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How we fought bad ads in 2015

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Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#91

Post by discreditable »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #76
seangrant wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CNET and download used to be, sure. Maybe not so much anymore. I'm just saying official or not, if the checksum matches - it's not malicious. End of story. You're correct though in that just randomly picking mirrors is a bad idea. I seriously doubt your average person is utilizing checksums.

> I seriously doubt your average person is utilizing checksums. Sure, if you're utilizing checksums the way they should be then go ahead. But honestly, even I don't care that much - my ad-heuristic was sufficient so far :). I should probably start using them. I guess it's like with all things crypto - the UX sucks so bad that most people don't bother.

Checksums are particularly handy when the original source is inaccessible. In that sort of situation I can google the file name and verify authenticity easily.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#92

Post by Nadya »

seangrant wrote: post #72
TeMPOraL wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they official mirrors? Linked from the official site? If not, I'm not trusting them. Incentives are not aligned properly. Also notice, that the more ads are on such a site, the less trustworthy it is. Do you think CNET / download.com are good places to get your software from?

CNET and download used to be, sure. Maybe not so much anymore. I'm just saying official or not, if the checksum matches - it's not malicious. End of story. You're correct though in that just randomly picking mirrors is a bad idea. I seriously doubt your average person is utilizing checksums.

>I'm just saying official or not, if the checksum matches - it's not malicious. End of story.

Well...it would take a particularly craft individual and far too much time, but spoofing a malicious MD5 checksum should be considered plausible. The chances of it being malicious, however, are drastically reduced to such a large degree as that it is safe to consider it negligible. (Note: I only make this claim about MD5 checksums, not SHA-1 or SHA-2. I do not consider MD5 secure in any manner and my trust of SHA-1/SHA-2 isn't exactly high either.)

I provide SHA-1 and MD5 checksums of any software I distribute - if only because I think it is the proper thing to do. Even if most people don't bother checking them (let alone know how to check them)

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#93

Post by phonon »

xpda wrote: post #6

"In 2015, we stepped up our efforts to fight phishing sites, blocking nearly 7,000 sites as a result." One of the 7000 "phishing sites" they blocked was a page on my personal site ( http://xpda.com/f18ebay/ ) that has been there more than 10 years and has nothing to do with phishing. It's not an important or high-traffic page, but it was irritating nonetheless to be falsely accused by Google and, as a result, a sever…

if you like it so much, save the page as a png and host that instead.

http://imgur.com/2cshB5p

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#94

Post by bpodgursky »

Christ people, shut up about adblockers. We get it, you use one. Congratulations, I don't care.

But stop spamming every article related to ads with comments about it. Half of HN readers work in a company powered by ad-tech and some of us actually want discussion about the article in question.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#95

Post by eevilspock »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #51
eevilspock wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, all ads are bad. And let's call the advertising business model what it is: a get rich quick scheme. Undercut the straight up competitors that charge for their product by fooling consumers into thinking you're offering what the other guy is offering, but for free. Come on, who could turn down that? Or make something "valuable" that no one is willing to pay for (WTF?), so again make it appear free. Only the tru…

This is not quite as straightforward, though. One advantage of our ad supported internet is that quality of access to ad-supported services varies very little with one's wealth. A teenager in Mexico (or India, or... you get the idea) with a low end smartphone, coffee shop wi-fi and no credit card gets the exact same Google, Youtube and Facebook services than a Silicon Valley VC with a Mac Book Pro and a huge bank acc…

Imagine if instead of libraries we made literature accessible to everyone by inserting ads, including "native ads" and product placements in the stories! Egads!

You know what's more important than "quality of access"? Quality content and quality services. The perverse incentives of the ad-supported model results in great quantities of poor if not negative quality crap. The kind of stuff that manipulates and exploits the very people you are speaking up for, those who can least afford it.

Clearly there are other models. It's up to us, the technologists, the so-called innovators. Where are our innovative powers to come up with alternate busniness models? Where are our backbones to stand up against selling out the internet so that we can get rich quick?

