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

Google now automatically converts Flash ads to HTML5

venturebeat.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–97 of 97 posts

Re: Google now automatically converts Flash ads to HTML5

#91

Post by okasaki »

sebastianavina wrote: post #77
userbinator wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, converting Flash ads into HTML means they can be far more subtly integrated into the page in a way that makes them much harder to separate out and block. With Flash, there was just one thing to block and most of the ads would be gone. I have a feeling that the trend towards client-side rendering and single-page apps is partly driven by this too; when the JS for displaying ads is part of the JS for the app's c…

I browse with javascript disabled, at first I thought, most websites would be unusable, but I barely feel the difference on most sites. Bonus: Pages load way faster.

Most websites (eg. youtube, github, reddit) are unusable without javascript. HN is a rare exception, but even here, the search doesn't work at all without javascript.

Re: Google now automatically converts Flash ads to HTML5

#92

Post by TorKlingberg »

userbinator wrote: post #71
s_q_b wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like you, I don't mind ads per se. I even feel badly blocking them, knowing that I'm depriving a content creator of revenue. But the issues you point out are the very reason I can't have them in my browser. I used a computer without AdBlock the other day, and it was like stepping back into 1999 with every page saturated with the 21st century equivalent of animated GIFs and auto-play MIDIs. An alternative ad network i…

there will come a day when ads are simply too intrusive, and ad blocking will go (even more) completely mainstream. That is, if the war on general-purpose computing doesn't eventually make it nearly impossible to perform any form of adblocking... Currently, the most popular form of adblock is probably a browser extension. Browser vendors are seeing extensions as a possible vector for malware (which is true) and the t…

Ad blocking on mobile is also very difficult. Most mobile browsers do no support extensions at all, so it has to go through some ugly proxy trick that requires root.

Re: Google now automatically converts Flash ads to HTML5

#93

Post by Aldo_MX »

rurounijones wrote: post #87
Aldo_MX wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the mobile apps world, some ad networks (ej. mopub) have a new type of ad named "Native Ad". With this type of ads you have control on how you display them, and the intended use case is to make the ad look like a part of your application. This is an explanatory PDF: http://www.mopub.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Native_Ads_O... I believe that something similar is what the web needs.

> make the ad look like a part of your application. That sounds terrible and deceptive for the end-user

so you would rather have a floating banner or full-screen ads like low quality apps do?

Re: Google now automatically converts Flash ads to HTML5

#94

Post by sebastianavina »

okasaki wrote: post #91
sebastianavina wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I browse with javascript disabled, at first I thought, most websites would be unusable, but I barely feel the difference on most sites. Bonus: Pages load way faster.

Most websites (eg. youtube, github, reddit) are unusable without javascript. HN is a rare exception, but even here, the search doesn't work at all without javascript.

I use scriptblock

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scriptblock/hcdjkn...

I have youtube and google allowed for javascript.

Reddit browses very fast, ImgUr is kind of a headache because it doesnt load all images, but both are usable.

Bonus point, the extension doesnt work on incognito,so if you want to see certain website, launch it in an incognito window to browse it quickly.

The only major problem with reddit, is that I can not comment... but I can live with that, and when I feel the need to make a comment, I just allow the site temporaly.

Re: Google now automatically converts Flash ads to HTML5

#95

Post by userbinator »

okasaki wrote: post #91
sebastianavina wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I browse with javascript disabled, at first I thought, most websites would be unusable, but I barely feel the difference on most sites. Bonus: Pages load way faster.

Most websites (eg. youtube, github, reddit) are unusable without javascript. HN is a rare exception, but even here, the search doesn't work at all without javascript.

Those are sites that most people know about and use frequently (maybe not Github), just like Facebook, but that's a very different thing than "most websites". There are tons of other smaller sites that don't need JS at all.

I have it off by default (whitelist), and most of the sites I come across just as search results don't need it to show the information I'm looking for.

Re: Google now automatically converts Flash ads to HTML5

#96

Post by tracker1 »

s_q_b wrote: post #24
akersten wrote: post #4

Shame that I automatically convert all ads to nonexistance. It's too little, too late for rich media/content-heavy ads. Especially in the mobile sector: * Ads are a performance burden on low-power devices * They consume extra battery; power is wasted on superfluous cruft * Bandwidth wasted; especially a concern given draconian data caps * Tracking and privacy concerns Not to mention the fact that ads are a primary at…

Like you, I don't mind ads per se. I even feel badly blocking them, knowing that I'm depriving a content creator of revenue. But the issues you point out are the very reason I can't have them in my browser. I used a computer without AdBlock the other day, and it was like stepping back into 1999 with every page saturated with the 21st century equivalent of animated GIFs and auto-play MIDIs. An alternative ad network i…

Another thing that really gets me, given responsive design, is the lack of responsive ads... ad sizes that can go from leaderboard, to tranditional, to micro (phone) sized... as you stretch/reduce your screen size...

As it is, my plan is to render whatever original size, and resizes just won't see/render ads (flux/react)... it's too much of a pain to do more than that, and don't want to show multiples of ads for a single view.

I don't think things need to be plain text.. but if limited to HTML+CSS only, that would be a pretty great start.

Re: Google now automatically converts Flash ads to HTML5

#97

Post by quoiquoi »

eludwig wrote: post #39
bane wrote: post #23

Almost 1500 days ago I made this prediction https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2300123 "(I can't wait for my quad core computer to grind to a halt with dozens of unblockable canvas advertisements wallpapering every website I go to from now on...sigh, the end is near" The death of Flash doesn't necessarily mean a better world.

Question: not knowing anything about browser plugins, will it be possible to build a "Click to Canvas" plugin, similar to the Click to Flash plugins avialable? It seems like anything that can access the DOM can insert stuff into (override) or outright block elements, right?

https://github.com/kkapsner/CanvasBlocker
Post reply on HN