. Perhaps alternative methods of service delivery will emerge too which don't require large companies to build their own data centres (peer to peer, distributed). I don't get rid of ads on my systems because they're annoying. I do it because they introduce massive single points of failure, they add massive centrali…

Then again, maybe the alternative methods of funding won't emerge and AdBlock will destroy the web as we know it.

Fine, we'll go back to the 1996 internet with far fewer ads.

I note HN seems to be doing just fine without them.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#77

Post by e1g »

anigbrowl wrote: post #11

I have not had any significant problems with ABP, but after trying out HTTPSB earlier this week it's become my most essential extension. It's not as user-friendly as Ghostery, ABP and a few others, but I really appreciate its ability to quickly show me what's actually happening on a given page. I would love to see it develop into a general-purpose diagnostic tool. After only having it installed for a few days, it's h…

Same - I installed HTTPSB as a dec tool, but ended up liking how much control it gives back to me about what is loaded on my pages. There was an initial period of frustration as I had to unblock the bare minimum required to make youtube/gmail/vimeo/facebook work as expected, and after that it's smooth sailing. ADP is gone, and I feel like I get my pages quicker and cleaner.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#78

Post by dspillett »

rwallace wrote: post #13

Given that advertising pays for a lot of the services we all use, the use of Adblock and similar programs constitutes defection in game theory terms - the more people who do it, the worse off we all are - which means even if you choose to do it yourself (I personally don't), it is against your interests to encourage other people to do it. Also, given that computing is one of very few areas of technology in which our…

> Adblock and similar programs constitutes defection in game theory terms

Some would say that the following are also defections in the same terms though:

* Pop-up/-over advertising that gets in the way * Pop-under advertising * Auto-playing video that drains noticeable bandwidth and CPU power (and therefore battery) when mobile * Auto-playing audio, usually at some horrendous volume * Tracking us and storing derived data about our lives in quite some detail without our permission * Collecting free information, wrapping adverts around it, and working hard to make sure the ad wrapped version comes up top in search results above the non-encumbered version (please don't try defend this in the general case with the word "curating")

Free services paid for by the above are only free is you consider the above and related matters to not be costs (which presumably you don't, which is fair enough).

I don't actually run adblock/noscript/what-ever, for performance reasons and because of the inconvenience of false positives and such: I just avoid sites that irritate me with the non-tracking-related stuff (to the point of having some blacklisted in my local DNS settings) and accept that no matter what I do I'm going to be followed by Google, Facebook, and their less reputable compatriots.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#79

Post by rplnt »

rwallace wrote: post #13

Given that advertising pays for a lot of the services we all use, the use of Adblock and similar programs constitutes defection in game theory terms - the more people who do it, the worse off we all are - which means even if you choose to do it yourself (I personally don't), it is against your interests to encourage other people to do it. Also, given that computing is one of very few areas of technology in which our…

That's what I liked about Opera's content blocker. There was no black list to start with. But if you encountered a site with annoying ads, you could just block it yourself without much hassle. If the ad wasn't intrusive, you could just leave it there.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#80

Post by Kabacaru »

Dewie wrote: post #73
rwallace wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Micro-payments are a bad idea because making decisions costs mental energy, and the energy cost declines more slowly than the amount, so if you have to decide to pay a couple of cents to read an article, you end up spending more than a couple of cents worth of mental energy making the decision. It's a dead loss. Advertising is a better business model all around.

I would like an opt-in "subscription service". I pay x$ per month and a program automatically divides that and donates to the various sites that I've used. There would also be some way to customize it to make sure that certain sites gets more money, and others less. In turn, maybe the websites register my donations via cookies and then cools down on the ads.

I think Flattr is probably what you're describing (https://flattr.com/)

Description:

Whenever you read, watch and listen to content you want to support, you simply flattr it. Remember that you can flattr as many times you want during a month, as you never will exceed your chosen budget.

At the end of each month, we divide your budget into as many pieces as you made flattrs. For example 25 flattrs will divide your budget into 25 pieces. With a 10 euro budget, each piece is 40 cents.

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