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Adblock Plus Maker Proposes Change To Help Sites
Dotnaught writes "Wladimir Palant, maker of the Firefox extension Adblock Plus, on Monday proposed a change in his software that would allow publishers, with the consent of Adblock Plus users, to prevent their ads from being blocked. Palant suggested altering his software to recognize a specific meta tag as a signal to bring up an in-line dialog box noting the site publisher's desire to prevent ad blocking. The user would then have to choose to respect that wish or not."
I expect to see this meta tags on most sites in the near future.
Know what my user consent is? Not listing your advert in my filter list. Otherwise, it seems like it's already been denied consent.
Can't it be assumed by virtue of the ads being placed on the site to begin with that the owner wishes they be shown?
Digital Sailor
If I wanted to see ads... I wouldn't block them. This feature seems redundant.
Next, we are going to see a new feature to our javascript blocker that asks us if we are sure we want to block access to javascript for a given site, "cause they really, really want it!"
Nope - they're providing additional functionality to webmasters, so that they can go and say "Hey ABP user, you've been here a couple times, please consider allowing the ads to be displayed here"
No.
The genie is already out of the bottle; there is no going back.
Wanna pay me some protection money? Just a buck a week will keep you safe. If you don't pay it, I'll break your legs.
This is just like the time the phone company got you to pay to have your number unlisted. Then they turned around and sold their unlisted numbers to people. Then they came to you to sell you caller ID, so you could screen your calls. Then they started charging telemarketers money to have their caller ID's blocked from displaying.
Fuck them.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I'm fine with that, as long as there's a setting to control whether or not to honor the flag. I want the option of saying "No, if I want ads to not be blocked I'll add an exception for that site myself so don't bother bringing up the dialog.". I note that there's already an option to disable ad blocking for the page or the whole site in the right-click menu of ABP's icon, so an easy way to add an exception's already in place.
Maybe there should be an extension that blocks extensions from being automatically updated just because it's listed with others to be updated. That should solve the updated with new "features" problem.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
And just install "NagBlock Plus".
Um, don't most ad-based companies only pay the site whenever a user clicks on an ad? Most of the time, unless its some really amazing ad (like buy a Core i7 Desktop for $330 from Newegg), most technical users know never to click on the ads. So its really a moot point if they aren't viewing them or not clicking on them.
Plus doesn't this effectively break some ad companies EULAs? Because I know a lot of them forbid you from enticing users to click the ads by saying "Please click the ads" or something.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
NoScript's AdBlock-blocking trick was kinda dirty, but I don't see them as being hypocritical for allowing their own ads given the tremendous service(which increases safety while speeding up browsing) they provide for free.
Riiiiight. Because when it's other site's ad income you're negating it's about ideals and the rights of the users. But when it's your site's income it's because your service on your web site is automatically so much more beneficial than Google or Slashdot.
... you defend NoScript after attacking AdBlock for a lesser crime (merely asking you if you would consider viewing ads after visiting a site many times). What exactly is your angle? I think we may have the first case of Firefox extension fanboism on our hands here, folks.
Your position is interesting
My work here is dung.
Time for a fork. If he's serious about this, Wladimir Palant should /not/ be allowed to control this project. The whole /point/ of Adblock Plus, is to, y'know, BLOCK ADS.
Seriously. He's already being courted by advertizers like this, and is apparantly willing to work with them - he can't be trusted. Who's to say they won't convince him to sneak in some code that 'accidentally' fails to block a certain set of ads?
Take it out of Wladimir Palant's control, and we'll all be better off.
...they had no Flash, no animated GIF, or any other obnoxious animations to attract attention to themselves. I wouldn't block ads as a matter of course if I could be sure they all stuck to my "nothing moving" requirement. And it only takes one offender to ruin things. If Palant carries through with his unblock idea, I hope he imposes similar requirements on sites and ads wishing to be unblocked. Otherwise, I hope someone forks Adblock Plus and does away with the unblock free pass.
In other (related) news, Slashdot today allowed me to disable all the ads on the site, simply for occasionally moderating an not posting stupid crap all the time. I was using adblock anyway but this removes the blank space and allows the content to expand into the areas the ads used to occupy.
Thank you Slashdot.
