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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

#91

Post by joosters »

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…

Banksy says it best:

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.

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

#92

Post by SudoNick »

Sarkie wrote: post #15

The thing with all these plugins, I shouldn't care as a user, I should be informed about these issues. If you use http://www.sublimetext.com/ you will get a dialog when scripts are running slow, as in, "Script XYZ took more than 1 second to process this file, you can disable it" All I want in FF or Chrome is the same. "Adblock blocked the UI for 4 seconds" "Adblock increased memory consumption by double" Or they coul…

Earlier today, and for the first time I recall, Firefox presented me with a slow startup notification. I had some very demanding programs running at the time and knew to dismiss the message without a moments thought. Some users might have responded to the notification.

I didn't click through to the help information at the time, but checking the source it looks like it takes you to https://support.mozilla.org/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most... which suggests a reset. Some users might have gone down that path without recognizing that it would leave them without security related extensions and/or preference changes they had made. Not to mention other less important modifications. Most people don't even keep a log of their changes, making it difficult to get back to what they wanted.

Being informed of conditions that might need your attentions is desirable. However, that doesn't eliminate the need to understand why the conditions arose and what the consequences of different actions would be.

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

#93

Post by jrabone »

pkulak wrote: post #20
Walkman wrote: post #6

MY GOSH! I never realized how slow my page loadings were. Removed ABP (and a couple of extensions) after reading this and the memory consumption just went to 1/2 of what it used to be, the page loading times are just incredible... I always wondered why Chrome is soooo much slower compared to Firefox (ABP not installed on Firefox) but never investigated further. Thank you so much!

I'm a big fan of Privoxy. Just get that stuff out of the browser entirely.

Yep. I run Privoxy and a DNS resolver configured to be authoritative for the worst 5000 or so ad farms. Zips along nicely, and works for every machine on the LAN or via remote VPN.

Fuck ads. Find a different business model.

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

#94

Post by igravious »

zimpenfish wrote: post #88
igravious wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that moment when internally you're smacking your forehead and making an O shape with your mouth. Now how come I didn't think of that idea? So simple. I hope it takes off. I _hate_ ads, I hate them online, I hate them offline. I think they're a form of pollution. I'm with Bill Hicks on this one, people who work in advertising or marketing trying to figure out how to get people to buy crap they don't want need…

Your wish is Sao Paulo's command. Removed adverts in 2006, seems to be still going in 2013. I wish London would do this... http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/07/sao-paulo-city-with-no-...

No way! They need to advertise more to get the word out that they did this :) Thanks zimpenfish.

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

#95

Post by andreasvc »

doczoidberg wrote: post #66
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…

I first had problems with it too. You have to disable matrix filtering on all sites.

Is the extension equivalent to a /etc/hosts file at that point?

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

#96

Post by doczoidberg »

andreasvc wrote: post #95
doczoidberg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I first had problems with it too. You have to disable matrix filtering on all sites.

Is the extension equivalent to a /etc/hosts file at that point?

I don't know /etc/hosts

You can block specific things like iframes on domains.

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

#97

Post by ronaldx »

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…

I see it differently:

Ads are a net negative for me, my friends, and for society as a whole. I believe they are psychologically punishing.

Services which add value to people's lives, or to society, will be able to survive perfectly well without ads.

If I could, I would rather (game theoretically) punish those services which use ads unnecessarily. Adblock is the least I can do.

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

#98

Post by andreasvc »

doczoidberg wrote: post #96
andreasvc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the extension equivalent to a /etc/hosts file at that point?

I don't know /etc/hosts You can block specific things like iframes on domains.

It's a very simple method that can prevent hostnames from resolving; see http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/zero/

Compared to other adblocking methods it's fast and does not use a lot of memory, but it's limited in what it can block (namely connections to specified hostnames).

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

#99

Post by harkyns_castle »

mkesper wrote: post #16
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #2

Adblock+ has been fine for me. Has anyone had any problems? Personally, Adblock+ has earned my trust over a long period of time, so it's hard to see myself switching to something else unless the reason was dire.

Trusting Adblock is hard because of the "acceptable ads" feature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_Plus#Controversy_over_...

I shifted to using Adblock Edge [1] after that. I got a good chuckle out of the term 'acceptable ads' though.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/

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

#100

Post by orkoden »

cw0 wrote: post #62
mike-cardwell wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we make it difficult for services to be ad funded, perhaps alternative methods of funding will emerge. Perhaps alternative methods of service delivery will emerge too which don't require large companies to build their own data centres (peer to peer, distributed). I don't get rid of ads on my systems because they're annoying. I do it because they introduce massive single points of failure, they add massive centrali…

The problem is that the alternative to ads is a paywall.

There are many different kinds of paywall. Some sites have early access to content and the ability to comment only for paying users. Others have just one simple ad on the page, that is controlled by themselves, not a third party network.
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