Adblocking: How about Nah? • Hacker News Board

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#171

Post by silisili » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #96

For many many years I resisted installing an ad-blocker. As someone who worked at a website that made the bulk of it's revenue from ads, it felt hypocritical, and also, I wanted to make sure that the experience of our website was bearable without ad blocking, by forcing myself to experience it every day. I gave up about two years ago. The web just go so bad I had to install ad-block. My computer would spin like a jet…

Same boat. I actually don't mind most ads. Then the slow page loading, CPU melting became annoying. And on mobile, even reputable sites were having ads hijack the browser. I'm done, I only use Opera or Brave now. I feel like I was a target demographic to advertise to, and they abused me instead.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#172

Post by crispsquirrel » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:20 PM UTC

Advertisements are one thing but most of these "ads" are actually gathering more info than they advertise. JavaScript trackers are just awful if you care about privacy, which I do. It's pi-hole and no-script all the way for me until they stop with this rubbish.

Targeted ads are another kind of problem. I don't really want to be told or suggested what I should or could buy, I can make up my own mind. I know some people don't mind them and that's fine.

In all honesty I preferred the annoying pop ups.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#173

Post by csande17 » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:21 PM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #140

csande17 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CSS, cookies, external images and fonts, redirect links, referrer headers, browser caches Aside from CSS and redirect links, all of these features are fairly straightforward. The consequences of disabling the Referer header, for example, are pretty small and easy to understand: you'll stop sending sites information about what links you used to get to them, but some very picky websites that check the header (e.g. im…

I do think most of these things (with the exception of IP addresses and caching) are easier to solve than Javascript. I disagree that they are trivial to solve or that combined, they are substantially less harmful than Javascript. Let me try to sidestep this debate though and focus on the broader problem. JS has a few stupid design decisions, but the fundamental reason Javascript is hard to run safely is because it's…

> I don't see a world where Javascript vanishes and privacy gets any better.

If JavaScript vanished, it would accomplish one huge win for privacy: it would split the "reading content and submitting forms" part of the Web out from the "powerful applications" part.

It is cool that you can use JavaScript to build a collaborative 3D modeling program. It might even be better for privacy than a native app. But it is less cool that Facebook and every news site you read gets access to the exact same capabilities and attack surface as the 3D modeling program.

And personally, I think ordering pizza would land on the "content and forms" side of the divide.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#174

Post by kazinator » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:23 PM UTC

csande17 wrote: post #173

danShumway wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think most of these things (with the exception of IP addresses and caching) are easier to solve than Javascript. I disagree that they are trivial to solve or that combined, they are substantially less harmful than Javascript. Let me try to sidestep this debate though and focus on the broader problem. JS has a few stupid design decisions, but the fundamental reason Javascript is hard to run safely is because it's…

> I don't see a world where Javascript vanishes and privacy gets any better. If JavaScript vanished, it would accomplish one huge win for privacy: it would split the "reading content and submitting forms" part of the Web out from the "powerful applications" part. It is cool that you can use JavaScript to build a collaborative 3D modeling program. It might even be better for privacy than a native app. But it is less c…

Absolutely. What is Javascript? It's andom pages all over the world telling your computer to download code from other random pages all over the world and execute it. Executable data is one of the first no-no-s of security.

A native app collaborative 3D program could be worse for privacy if it were closed source. If it were open source, then no way. For one thing, unlike a Javascripted one, it wouldn't update behind your back. Its code wouldn't be obfuscated, and wouldn't be dynamically pieced together from the four corners of the world.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#175

Post by butz » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

Google and other ad businesses need to create "AMP for ads". Ads should allow only basic HTML elements without javascript. Figure out a way to track only what's really necessary, maybe even get allowed tracking level set by user in browser settings (an improved version of Do Not Track). That might be even used to check if user agrees to have cookies set. It should solve the annoying cookie banners issue too. Finally, let's add option for user to select "text only" mode for ads to keep additional downloaded data to minimum and maybe even make ads accessible. Update: And, of course, after a quick search I find that AMP for Ads is an actual product from Google https://amp.dev/about/ads/ Sorry for not researching before commenting.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#176

Post by c256 » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:27 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #119

deanc wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I’d go as far as forbidding embedded JS altogether which removes the attack vector for malware within advertising networks. The networks have proved time and time again they are not able to prevent distribution of malware, and this is the primary reason I use an adblocker. Maybe a new tag which points to a resource which can only serve an image, video or text. Absolutely no scripting. Pass along only the adver…

> Maybe a new tag which points to a resource which can only serve an image, video or text. Absolutely no scripting. Pass along only the advertiser ID and the bare minimum. How would fraud detection work in this model? How do advertisers know the requests are coming from real users and not bots? Without assurance there, advertisers would pay much less, and publishers would earn much less. (Disclosure: I work on ads at…

Do you feel like advertisers know that now? I feel like I hear about clickspam/ad fraud operations getting closed down (and nigh-instantly popping up elsewhere) on a constant basis.

