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Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

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Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#171

Post by Karunamon »

martin56 wrote: post #165
wreegab wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Visit this site with "Acceptable Ads" enabled and disabled and you will see the difference Nowwhere did I say pages with the x-adblock-key were not respecting the "Acceptable ads" setting. I said that there are more whitelisted sites than just what is presented as the only list in the section titled "How can I see what you are allowing?" on ABP's reference page regarding "acceptable ads" [1]. [1] https://adblockplu…

That's right, you didn't say that. You said there is a "public" and a "private" list. To me this sounds like the "private" one is somehow hidden from the public and cannot be seen which isn't the case.

There is no list of sites which utilize the header and do not appear on the main allow list.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#172

Post by serf »

drcube wrote: post #170
worklogin wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't mind unobtrusive ads to be whitelisted, were the man not charging money for the service. Ads aren't inherently "wrong". people tend to block ads because many are unsightly, bandwidth consuming, etc. Simple ads that don't have JS, don't have trackers, and blend with a site should be encouraged. But making beaucoup money on extortion payments is pretty bad.

> Ads aren't inherently "wrong". Yes, psychologically manipulating people and lying to them for money is wrong.

the key to current and future advertising is not manipulating the person, but rather taking advantage of the fact that everyone wants something.

modern advertisements are making an effort not to sell you their specific 'ProductX', but to sell you products that you desire/need from their outlet. That feels more honest than advertising did in the past, at least now they are assessing the relevance of the ads you're exposed to and making efforts to target.

I will, however, agree that relying on the needs of others to fill your coffers is probably immoral -- but that condemns most of marketing, and I don't know how well that opinion will fly here.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#173

Post by serf »

mhaymo wrote: post #32
miah_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, I'd rather not give them money if their policy is to allow some ads if given $.

ABP's free. Getting on the whitelist is also free for "all small- and medium websites and blogs". https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads-agreements If you're ok with blocking ads, I don't see how allowing companies to pay a fee to have them unblocked hurts anyone. If it feels icky then maybe ad blocking is icky.

> If you're ok with blocking ads, I don't see how allowing companies to pay a fee to have them unblocked hurts anyone. If it feels icky then maybe ad blocking is icky.

Couldn't be further from the truth. Ad revenue is icky by itself, in nearly any form. The fact that an industry sprung up to counter it (ad block software) points to the fact that the general public likely agrees with that.

If you don't feel that the psychological tracking and trickery of John Q. Public in order to sell him a new toilet paper holder is 'icky', then I don't know what to tell you. I do, and it seems many others share my feelings.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#174

Post by freehunter »

GhotiFish wrote: post #153
freehunter wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Adblock user, I always assume that any errors on any site are the result of Adblock, and my first troubleshooting step is to turn it off. It almost always is.

I'd recommend against this strategy, in general, why would some core functionality of a website depend on the ability to contact ad servers? Sounds like a way to pressure people into not using ad blockers, and the threat needs to be responded to (and can be responded to) by that ad block. It's a really shitty game they are playing, because content providers can't win, but they can make the internet much worse.

Adblock doesn't just block ads, it blocks based on a blacklist that sometimes is a little overzealous. For example, I could block images.yahoo.com, but that would block all images from Yahoo. Maybe that's fine, since I never go to Yahoo. Then a blog post I'm reading has a picture that is hosted at images.yahoo.com, and suddenly Adblock is hampering my viewing of a site that I want to see. I disable Adblock, find out what was being blocked and why, and edit the filters to fix that (or completely whitelist the site, if the ads are non-existant or non-intrusive).

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#175

Post by iLoch »

chmars wrote: post #151
iLoch wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call it blackmailing. It's flat out extortion; they build a script that blocks ads for specific domains then tell the owners they can pay to have it removed.

To be fair: Adblock Plus does not simply block ads on some specific domains, EasyList and other filter lists are pretty extensive. I do not like the business model either but how else could they make the necessary profits? Adblock Plus (and similar add-ons) were not created because of such a business model but because of annoying and sometimes even dangerous ads.

I don't think Adblock Plus is worthy of revenue - their "business model" is to squash other companies revenue then make them pay to get it back. Sure, they block a lot of super annoying and even some potentially dangerous ads, but most of the time they're blocking harmless banner ads on small sites that need the revenue to stay online. This obviously isn't just Adblock (Plus)'s problem - there's always going to be someone trying to remove ads from websites, I just wish those creating the scripts would apply their talents elsewhere.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#176

Post by FractalNerve »

marco1 wrote: post #152
ntaso wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Story behind it: AdBlock Plus is installed on an extremely large sum of devices in Germany. I read somewhere close to 25% with non-technical users (!) and 50% among technical users. What they basically did is to approach companies like newspapers (Spiegel Online) and told them: Look, if you pay $LARGE_SUM, we will whitelist you. Otherwise, since 25-50% of Germans use our software, your advertisement won't make you mu…

This is not blackmailing but a mafia-like protection racket scheme: They create a problem (ads not showing up) that they offer the solution for themselves as well (white-labeling).

Cool, this is the best description of the business model that I've read so far. White-Listing doesn't nearly sound like what you described.

      * The Mafia like protection racket scheme

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#177

Post by FractalNerve »

heromat wrote: post #63

He surely just forgot to mention that Google allegedly payed 25 million € to Eyeo GmbH, the company behind Adblock Plus, in order to participate in the "acceptable ads" program, a "feature" which is turned on by default and allows users to "surf more comfortably". And that he is (or at least was) one of the directors. I'm most certain that there are people out there who would call this business model "blackmailing",…

Free Alternative that exists since since 1996!!! It's much faster and browser independent. Based on "Proxy Auto-Config". It blocks most ads really well. Having a referrer- ,cookie- and ua-srting blocker also comes handy. Ad-Block Plus or anything else won't hide your personal details that your browser submits.

http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-ads/

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#178

Post by flaviu1 »

martin56 wrote: post #165
wreegab wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Visit this site with "Acceptable Ads" enabled and disabled and you will see the difference Nowwhere did I say pages with the x-adblock-key were not respecting the "Acceptable ads" setting. I said that there are more whitelisted sites than just what is presented as the only list in the section titled "How can I see what you are allowing?" on ABP's reference page regarding "acceptable ads" [1]. [1] https://adblockplu…

That's right, you didn't say that. You said there is a "public" and a "private" list. To me this sounds like the "private" one is somehow hidden from the public and cannot be seen which isn't the case.

I don't necessarily trust the adblock developers. The whitelist can say that a sitekey is only used on certain sites, but how can I know it isn't also being used on others? If sites want to have their ads white-listed, they should be less sneaky about it and just add `ad` to the class, making it possible for the users to prove that only that ad is whitelisted.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#179

Post by TheLoneWolfling »

gorhill wrote: post #96
webwanderings wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone here replaced Adblock+ and Ghostery with only uBlock? I'd prefer least minimum extensions when possible. Does uBlock provides what Ghostery does? Or do I have to get SwitchBoard to have the Ghostery alternative?

I run benchmarks to drive development. So you may want to look once in a while at that page: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-and-other... The raw data is published at the top as a spreadsheet, and from it you could see what one blocks that another didn't block or vice versa. So using the raw data of the latest benchmark, here is the diff: http://www.diffchecker.com/ibszp9gf Of course, this is for t…

If either HTTPSB or uBlock had a version for Pale Moon (Firefox derivative) I'd use it.

Anyone have a better adblocker than Adblock Edge for PM?

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