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

Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

palant.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 192 posts

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#151

Post by chmars »

iLoch wrote: post #115
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",…

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.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#152

Post by marco1 »

ntaso wrote: post #99
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",…

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).

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#153

Post by GhotiFish »

freehunter wrote: post #101
conesus wrote: post #87

Adblock is the #1 culprit for bugs on NewsBlur. I get at least one report a day where some functionality is broken (sharing stories, saving stories, loading a user's feed list, etc). First thing I do now is ask them to disable Adblock. Doesn't even matter if they've told me if they have Adblock installed. I just assume if some random functionality is broken on my single-page site, it's Adblock's fault. I suppose I sh…

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.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#154

Post by wreegab »

dudus wrote: post #138

Blocking ads is such a dick move. This should be made illegal. You are not entitled to change a website to your contempt and cut their main revenue source. If you want to use a website/app and it was made available with the Ad, then just suck it in or use a different one. To my eyes this is not very different than piracy. Where you use a software without paying for it's price. Advertising is the price you pay to use…

> Blocking ads is such a dick move. This should be made illegal.

A law to enforce one very specific business model is a terrible idea.

If only I could tip $2 the author for that video I watched and liked (like say, 10,000 other viewers) with as little overhead as possible... No donations, no subscriptions, just a tip with no further obligations. You think ad brokers would welcome this business model?

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#155

Post by forgotAgain »

Since Chrome added "click to play" in plug-in settings I haven't used an ad blocker. With Flash ads no longer playing, my need for the blocker went away.

The changeover to canvas ads is happening quickly and that may bring back my need.

When I don't want to be tracked I rely on incognito mode.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#156

Post by marco1 »

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",…

With more than 17 million users and their mafia-like business model (i.e. protection racket), they have been able to pay for at least 15 employees. Not bad for a free browser add-on. German source: http://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-...

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#157

Post by scott_s »

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.

My assumption was not that the site depends on contacting ad servers, but that the Adblock extension is interfering with normal browser functionality.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#158

Post by YZF »

ntaso wrote: post #99
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",…

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…

The problem is that advertisers' business model essentially relies on the silent cooperation of the consumer. The ads are rendered on my device which is under my control. I'm under no obligation to render any content from anyone who buys ads from anybody. Not to mention the advertisers are using my $'s to push content to my device.

The amazing thing is that this business model continues to operate reasonably successfully and that more people aren't actively working against it. On the other side of this, I think the "extortion" business model is limited because there'll be alternate providers of ad blockers. To some extent we've seen similar tactics in the TV world with digital video recorders that allow you to mask/fast forward through commercials.

Now one might argue that the way content providers can fund good content is through advertising, which is true to some extent but it's not a very fair or reliable business model.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#159

Post by CodeMage »

GhotiFish wrote: post #143
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as "unobtrusive ads". If they weren't obtrusive, they would be either decoration or information, not ads.

That's not true, you're equating how they have being practically implemented for their definition. There's nothing stopping ads from being useful and beneficial to society at large. If I need computer repair services, then looking through advertisements for shops that can offer that service is not a detriment to me, or a distraction. The reason we block them is that they are being implemented in an antagonistic way.…

> If I need computer repair services, then looking through advertisements for shops that can offer that service is not a detriment to me, or a distraction.

I don't really understand the part about "looking through advertisements". If you're actually doing a web search, what you're looking at is a list of web search results, not ads. Any ad that is inserted in that list is there by virtue of that shop having paid for that privilege, which does not necessarily mean it's relevant; it just means that its ranking got artificially boosted.

On the other hand, if you're not looking at a web search, then you're probably doing some other kind of research on computer repair services, such as looking at reviews, blog posts and such. In that context, ads are being displayed based on the context of what you're viewing, as determined by a computer algorithm, but you're already actively looking for human recommendations, so ads won't benefit you either.

The way I see it, ads fall into two categories: 1) artificially boosting the search engine rankings and 2) do-you-want-fries-with-that offers based on what you're currently doing. Most of the time, that doesn't seem to add any special value to the consumers.

The only situation I can think of that might be helpful is when you're not already looking for a solution to some problem and an ad suggests something you didn't even know existed. For example, you're looking at cooking recipes and an ad shows up for a kitchen gadget that would really help you cut down the preparation time in half. Even then, the rational choice would not be do go buy that particular gadget, but to do some research on gadgets of that type in general and choose the best one.

All in all, I agree with GP: ads are neither information, nor decoration, but an obstruction.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#160

Post by gorhill »

I see Wladimir Palant has again commented on µBlock in his comment section [1]:

> clear tendency to trade performance for memory use

This has been a pattern with Wladimir Palant with regard to my work. Outright misrepresentation [2], or criticism through vague statements while never specific enough to understand what part of the code he is referring to.

Nowhere in the code did I trade memory for CPU, both have always been of highest concern. Given that my benchmarks show µBlock does significantly better than ABP on both memory and CPU count, vaguely stating that "clear tendency to trade performance for memory use" is just plain nonsense. [3]

I did ask him to be specific about his statement regarding how I implemented element hiding without injecting gigantic CSS stylesheet in every page and frame, but never received a response, and it is understandable why: he was misrepresenting. [4]

[1] https://palant.de/2014/07/29/which-is-better-adblock-or-adbl...

[2] https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/wiki/Adblock-Plus... (bottom of the page)

[3] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-vs.-ABP:-...

[4] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=988266#c39

Edit: added reference to CPU/mem benchmarks

Post reply on HN