Is this like intrusive DRM in PC games, where all the studies show that it increases producer costs and complexity, annoys consumers, and doesn’t actually improve sales revenue, but some companies do it anyway because “what about piracy?”

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#177

Post by sgeisler » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:27 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #166

jacobobryant wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really care if ads stop being profitable. If ads stopped being a good source of revenue, the tech industry would adapt, and my guess is that the end result would be much more favorable to society. I'm working on an early-stage startup right now, and I'm certainly not going to use ads as part of my revenue model. Google might not be too happy about an outcome like that, but I'm not overly concerned about Googl…

> I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this since you work on ads: are ads actually essential in the software industry, or could we do just fine without them? The industry would definitely adapt, but I don't think it would be more favorable to society. Here's what I would expect to happen if we stopped letting third party ad networks detect ad fraud: * Facebook, Youtube, Reddit, etc and other huge sites are alr…

> There's a massive drive to consolidation: people don't want to have a lot of subscriptions to manage.

Imo subscriptions aren't viable at all. For me to subscribe to something I need strong evidence that I will use it enough.

Automatic micropayments with a daily allowance seem like a much superior solution. They remove the friction of making the subscribe decision and keep the content creators in check by only paying for interesting content. Subscriptions can be easily forgotten or aren't annoying enough to bother to cancel them even if the provided content isn't worth it anymore.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#178

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:29 PM UTC

csande17 wrote: post #173

danShumway wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think most of these things (with the exception of IP addresses and caching) are easier to solve than Javascript. I disagree that they are trivial to solve or that combined, they are substantially less harmful than Javascript. Let me try to sidestep this debate though and focus on the broader problem. JS has a few stupid design decisions, but the fundamental reason Javascript is hard to run safely is because it's…

> I don't see a world where Javascript vanishes and privacy gets any better. If JavaScript vanished, it would accomplish one huge win for privacy: it would split the "reading content and submitting forms" part of the Web out from the "powerful applications" part. It is cool that you can use JavaScript to build a collaborative 3D modeling program. It might even be better for privacy than a native app. But it is less c…

[deleted]

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#179

Post by tomrod » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:31 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #119

deanc wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I’d go as far as forbidding embedded JS altogether which removes the attack vector for malware within advertising networks. The networks have proved time and time again they are not able to prevent distribution of malware, and this is the primary reason I use an adblocker. Maybe a new tag which points to a resource which can only serve an image, video or text. Absolutely no scripting. Pass along only the adver…

> Maybe a new tag which points to a resource which can only serve an image, video or text. Absolutely no scripting. Pass along only the advertiser ID and the bare minimum. How would fraud detection work in this model? How do advertisers know the requests are coming from real users and not bots? Without assurance there, advertisers would pay much less, and publishers would earn much less. (Disclosure: I work on ads at…

It wouldn't, so targeted ads should be de-emphasized in a human-centric model.

Re: Adblocking: How about Nah?

#180

Post by _lqaf » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 6:31 PM UTC

air7 wrote: post #163

jacobobryant wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really care if ads stop being profitable. If ads stopped being a good source of revenue, the tech industry would adapt, and my guess is that the end result would be much more favorable to society. I'm working on an early-stage startup right now, and I'm certainly not going to use ads as part of my revenue model. Google might not be too happy about an outcome like that, but I'm not overly concerned about Googl…

In recent years we, conscious consumers, shot down several viable business models that could have replaced ads such as data collection for trend analysis and crypto mining in the browser. They were met with outright hostility. Perhaps justifiably so, but we have to keep in mind that any producable "value" will have to "hurt" in some way. We have to give something in exchange for "free" services. Yet the focus is only…

> Either we give up the "free" model alltogether and shift back to paid services only, or we choose the lesser evil and live with it.

This is true in a specific way, and it is sometimes useful to use this frame. But in this case, I think the frame obscures more than it focuses.

"We" aren't getting together and voting or bidding or whatever. I think the closest thing to a choke point for decision making about some of this is in Google's hands, with Chrome. At least until the browser monopoly wheel spins again.

> We have to give something in exchange for "free" services

Eh? No. The requirement is that services need resources to exist. If you immediately extrapolate to pseudo-moralistic finger-wagging at "consumers", you're ignoring a lot of ways various organizations have found to exist. It is either self-blinding or a heavy thumb on the scale.