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Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

pi-hole.net

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Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#231

Post by finid »

staunch wrote: post #223

One thing is for certain, ad blocking is going to become more and more prevalent and never less. The end game for ad blocking is to all but eliminate advertising. An ad blocking client could, ultimately, just block any domain that has aggressive anti-ad block features. With enough users doing this, new sites that are ad free would quickly replace the old ad driven sites. Some of the ad driven sites would modernize. A…

With enough users doing this, new sites that are ad free would quickly replace the old ad driven sites.

And how will ad free sites supposed to pay writers to make and keep the site free?

There are already a dozen potential solutions waiting for the incentives to change.

Go ahead and list them...

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#232

Post by finid »

Kaedon wrote: post #230
staunch wrote: post #223

One thing is for certain, ad blocking is going to become more and more prevalent and never less. The end game for ad blocking is to all but eliminate advertising. An ad blocking client could, ultimately, just block any domain that has aggressive anti-ad block features. With enough users doing this, new sites that are ad free would quickly replace the old ad driven sites. Some of the ad driven sites would modernize. A…

How do you imagine sites that are ad free would appear? What's their business model? I don't think that's a given, especially since most users won't pay (see the rise of freemium style apps vs paid ones in the app store).

Proponents of adblockers are not thinking this thing through.

It takes time (that's money) to create quality content that anybody would love reading. Heck, even content that's crappy takes time to create.

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#233

Post by majewsky »

problems wrote: post #124
ggoss wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad-Away (installable via F-Droid if you are rooted) allows you to block ads at the hosts-file level, which will work in Chrome and in other apps that display ads. Before anyone chews me out, as this effectively renders many free apps equivalent to their premium (ad-free) counterparts, I usually pay for said premium versions to compensate their developers.

The catch here is that it isn't as good - using uBlock in FF for Android for example will properly block all ad frames. Using adaway or a pi-hole for that matter will not - they will only cause ad loading to fail (in some cases) - which sometimes results in frames showing errors on the page instead of a clean rendering of nothing with ad divs removed. Personally I wind up using several methods - AdAway to kill most a…

DNS-level blocking is, IMO, only a second line of defense. Nice to have for all those devices and applications where you cannot have a proper ad/tracking/malware blocker.

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#234

Post by majewsky »

Drumlin wrote: post #78
legohead wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad blockers do a lot more than just block domains. They look for and remove divs/DOM elements that contain known ad naming schemes and remove them from the page. And if a site decides to start combating the ad blockers, the adblock list providers will update their rules specifically for the site in question. Adblock users get upset whenever they see ads, and report them pretty quickly. The business I work for tried b…

To me, that would be a sign that you are winning the battle. If enough websites fight ad blockers, especially big sites, and the people behind those ad blockers make clumsy mistakes, then users will reach a point where they uninstall the blocker.

Rather unlikely. A blocker that fails to block one in a 100 ads is still 100x better than no blocker.

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#235

Post by albertico »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #186

I definitely hate ads like anyone, but it should be acknowledged that ads serve a purpose too, of creating an economy for free content and giving people an avenue to get some income in exchange for their efforts, and possibly be able to devote their full attention to a free project and not have to support themselves with other income. Ads give creators some incentive to create stuff - although the income generally is…

no one has the right or should spam people with ads. There are lots of ways to support your projects without ads. Privacy matters!

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#236

Post by richdougherty »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #186

I definitely hate ads like anyone, but it should be acknowledged that ads serve a purpose too, of creating an economy for free content and giving people an avenue to get some income in exchange for their efforts, and possibly be able to devote their full attention to a free project and not have to support themselves with other income. Ads give creators some incentive to create stuff - although the income generally is…

I agree, ads serve a useful purpose, but their implementation is bad. I'd like a compromise where we have ads, but they're less bad.

The trouble is that incentives are misaligned so we can't get to a middle ground position.

- Content owners and ad networks have little incentive to make ads that are better for users. They just want to get an ad system going that's simple to implement and allows tracking and fraud detection.

- Users who dislike the privacy, security, resource use issues with ads find it easier to just block ads completely. It would be much harder to work out a solution involving proxying, sandboxing, etc.

These conflicting incentives mean ad networks produce something good for them but bad for users and users (who know what to do) will do something that's good for them but bad for ad networks. There's a middle position, but neither party has a reason to attempt it.

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#237

Post by majewsky »

legohead wrote: post #75
ikeboy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start loading essential content via AJAX?

When over 30% of your userbase is adblocking, it's not worth it. Your users will complain to you, not the adblockers. They don't even understand what's going on. Asking your users to whitelist the site doesn't work, either.

Pro-tip: Lazy-load the imprint link and support form so that these adblocking bastards cannot annoy you. /s

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#239

Post by colmvp »

finid wrote: post #232
Kaedon wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you imagine sites that are ad free would appear? What's their business model? I don't think that's a given, especially since most users won't pay (see the rise of freemium style apps vs paid ones in the app store).

Proponents of adblockers are not thinking this thing through. It takes time (that's money) to create quality content that anybody would love reading. Heck, even content that's crappy takes time to create.

I block ads, yet I financially support content creators by voluntarily subscribing to them via Patreon or tip them money (e.g. Twitch streamers). I also subscribe to publications to support journalism.

I'm also fine with ads in podcasts since the creators will sometimes at least use the product and it's implemented in a way that's largely expected, e.g. (plug in the beginning, plug in the middle, maybe a plug in the end...)

Re: Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements

#240

Post by detaro »

Spooky23 wrote: post #120
ikeboy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start loading essential content via AJAX?

How about eschewing shitty ad networks and actually delivering relevant ads?

It's not like people writing ad filtering lists care if ads are relevant or not.
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