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AdBlock Plus will soon allow "non-intrusive" ads by default

adblockplus.org

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Re: AdBlock Plus will soon allow "non-intrusive" ads by default

#21

Post by jaredsohn »

plinkplonk wrote: post #19

So what is a good alternative to AdBlockPlus ? (that blocks everything and doesn't play these "non intrusive ads" games EDIT:adding ' by default.' ). EDIT 2: I did read the article and I know it is an option but making viewing ads of any kind opt in vs opt out is (imho) dubious. When the user installs an extension called ad-BLOCK plus, explicitly to block adds, just block them by default dammit and let any users who…

If AdBlock Plus goes evil, another option might be AdBlock (not sure what they block, but it is an alternative.)

And I think both extensions are open source so somebody could just fork it.

Re: AdBlock Plus will soon allow "non-intrusive" ads by default

#22

Post by gchucky »

plinkplonk wrote: post #19

So what is a good alternative to AdBlockPlus ? (that blocks everything and doesn't play these "non intrusive ads" games EDIT:adding ' by default.' ). EDIT 2: I did read the article and I know it is an option but making viewing ads of any kind opt in vs opt out is (imho) dubious. When the user installs an extension called ad-BLOCK plus, explicitly to block adds, just block them by default dammit and let any users who…

Er, the article says it's just an option that's enabled by default, and that you can disable it if you want.

Re: AdBlock Plus will soon allow "non-intrusive" ads by default

#23

Post by corin_ »

cousin_it wrote: post #17

I cannot tell from the announcement whether ABP is now getting paid to allow some ads, but if it is, that looks like a textbook conflict of interest. Wikipedia has a list of ways to mitigate such conflicts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest#Ways_to_mi... , maybe adopting some suggestions from there would help? Also I'm a little confused by the talk of "making small websites unsustainable". Do ads real…

It depends how you define "small".

My company runs a few content sites that are primarily monetised through advertising. They're not small as in "some guy updating them in his free time", but they're small as in a few paid members of the editorial team, a few million pages a month. For us, yes, advertising is the difference between us being a profitable company and us not being a company at all.

That said, a.) we are doing OK before this adblock change and b.) our adverts don't fit what are being defined as "acceptable" here. We do make sure we never get too obtrusive, we don't do automatic playing videos, we don't do roadblocks, we don't do anything with sound, we don't do anything that covers content or expands when you mouseover... but some of the banners we serve are flash with basic animations. We, and the majority of our users, are happy that this is a good way to advertise without letting it become an annoyance, but we wouldn't make it onto ABP's whitelist.

Re: AdBlock Plus will soon allow "non-intrusive" ads by default

#24

Post by randomwalker »

It is unfortunate that many people commenting here didn't bother to RTFA. In particular, from the FAQ:

Are you stupid? Nobody wants this!

The results of our user survey say something different. Only 25% of the Adblock Plus users seem to be strictly against any advertising. They will disable this feature and that's fine. The other users replied that they would accept some kinds of advertising to help websites. Some users are even asking for a way to enable Adblock Plus on some websites only.

https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads

That page is the real article, linked from the first paragraph of the submitted article, which is more like a changelog.

Please also note that Wladimir has been talking about this for years and didn't suddenly get this into his head. From a 2009 post:

As I stated many times before, my goal with Adblock Plus isn’t to destroy the advertising industry. ... So the idea is to give control back to the users by allowing them to block annoying ads. Since the non-intrusive ads would be blocked less often it would encourage webmasters to use such ads, balance restored.

http://adblockplus.org/blog/an-approach-to-fair-ad-blocking

Re: AdBlock Plus will soon allow "non-intrusive" ads by default

#25

Post by gst »

No reason for me to enable ads, as long as they have a huge impact on my privacy. I don't intend to send a list of every single site I view to Google.

Make a sane ad system, where ads are proxied through the same webserver as the remainder of the page, and I would have no problems with activating them.

Re: AdBlock Plus will soon allow "non-intrusive" ads by default

#26

Post by dazbradbury »

I suspect most people who install adblock plus, aren't the kind of people who click on ads. So I suspect, even if (theoretically speaking) blocking ads was made impossible, the net impact would be much smaller than imagined.

This will just impact those people who had it installed for them, and who happen to update. I doubt that will be the saviour of many small sites - if adblock plus was killing them in the first place that is.

Re: AdBlock Plus will soon allow "non-intrusive" ads by default

#27

Post by arnorhs »

cousin_it wrote: post #17

I cannot tell from the announcement whether ABP is now getting paid to allow some ads, but if it is, that looks like a textbook conflict of interest. Wikipedia has a list of ways to mitigate such conflicts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest#Ways_to_mi... , maybe adopting some suggestions from there would help? Also I'm a little confused by the talk of "making small websites unsustainable". Do ads real…

Not sure about the first half of your question, but on the second part, it would probably depend a lot on your definition of a "small website" (as well as abp's)

Re: AdBlock Plus will soon allow "non-intrusive" ads by default

#28

Post by fl3tch »

Joakal wrote: post #9

The current non-intrusive ad list so far: https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.tx... I wonder how to get on that list.

It looks like all German web sites, except for the last one.

! Text-based search ads on suche.netzwelt.de ! Static image ads on t3n.de ! Text ads with small static images on focus.de ! Text ads on Sedo parking domains

In other words, they're not whitelisting Google or any other major web sites, so the vast majority of people won't notice, even with the white list turned on.

Re: AdBlock Plus will soon allow "non-intrusive" ads by default

#29

Post by zobzu »

While the title is as usual, crap and misleading: - i think adblock makes the hard, but right decision - ill switch it off

And finally, I do think ads are evil because done wrongly - spammed. (Even thus the decision is right, because I also accept that our society works like that and DNT needs to be respected.)

I do not recall ANY ads that brought true value on the Net to my purchasing needs.

They're bad.

Examplification: I browse review for the latest phone. It looks cool. If ads aren't blocked, I get hundred of "buy this phone here and there" "get cables for the phone" yada yada and some random totally unrelated ads.

I don't care for any of those. Why? Because If I wanna buy the phone, accessories, or related stuff I'm not just going to click on the first link and click buy. That's dumb.

I'm going to go to a price checker online, and decide which one has the best price/shipping/quality/rating/etc ratio!

So instead, if the ads would link me to that, and refer the review site if I do buy, I'd be much happier.

Of course I realize this cannot be because, the comparison site would be corrupted eventually, as we're talking big amount of moneys here.

My 2cts as usual. ;-)

Re: AdBlock Plus will soon allow "non-intrusive" ads by default

#30

Post by slewis »

mbell wrote: post #15

I'm sort of torn on this. On one hand I do want to support sites that I like and I know that for many this occurs through advertising. On the other hand, I am honestly confused by what the web looks like with ads. Its been so long since the very first thing I did on any new computer, vm, or even non-technically inclined friend's machine wasn't to install ad block. In many cases this wasn't really to not see the ads,…

But your initial decision was to turn off ads, in opposition to your desire to support sites you like, which led to your current notion of where things should be on the page.
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