I don't mind Text Only ads in out of the way places on a page. Gmails right-side ads don't bother me at all, and often include actually helpful links.
What I do mind, is Graphic Ads that disrupt the layout of the page, or the flow as I am scrolling to read. Completely unacceptable.
I would be willing to allow select pages to display text ads that are carefully placed to minimize interference if I only want the content while at the same time providing helpful suggestions when I might want them. Is that too much to ask? I think it might be...
What?
And the cycle begins, Stop the Ad Blocker with the Ad Blocker Blocker, Ad Blocker fights back with the Ad Blocker Blocker Blocker.
Bah, if I blocked ads then I'd never find half of them...
If they implement it like flash block so that the ad is replaced with a button to click to show the ad then I might consider turning the option on. If it pops up a dialog every time it blocks an ad then it goes in the bin!
Oh yeah, it will only show this pop up requesting the ad be displayed when there is a special meta-tag. I wonder how many seconds it will take for every ad service to include that tag.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
I don't use ad blockers because I realize that the free web exists as it is because of ads.
I do have a flash blocker because flash things (ads and otherwise) were getting way, way too obnoxious. But if someone cares to have a nice tasteful ad I don't
mind looking at it.
So I think the concept of allowing respectful advertisement to proceed is a good one, so long as you can permanently dismiss an add forever and not have it ask you again. It would encourage ads I and others wouldn't mind seeing, and that's a good thing for everyone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
are TOO successful. You're a webmaster running a site that's partially (or completely) paid for by advertising. You see in your analytics report of hits that a significant percentage of viewers are running AdBlock. So not only are you NOT getting clicks, but your advertisers aren't even being seen to begin with. And let's assume you're honest (and that your advertisers are too), and that your ads aren't malicious and in fact serve a normal purpose: to advertise a legitimate product. Given this, I can see why AdBlock might be considering this option. If they've gotten enough complaints from legitimate companies/websites with legitimate ads saying essentially "hey, your product is costing me a substantial amount of revenue loss", then its understandable that AdBlock would consider this. Since AdBlock's an open source/freeware product(hi Stallman!/Stallman's acolytes! Please do ignore my semi-ignorant malapropism... there's plenty of room for you in my colon!), basically AdBlock (and NoScript) are allowing users to get something for nothing... for free! We are cheating the system in a way. So I say let AdBlock look at doing it. I'll admit, sometimes it's good to see advertising, especially if it's a product/service I'm interested in. I run AB/NS simply because I've been burned one too many time by a scriptkiddie, but I do allow websites I trust to show ads.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
You could add the ability of the site administrator to add a graphic to the request, just to help get the user's attention. And also add some animation capability, just for fun! Yes, I can see how this will help users block ads! Brilliant. Clearly AdBlock is really helping their customers out here.
Currently hooked on AMP
A pop up asking me whether I want to view ads or not would be worse than having inline ads themselves. The only way this would be acceptable is if it has a "master" checkbox letting me turn off the whole feature. And have it checked by default.
If this features makes it in, I see a new fork of Adblock coming out pretty quickly.
At first, I cringed when I read the lead-in.
But then I realized that there WAS, indeed, a few times when I have wanted to let ads through, in every instance a website that I wanted to support by viewing their ads (their only source of revenue).
But the annoyance aspect overshadows that desire.
Compromise. Just put an added pull-down option (up next to the ABP icon) that simply says "View Ads on this page", and a "Remember this choice" checkbox.
Adds the same functionality WITHOUT taking the choice out of the hands of the USER. Dialog boxes SUCK.
I don't know what the big deal is with these adblock/noscript systems. Sites that offer a service for free, it seems to me, should be allowed to show ads, and if I'm using those services, I should allow them to display on my screen. Occasionally--very rarely--I'm intrigued enough to click.
/. provides a pretty worthwhile service--even if it's only entertainment--and while I don't really feel the urge to be a paying subscriber, I don't feel such great vitriol towards the ads that I need to block them.
If I don't want ads, I should be given an option to pay for the service and get an ad-free version.
If I go to a site and it's just plastered in ads, I typically just don't go back there.
I'm certainly not holier than anyone, but I figure a site like
For people who use these plug-ins, do you ever whitelist ads for sites you use a lot for free, or do you block everything? If the latter, can you give me the dime tour of your justification for doing so? I'm not trying to start a flame-war; I'm really trying to understand the motivation.
