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Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

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Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#101

Post by shakna »

mgbmtl wrote: post #96
Fnoord wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, as if ABP innovated so much? ABP wasn't the first. I remember using an adblocker native in Firefox back around 2004 (and IIRC I even used on on Mozilla milestones). Back then, there were already /etc/hosts based alternatives (which also have always worked in Windows btw) as well, and a so-called personal firewall could also block ads. These existed for Windows 9x. We're talking end of '90s here. As for the c…

> "So could you explain us why you pick ABP over uBlock?" On a philosophical level: I support the ABP strategy of "acceptable ads". I think it's a good way to legitimize the development of adblocking extensions. They also make it easy to disable those ads. Technically: For a long time, ABP blocked more ads than uBlock. Maybe this is not as true today. For example: some adblockers didn't block ads in videos. I also ap…

Every major ad network has been caught distributing malware at one time or another. How do you weigh the risk of exposing yourself through acceptable ads?

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#102

Post by def_true_false »

Nadya wrote: post #84
def_true_false wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people never change default settings of software they install so "opt-in" may as well not have a way to "opt-out" except as a scapegoat to say you can. You might as well just blame the browser vendor for not having a built-in ad blocker, URL rewriter (Google search results), not disabling 3rd party cookies or whatever else the flavour of the month in abusing-features-for-tracking is. The people who never look…

>The people who never look into the settings probably didn't install the ad blocker themselves in the first place. Not true. Even most people who install an AdBlocker will not change their settings. If you change your settings, you're part of a very small minority. Businesses often use this to increase tips. Imagine two settings: 1) Enter your own amount (default of $0.00) 2) Four options: 15%, 20%, 25%, Other If you…

Interesting. However, AFAIK, the regional block lists are not enabled by default (not sure about ABP, but it's definitely the case with UBO), which makes it pretty useless without further setup for a sizeable part of the userbase, so I'd expect that most people who are capable of installing the extension are also capable of at least basic set up.

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#103

Post by bringtheaction »

epicide wrote: post #86
m12k wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ABP wasn't the first Sure, and the iPhone wasn't the first smartphone either, but it did bring the concept to mainstream attention. Same goes for ABP

> So could you explain us why you pick ABP over uBlock? He's not asking you to explain why you appreciate ABP. He's asking you why you still use it.

You replied to wrong comment.

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#104

Post by ship_it »

zerr wrote: post #14
TekMol wrote: post #6

Most tech people now seem to use uBlock Origin. But I use uMatrix (from the same developer) and I am super happy with it. It took me a minute or so to understand the interface. But then it is super intuitive and exactly the way I would have designed it myself. Since I only allow the hosts that I need, I almost never see advertising. And the web is blazingly fast.

What about Ghostery?

Sold out same as ADB. Use EFFs Privacy Badger[1]

[1] https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#105

Post by nasredin »

mgbmtl wrote: post #21

Many comments are bitterly unfair against ABP. Wladimir/Eyeo changed how we use the web, gave us means to fight back against abusive advertising. They built a business model to make the extension sustainable and find a strategy to legitimate themselves, fight in the courts, etc. Not to mention that ABP never tried to close the market. Alternatives were easy to build thanks to EasyList. Today there are many alternativ…

I have very strong feelings WRT the creator of ABP.

---

The creator of ABP ("Wladimir"?) is a scammer, con man, and malware distributor.

He created an adblocking extension.

He then used the auto-update feature to update his extension to include "acceptable ads".

I was not warned about this. I discovered this accidentally after going into ABP settings.

"Acceptable ads" IS the antithesis of adblocking. Do you know the malware that masquerades as anti-virus software, etc., euphemistically called "potentially unwanted programs / PUP"? ABP is EXACTLY the same.

Vladimir gained my trust by providing an adblocking software. He then betrayed that trust.

He is a con man in my book.

