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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

#71

Post by EvanAnderson »

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…

It's absolutely going to happen. WASM isn't required for this future-- it just helps optimize it. There is a ton of money out there for the company who makes a performant and compatible browser-in-a-browser w/ proper accessibility. Somebody will eventually take the "deal with the devil" to develop it.

An obligatory link to an important talk: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

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

#72

Post by jameslk »

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.

For the time being, you can thank the threat of an accessibility lawsuit for slowing this future down. Building a custom renderer might not be as challenging as supporting the myriad accessibility needs of disable users.

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

#73

Post by EvanAnderson »

pmlnr wrote: post #31
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

Don't forget DNS-over-HTTPS w/ certificate pinning to prevent DNS-based request filtering, too.

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

#74

Post by karatestomp »

Karunamon wrote: post #41
karatestomp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do paywalled sites do, then? They don't seem to have a problem ranking just fine.

They show the abstract or the same bit of the headline and maybe a paragraph you see when hitting the page. Googlebot doesn't get the full text.

I've definitely seen article text on Google that was not presented to me when I clicked the link, and not because the article was updated or something, but because I was blocked from seeing the article.

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

#75

Post by m3047 »

"It means that an ad blocker of the future will have to monitor traffic of the entire network." (towards the end)

This is already a concern in the DNS world, with Response Policy Zones (RPZ) on one hand for DNS-based control (https://dnsrpz.info/) and DNS Over HTTP(S) (a.k.a. DoH) on the other.

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

#76

Post by Karunamon »

karatestomp wrote: post #74
Karunamon wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They show the abstract or the same bit of the headline and maybe a paragraph you see when hitting the page. Googlebot doesn't get the full text.

I've definitely seen article text on Google that was not presented to me when I clicked the link, and not because the article was updated or something, but because I was blocked from seeing the article.

It could be in a hidden element or something.. I find that pages that do this fall in the face of things like safari reader mode.

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

#77

Post by curiousgal »

ukoki wrote: post #39
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 fe…

Android + Magisk + AdAway

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

#78

Post by e2le »

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.

I'm using old.reddit.com and wasn't aware they started doing this. Reddit is turning into a dumpster fire, it's bad enough I have to use the old UI so that it doesn't burn a hole in the cpu.

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

#79

Post by birdyrooster »

three_seagrass wrote: post #58
birdyrooster wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How would the blocker know which parts of the memory to block?

The same way trainers, aimbots, and other hacks know which addresses are critical for exploiting game mechanics, by doing analysis of decompiled code and also searching running memory for known patterns and then patching them hot.
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