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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

#201

Post by eps »

mobilemidget wrote: post #194
bradknowles wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TIL that the author of uBlock Origin reads HN. Cool! And thank you for your service to the Internet!

They all suck. Period. Block any outgoing connection you don't trust instead of simply taking some 3rd party list with URLs, unverified, no quality control etc, and only blacklist these KNOWN bad urls. Ad parties don't sit still, they don't keep their ads on the same url when they found out they are blocked or maybe already preventive rotate through new urls etc. In the end you'll end up with some bizar long list whi…

"Block by default" is a usability nightmare.

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

#202

Post by a13n »

orbitingpluto wrote: post #39

Okay, here's a crazy idea for advertisers. Tie the advertisement to the type of content that the user is already there to read about. Then you can serve ads from the content web server and make it indistinguishable from content, completely unobtrusive, completely noninvasive, and maybe even welcome.

You mean like HQ trivia's sponsored questions?

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

#203

Post by BoorishBears »

marklgr wrote: post #188
BoorishBears wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again you spend so many words to say so little to address the actual topic at hand and instead shift the topic. This time to... doubling down on saying I'm brainwashed? Ok, I'm brainwashed, thanks.

I understand your points, people don't want to pay (enough) for content, so content provider have little choice. I'd say it's the content-provider responsibility to market its content in such a way that people are willing to pay for it. That's what all businesses do. If they can't make it, then it's no excuse to resort to creepy stuff like tracking and profiling people without their consent, or with them ignoring the…

I thinks we need to remember the context of this conversation, I’m not against blocking tracking and not wanting to be tracked. I’m just against blocking ads then saying it’s taking the moral high ground and vilifying content creators who offer ads. I’m not even against blocking ads period, so long as we’re accepting the fact that it’s for personal benefit and definitely not “sticking it to the man”

The problem is we don’t have a protocol for signaling that they want to track you before you load the content and its tracking.

So you get the content, the tracking code, and detection for anti-ad/tracking plugins.

If they detect anti-ad plugins they say “We did give you the content, but we see you don’t have the form of payment we want so please don’t view it”

At that point, to me, neither side has done anything wrong. Would it be preferable if they could give you the “please don’t view it” message upfront? Definitely. But instead they let you opt out.

Once you decide to modify the paywall away and view the content you still haven’t done anything wrong but you’re saying “I want to view content paid for by showing people ads that was also designed to drive ad engagement but I don’t deserve to have to view ads so I’ll ignore your paywall since it’s my computer and you let me have the content” ... which is fine. And also won’t solve the actual underlying problem. Instead we just get an arms race of ad-block vs anti-ad-block (which anti will lose) and content creators hoping ad-blocking doesn’t reach critical mass.

The alternative is to turn down the content by going away. That sends the message that you won’t support the model. Bonus points if you pay someone willing to take your money in exchange for not tracking you since the most effective way to disrupt the market right now is to fund those trying to break out of the current model.

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

#204

Post by bonestamp2 »

BoorishBears wrote: post #117
saguro wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use an ad blocker for a much simpler reason. I do not consent to having my behavior analyzed. Calling these things `ads` is deliberately misleading. The primary purpose of these things isn't to show you an ad, its to record everything you do on every site you visit, so then that data can be correlated to your credit history and other real world sources to profile you and optimally manipulate your behavior to sell y…

If you don’t consent why view their content? And I’d like an answer for once other than the super literal “Because their server returned the status code 200” Because sure, it did, but if we’re turning this into an ideological discussion of how you feel you haven’t given permission, why even feed the system with your view. Even using an ad blocked you’re still adding views to the page, and the powers that be will simp…

> If you don’t consent why view their content?

Ever since newspapers, the social contract has been that they serve content and I become a reader they can sell advertising space for me to look at. They can't suddenly change that contract and expect everyone to automatically agree.

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

#205

Post by _ph_ »

tdb7893 wrote: post #189
_ph_ wrote: post #181

I wish, instead of fighting Ad Blockers, they would try as hard to fix they way they run ads. Not to mention the sites, which only exist to display ads and practically don't have their own content except for clickbait headlines. A side comment: while blocking ads might reduce revenue for sites, it also means the advertiser has to pay for views by people who wouldn't click on the ads anyway.

