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How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

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Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#71

Post by black_puppydog »

babuskov wrote: post #65

I actually don't mind Facebook ads. If I'm on Facebook already, there's no additional javascript loading and hogging my browser with dozens of megabytes of tracking scripts. From performance point of view, browsing FB is a better experience than your average web site these days.

I do mind. And I specifically mind the amount of engineering they put into making sure you can't not see them. It's not like you can really opt to not use facebook in one way or another, if you have an account with them or not.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#72

Post by tomashubelbauer »

1propionyl wrote: post #53

I'm surprised I haven't seen a single comment say what ought to be the obvious: the easiest way to never see Facebook ads is to just not use Facebook. I should hope I'm preaching to the choir, I'm sure, but... quitting really isn't as hard as you tell yourself it is. It's not as essential as you think it is.

I'd like to add that it is not necessary to leave Facebook to not use Facebook. I have a FB account and I'll never close it, because I like having my username on all online services I might use if once. That being said I only have it logged in at a home desktop, not my phone, not any work machine. I use it for like two minutes weekly, one to check a few specialty groups I'm a lurker in and two to co-admin a page with a group of my friends where I once helped promote a post because the UX of doing so is too shitty for normal people wanting to bother navigating it. Facebook has had no effect on my mental health and it has a marginal benefit of being a kinda up to date contact book, even if it is getting worse at that. But that's it. You can have a Facebook account and only use it when it benefits you and not Facebook.

Edit: Oh and I use it in a Firefox Facebook container so I'm not at all worried about it tracking me online.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#73

Post by RandallBrown »

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.

Google used to have a service where you set a monthly spend and it would basically bid for ad space, using your money. Instead of displaying the actual ads, it would display an image of your choosing.

It was a pretty great idea and I can't remember what it was called, but it's no longer around as far as I can tell.

Something like that on any ad supported platform would be pretty neat.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#75

Post by amphibian87 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #70
abhiminator wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannot agree more. Quit Facebook and its sister service completely (talking about WhatsApp; never really got around to using Instagram) after the 'View As' feature exploit last year that led to 50 mil user accounts' data being exposed [0], and I must say, I've never felt more calmer, tranquil or better, mental health wise. I feel our brains could do much better with a little less of constant bombardment of highlight-…

Quitting Facebook itself would help with what you are saying, but I am curious what you replaced WhatsApp/Messenger with. For example, I have good friends in other countries, and sending pictures and short texts is one of the best ways to stay in contact. We do talk over the phone occasionally, but not having a simple way to send pictures or links would pull us much further apart. Sure, email could be an option, but…

discord is really advanced Iove it you can do group video chat

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#76

Post by wfdctrl »

tsimionescu wrote: post #70
abhiminator wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannot agree more. Quit Facebook and its sister service completely (talking about WhatsApp; never really got around to using Instagram) after the 'View As' feature exploit last year that led to 50 mil user accounts' data being exposed [0], and I must say, I've never felt more calmer, tranquil or better, mental health wise. I feel our brains could do much better with a little less of constant bombardment of highlight-…

Quitting Facebook itself would help with what you are saying, but I am curious what you replaced WhatsApp/Messenger with. For example, I have good friends in other countries, and sending pictures and short texts is one of the best ways to stay in contact. We do talk over the phone occasionally, but not having a simple way to send pictures or links would pull us much further apart. Sure, email could be an option, but…

Signal

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#77

Post by blunderkid »

1propionyl wrote: post #53

I'm surprised I haven't seen a single comment say what ought to be the obvious: the easiest way to never see Facebook ads is to just not use Facebook. I should hope I'm preaching to the choir, I'm sure, but... quitting really isn't as hard as you tell yourself it is. It's not as essential as you think it is.

Exactly. The real reason why FB is evil is not because it makes a ton of money from data that you willingly provide it, its simply because of what it is - a platform that takes advantage of a human weakness - vanity, to keep you "engaged". It is an addiction that Zuck sells, pretty sure he knows it. The privacy bit is only a red herring and what should be the least of user's concerns. Just stop "using".

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#79

Post by sub7 »

Someone should write this: an blocker that uploads a screenshot of the page, use OCR to find 'Sponsored' and send back coordinates of the box that can then be painted over client side.

Obviously OCR is one of many strategies and as long you kept the code for these adblock strategies open source, it would work on all visual ads.

Train an AI with a billion screenshots of pages with ads marked out. It should be able to handle 90+% of ads easy.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#80

Post by jedberg »

a13n wrote: post #52
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.

Wouldn't work. Users who are willing to pay to make ads go away are the most valuable audience for advertisers because they have money to spend. Therefore FB would have to charge a TON of money to make up for their billions in lost ads revenue, and nobody would pay that amount anyway.

Reddit lets people pay to not see ads. It's $6/mo.
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