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks." – Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manager of Facebook Data Team, founder of Cloudera

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#96

Post by starshadowx2 »

eric_the_read wrote: post #33
starshadowx2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I want something, I will get it And what are all the ways you can discover things you want? I'd say the top two for most people are word-of-mouth and advertising.

I search for reviews from people I trust, compare the results, and decide on an option. I can't think of the last time I discovered anything I wanted from advertising with the possible exception of movie trailers.

Even before the point where you look for reviews. Like the moment where you learn a product even exists, and you decide you might want to get it. That's the role advertising fills.

I agree with you on the second part. I block all ads on all computers I use, so they're pretty useless to me, but I still understand why they exist and the job they do.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#97

Post by eevilspock »

seivan wrote: post #81
eevilspock wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, all ads are bad. And let's call the advertising business model what it is: a get rich quick scheme. Undercut the straight up competitors that charge for their product by fooling consumers into thinking you're offering what the other guy is offering, but for free. Come on, who could turn down that? Or make something "valuable" that no one is willing to pay for (WTF?), so again make it appear free. Only the tru…

I haven't finished reading all the posts you've referenced to but it seems like an interesting idea. My only concern is that you're not(?) suggesting an alternative for creating awareness on superior products? Ads at least gives the underdog a small chance. But I agree with the social "tax" we pay for "journalists" shoving ads down our throat and call it news.

Thanks. For an alternative, see my other comment on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10946879.

And please also see this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10949265

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#98

Post by dredmorbius »

Paul_S wrote: post #14

How I fought bad ads in 2016 (in order of impact on usability/performance): http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ (transparent and no overhead, works on Android too!) https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock (a handful of websites will detect it - you can then switch to visual blocking for that domain to get around it, for FF: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... ) ht…

For the technically adept, consider swapping uMatrix for NoScript.

It does everything NS does, and more. Though at the cost of a more complex interface, and a few more failure modes.

This includes: Scripts, cookies, CSS, XHD, frames, and other elements, on a host-by-host, or domain, basis, with optional default rules.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#99

Post by TeMPOraL »

billmalarky wrote: post #73
Sir_Substance wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You think all ads are irrelevant to you? Do you not use goods and services to raise your quality of life? There is no connection between these two statements, and the former is not the assertion I made.

Products and services cannot be successful in a market economy without raising public awareness.

That is true, but "raising public awareness" is just a very small part of what modern advertising does. For products and services to be successful, one just has to place information about their availability accessible somewhere where people will look.

What it absolutely doesn't require is pushing information. If I need a product or service, I'll look it up. As for potentially useful services I don't even know they exist, I'll discover them when I'm bored and start browsing ad catalogues. Everything that I actually need I'll learn from friends and family anyway (aka. word-of-mouth).

Here is where advertisement stops being useful and starts being malicious: the very core principle of "creating a need". The idea that you need to create a need in customer that they didn't have before. This is wrong, manipulative and malicious. I don't need you to hack my life like this and profit off it. I can discover the world on my own.

Re: How we fought bad ads in 2015

#100

Post by TeMPOraL »

mahranch wrote: post #80
CaptSpify wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is though: What can they reply with? "Do you feel you deserve the content for free?" is the only argument I ever hear, and that is so old and tired, it's not funny. I'd be interested in hearing/discussing a solid pro-ad argument, but I've yet to find one.

> a solid pro-ad argument, but I've yet to find one. That's because there is no argument to be had. Ads subsidize the vast majority of content on the internet, full stop. Just as they did TV stations before cable. That content wasn't free, those ad companies paid for their ad spots, which paid for those television shows. The same is true for the internet, without ads, the internet would look very, very different. Wit…

> It's a butterfly effect on a massive scale - you remove ads from the equation, the majority of what we know as the internet goes with it because they're directly responsible for the bulk of the innovation.

And I say, bring it on. Majority of the Internet is crap. It'll be better to see it go. Most content that's actually valuable is treated either as a loss leader or simply cost to be covered from external sources. The rest can be covered with donations. People who want to share something useful will share something useful. What we will get rid of is all those poor attempts at making a quick buck off people.

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