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Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

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Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#41

Post by bastawhiz »

sly010 wrote: post #26

I wonder at which point will we just stream pages as interactive video content with a text optimized codec. Most pages on the internet are bloated to the point where it might just make sense. (I am not advocating, I am predicting)

At a previous job in the not-too-distant past, we needed to support IE7 for contractual reasons. I'd unironically floated the idea of launching a VM on the server running Firefox, and starting a VNC session, streamed over frames of a GIF. Clicks and keypresses would be transmitted with AJAX calls.

In a later project, we played with the idea of using an asm.js-compiled Webkit to render SVG (with embedded HTML) into a canvas due to mixed browser support.

Long story short, it's not inconceivable.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#42

Post by erichurkman »

ceejayoz wrote: post #23
ionforce wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one cares about accessibility when ad dollars are at stake.

They do when regulators come calling with significant penalties.

if(ad_dollars > fines) { do_evil(); }

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#43

Post by dman »

bastawhiz wrote: post #41
sly010 wrote: post #26

I wonder at which point will we just stream pages as interactive video content with a text optimized codec. Most pages on the internet are bloated to the point where it might just make sense. (I am not advocating, I am predicting)

At a previous job in the not-too-distant past, we needed to support IE7 for contractual reasons. I'd unironically floated the idea of launching a VM on the server running Firefox, and starting a VNC session, streamed over frames of a GIF. Clicks and keypresses would be transmitted with AJAX calls. In a later project, we played with the idea of using an asm.js-compiled Webkit to render SVG (with embedded HTML) into a…

Write once, run everywhere promise of the web delivered like never before.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#44

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

matz1 wrote: post #25
eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, seems like a total waste of time. The people scraping will spend the necessary time to get around this (and then distribute that knowledge to the masses) so it seems like a pointless arms race. Facebook employees could better use their time on developing actual features that bring value.

How is this waste of time / pointless ? They do bring value for fb, they reduce the loss of ad money.

Because they are fighting the people that absolutely do not want to see advertisements whatsoever (most normal people I know do not have ad-blockers), which already makes them the least likely to be attracted by advertisements. If anything, those brands are souring their reputation anytime they are seen by those kind of people in a medium that those consumers find obnoxious.

You can make a similar argument that the RIAA/MPAA going after piracy is a waste of time. Again, focus on delivering value to actual customers.

If Facebook spent more time on making a friendly ecosystem / community I would be more open to signing back up again. Instead, it seems they are hyper-focused on advertisements at the expense of everything else.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#45

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #17
jordan801 wrote: post #12

Anyone who has written a few scrappers knows how brutally ineffective this is. Yelp tried to pull the same thing and it took me about 3 minutes to rectify my "for fun" scraper. It's also really not that difficult to write a smart scraper that you say, "Look for these things in this post. However you find them, replicate it for the others". Which is ultimately what I made my Yelp scraper do. If there's a pattern, I wi…

Yep, seems like a total waste of time. The people scraping will spend the necessary time to get around this (and then distribute that knowledge to the masses) so it seems like a pointless arms race. Facebook employees could better use their time on developing actual features that bring value.

> Facebook employees could better use their time on developing actual features that bring value.

The problem here of course is that circumventing the ad blocking is the most direct way Facebook can find value.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#46

Post by tomelders »

bastawhiz wrote: post #41
sly010 wrote: post #26

I wonder at which point will we just stream pages as interactive video content with a text optimized codec. Most pages on the internet are bloated to the point where it might just make sense. (I am not advocating, I am predicting)

At a previous job in the not-too-distant past, we needed to support IE7 for contractual reasons. I'd unironically floated the idea of launching a VM on the server running Firefox, and starting a VNC session, streamed over frames of a GIF. Clicks and keypresses would be transmitted with AJAX calls. In a later project, we played with the idea of using an asm.js-compiled Webkit to render SVG (with embedded HTML) into a…

There was a Chinese mobile browser that essentially did this if I recall. And didn't Amazon have something like this for one of their earlier Kindles?

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#47

Post by fipple »

badgers wrote: post #22
locklock wrote: post #11

I'm really thankful I haven't yet had a job where all I'm developing is new ways to force people to see ads. Imagine working on a 'feature' like this for weeks or months, and the end result is simply that people who don't want to see ads now have to see ads.

That reminds me of a quote about dentistry: "You're in a career where nobody wants to see you and you're the last place they want to come back to and it's depressing." ( https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/5344jz/are-dentists-rea... )

Yeah, but like any medical field, people come to you in extreme pain and leave without it. If you can’t find meaning in that you probably can’t find meaning in anything.

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#48

Post by ben_jones »

spyspy wrote: post #35
locklock wrote: post #11

I'm really thankful I haven't yet had a job where all I'm developing is new ways to force people to see ads. Imagine working on a 'feature' like this for weeks or months, and the end result is simply that people who don't want to see ads now have to see ads.

Ethics aside, this actually sounds kind of fun to me. It's the kind of clever puzzle solving many of us love about programming - it's basically a cat and mouse game.

I'm sure there were a lot of interesting challenges creating the V2 rocket that terrorized London...

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#49

Post by bsagdiyev »

ben_jones wrote: post #48
spyspy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethics aside, this actually sounds kind of fun to me. It's the kind of clever puzzle solving many of us love about programming - it's basically a cat and mouse game.

I'm sure there were a lot of interesting challenges creating the V2 rocket that terrorized London...

Little over an hour for the Nazi comparison

Re: Facebook adds 5 divs, 9 spans and 30 CSS classes to every post in the timeline

#50

Post by minimaxir »

This example is likely not specifically targeting ad blockers, but ad scrapers for transparency: https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-blocks-ad-transp...

> Our tool recognized ads by searching for that word. Last year, Facebook added invisible letters to the HTML code of the site. So, to a computer, the word registered as “SpSonSsoSredS.”

That article also links to this tweet in that paragraph.

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