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Adblock Plus now sells ads

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141–150 of 388 posts

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#141
post #49
post #40

I, 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

I just want to go out there and say, they don't have the right to poison you, but you don't have the right to their content...

I fall in this weird spot with ads. I don't like them, they slow down the experience, they can have PORN on them (this happened to my brother the other day), they have little oversight and track you. Many things I do not approve of.

What I DO approve of is paying content creators. And unless you are paying to remove ads through google or something else then you aren't paying the content creators and this is how we get paywalls. Which I personally don't like and even worse, plagiarized articles from pay-walled articles so that we can see them on sites where we can just block ads.

I'm not saying I think ad blockers are bad. I just think we shouldn't feel that we have a right to content without ads if they are done properly. I.E. Not tracking, no malware in ads, etc. etc. If we get ads that server all 3 parties (consumer, ad companies, and content creators) so that consumers don't have to pay then I think we should be ready to get back on board.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using both for a while, just uninstalled ABP on this news. Unfortunately, uBlock Origin adds several seconds to Firefox startup time.

I though uBlock point was to be CPU/ram efficient ? That's even what they show in the chrome/firefox store images, it doesn't make much sense to me that it adds several seconds to Firefox startup time Am I missing something ?

I've found uBlock to be much faster than ABP

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever watched American TV? This reads like someone who turned on Bravo at 2PM one time and decided all TV must be like that.

I think what they're commenting on is the sort of editing time-line encountered on such shows in the genre similar to "greatest ice-road vintage trucker sale digger catch". These tend to be, in a 30 minute slot: Which gives 8 minutes of original footage stretched over 30 minutes, with 15 minutes of ads and 7 minutes of rehashing. This format, although now popular in other countries, is a "modern-classic" of US televi…

> "greatest ice-road vintage trucker sale digger catch"

You'd better get on the horn to Discovery, I think you've got a gold mine on your hands there ;)

> a "modern-classic" of US television

If by "modern-classic" you mean "beyond irritating" :P

Plus: You nailed that edit real, kudos - though, you missed the 1 minute "> Previously on...whatever show it is" at the beginning. 8 minutes of content on a channel you pay for, plus 15 minutes of advertising... so you're basically paying more for the ads than you are for the content... there's something really really wrong with this from a moral perspective.

If you pay for a channel, you should be paying for the content on that channel, not paying to be advertised to with some content as a by-product just to get money from both ends of the donkey.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#144
post #36

uBlock 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

I've been using both for a while, just uninstalled ABP on this news. Unfortunately, uBlock Origin adds several seconds to Firefox startup time.

How often are you restarting your browser that this would matter?

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#145
post #90

Why don't more people use hosts files and apps like gas mask to switch them?

uhhh, because its 20 times more tedious?

Hmmm... Gas mask on OS X makes it pretty simple. It's pretty effective and I don't have to worry about add-ons using lots of resources when I am running multiple browsers.

But, I suppose to each their own.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#146
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing to do if you haven't already. uBlock is open source and does the job. This all adBlock making money by blocking ads and then showing their own ads is becoming ridiculous and unethical. So what does Adblock stand for now ?

Why is it unethical? What ethical principle is being violated? (These are not rhetorical questions.)

Misleading to the user - any person who downloads a thing called "adblock" expects it to block ads. (A less charitable person may point out that a program that claims to do one thing and actually does another is known as a "trojan horse")

The same way a person who downloads an antivirus expects it to block viruses.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#147
post #113
post #36

uBlock 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

Also, look at blocking DNS as an alternative to in-browser blocking: http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman

Using a HOSTS file to block things while effective, is also a very bad user experience.

For example, some sites won't let you in until you unblock ads. With an extension you can use the in-browser UI to whitelist that site, with a HOSTS file you'd have to figure out exactly which domains got blocked, then update the HOSTS file, and finally restart the browser & flush the DNS Cache Resolver for it to take effect.

Again, it works, it is just a bad user experience.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#148
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing to do if you haven't already. uBlock is open source and does the job. This all adBlock making money by blocking ads and then showing their own ads is becoming ridiculous and unethical. So what does Adblock stand for now ?

Why is it unethical? What ethical principle is being violated? (These are not rhetorical questions.)

I wouldn't call it "unethical;" perhaps "unexpected?" Seems like an appropriate adjective for an ad blocker which displays ads.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#149
post #40

I, 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…

[deleted]

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever watched American TV? This reads like someone who turned on Bravo at 2PM one time and decided all TV must be like that.

I think what they're commenting on is the sort of editing time-line encountered on such shows in the genre similar to "greatest ice-road vintage trucker sale digger catch". These tend to be, in a 30 minute slot: Which gives 8 minutes of original footage stretched over 30 minutes, with 15 minutes of ads and 7 minutes of rehashing. This format, although now popular in other countries, is a "modern-classic" of US televi…

Which came first? This TV show format or the Listicle?

Either of which is beyond annoying.

Once in a while, I'll seek out a few Listicles with ad blocking off to see just what the state of the art of agressively deceptive advertisements is.

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