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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

#61

Post by zrobotics »

krisroadruck wrote: post #43
slig wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big properties do that and Google doesn't care.

You sure about that? How big qualifies as big in your eyes? Medium implemented homepage cloaking in November of 2019 and within a month they lost 40% of their overall search visibility: https://www.onely.com/blog/medium-lost-half-visibility/

Pinterest? Google is somehow able to crawl images on their site, but I certainly can't view these images without creating an account and logging in. Their site ranks highly enough that I gave up on google image search last year.

Additionally, off the top of my head Bloomberg and NYT both won't allow me to view more than a few articles but let the Google crawler index their articles.

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

#62

Post by ayushgp »

bambax wrote: post #51
ukoki wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 fe…

Many websites indeed pester us to download their mobile app but I have yet to find one that forces me to? Do they actually exist?

Reddit forces you to download the app now. You can scroll like 2-4 pages worth of content and then it'll pop up asking you to open in app.

On every page you navigate to from within the website you'll first get a pop up asking to choose between browser and reddit app.

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

#63

Post by fuzzy2 »

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…

Why WebAssembly? Just bake ad code into a SPA and that's it. Random elements with random names at random positions in the DOM, positioned using styles. Quite low-tech. If implemented properly, it cannot be blocked. At all. Except blocking all scripts of course, which means the SPA will stop working.

And then I'll just stop visiting. (:

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

#64

Post by scarface74 »

II2II wrote: post #28
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…

A lot of the future of ad blocking will depend upon why people are blocking ads. Some of us have nothing againsts ads in principle, but do not like the practices of the advertising industry. This includes things like tracking people across websites, intrusive advertising, excessive bandwidth usage, deceptive advertising, and so on. Blocking the "analog hole" would be irrelevant in most of those cases.

My problem with ads on mobile are that they are very obtrusive.

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

#65

Post by jiveturkey »

> 2015 — Content blocking comes to Safari and iOS

typo. He means "Safari on iOS". Safari on desktop had normal extension-based ad blocking since day 1. Then the content blocking API came to iOS then later the same API in macOS.

> • No debugging tools

perhaps in 2015 -- I wouldn't know -- but today it's certainly debuggable with the help of a macOS host. Much like remote gdb.

> The maximum number of rules limitation is a huge problem,

not a problem at all. rules limitation is per filter but each adblocker can install multiple filters. I suppose the rules limitation is for latency reasons, in case of a poorly designed blocker.

> It was disproportionately hard to maintain a completely different filter list for Safari alone.

Completely false. filters are regex's. It's trivial to use the same source list with whatever filter technology.

I guess because this article is content marketing, and not academic research, these errors (and omissions) are ok. But I do wish, that given the title, the author had bothered to mention that Bing inserts ads that are not blockable via simple URL filters. adblock+ currently doesn't handle them and I believe they are not handle-able at all via the Safari content filter API. By extension => ad blockers are doomed. So yeah, he's not going to say that because he's selling an ad blocker ...

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

#66

Post by Fnoord »

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)

1 out of 3 WWW users has an adblocker.

I won't visit websites with [a lot of] ads if my adblocker stops working. I'll simply stop using these websites. Just like before Netflix, I quit watching cable TV.

Thinking about it, I might as well go to Tor. Surely someone will copy/paste the plaintext content to some hidden service over there, just so the rest of us don't have to bother with ads. I might even be one of the contributors. If there is demand, there will be supply. And nobody is going to bother to "catch these copyright infringers" because nobody gets hurt, in contrast to someone selling illegal firearms or dangerous drugs.

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

#67

Post by jessaustin »

zrobotics wrote: post #61
krisroadruck wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure about that? How big qualifies as big in your eyes? Medium implemented homepage cloaking in November of 2019 and within a month they lost 40% of their overall search visibility: https://www.onely.com/blog/medium-lost-half-visibility/

Pinterest? Google is somehow able to crawl images on their site, but I certainly can't view these images without creating an account and logging in. Their site ranks highly enough that I gave up on google image search last year. Additionally, off the top of my head Bloomberg and NYT both won't allow me to view more than a few articles but let the Google crawler index their articles.

Yes Pinterest is awful. Certain categories of images are totally borked on Google and other search engines because of them.

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

#68

Post by vkou »

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…

The problem with this sort of browser-within-a-browser black-hole, is that it will break screen readers and accessibility.

The way to fight this is to work together with accessibility advocacy agencies, like the ADA.

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

#69

Post by jedberg »

bambax wrote: post #51
ukoki wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 fe…

Many websites indeed pester us to download their mobile app but I have yet to find one that forces me to? Do they actually exist?

Instagram. Can't read messages unless you use the app.

Snapchat is of course app only.

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

#70

Post by alex_free »

ayushgp wrote: post #62
bambax wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many websites indeed pester us to download their mobile app but I have yet to find one that forces me to? Do they actually exist?

Reddit forces you to download the app now. You can scroll like 2-4 pages worth of content and then it'll pop up asking you to open in app. On every page you navigate to from within the website you'll first get a pop up asking to choose between browser and reddit app.

If I’m ever on YouTube or Reddit I always set request desktop site to always in Safari on iOS.
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