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

How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

dylanpaulus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 241 posts

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#81

Post by commoner »

babuskov wrote: post #65

I actually don't mind Facebook ads. If I'm on Facebook already, there's no additional javascript loading and hogging my browser with dozens of megabytes of tracking scripts. From performance point of view, browsing FB is a better experience than your average web site these days.

Ads don't just slow down the browser, they also distract users and waste their time. The vast majority of people who use ad blockers don't want to see any ads at all.

Facebook also tracks a variety of metrics related to their ads, and the data collection is implemented through JavaScript or other methods of triggering web requests. These methods do impact performance.

https://www.facebook.com/business/help/735720159834389

https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/facebook-con...

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#82

Post by amphibian87 »

derekp7 wrote: post #12
oferzelig wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're basically against ad blockers.

Personally I would like an ad blocker that only blocks annoying ads, or ads that contain malware. I would also be willing to pay a monthly subscription for an adblock service, where the subscription gets divvied out to the sites I visit. In fact, I can think of how this could work on a large scale. A site can sign up to the adblock service to receive a prorated portion of revenues that individual subscribers pay in,…

ad nauseum Firefox clicks ads already, to pay the person advertising. and you never see them. it's great in mobile too

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#83

Post by tanilama »

1propionyl wrote: post #53

I'm surprised I haven't seen a single comment say what ought to be the obvious: the easiest way to never see Facebook ads is to just not use Facebook. I should hope I'm preaching to the choir, I'm sure, but... quitting really isn't as hard as you tell yourself it is. It's not as essential as you think it is.

Yep...Not on their product.

Although this is fascinating, the amount of attack/defense in our browser just trying to put a block of ad in front of you and the CPU cycles that are wasted, I don't think it apply to my case.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#85

Post by commoner »

tomashubelbauer wrote: post #72
1propionyl wrote: post #53

I'm surprised I haven't seen a single comment say what ought to be the obvious: the easiest way to never see Facebook ads is to just not use Facebook. I should hope I'm preaching to the choir, I'm sure, but... quitting really isn't as hard as you tell yourself it is. It's not as essential as you think it is.

I'd like to add that it is not necessary to leave Facebook to not use Facebook. I have a FB account and I'll never close it, because I like having my username on all online services I might use if once. That being said I only have it logged in at a home desktop, not my phone, not any work machine. I use it for like two minutes weekly, one to check a few specialty groups I'm a lurker in and two to co-admin a page with…

Although you're not a heavy Facebook user, you still use it weekly. People who don't want to use Facebook at all would benefit from deleting their accounts, because leaving Facebook adds a hurdle that discourages them from returning to Facebook.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#86

Post by aaron695 »

I assume this problem is the same reason why accessibility programs suck?

Given the billions that could be saved by making programs that interpret web sites rather than programmers learning and writing for accessibility I'd hope it's because it's impossibly hard, not because no one will create it.

I'd also help with testing......

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#87

Post by commoner »

DevKoala wrote: post #4
crakenzak wrote: post #2

Interesting article. I don't blame Facebook for doing whatever they can to properly show ads tho, they provide a "free" service and in exchange serve ads. It's not free to support a company their size and its expected they do everything they can to monetize the site properly. What do you guys think?

I agree. If you are using their platform, then you have to abide to their terms of use. I don't use Facebook for this reason.

Not using Facebook is the best way to avoid Facebook ads, but Facebook's terms of service don't forbid ad blocking.

https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#88

Post by feanaro »

tsimionescu wrote: post #70
abhiminator wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannot agree more. Quit Facebook and its sister service completely (talking about WhatsApp; never really got around to using Instagram) after the 'View As' feature exploit last year that led to 50 mil user accounts' data being exposed [0], and I must say, I've never felt more calmer, tranquil or better, mental health wise. I feel our brains could do much better with a little less of constant bombardment of highlight-…

Quitting Facebook itself would help with what you are saying, but I am curious what you replaced WhatsApp/Messenger with. For example, I have good friends in other countries, and sending pictures and short texts is one of the best ways to stay in contact. We do talk over the phone occasionally, but not having a simple way to send pictures or links would pull us much further apart. Sure, email could be an option, but…

Signal or Matrix (using the Riot client, for instance).

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#89

Post by EGreg »

beefield wrote: post #45
rabidrat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good observation. What if we required all ad-based services to make available an equivalent premium offering that showed no ads? I think 99% of people would be stunned at the necessary price and would not pay it anyway, but at least it would be quantified.

This is one of the more important regulations big tech should be subjected to in my opinion. Let me pay for the services I use, with believable guarantees that my data is not used or sold in any way by the service provider. And regulate the cost to be a reasonable margin over production costs of these services. Hosting my hosting my posts and photos should not be that expensive.

“believable guarantees” lol

If it can be scraped and stored, FB will do it just because. And then apologize if caught, but keep storing it. Because why not? They figure, if it can be stored, someone is doing it. They can take every advantage they can get for their “friends you may know...” and user retention.

Re: How Facebook Avoids Ad Blockers

#90

Post by gigama »

1propionyl wrote: post #53

I'm surprised I haven't seen a single comment say what ought to be the obvious: the easiest way to never see Facebook ads is to just not use Facebook. I should hope I'm preaching to the choir, I'm sure, but... quitting really isn't as hard as you tell yourself it is. It's not as essential as you think it is.

Same thought, same choir. Stopped feeding their fidget spinner profit engine years ago. Have more interesting things to spend time on these days (like reading HN).

Easiest way to quit was to add "facebook.com" to my LAN's pihole blacklist and delete their (tracking) app from my phone. The account is still there to reserve my name but it has no other real data.

Post reply on HN