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Are ad blockers doomed or have we already won? A history lesson

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Re: Are ad blockers doomed or have we already won? A history lesson

#21

Post by jaywalk »

karatestomp wrote: post #9
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but doing so, they will lose the ability to be indexed, searched, archived and linked to. Like during the flash era. Which in turn will start a new trend of website that are "open". It's a cycle.

Plenty of sites already give Google something different from what they show everyone else, right?

No, that's actually a great way to make Google penalize your site. It's explicitly against their Webmaster Guidelines: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355

Re: Are ad blockers doomed or have we already won? A history lesson

#22

Post by heartbeats »

mrspeaker wrote: post #4

Great article! It's funny to finally see ad blockers go "mainstream". My dystopian-future fear is that that Web Assembly will be the end of ad blocking (and the end of a web of connected web sites). Big sites will eventually convert to essentially "a web browser inside a web browser" so they have total control over the content and how it's displayed. Then ad blocking (and other customization) will be limited to "the…

> Then ad blocking (and other customization) will be limited to "the analog hole" - trying to image detect or OCR things.

That doesn't seem too hard to pull off. You're not trying to find objects in an image, you're trying to find near-exact matches in a digitally rendered page.

Re: Are ad blockers doomed or have we already won? A history lesson

#23

Post by paulie_a »

Basically ad blocking makes the internet useful again. I am no longer bombarded with popups or distractions. Therefore I won. Tracking is pathetically useless on the internet. It's easy to screw with the metrics and your "profile" but even without doing so tracking is simply snake oil

Re: Are ad blockers doomed or have we already won? A history lesson

#24

Post by kemotep »

jsjddbbwj wrote: post #2

I miss the days when barely anybody blocked ads. Those of us who did didn't have to worry with defeating anti ad block systems.

Before I used an ad blocker I encountered a lot of malvertisting[0]. Now that I use an ad blocker and set it them up for friends and family random virus attacks, bluescreens, and other types of issues are a thing of the past.

I understand not all advertising agencies are responsible for this behavior but when these types of attacks can occur on mainstream websites such as Forbes[1], I frankly cannot trust any ad network to not infect my computer.

[0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising [1]:https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/08/you-say-advertising-i-sa...

Re: Are ad blockers doomed or have we already won? A history lesson

#25

Post by karatestomp »

Karunamon wrote: post #17
karatestomp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of sites already give Google something different from what they show everyone else, right?

I thought that was an offense that would get one either severely de-ranked or delisted from search outright?

What do paywalled sites do, then? They don't seem to have a problem ranking just fine.

Re: Are ad blockers doomed or have we already won? A history lesson

#26

Post by flohofwoe »

mrspeaker wrote: post #4

Great article! It's funny to finally see ad blockers go "mainstream". My dystopian-future fear is that that Web Assembly will be the end of ad blocking (and the end of a web of connected web sites). Big sites will eventually convert to essentially "a web browser inside a web browser" so they have total control over the content and how it's displayed. Then ad blocking (and other customization) will be limited to "the…

People will just stop visiting such webpages where it's impossible to separate the chaff from the wheat, simple as that.

Re: Are ad blockers doomed or have we already won? A history lesson

#27

Post by Supermancho »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #5
mrspeaker wrote: post #4

Great article! It's funny to finally see ad blockers go "mainstream". My dystopian-future fear is that that Web Assembly will be the end of ad blocking (and the end of a web of connected web sites). Big sites will eventually convert to essentially "a web browser inside a web browser" so they have total control over the content and how it's displayed. Then ad blocking (and other customization) will be limited to "the…

Yes, but doing so, they will lose the ability to be indexed, searched, archived and linked to. Like during the flash era. Which in turn will start a new trend of website that are "open". It's a cycle.

> they will lose the ability to be indexed, searched, archived and linked to

Sounds like an API that will be implemented.

Re: Are ad blockers doomed or have we already won? A history lesson

#28

Post by II2II »

mrspeaker wrote: post #4

Great article! It's funny to finally see ad blockers go "mainstream". My dystopian-future fear is that that Web Assembly will be the end of ad blocking (and the end of a web of connected web sites). Big sites will eventually convert to essentially "a web browser inside a web browser" so they have total control over the content and how it's displayed. Then ad blocking (and other customization) will be limited to "the…

A lot of the future of ad blocking will depend upon why people are blocking ads. Some of us have nothing againsts ads in principle, but do not like the practices of the advertising industry. This includes things like tracking people across websites, intrusive advertising, excessive bandwidth usage, deceptive advertising, and so on. Blocking the "analog hole" would be irrelevant in most of those cases.

Re: Are ad blockers doomed or have we already won? A history lesson

#30

Post by slig »

jaywalk wrote: post #21
karatestomp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of sites already give Google something different from what they show everyone else, right?

No, that's actually a great way to make Google penalize your site. It's explicitly against their Webmaster Guidelines: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355

Big properties do that and Google doesn't care.
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