UBlock Origin • Hacker News Board

Re: UBlock Origin

#221

Post by logn » Mon, Jun 15, 2015, 8:00 PM UTC

mrmondo wrote: post #2

How is this different from the normal / existing uBlock? https://github.com/chrisaljoudi/uBlock/releases

Gorhill wrote uBlock. After the project took on a life of its own, Gorhill handed the primary repo over to the contributors so he could develop from a fork of it. The primary repo then introduced requests for donations, changed attribution/authorship, and ended some features. As a result of the feature set difference, Gorhill renamed his fork to "uBlock Origin" so the features he wanted would be available in the addons sites without conflicting with "uBlock". At this point given their divergence, both projects are fully maintained and developed in parallel, with relevant revisions merged to each other where possible.

That's the neutral summary at least.

(edited slightly for clarity)

Re: UBlock Origin

#222

Post by baddox » Mon, Jun 15, 2015, 8:04 PM UTC

JohnTHaller wrote: post #220

tshaddox wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't confuse the desire to not see ads with a feeling of entitlement. I fully support a website operator's right to detect that I am blocking ads and hide the content, or to make unblockable ads. I don't feel entitled to their resources. But if they do show content I'm interested in, I'll consume it. It's not at all a feeling of entitlement.

Most users don't share your sentiment. There are pre-bundled blocklists in most adblockers to block websites' JavaScript designed to detect adblockers and block content. uBlock includes two such lists by default. Adblockers vary whether these are enabled by default or must be enabled by the user.

> There are pre-bundled blocklists in most adblockers to block websites' JavaScript designed to detect adblockers and block content.

That still doesn't imply a feeling of entitlement.

Re: UBlock Origin

#223

Post by JohnTHaller » Mon, Jun 15, 2015, 8:07 PM UTC

VieElm wrote: post #196

JohnTHaller wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We show an ask for donations in place of the ads for users who block our ads (Simple, subtle, using the same colors and fonts as the rest of the site so it isn't distracting). A handful of users do donate. The vast majority do not. Interestingly, the users who donate are also the ones most likely to whitelist our site. Most (but not all) users today feel entitled to content, games, music, etc for free and get mad whe…

Sounds like you've come up with a nice comfortable rationalization for creating bad experiences for your users. How convenient for you. You don't seem to think very highly of your site's visitors. > Most (but not all) users today feel entitled to content, games, music, etc for free and get mad when it isn't granted to them and turn up their noses at things like ads that support the content for the price they're willi…

On the contrary, I think very highly of my site's visitors. That's why there's no banner ad across the top of the page. That's why there's only a single ad above the fold (within the sidebar away from the content so it doesn't distract). That's why I've never done popups, popovers, popunders, etc. That's why I have a script to detect adblockers that, instead of blocking content, just shows a nice simple request for either whitelisting or donating if they can that also cleans up the remnants of the site design left behind by blocking the ads for a cleaner page view for them and specifically reserves space for the message so the laid-out elements don't jump around and distract from viewing the page sans ads. That's why I have 60+ domains blocked within AdSense because I found they were showing fake Download button ads that were trying to trick users into downloading crap instead of free software they were after... even though these were the most high-paying ads available. That's why I've avoided doing bundleware despite the fact that it would make me a millionaire within weeks.

Much of what I said was more a generalization of online users overall. And I'm lucky that many of my own users fall outside of that generalization due to the niche of what I do and the type of product I offer (free open source software, utilities, etc). Sadly, it doesn't matter how responsibly you try to show ads as adblockers don't discriminate (except for AdBlock Plus which allows some ad networks due to payola). And doing ads on your own without a 3rd party service is nearly impossible for an independent site these days due to the nature of the ad industry.

All that said, it's not like I'm giving up. I'm working with my userbase to come up with additional revenue streams to allow the site/project to continue and the millions of users to keep using the software. Including things like paid services, merchandise, sponsorships, etc. Honestly, if we can arrive at one that'll let me ditch ads entirely, I'd be happy to.

Re: UBlock Origin

#224

Post by baddox » Mon, Jun 15, 2015, 8:16 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #207

baddox wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the same as taking the free newspapers in your area, cutting out all the advertisements, and giving those out to people. No, it's more like asking the newspaper publisher if you can have a version of their newspaper (for your own use) without ads, and them obliging. Blocking ads has nothing to do with redistributing someone else's content.

> Blocking ads has nothing to do with redistributing someone else's content. You're right, it's like subscribing to a service that does it for you. > No, it's more like asking the newspaper publisher if you can have a version of their newspaper (for your own use) without ads, and them obliging. No, if they had an easy way to enforce your viewing of ads that scaled, I think it's fairly obvious they would (as many of t…

> You're right, it's like subscribing to a service that does it for you.

You mean the blacklist services? Those are just a list of URL rules for your browser to reject. You still request the content from the web and the content provider obliges.

> No, if they had an easy way to enforce your viewing of ads that scaled, I think it's fairly obvious they would

Given that I have seen several websites that do this, I think you must be wrong.

> It's more like the distributor responding with both marketing material and content with the understanding you are to view the marketing material along with the content, and you routing the marketing material to the trash from the post office

Yes, it is like that, and I having no qualms with doing that. If I received a free magazine full of good content, along with a separate booklet of ads that are intended to be views with the content, I would have no problem reading the content and ignoring the ad booklet.

Re: UBlock Origin

#225

Post by drostie » Mon, Jun 15, 2015, 8:20 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #182

Nadya wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shh... don't point out the hypocrisy of installing software but preventing the "Ask Toolbar" that it tries to install from installing. How dare you hurt their business model by preventing the program from installing spyware! You should be running IE with 12 different toolbars and Bonzi Buddy and the 90-day trial of McAfee.