The CB App. What's your 20?
How about something specific and selective... I don't mind seeing banner ads, but I want something that eliminates rollover ads completely. And don't give them the option of asking to be disabled.
Ideally they could ask to be excluded but the software would deliver electric shocks to the advertiser's groin instead.
I don't see them as being hypocritical for allowing their own ads given the tremendous service(which increases safety while speeding up browsing) they provide for free.
What about the tremendous service the other sites provide for free? I let sites show me advertising in exchange for giving me free content, because I think that's a better deal than having to pay for it directly. I don't use an ad blocker, and I haven't even disabled my Slashdot ads (although I could probably make the case that I've actually earned that right on this specific forum).
NoScript doesn't provide more of a service than the content-generating sites you're visiting. If someone makes their ads more obnoxious than you can tolerate, then don't go back there.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Your position is interesting ... you defend NoScript after attacking AdBlock for a lesser crime (merely asking you if you would consider viewing ads after visiting a site many times). What exactly is your angle? I think we may have the first case of Firefox extension fanboism on our hands here, folks.
Hmm, I didn't attack AdBlock. I did mean to say that it was redundant and pointless for AdBlock to prompt users as long as the same users also run NoScript. I did also say that I prefer NoScript over AdBlock, but I wouldn't call that an "attack".
As for NoScript's meddling with AdBlock, my personal belief is that is okay as long as the meddling involves only the showing of NoScript's as since I am using NoScript for free. I wouldn't mind if AdBlock meddled with NoScript to show AdBlock's, and only AdBlock's, own ads.
I am not a FF plugin fanboy. If NoScript and AdBlock accepted deals from advertisers and things gradually become worse (as they almost always do over time) then I'd ditch FF entirely and go the Chrome route.
So that's my angle.
When are these clowns going to learn that if they make really annoying ads that make the page load slower, nobody is going to want to look at them?
Put another way, why don't they try making the ads be part of the HTML as normal images and text, instead of annoying bloated crap ads served by a 3rd party? It seems like "ad banners" are a 1990's idea that somehow has too much momentum behind it to ditch it. Also, I think many of the big content providers (think newspapers) are really missing the boat by outsourcing their ad service.
Why not treat internet ads a lot like newspaper ads? One page, one ad, for everyone who sees it. Wouldn't that be pretty attractive for an advertiser, and maybe command a better fee? (think repetition and distribution factor).
Getting raped in prison was kinda dirty, but I don't see it as being hypocritical given the tremendous service (protection, etc) which I was given for free.
If you really want 'no script', turn it off in Firefox. But I'm not willing to 'let it slide' because of how I've been helped in the past. Hopefully someone will rise up and write a "NoScript2" which does the same thing minus the kick in the teeth.
Why not sending first a Pop-Up on the publisher's computer to ask whether he is certain he wants to advertise?!?
...provided the box could be shut off permanently. If it pops up for every site and I can't turn it off, I'll just find another ad blocker.
That said, there are some sites where I leave ad blocking on -- generally, they're sites that I want to support, and that don't serve up ads that jiggle or flash obnoxious colors. If I see an ad like that, I just turn ads right back off for that site and forget about it.
I've noticed a lot of sites lately (I stumble) that feed non-advertising images from the same urls as adverts. The result is that adblock+ blocks them.. and without those images the article is worthless. I expect this will continue and any article where the point is "hey, look at this" will require a temporary disabling of adblock+ and the display of ads.
How we know is more important than what we know.
It seems stupid.
noting the site publisher's desire to prevent ad blocking
If the publisher desired their ads not to be seen, they wouldn't have put them on the site.
Dual Opteron < $600
I wouldn't mind spending some of my bandwidth to download the ads as long as they weren't displayed. This would help some websites that get revenue based on number of impressions.
You look like spam.
Pretty much it.
Personally I don't mind ads on sites if they are non-intrusive (those floating ads ARE intrusive). As someone who has run sites in the past for gaming clans/guilds/etc I can assure you that the meager revenue generated by hosting ads does help, and even if it's on a larger corporate scale it's the site's right to show the ads.
Think about it like this - just as you have a right to block the ads, the site has a right to block your access if you block their ads. No, I do not particularly like advertising, but it's there for a purpose.
