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Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

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Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#11

Post by noncoml »

makecheck wrote: post #2

Interesting how the response of sites with terrible user experiences caused by ad tech is not to say “oh, how can we change our ads so people will accept them?” but rather to find ways to make their user experiences even more horrible, e.g. popping up new unwanted interruptions accusing you of having an ad-blocker. Hey big web sites, here is the solution, and I won’t even charge you for it: stop making terrible user…

I had to disable my ad blocker today to try out another plugin. The sites were 2-3x slower to load. There is no way anyone can convince me to disable my ad blocker again.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#12

Post by makecheck »

danso wrote: post #8
makecheck wrote: post #2

Interesting how the response of sites with terrible user experiences caused by ad tech is not to say “oh, how can we change our ads so people will accept them?” but rather to find ways to make their user experiences even more horrible, e.g. popping up new unwanted interruptions accusing you of having an ad-blocker. Hey big web sites, here is the solution, and I won’t even charge you for it: stop making terrible user…

> “oh, how can we change our ads so people will accept them?” If a single website -- say, your local or regional news site -- overhauled its ad experience to become more user-friendly, how would you even notice, if their ad server was added to your ad blocker's blacklist?

One possibility is to configure ad-blockers to allow only a tiny amount of data to be loaded from 3rd-party domains (i.e. can’t be a 2MB blob of JavaScript, giant animating image or video but a nice text blurb would fit within the limit).

Though I probably would trust it more if it were directly embedded in the site.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#13

Post by lscotte »

makecheck wrote: post #2

Interesting how the response of sites with terrible user experiences caused by ad tech is not to say “oh, how can we change our ads so people will accept them?” but rather to find ways to make their user experiences even more horrible, e.g. popping up new unwanted interruptions accusing you of having an ad-blocker. Hey big web sites, here is the solution, and I won’t even charge you for it: stop making terrible user…

Oh... I, like most people, am actually intentionally blocking the ads.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#14

Post by krapp »

alkonaut wrote: post #6
krapp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do many sites have that much direct editorial control over the ads they run? I've only ever done a little ad banner work so I don't know how it is for "large" sites, but I assume the people writing and maintaining the code are not the ones actually selling or creating the ads. I assume those decisions are made between sales and the client.

Any site that doesn’t control the content of their ads deserve to be starved out of business as fast as possible by ad blockers. That is: I don’t mind ads, I just don’t accept “adtech”.

Advertisers tend not to be willing to give that much control to whatever medium they're advertising in. More often than not, they can dictate terms because they drive revenue.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#17

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

danso wrote: post #8
makecheck wrote: post #2

Interesting how the response of sites with terrible user experiences caused by ad tech is not to say “oh, how can we change our ads so people will accept them?” but rather to find ways to make their user experiences even more horrible, e.g. popping up new unwanted interruptions accusing you of having an ad-blocker. Hey big web sites, here is the solution, and I won’t even charge you for it: stop making terrible user…

> “oh, how can we change our ads so people will accept them?” If a single website -- say, your local or regional news site -- overhauled its ad experience to become more user-friendly, how would you even notice, if their ad server was added to your ad blocker's blacklist?

Host ads as first-party content?

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#18

Post by severine »

danso wrote: post #8
makecheck wrote: post #2

Interesting how the response of sites with terrible user experiences caused by ad tech is not to say “oh, how can we change our ads so people will accept them?” but rather to find ways to make their user experiences even more horrible, e.g. popping up new unwanted interruptions accusing you of having an ad-blocker. Hey big web sites, here is the solution, and I won’t even charge you for it: stop making terrible user…

> “oh, how can we change our ads so people will accept them?” If a single website -- say, your local or regional news site -- overhauled its ad experience to become more user-friendly, how would you even notice, if their ad server was added to your ad blocker's blacklist?

They could write about the overhaul, then you could decide if their reasons convince you to change your browser settings.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#19

Post by severine »

lousken wrote: post #16

Disabling javascript is the best anti-anti-adblock solution. I wish chrome added an option for tampermonkey scripts to be run with disabled js, that would make this solution perfect.

Maybe you can test this extension [1] in Chrome? Works great in Firefox, where bookmarklets are tricky sometimes due to some CSP voodoo.

[1] https://github.com/mems/bookmarklets-context-menu

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