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NoScript Adds Subscriptions To Adblock Plus

Posted by Soulskill on from the countermeasures-and-counter-countermeasures dept.

hahiss writes "Apparently, NoScript has taken to adding its own whitelist updates to Adblock Plus — so that the ads on the NoScript page show up — without notifying users. (It is described on the NoScript addon page, however.) This was a part of the last update to NoScript. Wladimir Palant, the main developer of Adblock Plus, describes the situation in an informative blog post." Update — 5/02 at 12:30 GMT by SS: Reader spyrochaete notes that "InformAction, makers of the NoScript extension for Firefox, have removed the recently introduced AdBlock exceptions which unblocked the revenue-producing ads on the NoScript homepage with little or no warning to the user. According to the changelog, InformAction pushed out an update specifically addressing this controversial decision 'permanently and with no questions asked.'"

3 of 408 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Links are helpful by telchine · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I must admit I don't have much expertise in this area. I've never used either Adblock or Noscript.

    However...

    From what I can see, this issue will only affect you if you have both Noscript (adware) and AdBlock (adblocker) installed on your machine. Everyone else will be unaffected.

    Surely if you give an extension permission to run on your machine then you accept the terms & conditions that come with it. In this case, it means receiving ads. If you are a bit naive then you'll likely have some kind of adware scanner installed on your machine, which presumably alerts you to NoScript's adware status when you install it.

    It's not like this is a website here, it's a specific extension that you have to specifically install on your machine! Should you really expect AdBlock to block more than just ads on websites, are you supposed to expect it to block ads from adware that you've installed voluntarily on your own machine?

    From what I can see, it seems that AdBlock have been investing a lot of time and money in an arms race with Noscript. perhaps they should just accept that adware is out of their juristiction and concentrate on improving their software which is focussed on blocking ads on web sites?

  2. Re:A word from a NoScript Forum Moderator by Deanalator · · Score: 0, Redundant

    somebody mod this up please

  3. Re:Really Smart by mysidia · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Advertisers don't care.. they don't pay for the impression, as you say.

    But site operators care a lot, they still pay for the bandwidth consumed by that hit.