If you don't believe the site should be generating revenue, or that the ads are too intrusive, then don't go there... I don't go to Wired anymore for both of these reasons
Long ago I did not mind ads. Sure, I did not click any significant number of them, but I did neither mind those banners and whatnot being displayed. This changed as they became more and more intrusive and obnoxious. Blinking in bright colors; pop-up; pop-under; pop-in-front-of-the-actual-webpage; punch-the-monkey; you-are-the-100000000st-visitor; *brrrring**brrriiing*-now-with-sound. So I decided to to what I had to do; these "guests" had outstayed their welcome, and now I showed them the door.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
The latest dirty trick that's ticking me off are mouse-over popups. They buy a wide banner placement, and if you make the mistake of scrolling over them, up pops a huge screen-grabbing popup. Fortunately adblock plus takes care of the danged banners in the first place, so I haven't been getting those since I installed it.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
It's starting to sound like the "Caller ID", "Caller ID Blocking", "Caller ID Blocking Unblocking" scams the phone companies charge you for.
Although I will say that I tend to only block the junk that gets in my way. That includes frames in the middle of the articles, anything that 'floats over' the page, anything that flashes, anything that appears when the mouse goes over a word that isn't part of the menu, etc.
Hmmm... Come to to think of it, that covers almost everything. And for that matter, that annoying garbage is the exact reason I installed Adblocker in the the first place...
I know some of you would say that any ads are annoying, but I would be willing to load and view reasonably sized banner/side ads that were:
- not animated
- didn't popup or popunder in any way
- didn't play sounds
I'd subscribe to an adblock plus list set which didn't block sites which would play by those rules. Every time I decide to play nice and view ads to show support I get hit (within 24 hours) with one that's so annoying I give it up.
Of course I also think this will never happen, so it's a bit of an empty promise - as soon as I got hit with an ad that violated those rules I'd instantly go back to the nuke it from orbit list.
I've lost count of the amount of times I've been on a site and thought "Hey, this is a small, independent little site that I want to support, I'll just whitelist it for future visits", only to find that they've got that godawful "intellitext" stuff. I wouldn't mind it so much, but literally as soon as you rollover some of the highlighted text, your entire screen is taken over by an incredibly obtrusive ad. And the site quickly gets removed from the whitelist.
If a site is careful about the ads it uses and is respectful to those who visit, I'm willing to whitelist it and face the ads, but if it takes the piss (popups, noisy flash ads and, most of all - intellitext), I don't give it a chance.
I'm probably in the minority, though.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
As a business, money (mostly) makes the world go around.
It's well known that ads are simply a business model that people (including myself) don't enjoy. Many of us choose the alternative: eliminate the annoyance, and the internet is more enjoyable.
Things I don't miss: Ads that you simply don't care to see (Viagra for women? Not for me, thank you) Ads that get in the way of actually READING something (flashing ads, Flash "window" ads, etc) And my personal favorite: Misleading ads.
Please (PLEASE!) don't make a new annoyance just because they're not getting their way. I'm -okay- with reasonable sanity (remember those old Google text-only ads?), but I have AdBlock installed for a reason.
If AdBlock goes to a business model that makes browsing annoying again, I'll find a new alternative. Either way, I'll be getting what I want, and what AdBlock does is its own business.
I will point something out though: most of our support would dry up once annoyances come up again. An unhappy consumer base won't go very far in the long run.
There are no perfect answers, only the right questions. More questions at http://foresightandhindsight.blogspot.com/
Who doesn't see this as a grab for the cash?
"Pay us and we will nag the user for you till they surrender."
Thanks, but no thanks.
Howbout someone come up with a way I can get a quarter of a penny for each ad that gets foisted onto my screen. I'd unblock everyone for that.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The trouble with this plan is that; whether to see or not see adds is MY choice. Not an advertisers choice nor the choice of AdBlock's author. And not the developer of some website who allows ads to be placed. Yes, I understand ad space is sold to pay for the website, but the truth remains, the choice is mine if I want to see them. Maybe if ads weren't animated, weren't made with Flash, and just sat there like a magazine ad I wouldn't block many, in fact I might click on a few that looked interesting.
