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Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

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Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#51

Post by rimantas »

rwallace wrote: post #13

Given that advertising pays for a lot of the services we all use, the use of Adblock and similar programs constitutes defection in game theory terms - the more people who do it, the worse off we all are - which means even if you choose to do it yourself (I personally don't), it is against your interests to encourage other people to do it. Also, given that computing is one of very few areas of technology in which our…

And browsing without adblock means theat those who really pay for our services—people buying online ads—are being robbed. They paid specific amount for a specific number of impressions. Ok, I browse without ad-block, buty I never click on ads. That means that all those impressions on the pages I visited are wasted. Sure, their owners get their money, but that's pure waste of money for the advertiser. If majority would browse with ad blockers, well, maybe the price for ads would increase, I don't know. But putting the blame on ad block users is lame, all add block does is to stop wasting the money.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#52

Post by idlewan »

zorbo wrote: post #30

HTTPSB just isn't userfriendly enough for me. I run Adblock (not plus though) + Ghostery, and perhaps they use more memory and CPU, but if they do I've never noticed nor cared about it. Their userfriendliness is amazing though. HTTPSB randomly cripples sites, much like NoScript, and I really can't be bothered to deal with that anymore. With Adblock + Ghostery I feel completely in control. If I want to enable the Disq…

You can allow everything by default too with HTTPSB (it still will use blocklists and protect you), so that you won't have to enable stuff for a website to work.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#53

Post by rwallace »

reedlaw wrote: post #21
rwallace wrote: post #13

Given that advertising pays for a lot of the services we all use, the use of Adblock and similar programs constitutes defection in game theory terms - the more people who do it, the worse off we all are - which means even if you choose to do it yourself (I personally don't), it is against your interests to encourage other people to do it. Also, given that computing is one of very few areas of technology in which our…

Why not encourage people to pay for services they use and enjoy? The ad-supported services have mixed motives at best and tend to compromise on privacy when it affects their bottom-line. Also, there are other reasons for blocking ads besides simple annoyance. They tend to be hosted by 3rd party domains that can track browsing history across sites.

Micro-payments are a bad idea because making decisions costs mental energy, and the energy cost declines more slowly than the amount, so if you have to decide to pay a couple of cents to read an article, you end up spending more than a couple of cents worth of mental energy making the decision. It's a dead loss. Advertising is a better business model all around.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#54

Post by aluhut »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #5

I rage quit Firefox years ago because it's impossible to discuss it's critical perf issues without people pointing shifting blame to plugins. It got so bad I ran clean installs that never had a plugin ever, still had perf issues, and people on the internet simply refused Firefox could be at fault. I switched to Chrome and have never looked back. I also have never had a single issue with any AdBlock plugin in Chrome.…

I never have perf issues. My machine is not the newest, I run win7 and have serveral applications running next to it. I also don't see much difference between the sum of chrome processes and the single FF process (both ABP installed. FF full with different addons).

I switched to Chrome when it was new and everybody was telling me how slow FF was compared to that. I came back to FF because there was no relevant difference and I missed several AddOns as well as the oldschool win2k look I could give it. Today I use Chrome (adn Opera) as reference but it'll never become my main browser. The people who made me change, came back to FF, so I guess it wasn't such a big deal for them also.

Edit: I started to hate Chrome when I had to remove it from my parents PC every time I went there. I guess it's the Java Updater or something similar...

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#55

Post by Terr_ »

rwallace wrote: post #13

Given that advertising pays for a lot of the services we all use, the use of Adblock and similar programs constitutes defection in game theory terms - the more people who do it, the worse off we all are - which means even if you choose to do it yourself (I personally don't), it is against your interests to encourage other people to do it. Also, given that computing is one of very few areas of technology in which our…

The supply-side has defectors too.

I go on a blocking-spree for any site which (A) serve malware (B) unexpectedly plays sounds or epileptic animations (C) trashes site performance through a billion third-party loading items.

Even if it's just a lack of vetting by the ad-network, N-levels removed from the author, it represents a breach in that same completely-unspoken contract which I will take steps to protect myself from.

