Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

dylanpaulus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 241 posts

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#151

Post by michaelt »

tomd3v wrote: post #127
jedberg wrote: post #78

What really makes me sad is that some presumably quite talented engineer spent time thinking this up and coding it.

Can you explain what is wrong with engineers working on problems like these? As I see this, it allows businesses to connect with more people, therefore being more profitable, therefore making economy grow in general. I just don't understand this hate towards developers who work for companies like FB and Google and whose job is focusing on increasing ad engagement. In my opinion, they definitely provide a hugely posit…

When I visit https://www.facebook.com/careers/ the first things it says are "Do the Most Meaningful Work of Your Career, [...] We design products and deliver services that bring the world closer together - one connection at a time [...] We encourage our people to be bold and solve the problems they care most about. [...] Together, we help others build stronger communities"

Does working on anti-ad-blocking seem like that to you?

To me, if I was promised "the most meaningful work of my career" then I was assigned to anti-ad-blocking I wouldn't feel my Facebook career was delivering on that promise.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#152

Post by joestr »

Question for anyone in the know: Is this allowed, from an accessibility point of view? I'm just wondering how someone with a screen reader would know it's an ad? (Or are screenreaders more advanced than I think, and would actually be able to read out 'sponsored')?

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#153

Post by StreamBright »

commoner wrote: post #122
StreamBright wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what do you do with the 100.000.000 websites using Facebook logins, SDK, like button etc.? I think you need to go a bit further than just not using it. You need to block the entire IP range and DNS to completely block them.

There are filter lists for ad blockers that can block Facebook's third-party web requests. Fanboy's Annoyance List and Anti-Facebook List: https://www.fanboy.co.nz/ Fanboy's Annoyance List (source): https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/fanboy-annoyance.... Fanboy's Anti-Facebook List (source): https://fanboy.co.nz/fanboy-antifacebook.txt AdGuard Social Media filter (source): https://filters.adtidy.org/extension…

Thanks, I usually use PiHole with the lists merged into one and just block it at the DNS level.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#154

Post by fortydegrees »

gorgoiler wrote: post #108

Relatedly, uBlock Origin’s picker has really improved my quality of life on Facebook. I love Facebook, it’s my only remaining connection to some people, and it’s revived many friendships I thought I’d lost. However, as one gets on in life, People You May Know can be extremely emotionally impactful. It is a little part of the web UI that brings back the dead, ex partners I still miss, exes who have moved on, and toxic…

Your last paragraph is really difficult to parse. I originally thought you liked the feature because it put you through the emotional wringer (in terms of making you work through certain negative emotions), and that it wasn't coddling you.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#155

Post by lordgrenville »

dest wrote: post #74
mesarvagya wrote: post #68

Or you can use Pi-hole and remove any and all ads :)

Uh, no. Pi-hole is a DNS-based ad blocker, while the ads we are talking about are served by first party.

Yes, and for the same reason YouTube ads will slip through Pi-Hole (at least without some customisation).

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#156

Post by gorgoiler »

fortydegrees wrote: post #154
gorgoiler wrote: post #108

Relatedly, uBlock Origin’s picker has really improved my quality of life on Facebook. I love Facebook, it’s my only remaining connection to some people, and it’s revived many friendships I thought I’d lost. However, as one gets on in life, People You May Know can be extremely emotionally impactful. It is a little part of the web UI that brings back the dead, ex partners I still miss, exes who have moved on, and toxic…

Your last paragraph is really difficult to parse. I originally thought you liked the feature because it put you through the emotional wringer (in terms of making you work through certain negative emotions), and that it wasn't coddling you.

Thanks for the feedback. I find writing to be very difficult. It’s really helpful to me when people take the time to point out where I’m not clear, especially when it’s constructive feedback, like yours is.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#157

Post by mehrdadn »

joestr wrote: post #152

Question for anyone in the know: Is this allowed, from an accessibility point of view? I'm just wondering how someone with a screen reader would know it's an ad? (Or are screenreaders more advanced than I think, and would actually be able to read out 'sponsored')?

AFAIK it's not about the screenreader, but about the browser. The browser knows these aren't visible, so I don't expect it would have any reason to report them to the accessibility interface (IAccessible et al.).

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#159

Post by squiggleblaz »

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.

Most users who are willing to pay to make ads go away are also people who are willing to make ads go away for free. They install uBlock Origin and get rid of most ads from most sites. Why pay $5 to this site and $12 to that site when you can just get an ad-free experience for free, with no ongoing commitments and no recurring transactions?

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#160

Post by asaddhamani »

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.

> I think 99% of people would be stunned at the necessary price and would not pay it anyway

Please back this up with some actual numbers, because they're not as high as you're making people believe they'd be.

I am happily paying for YouTube Premium just because I don't get interrupted by ads. In India, their premium costs less than $2 per month. That price is very justifiable for me (And their ARPU is ~$9/yr btw, so they are making 2 times as much from me than they were before by showing me ads).

According to this site (https://www.statista.com/statistics/234056/facebooks-average...), Facebook had an ARPU of $25 (average, higher per user in US and EU, lower in APAC) per year in 2018. Which is $2 per month. If they promise no ads (and associated tracking), I will pay three times that amount each month.

I think a lot of us on HN would be willing to pay these prices to support the ad-supported services we use if the option was available (and the pricing was reasonable).

Post reply on HN