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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

#31

Post by pmlnr »

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…

Web Assembly will be the end of the HTML/HTTP based web: QUIC, direct JS based render in browser, no more view source.

HTTP/HTML will become the next gopher, and this makes me incredibly sad

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

#32

Post by birdyrooster »

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…

Those Web Assembly sites will still have memory accessible by the end user, ads will still be blocked.

They would need to server side render pages like a streaming game client would.

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

#33

Post by chipperyman573 »

flohofwoe wrote: post #26
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.

people already don't do this

for example: people who don't have adblockers (like everyone in my family except me)

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

#34

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#35

Post by zzzcpan »

ameshkov wrote: post #20
zzzcpan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot "pierce" into a shadow DOM from the outside Why not? You can inject any script into a meta header on document start from an extension or do the same in an intercepting proxy.

Shadow DOM is created dynamically using "attachShadow". You can try overriding Element.prototype.attachShadow, but this is easy to detect.

Well, currently adblocking is already full of such easy to detect overrides, and extension APIs already have plenty of limitations on what they can touch and replace allowing websites to easily bypass most of the overrides, but they do work at the moment and websites don't bother.

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

#36

Post by bilegeek »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #3
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.

uBlock Origin is shockingly competent at defeating those "please turn off your adblocker" warnings.

And if uBO doesn't cut the mustard, you can set up Nano Defender to work in tandem detecting this stuff, though it is a manual setup.

Though I personally can't tell how effective it is, since I also run Bypass-Paywalls and uMatrix, so I don't know how much credit to give to those extensions.

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

#37

Post by blakesterz »

jslabovitz wrote: post #15

From the article: > The very beginning of ad blocking is the 90s, just when the ads appeared. In 1993, GNN, the very first web advertising service, was launched. Then in 1994, the first-ever banner was sold. In the blink of an eye, the online ad industry was worth billions of dollars. Double Click emerged, Yahoo started to sell ads. And that's when the very first ad blocker was created. GNN (Global Network Navigator)…

I don't know if you spotted it, but they added your comment to the footnotes at the bottom of the page now.

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

#38

Post by flohofwoe »

chipperyman573 wrote: post #33
flohofwoe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

people already don't do this for example: people who don't have adblockers (like everyone in my family except me)

Of course, but if they are not bothered by those ads that's fine too IMHO. And if the majority is fine with this (which I doubt, otherwise ad-blockers wouldn't be so massively successful), than I have to accept that too and go somewhere else.

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

#39

Post by ukoki »

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…

> 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.

This has already happened: Just look at how many websites pester you to download their mobile app or even block content unless you access from the app. From a user functionality perspective the vast majority of apps do nothing a browser can't do. But the killer feature for apps is how much easier it is for the developer to get your location data, contact list, and importantly show you unskippable, auto-playing, 90s-era-popup-level-annoying ads

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

#40

Post by [deleted] »

Supermancho wrote: post #27
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.

> they will lose the ability to be indexed, searched, archived and linked to Sounds like an API that will be implemented.

[deleted]
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