What if there was a way that sites could commit to "text-only" ads, like Google? I would consider setting a flag that allowed text-only advertising on sites that committed to not be obnoxious.
As for NoScript's meddling with AdBlock, my personal belief is that is okay as long as the meddling involves only the showing of NoScript's as since I am using NoScript for free. I wouldn't mind if AdBlock meddled with NoScript to show AdBlock's, and only AdBlock's, own ads.
I think the GP's main point was that you say it's alright for noscript to force their ads upon you as you use their software for free but it's not fine for other content publishers to force their ads upon you. So what gives noscript the right to unblock their ads when, say, /. can't unblock ads as it doesn't have an invasive plugin but is also free to use and a good source of news and information? Personally I think that a site that is continually evolving and changing can demand more revenue then a plugin that can be written once and then simply maintained but that is another discussion.
If I was witty I'd put something funny here but, as it stands, I am not and have just wasted seconds of your life
Insteaed of annoying ads, we get even more annoying pop-ups asking if we want to see the annoying ads that we installed the plugin specifically to block?
There's only two possibilities here: either the pop-up shows the ad, thus making it "not an ad blocker," and therefore, totally, utterly useless, or it doesn't, in which case there's no way to tell if it's an ad I'm willing to tolerate (since my criteria has to do with whether or not it a) makes noise, b) is animated/flashy shit, or c) tries to install malware, and not, in any way, to do with the content of the ad and certainly not the web site that wants to serve it to me).
No thanks. I don't use any ad blocker plugins. I use a hosts file that blocks 99.9% of the crap far more effectively, and is under my control, not that of some software developer who might or might not sell out to the spammers someday.
Am I the only one for whom this feature will presumably never activate due to not preserving my browsing history ever?
They're talking about the wrong type of choice. I'm not interested in choosing whether to allow all ads on foo.com or block all ads on foo.com. First off, it would be a pain, because every time I hit some new web site, I'd have to make this choice. In many cases, this would be my first and last visit to the site: it's just a google hit, and it turns out it's not relevant to me. Why do I want to add extra effort to this quick, pointless visit to foo.com? And even if it was a site I thought I might be coming back to, how would I make an informed decision? I'm not yet familiar enough with the site to know whether their ads are annoying or not. I don't know if their ads are animated or static; I don't know if they load flash; I don't know if they lock up my cpu with heavy javascript.
What I want is a way to control the type of ad that's shown. I don't mind text-based ads. I just don't want ads with graphics, flash, or javascript (beyond the basic javascript that's required in order to load a text-based adsense ad).
The sites that think this is a good idea also need to do a reality check. The reason I use adblock plus is that I don't click on internet ads. I never have, and I never will. If, as TFA says, 5% of internet users use adblock plus, and if most of us never would click on an ad even if we selectively turned off filtering, then what is the point of showing us ads? The number of impressions would go up by 5%, but the number of click-throughs would go down by 5%. Advertisers would see that click-through rates were down 5%, so they would be willing to pay 5% less for ads. So sites that ran ads would get exactly the same revenue, and all they'd gain would be the happy knowledge that they were annoying 5% of their users and making them more likely to stop visiting.
Find free books.
I'd like a function in my ad blocking extension where all ads are initially displayed. If a website behaves badly with their advertising, a single click permanently disables all the ads on that site based on the currently existing subscription lists.
Adblock basically has all the code for this function already, but it isn't implemented within a friendly user interface.
It's more efficient to block the requests at the application than to have to call down to the OS for a DNS translation.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
very simple answer: it is not ad block, if it does not block ads.
I already mailed him of my first boycott. This proposal, if it goes through, will be the second mailing. I'm definitely not planning to go back to adblock with these two ideas.
The reason he's doing it is greed. This is a surefire sign that the addon is going downhill.
Maybe if the guy didn't have the addonload his homepage every time you download an update, he wouldn't have crazy bandwidth costs, duh.
"We apologise again for the fault in the Adblock plus software. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked for slowing the Interwebs down with their ads have been sacked."
And anyone with a whole brain just uses browser extensions. I have better things to do than finding ad server names and adding them to my hosts file every time I want to block something - my time is a more valuable resource than a handful of CPU cycles (I've never found ABP particularly heavy anyway, I don't know where you're getting this from).