The thing is that ad blockers don't often don't discriminate between acceptable ads and unacceptable ads and just block everything. Even if you put a lot of effort to make your ads better most people will just block them regardless.

Yes, that is the collateral damage inflicted by participating at the current ad model far to long. However, for sites who really want to change, this isn't a real problem. First of all, if you don't serve ads via "ad networks" but as part of your hostet content, I don't think the ads are getting blocked by default. Also, if a site with true content and regular readers has a proper ad model, they can just ask their readers to whitelist their site. If you don't just ask because you don't want to get your ads blocked, but at the same time can tell your readers why this won't be a problem for them, I think many would whitelist the site - if whitelisting is needed at all.

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

#206

Post by otp124 »

mobilemidget wrote: post #200
joaodlf wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way too negative. I have been using uBlock Origin for years and it's one of those things that just works. Turning it off in those rare moments it needs to be off is a bleak reminder of the state of the internet. Why would I want to go through the hassle of managing all of this work by myself? A massive THANK YOU to the individuals behind uBlock - You literally make the internet tolerable for me.

I don't know why you call it negative, I call it realistic. It's like putting all _caught_ pedofiles in a jail, and then saying children can roam the streets free and in safety...

It might be realistic to whitelist egress on a production server, but certainly not at my mother’s house.

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

#207

Post by Pica_soO »

paulcole wrote: post #76
RandomInteger4 wrote: post #67

I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. Maybe if (1) fewer ads pumped up CPU and memory usage for a page, and (2) companies didn't give their non-technical asshole free reign over placing scripts on the page, then maybe many of these sites wouldn't be so bad to visit without an ad blocker.

>I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. This is extremely hyperbolic. Why not just, you know, not visit those websites if their business model is so abhorrent to you? Do you feel entitled to something for nothing?

As sb contributing to open source- yes, yes i do. Why - do you feel entitled for a universal income for adding another service layer, by wrapping something (usually open source) in some service (library usually open source)?

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

#208

Post by gaius »

Buge wrote: post #124
freedomben wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to think there's enough legitimate work out there for data scientists (especially these days) without resorting to this.

How will search engines make money if not by ads? How will free webmail providers exist? Ad supported content provides a wealth of information for people who otherwise wouldn't have access to it.

How will search engines make money if not by ads? How will free webmail providers exist?

How do other businesses do it? By providing goods and services the customer wants at a fair price. Radical I know, it’s only worked for like, thousands of years...

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

#209

Post by Pica_soO »

zlynx wrote: post #85
paulryanrogers wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable" What sites are unusable? Aside from some click-bait destinations like BuzzFeed I've found the web without ad blockers works well enough.

Most web sites seem to work well enough. But the real killer is on mobile devices like laptops. After the recent Firefox update I had to run without Noscript for a while, until it got updated. My laptop battery really took a hit. Loading web comics in 70 tabs or so took battery life estimates down to an hour. With Noscript running and blocking most advertising Javascript the estimate stays up at 3.5 hours.

You didnt get the advertisement for the free replacement battery?

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

#210

Post by ascorbic »

mobilemidget wrote: post #194
bradknowles wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TIL that the author of uBlock Origin reads HN. Cool! And thank you for your service to the Internet!

They all suck. Period. Block any outgoing connection you don't trust instead of simply taking some 3rd party list with URLs, unverified, no quality control etc, and only blacklist these KNOWN bad urls. Ad parties don't sit still, they don't keep their ads on the same url when they found out they are blocked or maybe already preventive rotate through new urls etc. In the end you'll end up with some bizar long list whi…

> Block any outgoing connection you don't trust instead of simply taking some 3rd party list with URLs, unverified, no quality control etc, and only blacklist these KNOWN bad urls.

Right, and how is that supposed to happen in practice? Manually inspect every CDN domain loaded on every page that you visit? Or just live without scripts, images, fonts, video?

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