Relatedly, I could really do with an in-app ad blocker for Android, because some ads I'm getting bounce me out of the app without user intervention and into a spammy web page.
An Hour with Safari Content Blocker in iOS 9
31–40 of 74 posts
Re: An Hour with Safari Content Blocker in iOS 9
#32"Now, this was fun little project to mess around with, but it does give me a moral dilemma. Do I care more about my privacy, time, device battery life & data usage or do I care more about the content creators of sites I visit to be able to monetise effectively and ultimately keep creating content?" Once we show content creators that we're willing to block their unsupervised invasions en masse, they'll come back to us…
The content creators has a dilemma too. Without ads, no money. The party who can solve that are the ad networks.
We need a disruptive ad provider that offers non-shitty ads (like ads before the Flash era) and pays reasonable ad-money.
Blocking all ads is bad for everyone in the long run. Adblockers should block only the bad players like Antivirus blocks bad players.
Re: An Hour with Safari Content Blocker in iOS 9
#33Relatedly, I could really do with an in-app ad blocker for Android, because some ads I'm getting bounce me out of the app without user intervention and into a spammy web page.
At home I use a router with OpenWRT which loads the hosts-file from mvps.org. No ads in webpages, no ads in apps.
Shameless plug for The Netherlands : https://wijvrij.nl ( a preconfigured adblocking router )
Re: An Hour with Safari Content Blocker in iOS 9
#34"Now, this was fun little project to mess around with, but it does give me a moral dilemma. Do I care more about my privacy, time, device battery life & data usage or do I care more about the content creators of sites I visit to be able to monetise effectively and ultimately keep creating content?" Once we show content creators that we're willing to block their unsupervised invasions en masse, they'll come back to us…
The content creators has a dilemma too. Without ads, no money. The party who can solve that are the ad networks. We need a disruptive ad provider that offers non-shitty ads (like ads before the Flash era) and pays reasonable ad-money. Blocking all ads is bad for everyone in the long run. Adblockers should block only the bad players like Antivirus blocks bad players.
When it uses my bandwidth and my battery, they already are bad players.
I'll raise a glass or two to the end of the ad muppets!
Re: An Hour with Safari Content Blocker in iOS 9
#35While I usually am fine with Ad blockers, Apple's position here is completely incoherent. They decided not to pay artists for a trial period, they've decided websites don't deserve to advertise. Why it's almost like the only way to deal with Apple users is to sell to them through Apple, and therefore give up at least 30%.
> They decided not to pay artists for a trial period...
Small nit to pick on this one, but presumably Apple had negotiated this with the artists' labels. My (totally unfounded) assumption is that record labels saw the return on Apple Music being better/more consistent than album sales, and worth foregoing those initial three months of revenue.
> ... they've decided websites don't deserve to advertise.
I think that we're only seeing adblockers this late in Mobile Safari's lifecycle because advertisements have become such a pain point for users. I'd imagine that Apple saw an opportunity to make ads less intrusive, more consistent, and add them to their revenue stream in one move.
Re: An Hour with Safari Content Blocker in iOS 9
#369 seconds of page load for ads is unacceptable. Mobile browsing has become a pita because of all those poor ads network, and i think once again (after the flash controversy) apple is going to save the web by making radical decisions like this one. It may very well be that mobile web content browsing becomes even more pleasant than using native apps thanks to that, since they too seem to fall for the trend of putting…
Apple isn't doing this to save the web, they are doing this so developers will be forced to create a native app to show ads and make some money. Easiest way to show ads in a native app on iOS... oh wouldn't that be iAd service in which Apple gets a cut of the profit?
Apple is probably doing it first and foremost to improve browser performance, battery life, and user experience. That's how they make money. If users like their products they buy more products. No conspiracy theory needed.
Re: An Hour with Safari Content Blocker in iOS 9
#37"Now, this was fun little project to mess around with, but it does give me a moral dilemma. Do I care more about my privacy, time, device battery life & data usage or do I care more about the content creators of sites I visit to be able to monetise effectively and ultimately keep creating content?" Once we show content creators that we're willing to block their unsupervised invasions en masse, they'll come back to us…
I think the author hits on something here. It's not the ads that bother me, it's that they are destructive to my time, bandwidth, and battery. It's the equivalent of walking into a furniture store and being followed around by a salesperson who won't respect your personal space and berates you verbally if you don't buy immediately. Even better, if you've ever visited a city/country with a bad tout culture (like Luxor, Egypt), it's a lot like that. It's fine for you to advertise to me, but once you've had you say, get out of my way and don't make my life miserable.
Re: An Hour with Safari Content Blocker in iOS 9
#38Relatedly, I could really do with an in-app ad blocker for Android, because some ads I'm getting bounce me out of the app without user intervention and into a spammy web page.
For browsing, there used to be Chrome extensions but those are mostly gone now. Firefox for Android works with ABP, Adblock Edge and the rest of the common adblockers and has for a little while now.
As far as system-wide, I typically use Adfree Android. There are some places it doesn't work (like pre-roll ads in the Youtube app) but otherwise it's been great. It's just a variation on the old blacklist + hosts file method but it blocks the annoying popups and banners in a majority of apps.
I think I ran across one game (Crossy Road) that wouldn't even start if you had Adfree installed but frankly, if your game can't even run without hitting some dodgy ad server then I don't need to play it. I understand the revenue model but I gladly pay $1-5 for any enjoyable game that doesn't put that stuff in to begin with.
Adfree Android - http://adfree.bigtincan.com/
The site is just a super-simple mobile site but it's the author's site where you can get the latest download.
Re: An Hour with Safari Content Blocker in iOS 9
#399 seconds of page load for ads is unacceptable. Mobile browsing has become a pita because of all those poor ads network, and i think once again (after the flash controversy) apple is going to save the web by making radical decisions like this one. It may very well be that mobile web content browsing becomes even more pleasant than using native apps thanks to that, since they too seem to fall for the trend of putting…
Apple isn't doing this to save the web, they are doing this so developers will be forced to create a native app to show ads and make some money. Easiest way to show ads in a native app on iOS... oh wouldn't that be iAd service in which Apple gets a cut of the profit?
I really don't get your point, with a native app the developer has full control of what is being shown, if anything ad ad-blocker would steer users more towards a clean web browers than an ad infested native app.
As a real world example, the (otherwise excellent) Twitch app on iOs serves unskippable minute long video ads with an annoying frequency, so much that I often prefer using the service through an ad-blocking web browser (which btw DO exist on the App Store, and have been for a while already).
Re: An Hour with Safari Content Blocker in iOS 9
#40"Now, this was fun little project to mess around with, but it does give me a moral dilemma. Do I care more about my privacy, time, device battery life & data usage or do I care more about the content creators of sites I visit to be able to monetise effectively and ultimately keep creating content?" Once we show content creators that we're willing to block their unsupervised invasions en masse, they'll come back to us…
I think the author hits on something here. It's not the ads that bother me, it's that they are destructive to my time, bandwidth, and battery. It's the equivalent of walking into a furniture store and being followed around by a salesperson who won't respect your personal space and berates you verbally if you don't buy immediately. Even better, if you've ever visited a city/country with a bad tout culture (like Luxor,…
The analogy breaks down a little bit because you aren't just shopping, you are getting the product, and the price of that product is listening to the salesperson. So the situation is probably closer to sitting through a timeshare presentation to get something free, although online you are not forced to pay attention to the ad for any amount of time.