/rant

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#106

Post by gorhill »

def_true_false wrote: post #102
Nadya wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The people who never look into the settings probably didn't install the ad blocker themselves in the first place. Not true. Even most people who install an AdBlocker will not change their settings. If you change your settings, you're part of a very small minority. Businesses often use this to increase tips. Imagine two settings: 1) Enter your own amount (default of $0.00) 2) Four options: 15%, 20%, 25%, Other If you…

Interesting. However, AFAIK, the regional block lists are not enabled by default (not sure about ABP, but it's definitely the case with UBO), which makes it pretty useless without further setup for a sizeable part of the userbase, so I'd expect that most people who are capable of installing the extension are also capable of at least basic set up.

> the regional block lists are not enabled by default (not sure about ABP, but it's definitely the case with UBO)

uBO does select relevant regional list(s), if any, at first install according to the browser locale. I am pretty sure it's the same with ABP.

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#107

Post by mgbmtl »

shakna wrote: post #101
mgbmtl wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "So could you explain us why you pick ABP over uBlock?" On a philosophical level: I support the ABP strategy of "acceptable ads". I think it's a good way to legitimize the development of adblocking extensions. They also make it easy to disable those ads. Technically: For a long time, ABP blocked more ads than uBlock. Maybe this is not as true today. For example: some adblockers didn't block ads in videos. I also ap…

Every major ad network has been caught distributing malware at one time or another. How do you weigh the risk of exposing yourself through acceptable ads?

I wonder if that has happened from ABP's approved networks. From what I recall, their criteria are rather strict, and I would expect a network to get banned if that happens.

To be honest, pretty much the only ads I notice are sponsored results from Google (static text). I also use uMatrix for untrusted sites.

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#108

Post by hutzlibu »

Fnoord wrote: post #69
UncleEntity wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially not when users don't have an easy way to opt-out. When I first heard about it took me like 35 seconds to opt-out -- open options and unclick the little clicky box, easy peasy.

Good for you. If I need to be happy every time I opt-out "when I hear about it" which is often "when I already used the software" and get USDs for every hour I didn't opt-out even though I'd have loved to opt-out right away, then I'd be one hell of a happy Richie Rich. Having to go through settings in software when you install it, to get the software to work the way the average user wants it to, is annoying. An examp…

"Why do software developers get away treating their customers like stupid sheep"

Not only the software developers and to why? Well because it works, because most act like sheep.

I wonder how much of that comes from having been dominated for century's by a religion who literally told (and tell) all the people that they are sheep, needings them as shepherds ...

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#109

Post by rasz »

Fnoord wrote: post #29
ycombobreaker wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is frequently the case, I would give credit to Opera. They didn't have a central list but the browser had an easy-to-use element blocker that was suitable for blocking many obnoxious ads of the era. The central list ideas I've seen come out of projects built on squid proxies with known-advertiser black holes. ABP may have packaged things up nicely, I dont remember that evolution of history. And they may have other…

Interestingly, Opera was proprietary with its own rendering engine (Presto) and you could buy a license or you could run it for free with an ad showing (back then, ads were more profitable as well). Bummer they never open sourced Presto. Maybe that inspired Brave. Though you can't "buy" Brave.

Someone did it for them and published last Opera 12.x snapshot https://blogs.opera.com/security/2017/01/legacy-opera-presto...

there are people on Russian Opera fan forums still developing patches and improvements to that code base.

Re: Taking a break from Adblock Plus development

#110

Post by shakna »

mgbmtl wrote: post #107
shakna wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every major ad network has been caught distributing malware at one time or another. How do you weigh the risk of exposing yourself through acceptable ads?

I wonder if that has happened from ABP's approved networks. From what I recall, their criteria are rather strict, and I would expect a network to get banned if that happens. To be honest, pretty much the only ads I notice are sponsored results from Google (static text). I also use uMatrix for untrusted sites.

> I notice are sponsored results from Google (static text).

Google's AdSense has delivered malware in the past. And nobody is about to ban them.

It doesn't matter if it's just a "text ad" either. They allow a script, which means a malware payload can get delivered.

Google do a fair effort stopping malware, something like 400,000 malware ads try and host themselves through their network every day. But some do get through.

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