It's pretty despicable - let's block everyone elses ads so that we can put up our own and make money from them instead.
That sounds exactly like what browser based malware/adware does.
Adblock Plus now sells ads
41–50 of 388 posts
Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads
#42Just another anecdote to "ad" to the pile:
In an effort to keep my Chromium/FF instances 'clean' I just use https-everywhere and uMatrix (since it came out - my trust in noscript and abp was waning a long way back). It's nice to block the vast majority of low-hanging trackers. I'm hoping that having FB, GA and myriad other tracking scripts auto-disabled circumvents some of their even smarter tracking methods (IP, cookie) but I'm always open to modify the setup, just not at the expense of my limited computing resources.
Using 10 privacy extensions is a non-starter, for instance. Not to mention how little I trust most of the ad blocking efforts out there.
At home I have a pi-hole set up (as well as the pi being a media centre, IRC, IM and NAS... so versatile!) to block the low-hanging scripts and calls on my family and guests' browsing. It's a shame it blocks Piwik by default, but I can understand the reasoning. Log-based analytics really should be the norm, anyway. The speed boost is non-trivial, as is the peace of mind that most of our private life is not being sold to the highest bidder.
EDIT: I've just gone into the Privacy settings in uMatrix and checked everything on the basis of this post-as-reminder: Cookies, local storage, user agent, strict https... Don't think the last one allows me to drop https-everywhere yet though, only to avoid mixed content. I may end up unchecking that box if it gets too annoying... I know the risks!
Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads
#43No such thing as an acceptable ad.
Then pay for content.
Ads are how people who provide free content make money. Yes, they are often offensive (visually, not necessarily the content), slow to load, and contain or utilize some of tracker or retargeting mechanism. But if you can remove those and you basically just have a PNG telling you about a product or service, that is the very definition of acceptable.
But to freely consume content from someone (whether a single blogger or a massive company) then bitch about unobtrusive, nontracking, inoffensive advertisements is a pretty good example of entitlement.
Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads
#44No such thing as an acceptable ad.
Then pay for content. Ads are how people who provide free content make money. Yes, they are often offensive (visually, not necessarily the content), slow to load, and contain or utilize some of tracker or retargeting mechanism. But if you can remove those and you basically just have a PNG telling you about a product or service, that is the very definition of acceptable. But to freely consume content from someone (whe…
> Then pay for content.
Hehe, I guess that's why one would use an ad blocker, right?
I hear you, but this isn't about helping sites survive, it's about ads in an ad blocker that is keeping their money for themselves, and is used mostly by people who dislike ads.
Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads
#45Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads
#46[deleted]
Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads
#47Why don't more people use hosts files and apps like gas mask to switch them?
> Why don't more people use hosts files and apps like gas mask to switch them? how many people know what a host file is ? that will answer your question. ad-block is the simplest way to block ads for a non technical user.
> how many people know what a host file is ? that will answer your question. ad-block is the simplest way to block ads for a non technical user.
An in-browser ad blocker is also more effective, regardless of your technical skill. Hosts blocks only work if the ads are served from their own server, which is certainly not always the case. Either you don't block the hard ads, or you block way too much and break a bunch of sites.
Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
What the diff?
uBlock was maintained by one person, but they wanted to move on to other projects, so they handed the project to someone else. The other person horribly mismanaged the project, and contributed essentially nothing. The original developer decided to return with uBlock origin.
The other person also begged for donations while contributing nothing.
Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads
#49I, for one, agree with them. We started blocking ads because they had become 1. obnoxious, interfering with the fruition of the actual content; 2. dangerous, being a vector for malware and disrespecting our privacy; and 3. costly, for those with a slow or metered connection. Most people accept ads, if they are acceptable. They are the first company to actually push through with a plan to restore this market to sanity…
Well, the royal "we", perhaps :-)
I started blocking ads because they dramatically slowed down my browsing experience. But I keep blocking ads because, fundamentally, I believe that advertisements are neurotoxins, and nobody has the right to poison me.
The old Sean Tejaratchi quote - popularized by Banksy - applies here, I think - http://www.readingfrenzy.com/ledger/2012/03/taking_the_piss
Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads
#50uBlock Origin it is! Extensions: Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa... Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... Opera: https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/ublock/ Microsoft Edge: https://github.com/nikrolls/uBlock-Edge#microsoft-edge
Thanks! Was just wondering about the availability for Edge.
...not that Edge isn't hilariously un-fun to use, even with an adblocker...