The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
You look like spam.
But I taste like chicken.
I've been using Adblock for years, and I love it.
Here's the thing though: I don't hate ads. I really don't. I don't even mind ads that much. I have even been known to click some in the past, especially if they are 'relevant to my interests', as it were.
What I do hate is animating ads. (*) I hate them with a white-hot fury that is almost indescribable, and that is the reason I run Adblock, but that actually blocks everything, so can't really keep the non-obtrusive ads while blocking the annoying ones. For the love of all things holy, and good, why won't online publishers learn this basic rule:
JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN, DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD
So what I propose is this: A "non-animating" ad whitelist system, whereby ads can be tagged as "static", and allowed through Adblock, if the user so chooses. That way, my favorite websites can continue to receive the financial support they need, and my eyes won't bleed trying to read the 3 lines of tiny text hidden somewhere inside a kaleidoscope of shifting and flashing colors.
(*) large, multicolored, animating ads are actually a interesting case study of the tragedy of the commons. Everyone feels that they have to have the flashiest, most colorful ad around to compete with the other flashy colorful ads. This is only individually true. After a while, customers start ignoring all the ads, and actually become annoyed by them. It takes government intervention to stop the insanity, nobody will ever back down on their own. Just take a look at Tokyo at night. Some cities or municipalities DO enforce rules, and you end up with tasteful shopfronts that advertise their wares using mannequins and small, elegant signs with the company logo. The internet needs the same, desperately.
In my opinion, AdBlock does more than merely blocking ads. It can also block malware. Offering to sell a key to this security device to enable "unwanted people" to get into my computer for any reason is... for lack of a better word ***EVIL***. It is immoral. But the word immoral is simply not strong enough to adequately describe it.
Personally I don't mind ads on sites if they are non-intrusive
As long as advertisements provide free porn samples I don't mind looking at ads. I hope there is a tag that can be used to white list porn ads. Even if they are selling something like Charmin toilet paper, or even paint remover, I will watch the ad as long as there are naked woman in it.
Same old pattern really. First gather users and their support, then start fucking with them.
Why can't people learn. I guess it's time to start making the alternative to AdBlock Plus.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
For those that block ads in a wholesale fashion, I have an honest question -
If everyone blocked all ads, what would you see that as gaining for the internet as a whole?
A lot of quality websites require a lot of resources to create and distribute the content. Most of them are supported by advertising. If they could no longer make sufficient money via advertising (and many are heading to this point), how would they support themselves?
- Converting to a paid service.
This would be bad because it would cost you money, and very few sites would be able to pull it off. Micropayments are one way this could maybe work, but they are still a pipe dream.
- Begging for donations.
Again, very few sites could pull this off.
- Selling personal and/or aggregate user data.
Not a lot of sites that are useful collect much data, and this is arguably worse than advertising.
I'm not trying to make a moral argument out of this, but more of a pragmatic one. You obviously visit ad-supported sites that are useful to you, and it is probably in your interests for them to make enough money to continue providing useful functionality or content, so how do you propose they do so if not through advertising?
Why haven't ad providers tried to go to war with adblock? The rules in the main ABP filterset are generally pretty simple, like ad1.* ad2.* etc.
Why not acquire random domains and dynamically create links to the ads on these servers? I could see ABP blocking the first japi1fas6df.com/273849.gif, but not the 1000th. Is there a technical reason why this would be infeasible?
I don't block the ads on Google, and I've even clicked on a few.
There's a clue in there somewhere.
So now we'll need a plugin for the Adblock Plus plugin that answers the confirmation dialog box that comes up... Between this and the Vista UAC, let's seem how many questions we need to answer before we get to actually do anything useful on our computers anymore...
So what gives noscript the right to unblock their ads when, say, /. can't unblock ads as it doesn't have an invasive plugin but is also free to use and a good source of news and information?
What you said.
I'm referring to the program or programs which control how you view the content, and not the content itself. There are ways to support Slashdot, for example, and you can see that I'm a subscriber.
When VALinux release a browser or a plugin that I use then I won't mind it displaying only its own ads. Hell, I wouldn't mind being forced to see all of OSTG's ads if the browser/plugin is good enough.