OK, I'll answer this one. No software I own installs adware/spyware that I then uninstall or circumvent. This includes "free" commercial stuff like Chrome, Steam, the Kindle App, and Spotify. And then stuff I purchase licenses for, including Transmit, Sublime Text, Lightroom. The free consumer software that I do use, KeepassX and Handbrake, don't currently install adware/spyware. If they did, I wouldn't use them. So…

I'm glad that you don't use Flash or Java. However, I'm sure you can understand if they're (a) very common, (b) bundled with adware, and (c) make one of many fine counterpoints to the "you have a moral obligation to view ads in order to support the artists who made the stuff that you're consuming" argument.

That might not be your argument, but it is an argument that's in the atmosphere. This is a thorny problem, not a cut-and-dry case. The greater good is supported when artists can be fairly compensated. It is also supported when we annoy the art-consumers less. It is probably also supported when our political stances are small, simple, and ideologically pure. It is probably also supported when poor people can consume art. There are a lot of different factors that play into the "is it OK to block ads?" question, and it's not obvious that there's a simple solution which resolves all of them.

Re: UBlock Origin

#226

Post by glesica » Mon, Jun 15, 2015, 8:21 PM UTC

Zarel wrote: post #210

glesica wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By blocking GA, the site doesn't see you as a visitor. They can still use server analytics to see me as a visitor. I even show up on Cloudflare. I don't want them tracking what I do on their site, it should be enough to know I showed up and asked for a specific page. If their business model relies on knowing more, then they chose a lousy business model. Why is there so much sympathy for ad-supported sites on HN but…

"Disrupting" is about replacing an old business model with a _better_ business model. You don't disrupt the old one until _after_ you find a better one. Ads are not a bad business model. They allow free access to websites, while still allowing websites to pay for hosting costs. They don't discriminate between rich users and poor users. You may be able to afford subscription costs, but children and people in third wor…

I realize that someone would have to come up with something better first, and my comment about "disruption" was meant partially as a joke. I do, however, struggle to understand the deference many people on HN seem to have for the ad-based business model. It is to the point that I've seen people who block ads accused of "stealing".

Re: UBlock Origin

#227

Post by tobylane » Mon, Jun 15, 2015, 8:24 PM UTC

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #166

izietto wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been discontinued too early; from an AdBlock Edge comment, titled "uBlock may be fast, but is rubbish": > I've been using uBlock now for a while and while it is light and fast, it's is rubbish to use. Exclusions are idiotic, context menu controls don't work, default filters selection is idiotic, it doesn't sync settings like Adblock Edge does, I'm just starting to hate it. > I'd too like to see AdBlock Edge co…

I haven't been seeing those issues with uBlock.

The one issue I've had with it is it won't hide the share feature on each link of Reddit.

Re: UBlock Origin

#228

Post by Doctor_Fegg » Mon, Jun 15, 2015, 8:27 PM UTC

sbierwagen wrote: post #208

seanp2k2 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I can't reply to the reply on this, piwik (the paid version) works just like GA and is offered as a SaaS where they store and analyze the data. Edit: link: https://piwik.pro

So, it's bad in exactly the same way that GA is bad: it leaks user information to a third party.

Except we're discussing the self-hosted version here ("use whatever you want as long as it's selfhosted").

Re: UBlock Origin

#229

Post by drostie » Mon, Jun 15, 2015, 8:29 PM UTC

darkmighty wrote: post #215

JohnTHaller wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We show an ask for donations in place of the ads for users who block our ads (Simple, subtle, using the same colors and fonts as the rest of the site so it isn't distracting). A handful of users do donate. The vast majority do not. Interestingly, the users who donate are also the ones most likely to whitelist our site. Most (but not all) users today feel entitled to content, games, music, etc for free and get mad whe…

The respondents have a solid point. You can't criticize them blocking ads, if they're willing to see degrading service because of it. What we lack that would be ideal is full transparency from the site's point of view to know which user is blocking ads and, if they choose so, prevent that user from viewing any content. It should be illegal to 'fake' watching ads just to get the content. This imbalance is indeed a big…

> It should be illegal to 'fake' watching ads just to get the content.

You mean, like, by-law illegal? Or just something more like "an illegal state" in a program? Because if we're talking about by-law, that's an awful sentiment and you should feel awful for expressing it.

If you mean by-program-state illegal, that's not actually too complicated: add a software dependency on your ad-generation or analytics code to all of your run-time code. You'll pay the corresponding cost in performance that any such paranoid solution is going to cost you anyway, and you'll be vulnerable to highly-targeted blacklisting of your ads anyway, but you can block those general ad rules and force ad-blockers to include arbitrary executable blacklist-code in their browsers, which is sufficient.

Re: UBlock Origin

#230

Post by vbezhenar » Mon, Jun 15, 2015, 8:37 PM UTC

darkmighty wrote: post #215

JohnTHaller wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We show an ask for donations in place of the ads for users who block our ads (Simple, subtle, using the same colors and fonts as the rest of the site so it isn't distracting). A handful of users do donate. The vast majority do not. Interestingly, the users who donate are also the ones most likely to whitelist our site. Most (but not all) users today feel entitled to content, games, music, etc for free and get mad whe…

The respondents have a solid point. You can't criticize them blocking ads, if they're willing to see degrading service because of it. What we lack that would be ideal is full transparency from the site's point of view to know which user is blocking ads and, if they choose so, prevent that user from viewing any content. It should be illegal to 'fake' watching ads just to get the content. This imbalance is indeed a big…

So you are saying it should be illegal for me to mute TV when ads are displayed? I must carefully listen to ads and periodically pass an exam to ensure that I indeed listened to them and not thought of other things. What a wonderful feature. For ad companies.