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Adblock Plus now sells ads

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Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#301

Post by thesmallestcat »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #262
thesmallestcat wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Have you thought about filing a bug report? gorhill (the author) is an active user on HN. I'm sure he would take a look if you provided some logs.

It looks like another addon was phoning home to a blocked resource. I should've tried more combinations first. The best thing I can think of is that it would be cool if uBlock reported when a call from another extension has been blocked.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#302

Post by cyborgx7 »

witty_username wrote: post #237
cyborgx7 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not my responsibility to avoid visiting websites that have ads on them. If ad-supported businesses don't want me to read their content, they shouldn't send it to me.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#303

Post by lamontcg »

etatoby wrote: post #252
pmoriarty wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forbes has started blocking their content if their site detects the use of an ad-blocker. Interestingly, their content is still viewable (though in raw form) when viewing the page source, at least for now, and there are extensions allowing you to view it anyway. The content-blocking / anti-content-blocking arms race has begun.

Forbes started by asking nicely for people to disable ad blocking on their site, stating that their ads were not obnoxious nor dangerous. I complied, just to find myself overwhelmed by some of the most obnoxious, heavy, and dangerous ads around. The solution? STOP VISITING FORBES. It's that simple. It also shows that you can't trust the publishers themselves to rate their own ads, and that's why an initiative like AB…

> STOP VISITING FORBES.

that was my solution. i've never found an article on forbes that was really critical to my life that i couldn't live without. generally its some clickbaity headline that i'm only very mildly interested in knowing what they have to say, and i'm happy to find some other source of basically the same information if i actually care. the only thing that forbes offers over their competition is that they wind up at the top of google results because all that ad revenue must get poured into hiring SEO optimization experts...

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#304

Post by thekevan »

Sargos wrote: post #235
KORraN wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'll start over for him. Gorhill was the author of uBlock. He got tired of maintaining it, gave it up and willingly allowed chrisaljoudi to take the project. chrisaljoudi later started asking for donations, allegedly hasn't changed the code much except for some visual tweaks and added things like "Made by Chris" to the website. Some drama ensues, people accuse chrisaljoudi of being greedy, he makes some changes to how he presents things and Gorhill seemingly regrets giving the project up and instead of taking it back, (not sure if he tried or not) he forks the project and goes back to maintaining it, so now there would be 2 uBlocks. However there was an issue where Google removed the Gorhill's version from the store because it was a dupe of chrisaljoudi's version (which yes, used to "belong" to Gorhill), so Gorhill renamed the repo he was maintaining to uBlock Origin.

tl;dr Gorhill started uBlock, got fed up & gave it to chrisaljoudi, later did a reversal, forked the project and continued with maintaining that fork, only now his version is called uBlock Origin.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#305

Post by hackernews2000 »

libeclipse wrote: post #8
dexwiz wrote: post #2

Adblock Plus sold out a long time ago. I switched to uBlock about a year ago, and haven't looked back.

Note the difference between μBlock and μBlock Origins.

Cute μs, but it was dropped out of the name a very long time ago. The official name is uBlock Origin with a u now.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#306

Post by danneu »

snowfield wrote: post #191
tedmiston wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it would be ideal to live in a world without advertising. But if advertising is the cost we pay to monetize content like news, well, I'd rather accept that than other content models like paywalls.

There is way too much content. If your company can't turn a profit without selling ads and selling user data. Maybe it shouldn't exist.

Not every website is Forbes.

What about all the small websites, from creative to forums, that aren't big enough to graduate from ads but can pay their own rent with them?

Seems like a net loss for humanity to lose them from the internet while keeping only the large businesses online.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#307

Post by serge2k »

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…

Blocking ads so you can show your own is pretty evil though.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#308

Post by morgante »

serge2k wrote: post #307
morgante wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Blocking ads so you can show your own is pretty evil though.

That's not how this program works. The publisher has to opt in and still gets 80% of the revenue from the program.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#309

Post by JoeAltmaier »

balabaster wrote: post #86
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I know that's meant cynically, but watching is about more than determining 'who-done-it'? The journey is supposed to be enjoyable.

Which it totally would be if it didn't get interrupted for ads every 10 minutes and then have flashbacks to remind you what you were already told before the commercial break.

Yeah this recap dialog fad is going way too far.

Re: Adblock Plus now sells ads

#310

Post by shostack »

bluesign wrote: post #32

I hate Adblock Plus, but this doesnt sound too bad '''which will allow blogs and other website operators to pick out so-called “acceptable” ads and place them on their pages. If a visitor using Adblock Plus comes to the page, they’ll be shown those “acceptable ads,” instead of whatever ads the site would normally run.'''

The question is, how do you ensure they are just swapping existing ads, that they are all not acceptable, and that they aren't inserting ads where there were none?
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