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Adblock Plus now sells ads

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Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#231

Post by thesmallestcat »

beagle3 wrote: post #155
thesmallestcat wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using both for a while, just uninstalled ABP on this news. Unfortunately, uBlock Origin adds several seconds to Firefox startup time.

Maybe it is interaction between it and another addon. I just removed and reinstalled all my addons last week and performance was dramatically increased. Well, not all my addons - turns out though my Scriptish has been installed since Firefox 3 (now at 45), it wouldn't reinstall after removal for compatibility problems. Not sure why that wasn't automatically detected, and that may have been the performance issue

This is an interesting theory! The only scripting thing I have enabled is Greasemonkey, I'll have to experiment more with combinations.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#232

Post by beefield »

morgante wrote: post #194
rloc wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing to do if you haven't already. uBlock is open source and does the job. This all adBlock making money by blocking ads and then showing their own ads is becoming ridiculous and unethical. So what does Adblock stand for now ?

You're assuming that everyone shares your world view. I'm a happy Adblock Plus user and I like this move. Advertising, in general, does not bother me. I occasionally even find it valuable. Ads on sites like Google and Facebook are perfectly fine by me—I just don't want big, animated ads or (more frequently) broken ones which prevent me from reading content. In fact, I already go out of my way to disable ABP on sites…

> Contrary to what people on HN believe, advertising is not inherently evil. Most people are perfectly fine with ads so long as they're not invasive.

I would guess most people have this idea (in most cases illusion) that advertisers are not able to manipulate them. I do not have that illusion, and I do not like people that are manipulating me for their own benefit. I do not know if they are evil, but I think it is fair for me to try to avoid those kind of people.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#233

Post by morgante »

blakeyrat wrote: post #216
chii wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you don't have the right to their content... if they allow the public to view their content, they cannot dictate how the content is viewed. There's ways to block people from viewing content if ads are blocked - but a lot of sites don't do that, because they deem the traffic more important.

If you eat a meal at a restaurant, they also cannot dictate that you must tip the waitstaff. But if you don't, you're a jackass.

This is a great metaphor and I'm totally stealing it. Ads are an expectation but not an obligation and by blocking them you are a free rider.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#234

Post by thesmallestcat »

maxencecornet wrote: post #139
thesmallestcat wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using both for a while, just uninstalled ABP on this news. Unfortunately, uBlock Origin adds several seconds to Firefox startup time.

I though uBlock point was to be CPU/ram efficient ? That's even what they show in the chrome/firefox store images, it doesn't make much sense to me that it adds several seconds to Firefox startup time Am I missing something ?

While it's running it seems smooth and efficient, or at least not a bear like Ghostery. It's something with startup. Anyway, minor nit, it's a great extension.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#235

Post by Sargos »

KORraN wrote: post #212
jagger27 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A word of warning about uBlock for those who aren't aware: uBlock Origin forked off of uBlock some time ago and left the Safari version behind. For Chrome and Firefox uBlock Origin is great, but for Safari I personally suggest Wipr[1]. 1: https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.giorgioc...

Actually, uBlock Origin comes from original author of uBlock. Some time ago he said that he doesn't have time to develop Origin and passed project to other guy. Unfortunately, that guy didn't make any big changes in code (except adding himself as an author) and asked for donations. After quite big drama, original author came back, but he wasn't able to get back his project so he called it uBlock Origin.

Your comment is super confusing. Do you mean that he didn't have time to develop uBlock so then we went to make Origin? You wrote it the other way around. Which one does the original guy work on now, Origin?

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#236

Post by uncletaco »

jagger27 wrote: post #115
thclark wrote: post #36

uBlock Origin it is! Extensions: Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpa... Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... Opera: https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/ublock/ Microsoft Edge: https://github.com/nikrolls/uBlock-Edge#microsoft-edge

A word of warning about uBlock for those who aren't aware: uBlock Origin forked off of uBlock some time ago and left the Safari version behind. For Chrome and Firefox uBlock Origin is great, but for Safari I personally suggest Wipr[1]. 1: https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.giorgioc...

I've been using 1Blocker. It syncs rules between the mac and iPhone versions of Safari.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#237

Post by witty_username »

cyborgx7 wrote: post #60
pc86 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then pay for content. Ads are how people who provide free content make money. Yes, they are often offensive (visually, not necessarily the content), slow to load, and contain or utilize some of tracker or retargeting mechanism. But if you can remove those and you basically just have a PNG telling you about a product or service, that is the very definition of acceptable. But to freely consume content from someone (whe…

I do actually pay for content. And I do so gladly. But the fundamental problem with ads is that, even when they are unobstrusive, don't invade my privacy and don't compromise my security, they still are inherently manipulative and therefore unethical. The Internet was designed to exchange information. How I then choose to display that information is up to me. Ad-based businesses are tolerated, but have no claim to th…

If you don't like ads on a site, don't visit the site. Content creators need money.

How are ads manipulative?

What does "claim to the internet" mean? The internet isn't a piece of land.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#238

Post by snsr »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #126
bonoboTP wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When watching TV, I often switch away when the ads come. Then after a few minutes I switch back to continue watching the program. Do you think this behavior is also unacceptable? Or how do you feel about people who throw away promotional stuff found in magazines and newspapers?

My issue isn't really with ad-blocking. It's with people like the parent who act like it's a human rights violation but still take the content and don't offer an alternative. If you feel so strongly about it boycott companies showing you ads.

Don't serve web pages to me if you don't want me to decide which parts are acceptable.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#239

Post by yellow_postit »

ilikepi wrote: post #210
thr0waway1239 wrote: post #164

A missing factoid via the corresponding WSJ article: http://www.wsj.com/articles/adblock-plus-is-launching-an-ad-... "Advertisers will not be able to target ads via the Acceptable Ads Platform using the granular behavioral data many have become accustomed too, however, to preserve user privacy and security. Rather, they’ll have a limited set of information with which to target their ads, including the domain on which…

> OK, so the "limited" set of information is already 5 pieces of information... Ehh...it'll probably be the useragent string and the result of geocoding the client IP address. This is fairly narrow (especially for obscure and/or out-of-date browsers), but I think calling it "unique" might be a stretch. I guess it would be highly dependent on the population of your city or town and on the popularity of the site itself…

If it starts including things like display size, device, etc. then you get into the realm of browser fingerprinting which while maybe not truly unique does start to narrow the pool quite a bit: https://panopticlick.eff.org/about#browser-fingerprinting

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#240

Post by M_Grey »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #215
M_Grey wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's happening, I doubt it's uBlock.

I've tested it, it is uBlock. Very fast boot when disabled, several seconds when enabled.

That's bizarre! Have you tried disabling everything except uBlock and seeing if that persists? Maybe it's some kind of interaction with other addons causing the problem.
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