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Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

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Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#21

Post by mgbmtl »

Many comments are bitterly unfair against ABP. Wladimir/Eyeo changed how we use the web, gave us means to fight back against abusive advertising. They built a business model to make the extension sustainable and find a strategy to legitimate themselves, fight in the courts, etc. Not to mention that ABP never tried to close the market. Alternatives were easy to build thanks to EasyList.

Today there are many alternatives to ABP. I am extremely grateful for his work. He's going on a well deserved vacation. I wish him success in his future projects.

(In case anyone wonders, I am not affiliated. Just a happy user of ABP.)

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#23

Post by addicted »

d3sandoval wrote: post #18
zerr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Ghostery?

Depends on your opinion of this decision: https://adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/ghostery-sheds-ad-tra...

Sounds like getting acquired by a privacy focused browser makes them even more reliable now.

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#24

Post by ilikepi »

bmn__ wrote: post #12
TekMol wrote: post #6

Most tech people now seem to use uBlock Origin. But I use uMatrix (from the same developer) and I am super happy with it. It took me a minute or so to understand the interface. But then it is super intuitive and exactly the way I would have designed it myself. Since I only allow the hosts that I need, I almost never see advertising. And the web is blazingly fast.

The matrix functionality is available in uBlock Origin, no need to install both. Simply enable advanced mode.

The matrix (and its corresponding rules syntax) in uBlock Origin is not as powerful as in uMatrix. In uBO, you can specify how to handle traffic between two origins. You can also choose which type(s) of content can be loaded from a particular origin. However, you cannot specify both at once. For example, you can't create a rule in uBO to allow only image requests from google.com to googleusercontent.com.

The uMatrix rule syntax can do this, and the matrix UI does provide this capability.

EDIT: formatting, typo

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#26

Post by romanovcode »

votepaunchy wrote: post #15
romanovcode wrote: post #10

Who is even using this anymore? ABP lost all its cred when it took money from ad business. Just use uBlock Origin.

> Just use uBlock Origin. Has there always been a uBlock extension for Safari? That was my last holdout for using ABP. I've now manually installed the downloadable extension but ABP is prominently displayed in Apple's Safari extension app store.

It is even on Edge so it would be super-weird if it would not be on Safari.

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#27

Post by ycombobreaker »

mgbmtl wrote: post #21

Many comments are bitterly unfair against ABP. Wladimir/Eyeo changed how we use the web, gave us means to fight back against abusive advertising. They built a business model to make the extension sustainable and find a strategy to legitimate themselves, fight in the courts, etc. Not to mention that ABP never tried to close the market. Alternatives were easy to build thanks to EasyList. Today there are many alternativ…

As is frequently the case, I would give credit to Opera. They didn't have a central list but the browser had an easy-to-use element blocker that was suitable for blocking many obnoxious ads of the era. The central list ideas I've seen come out of projects built on squid proxies with known-advertiser black holes.

ABP may have packaged things up nicely, I dont remember that evolution of history. And they may have other good will now to balance out the "acceptable ads" monetization. But the tools to "fight back against abusive advertising" should be credited elsewhere, IMHO.

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#28

Post by Fnoord »

mgbmtl wrote: post #21

Many comments are bitterly unfair against ABP. Wladimir/Eyeo changed how we use the web, gave us means to fight back against abusive advertising. They built a business model to make the extension sustainable and find a strategy to legitimate themselves, fight in the courts, etc. Not to mention that ABP never tried to close the market. Alternatives were easy to build thanks to EasyList. Today there are many alternativ…

Come on, as if ABP innovated so much? ABP wasn't the first. I remember using an adblocker native in Firefox back around 2004 (and IIRC I even used on on Mozilla milestones). Back then, there were already /etc/hosts based alternatives (which also have always worked in Windows btw) as well, and a so-called personal firewall could also block ads. These existed for Windows 9x. We're talking end of '90s here.

As for the current direct comparison: uBlock yields better performance and doesn't have a shady track record [1]. Other than "I've always used this" or "I benefit if other people use this" (ie. am affiliated which you're not) I just do not see your point. So could you explain us why you pick ABP over uBlock?

[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-vs.-ABP:-effic...

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#29

Post by Fnoord »

ycombobreaker wrote: post #27
mgbmtl wrote: post #21

Many comments are bitterly unfair against ABP. Wladimir/Eyeo changed how we use the web, gave us means to fight back against abusive advertising. They built a business model to make the extension sustainable and find a strategy to legitimate themselves, fight in the courts, etc. Not to mention that ABP never tried to close the market. Alternatives were easy to build thanks to EasyList. Today there are many alternativ…

As is frequently the case, I would give credit to Opera. They didn't have a central list but the browser had an easy-to-use element blocker that was suitable for blocking many obnoxious ads of the era. The central list ideas I've seen come out of projects built on squid proxies with known-advertiser black holes. ABP may have packaged things up nicely, I dont remember that evolution of history. And they may have other…

Interestingly, Opera was proprietary with its own rendering engine (Presto) and you could buy a license or you could run it for free with an ad showing (back then, ads were more profitable as well). Bummer they never open sourced Presto. Maybe that inspired Brave. Though you can't "buy" Brave.
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