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Firms help websites evade ad blockers

bostonglobe.com

21–30 of 37 posts

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#21
"The Washington Post has begun testing a system that locks out visitors who block advertisements. “In the long run,” said Post spokeswoman Jennifer Lee in an e-mail, “without income via subscriptions or advertising, we won’t be able to deliver the journalism that people coming to our site expect from us.”

The Washington Post site has 21 trackers, ad services, and other junk. They dug their own hole.

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#23

I block all ads. Full stop. I also whitelist a trimmed set of websites to allow logins. I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, WEBRTC, and whole host of other things. I have not seen an ad in years, I have not suffered malware in years, my bandwidth is my own, not to be used for ad servers to serve up their dreck. The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OB…

You've seen ads, unless you've managed to avoid almost all video content. They're just "native ads" -- advertisements worked into the content itself. It's just another evolutionary arms race...

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#24

I block all ads. Full stop. I also whitelist a trimmed set of websites to allow logins. I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, WEBRTC, and whole host of other things. I have not seen an ad in years, I have not suffered malware in years, my bandwidth is my own, not to be used for ad servers to serve up their dreck. The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OB…

But is the an 'OBLIGATION' for them to serve you content? As such if they want to serve content with ads they have that right. You always have the choice whether you want to view their content, with ads and all. You dont have a right to their content.

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#25
post #3

> For instance, the Washington Post has begun testing a system that locks out visitors who block advertisements. I understand that position. But that's a losing position. It's an arms race, ad-blockers will always find clever ways to bypass these schemes then consultants will come with more complicated scripts that will make web pages heavier and harder to visit for those who don't block ads ... The Washington Post c…

The Washington Post certainly is not going to win that war.

For tech-savvy people who understand the issues an ad-blocker might be worthwhile even if it means some websites don't work temporarily while the ad-block developers think of new ways around things. For more typical web users though, the Washington Post's approach will result in a line of thought like "I installed that software and my Internet broke because some websites didn't work any more. I'm going to uninstall it." It's not unreasonable to believe ad-blocking might never become a mainstream technology that enough people use for it to change the way websites are funded. That, I would argue, would mean the ad industry has won the war.

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#26
post #9
post #3

> For instance, the Washington Post has begun testing a system that locks out visitors who block advertisements. I understand that position. But that's a losing position. It's an arms race, ad-blockers will always find clever ways to bypass these schemes then consultants will come with more complicated scripts that will make web pages heavier and harder to visit for those who don't block ads ... The Washington Post c…

I do this the other way round; I block entire sites that use obnoxious ads rather than use an adblocker. Funnily enough, WaPo are on my block list - they must've hit me with a modal (I unblocked them temporarily to see if they're still doing it, apparently not) The only ads I do block are the 'recommended for you' fake content from outbrain, zergnet, gravity and taboola. Just terrible.

You may be interested in this extension, which will do the site-blocking for you:

http://tinysubversions.com/notes/ethical-ad-blocker/

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#27

I block all ads. Full stop. I also whitelist a trimmed set of websites to allow logins. I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, WEBRTC, and whole host of other things. I have not seen an ad in years, I have not suffered malware in years, my bandwidth is my own, not to be used for ad servers to serve up their dreck. The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OB…

And I allow all adds. Haven't had malware problem in ages. And I am getting better at ignoring them. And there is always F12 to remove from the dom something that obscures the content.

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#28

I block all ads. Full stop. I also whitelist a trimmed set of websites to allow logins. I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, WEBRTC, and whole host of other things. I have not seen an ad in years, I have not suffered malware in years, my bandwidth is my own, not to be used for ad servers to serve up their dreck. The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OB…

I don't blame you for blocking ads because a lot of them are really out of hand (intrusive and deceptive) but I believe your reasoning for having no obligation to view ads is faulty. If everything is fair and square, I believe that you do indeed have an obligation to be served those ads when you're using the default medium that the content is served on (viewing the webpage). I won't get into technicalities of other methods of reading the content like downloading the content to a feed reader, or viewing TV on DVR without ads for that matter.

You of course have the right to ignore the ads, but from the perspective of the content providers and advertisers, it's only fair that the ad gets DELIVERED to the reader. Because on the off chance that you might actually look at the ad, and on the off chance that you're actually interested in what you see and decide to buy ... that small chance for every reader is how the content provider stays in business.

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#29

I block all ads. Full stop. I also whitelist a trimmed set of websites to allow logins. I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, WEBRTC, and whole host of other things. I have not seen an ad in years, I have not suffered malware in years, my bandwidth is my own, not to be used for ad servers to serve up their dreck. The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OB…

not making any moral judgements, just curious, do you pay for content where possible (via donation or subscription)?

I do if I feel the content is worth it and I currently have multiple subscriptions. However I'm not going to allow ads from any blogger that believes that because I view his content I have to support his website regardless of the quality. The claim that independent bloggers need ad revenue for hosting costs is a joke when you can get dedicated hosting for less than your phone contract, and if you want revenue, create something that is worth it, so people would want to subscribe. Also I will always block 3rd party cookies/trackers regardless.

Re: Firms help websites evade ad blockers

#30
post #24

I block all ads. Full stop. I also whitelist a trimmed set of websites to allow logins. I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, WEBRTC, and whole host of other things. I have not seen an ad in years, I have not suffered malware in years, my bandwidth is my own, not to be used for ad servers to serve up their dreck. The morality surrounding ad blocking is up for debate, but I do not feel guilty because there is no OB…

But is the an 'OBLIGATION' for them to serve you content? As such if they want to serve content with ads they have that right. You always have the choice whether you want to view their content, with ads and all. You dont have a right to their content.

Then they can say "hey, you didn't let us serve this ad, you can't see the content!". I'm perfectly OK with that.
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