Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 207 posts

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#61

Post by xg15 »

guitarlimeo wrote: post #5
hedora wrote: post #4

Sounds like it might make sense to drop this early hints feature (whatever it is). I wonder how much longer it will be before the next major escalation happens with ad blockers. I can imagine mainstream browsers that fetch unmodified pages and click ads in the background (do subvert pay per click ad business models and make it harder to compute targeting metrics), but then display an ad/tracking-free version in a sep…

As far as I know, current ad blockers can't block ads from Widevine (DRM protected) streams, so I guess it's only a matter of time until Chromium team comes up with Widevine for webpages and then it's game over for normal consumers.

Didn't they more or less try this with the Web Environment Integrity API? Luckily, people caught on quickly and caused enough backlash for them to abandon it - this time.

I'm not sure how things will work out the next time though.

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#62

Post by ghayes »

kedean wrote: post #53
Semaphor wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most captcha solutions are also hard for me, but easy for computers to solve. So I really hope their use doesn’t get expanded even further…

"Select every tile with motorcycles", shows an image of a single motorcycle parked on the street. Does the sliver of a tire that shows up in the bottom right tile count, or not? This is never clear, and I end up usually getting it wrong until they show me one that's unambiguous.

I have never successfully gotten a “click all motorcycle squares” to succeed. With a VPN, nothing usually works until “click until there are no more X.” It’s so consistent that I’m pretty sure it’s designed that way, since the final task is time-gated.

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#63

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

MattGaiser wrote: post #37
bcye wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is competition offering ad-free services, this would be an option. But for large parts, there isn't.

You can buy ad free services for a lot of them. Few pay.

On the other hand, surprisingly few "ad-free" service tiers turn out to actually be ad-free, which tends to undermine the whole concept. It's extremely common to get various kinds of "special" promotions that don't go through the standard ad platform. Sites have been known to forget the premium option when A/B testing changes to ad placements. Multiple streaming services have ads on some shows even on their top "ad-free" tier (I think because the ad buy was with the original studio/network and is written into the show's distribution contract). Several marketing gurus have figured out ways to game social media networks to make "non-advertising" posts featuring their brands go viral (see e.g. the fad of "weird brand Twitter").

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#64

Post by arprocter »

kedean wrote: post #53
Semaphor wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most captcha solutions are also hard for me, but easy for computers to solve. So I really hope their use doesn’t get expanded even further…

"Select every tile with motorcycles", shows an image of a single motorcycle parked on the street. Does the sliver of a tire that shows up in the bottom right tile count, or not? This is never clear, and I end up usually getting it wrong until they show me one that's unambiguous.

I've had 'click all the lettuces' - it told me I was wrong for not clicking on a cabbage

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#66

Post by hunter2_ »

arprocter wrote: post #64
kedean wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Select every tile with motorcycles", shows an image of a single motorcycle parked on the street. Does the sliver of a tire that shows up in the bottom right tile count, or not? This is never clear, and I end up usually getting it wrong until they show me one that's unambiguous.

I've had 'click all the lettuces' - it told me I was wrong for not clicking on a cabbage

It's not comparing your response to some hard truth, it's comparing your response to a typical response. Sort of like how LLMs dish stuff out based on what's probable, not based on hard truth.

So when you fail, it's not really saying you're wrong, it's saying you're not like most.

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#67

Post by mrWiz »

tensor wrote: post #54
didntcheck wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also because we refuse to pay. Any attempt at monetization is widely demonized, yet people still feel entitled to free content, and refuse to put their money where their mouth is and at least abstain from consuming the content if they really don't think it's worth the price It's funny how scarce the "I'd be willing to pay for good content, but alas, there is no option" claim has become since websites have started…

I am willing to pay for good content, and do, but still often have little choice. E.g. I can't pay for google maps without ads. And no, it's not a reasonable take to suggest I not use any map app. I also pay for online news, AND STILL GET ADS, so fuck that I block them. It's still the case today that most of the time you do not have an option to pay to get rid of ads, and often when you do it's some ludicrous amount…

How do Kagi and Apple Maps factor in to your "can't pay for google maps without ads" assessment?

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#69

Post by hunter2_ »

josephcsible wrote: post #27
guitarlimeo wrote: post #2

This makes sense, but I guess adblockers could just start loading the data and not show it to the user?

For people on metered Internet connections, that gives up a lot of the benefit of having an ad blocker at all.

Could run the ad blocker as a MITM proxy on an unmetered fast connection (e.g. residential), and it serves the lightweight modified version over your metered slow connection (e.g. mobile).

Re: Show HN: Detecting adblock, without JavaScript, by abusing HTTP 103 responses

#70

Post by ndriscoll »

helpmefindpurp wrote: post #22
flohofwoe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet was just fine before it was turned into an ad delivery platform.

If you do not like the ads, just stop visiting sites that show ads...

Are you also okay with sites running crypto miners while they're open without having received your prior consent as a way to monetize? How about if they install a service worker in case you close the tab before doing sufficient mining to pay what they think is fair?

Personally, I run malware blockers by default, so I don't know which sites are trying to send it to me to avoid visiting them. I couldn't tell you whether e.g. the github link in OP has ads. I see some stuff gets blocked, so I guess maybe? I figured they monetize through upselling their enterprise offerings, but I guess it is Microsoft and their OS has ads built in these days, so wouldn't surprise me.

Post reply on HN