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Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

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Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#161

Post by nathan_long »

emrikol wrote: post #40

What I've wanted for some time, and it seems hard for me to find, is a good ad blocker that only works on blacklists. I don't mind ads on some sites as long as they're non-intrusive. Once they start getting in the way of the content though, I want to blacklist the site. Everything I've seen so far (although I haven't put a LOT of time into searching) only works on all sites by default and you have to whitelist the on…

You can do this with AdBlock for Chrome - just unsubscribe from all the lists and add your own custom filters. The simplest way to block something yourself is just to right-click it and go through the menu.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#162

Post by Macha »

eli wrote: post #119
Macha wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't seem to detect ABP 2.6.4 on FF for me.

EDIT: I think it just needed the name of the dummy ad updated. Try it now: http://esd.io/blog/detecting-adblock-javascript.html I specifically wanted a self-contained solution, but assuming your site has ads in the first place, a better approach would be to see if your actual ads are loading on the page or not. http://www.Fark.com/ does this (load the page with adblock and then wait a few seconds)

Still fails.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#163

Post by nathan_long »

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…

> You are not entitled to change a website to your contempt and cut their main revenue source.

You are not entitled to require my HTTP agent to request assets I do not desire. I GET your HTML and I request the additional files I want. I override your CSS with user stylesheets if I'm colorblind or I just like seeing ponies in the background. I write my own custom JS to run with your page if I want. I'm a free user of the web, and you're operating under the wrong paradigm. Heck, even newspaper readers are entitled to use scissors.

If you don't want to serve content to the general public, use a paywall.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#164

Post by eli »

Macha wrote: post #162
eli wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: I think it just needed the name of the dummy ad updated. Try it now: http://esd.io/blog/detecting-adblock-javascript.html I specifically wanted a self-contained solution, but assuming your site has ads in the first place, a better approach would be to see if your actual ads are loading on the page or not. http://www.Fark.com/ does this (load the page with adblock and then wait a few seconds)

Still fails.

Huh, works with AdBlock Edge. I'll take a look tonight. Are you subscribed to the standard EasyList filter?

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#165

Post by martin56 »

wreegab wrote: post #150
martin56 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there is no private list, it's just the public one. You can check out the key header whitelist here: http://cheme.com/ Visit this site with "Acceptable Ads" enabled and disabled and you will see the difference. Notice the "data-adblockkey" in the source. This was publically announced in their "Acceptable Ads proposal" forum here and later added to the public list: https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&…

> 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.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#166

Post by goblin89 »

ntumlin wrote: post #146
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…

While I agree that ads are a good thing for the internet as a whole, I certainly have the right to change what my computer does and shows me. The idea of making it illegal to block ads and modify webpages locally is so absurd I can't wrap my head around it. I don't even see how that could be enforced.

> The idea of making it illegal to block ads and modify webpages locally I don't even see how that could be enforced.

Say, modifying page source acquires questionable legal status (like port scanning or jailbreaking) and is removed from every major browser. Sadly, to me personally this doesn't seem too unlikely to happen in near future.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#167

Post by GhotiFish »

CodeMage wrote: post #159
GhotiFish wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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.

I was driving at that, though on review I realize I wasn't clear.

There's nothing stopping an ad from being useful, it can be an option you didn't realize existed, or it can be an option you might not of considered for review (number 2).

Neither of those are an obstruction, so:

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

This is where we disagree. They could be information, they could be useful, it's just that their current implementation is not like that.

Ad Block Plus used this argument to set up their payment scheme. Which is a shame, but just because an idea is used for slimeball tactics doesn't mean the idea is wrong.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#168

Post by hyyypr »

616c wrote: post #31

If people prefer more extreme solutions: I eventually moved to Conkeror (think Firefox, but with Emacs bindings and Emacs-like extension via javascript; I know cue the egg throwing). I was looking at other browsers to replace Firefox, as I got sick of it, and I picked Conkeror. Conkeror has a neat little feature called content-policy. I can block kinds of crap per session or site (Flash, JS, Fonts, Object tags, Image…

Lots of info here thanks!

I currently use the list provided here [0] which is pretty comprehensive, and just append it to my /etc/hosts file manually; updating it evry now and then is good enough. My question is, why do you need dnsmasq (other than for speeding up dns queries), and why do yo need to serve a blank page instead of simply redirecting network requests to /dev/null?

And I use uzbl [1] for browsing, which is a neat little webkit based browser, with Vim like controls, and stripped to the bare minimum, thus the need for an alternative to adBlock.

[0]: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

[1]: http://www.uzbl.org/

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#169

Post by diminoten »

coldpie wrote: post #112
diminoten wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'd suggest using nothing (or noscript if you're actually just concerned about exploits), but if this Internet community is like any other Internet community, I'm probably in a very small minority. I actually have pretty strong opinions on the matter, but they're entirely tangential and irrelevant, and not really in the spirit of HN, so I'll keep them to myself.

FYI you're being downvoted because your comment basically amounts to, "I'm not going to contribute to this conversation," which is self-admittedly worthless.

Heh, if you look into my comment history you'll see the community much prefers I not participate in these long and drawn-out conversations.

I actually agree with the downvotes, as my comment was mostly off-topic, but I felt it needed to be said.

It's also preferable, in a moment of egotism, to get 3 downvotes on that comment, rather than the torrent of dozens of downvotes on the ensuing potential conversation. I've recently lost all faith in this community to respect an attempt at an honest debate.

Re: Which is better, Adblock or Adblock Plus?

#170

Post by drcube »

worklogin wrote: post #120
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 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.

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