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Adblock Plus now sells ads

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Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#151

Post by jackhack »

pythia__ wrote: post #109
rloc wrote: 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.)

Trust.

Performing the exact opposite of the stated and expected purpose of the application, for money, is a violation of trust. There is an implied belief that a product should do what it claims (and its name clearly states a purpose -- ad BLOCK), and the plain English reading of the title makes that pretty clear.

Imagine a virus scanner that only blocked those viruses that didn't pay up.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#152

Post by endemic »

Someone1234 wrote: post #147
m0nty wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Agai…

Even simpler solution: never visit those offending sites again, which is a great user experience ;)

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#153

Post by M_Grey »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #135
thclark wrote: 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.

If that's happening, I doubt it's uBlock.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#154

Post by M_Grey »

thclark wrote: 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 find that it goes very well with script blocker and ghostery; that handles most combinations of advertising, trackers, so on. You can add privacy guard if you feel like it as well, but I haven't' tried that and can't speak for it.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#155

Post by beagle3 »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #135
thclark wrote: 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.

Maybe it is interaction between it and another addon. I just removed and reinstalled all my addons last week and performance was dramatically increased.

Well, not all my addons - turns out though my Scriptish has been installed since Firefox 3 (now at 45), it wouldn't reinstall after removal for compatibility problems. Not sure why that wasn't automatically detected, and that may have been the performance issue

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#156

Post by gakada »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #126
bonoboTP wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When watching TV, I often switch away when the ads come. Then after a few minutes I switch back to continue watching the program. Do you think this behavior is also unacceptable? Or how do you feel about people who throw away promotional stuff found in magazines and newspapers?

My issue isn't really with ad-blocking. It's with people like the parent who act like it's a human rights violation but still take the content and don't offer an alternative. If you feel so strongly about it boycott companies showing you ads.

Speaking personally, I do. Internet ads are usually a sign of low-quality content, for instance they seem to have an incredible power to turn previously esteemed newspapers into clickbait factories.

The best content on the internet is ad-free.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#157

Post by RobAley »

paulcole wrote: post #131
pythia__ wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

On the Internet, unethical = I don't like it

Well that's all ethics are anywhere. There's no concrete list of universally agreed ethics, by definition people pick and choose what they deem ethical for whatever reasons they want.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#158

Post by chii »

bargl wrote: post #141
jwise0 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't have the right to their content...

if they allow the public to view their content, they cannot dictate how the content is viewed. There's ways to block people from viewing content if ads are blocked - but a lot of sites don't do that, because they deem the traffic more important.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#159

Post by stevesearer »

bargl wrote: post #141
jwise0 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Check out the site in my profile, would love to hear your feedback - I sell and self-host all of my own advertising. Because I have that control the ads end up being both high-quality and targeted to the content (and the reader by association).

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#160

Post by cbr »

tedmiston wrote: post #76
gbin wrote: post #67

It is borderline malware at that point. I don't like ads but I still want to contribute to the sites so I just pay with contributor: https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/ Disclosure: I work for Google but those opinions are my own.

First time seeing Contributor. This is interesting but… can you really use it everywhere, or do creators have to opt-in? I don't see pointed how Google sends money to authors.

The ads you see are generally the result of an auction. When you use Contributor it bids in that auction for you, and typically wins it for a small fraction of a cent.

Publishers generally don't have to opt in: if you're a publisher advertising with AdSense, and a visitor shows up who uses Contributor, they'll see "thank you for being a Contributor!" and you get a micropayment from them into your AdSense account.

(Disclaimer: I work for Google, on things completely unrelated to ads.)

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