Finally, let's not confuse game-theory with "justice" or with our normative beliefs about how things should work.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#56

Post by nnethercote »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #5

I rage quit Firefox years ago because it's impossible to discuss it's critical perf issues without people pointing shifting blame to plugins. It got so bad I ran clean installs that never had a plugin ever, still had perf issues, and people on the internet simply refused Firefox could be at fault. I switched to Chrome and have never looked back. I also have never had a single issue with any AdBlock plugin in Chrome.…

When somebody reports a performance problem with Firefox, the first question is always "do you have any add-ons installed" precisely because a lot of them do impact performance significantly. That's not necessarily bad -- e.g. I happily use ABP despite the memory and speed hit -- but there's a reason why it's always the first question.

Having said that, as a Firefox developer I'm sorry that people didn't believe you when you had problems. We're certainly aware that Firefox's performance did compare poorly to Chrome's, which is why numerous performance programs were introduced to fix this difference. MemShrink is the one I started about three years ago: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/MemShrink. It has resulted in many fixes, both big and small, and it is ongoing. (Indeed, Firefox OS might not have been feasible without it.)

As some others have said, Firefox's performance is a lot better now than it was a couple of years ago. If you want to try it again and you have an old profile hanging around, I suggest that you "Reset Firefox" (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fi...) to clear up any lingering problems in that profile. Or you could just create a new profile. If you do try Firefox again, I'd be interested to hear how it goes. Thanks.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#57

Post by facepalm »

rwallace wrote: post #13

Given that advertising pays for a lot of the services we all use, the use of Adblock and similar programs constitutes defection in game theory terms - the more people who do it, the worse off we all are - which means even if you choose to do it yourself (I personally don't), it is against your interests to encourage other people to do it. Also, given that computing is one of very few areas of technology in which our…

Since I never click on ads, is there really a difference? I don't think so (assuming "pay per view" ads are rare).

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#58

Post by raesene3 »

rwallace wrote: post #53
reedlaw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not encourage people to pay for services they use and enjoy? The ad-supported services have mixed motives at best and tend to compromise on privacy when it affects their bottom-line. Also, there are other reasons for blocking ads besides simple annoyance. They tend to be hosted by 3rd party domains that can track browsing history across sites.

Micro-payments are a bad idea because making decisions costs mental energy, and the energy cost declines more slowly than the amount, so if you have to decide to pay a couple of cents to read an article, you end up spending more than a couple of cents worth of mental energy making the decision. It's a dead loss. Advertising is a better business model all around.

However, Micropayments are not the only alternative to Advertising, subscriptions are another choice which only need to be done once rather than repeatedly.

I'd like to see more site offer an ad-free subscription, in the way that Ars Technica or reddit do, to allow for an alternative to using ads to support content I'm interested in.

Patreon has an interesting model for creative content and one which I think will work for content producers who already have a good fan base.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#59

Post by valisystem »

rwallace wrote: post #53
reedlaw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not encourage people to pay for services they use and enjoy? The ad-supported services have mixed motives at best and tend to compromise on privacy when it affects their bottom-line. Also, there are other reasons for blocking ads besides simple annoyance. They tend to be hosted by 3rd party domains that can track browsing history across sites.

Micro-payments are a bad idea because making decisions costs mental energy, and the energy cost declines more slowly than the amount, so if you have to decide to pay a couple of cents to read an article, you end up spending more than a couple of cents worth of mental energy making the decision. It's a dead loss. Advertising is a better business model all around.

The mental energy needed to suffer ads is far from zero for many people.

Re: Show HN: Where Adblock+ injects 20K CSS rules, HTTPSB injects one

#60

Post by pjc50 »

rwallace wrote: post #13

Given that advertising pays for a lot of the services we all use, the use of Adblock and similar programs constitutes defection in game theory terms - the more people who do it, the worse off we all are - which means even if you choose to do it yourself (I personally don't), it is against your interests to encourage other people to do it. Also, given that computing is one of very few areas of technology in which our…

if every web browser starts using less memory, everyone is worse off

This is gibberish. There's still plenty of demand for denser memory. You don't have to pretend that wasting memory on Adblock is somehow driving the progress of humanity.

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