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How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

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Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#41

Post by grogenaut »

tjpnz wrote: post #19
crakenzak wrote: post #2

Interesting article. I don't blame Facebook for doing whatever they can to properly show ads tho, they provide a "free" service and in exchange serve ads. It's not free to support a company their size and its expected they do everything they can to monetize the site properly. What do you guys think?

I have issues with Facebook and do everything I can to limit my interaction with the platform, but for some situations it's unavoidable - RSVPs to events where there is no alternative, some things relating to births/deaths or marriages, close family members who I've failed to coax off their messaging platform all come to mind. In those situations I'm not going to compromise my own security or privacy.

You can only rsvp over facebook, not via text, email, phone, in person, etc? I've never found there to be no alternative. Hell for most events unless the outlay to throw it was extensive you can just show up, I've never actually had an issue with this, and if they actually want you to show they'll call YOU.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#42

Post by veselin »

Yes. This is horrible behavior from Facebook. I had a similar problem finding a working extension that blocks fbclk id. Well, I found one, but I am not sure I would want to share it, because the facebook engineering team may go after it as well.

This also renders nil the argument about "don't use the product if you don't like their (ad) practices". Tracking across websites without consent is illegal in most of Europe, yet they do it extensively.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#43

Post by grogenaut »

crispinb wrote: post #22
crakenzak wrote: post #2

Interesting article. I don't blame Facebook for doing whatever they can to properly show ads tho, they provide a "free" service and in exchange serve ads. It's not free to support a company their size and its expected they do everything they can to monetize the site properly. What do you guys think?

There's some justice to that argument for access to strictly discretionary sites, but Facebook has been so 'successful' that it's now approaching monopolistic power, & is something close to required infrastructure. There are an increasing number of online contacts which literally offer no alternative. I have a few fake facebook accounts I'll use where I literally have no alternative, none of which have real data asso…

Can you give some specific examples of places with no contact alternatives? Not really grokking this point. Do you mean they (the business) can't be contacted any other way, and facebook is their only presence?

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#45

Post by beefield »

rabidrat wrote: post #35
notafraudster wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"do everything they can to monetize" Except, evidently, allow users to pay money to not be subjected to ads.

This is a really good observation. What if we required all ad-based services to make available an equivalent premium offering that showed no ads? I think 99% of people would be stunned at the necessary price and would not pay it anyway, but at least it would be quantified.

This is one of the more important regulations big tech should be subjected to in my opinion.

Let me pay for the services I use, with believable guarantees that my data is not used or sold in any way by the service provider. And regulate the cost to be a reasonable margin over production costs of these services. Hosting my hosting my posts and photos should not be that expensive.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#47

Post by King-Aaron »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #25
iamkroot wrote: post #14

I continue to be surprised at how few people have heard of fbpurity[1], a fantastic browser extension that blocks all Facebook ads and lets you filter out specific types of content (links, memories, etc.). It's dramatically improved my Facebook experience; I now see exactly the type of content that I want to see (updates on friend's lives) and nothing more. [1] https://www.fbpurity.com/

I mean one look at the website kind of tells you why. The extension could be a lot less intrusive as well - just compare it to uBlock Origin for example. There doesn't need to be an onboarding message. I don't need to see "F.B. Purity hid:" prominently in the middle of my feed - just put that at the bottom right of the screen in gray text or in the extension. Etc. I'm probably going to uninstall it because it makes F…

> I mean one look at the website kind of tells you why.

Yep, that's horrific. I'd immediately back out of that if I landed on the page.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#48

Post by gorpovitch »

I have a much better experience of Facebook since a few weeks by adding #stream_pagelet{ display: None } in Stylus for the homepage.

No news feed. No passive content consumption. Still got pages, events, groups, messages etc. Can still use the website in an active/socializing way (looking for specific things, seeing relevant friends' notifications and invitations) but without being caught by the feed each time I come to check my notifications. Think I'll do the same with pretty much every social network. Content feeds are the worst.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#49

Post by commoner »

psykus wrote: post #38

Don't they host their own ads? Something I wish more websites would do instead of letting ad networks stomp all over the page with whatever Javascript/Flash/viruses they want.

It's not surprising that Facebook serves its own ads, considering that it's one of the top 2 digital ad networks by revenue in the US. Google does the same for its sites.

Facebook and Google have a duopoly on the online ad market, with a combined 60.9% market share. Amazon is #3 with just 7.6%.

https://www.emarketer.com/content/facebook-google-duopoly-wo...

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