Allowing one's own ads dosen't bother me but it is a slippery slope which may devolve into allowing ads from selected outsiders and going sharply downhill from there - and if I have to look at ads in that fashion then I will look for better plugins. If none exist then I will use Chrome instead of FireFox until myself or somebody else code a plugin which gives me control over what I see.
I got offered the choice of blocking slashdot ads today due to my contributions to the site. I had to think long and hard about whether to accept since I knew I was denying a site I value a source of revenue.
I have decided yes at the moment but I will probably change my mind since I have realised that the adverts never really bothered me anyway. I was always very good at ignoring adverts anyway so they made no difference to me. We live in a capitalist work and advertising is a part of that.
I dont read
It could be worse. They could make it a subscription service for webmasters to participate in this or something like this.
That would definitely cross some moral, if not legal line.
Dual Opteron < $600
This option already exists. For the websites, the answer is "always on". We can safely assume that every site wants us all to turn off AdBlock, so the pop-up box does not add any information. For the users, it's the "whitelist" feature in AdBlock. I can turn on ads for any site I want to whitelist. My browser, my choice. That's the way the Internet works. Don't like it? Stop putting stuff on the Internet. If AdBlock won't do it, I'll code it myself or put entries in my hosts file. AdBlock is just easier.
The reason I have ads turned off is because some of them interrupt my browsing experience -- with sound, or popups, or other annoyances. Interstitials I have no problem with, but don't pop a big turd in the middle of what I'm reading, while I'm reading, or have some noise rattle my speakers. You be rude, I turn you off. Start being nice, I'll turn you back on. And Flash? Flash is never getting turned back on by default in any browser I use. Permanent ban for egregious bad behavior. But I digress.
The interrupt is the problem. "Fixing" AdBlock by making AdBlock engage in the same bad behavior I choose to avoid is not a workable solution. I would just switch to or code an alternative.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
If Ad Block Plus gets too annoying, just add the web sites serving ads to your Hosts file, and assign them to 127.0.0.0. Bottom line: if people want to block ads, they'll find a way to do so, and the only thing you will succeed in doing by fighting them is turn them against you. Never underestimate the consequences of shooting yourself in the foot on the Internet.
When the singing, dancing, popover, popunder, cover-the-article, get-in-my-way annoying ads are replaced with low-key, conservative, print-style ads, then I'll stop blocking them. Not before!
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Isn't it implicitly assumed that I _don't_ want ads to show up, just by the very fact I've got Adblock Plus installed and on?
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
I don't see them as being hypocritical for allowing their own ads given the tremendous service(which increases safety while speeding up browsing) they provide for free.
What about the websites you look at for free which are ad supported? Wouldn't that same philosophy apply? Those sites are providing you with content in exchange for looking at their ads which pays their bandwidth, licensing, etc.
Evil Walrus >83=
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I use AdBlock Plus.
I don't subscribe to any filters list as I create my own one-by-one.
I don't block ads served up by the local site.
I do block 3rd-party ads.
My statistics show that I can block more than 50% of all ads with just 3 filters:
*doubleclick*
*adserver*
pagead*.googlesyndication.com/pagead/*
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
How many adwriters fought and died for that flag?
Not enough. Not nearly enough.
You can't take the sky from me...
If it did anything remotely annoying someone would immediately fork the code to make it quit doing that. Adblock as a product would then cease to exist and the forked code would take over. Ain't the internet and open source great?
They may have the right to show ads, as you say. But they have absolutely no right to demand that I view them.
As for Wired, well their site is a horrible, confusing mess even without their ads.
FF Plugins are for kids I Packet Filter Ad Servers before they hit my network. I've been doing this at least since 98 or 99 Get on my level.
Google set up this nice search engine, then put adverts on it, and allowed others to have adverts.
Now, for every search I do there are 3-4 relevant sites, 5-6 exact copies of those same sites on a different server adding adsense advertising, and 2-3 other sites with ridiculous amounts of advertising and half-assed content.
This advertising-supported revenue model is really cluttering up the net, and I blame google 100%. Every halfwit wants a webpage with advertising on it, creating piles of redundant sites. Tech support website - there's a million of them, and they have different "guru" users, and people as the same questions on every site. Too much information, most of it wrong.
I've given up searching for error messages... half the hits are someone asking the question and no replies. Multitasking while the pages load, I usually resolve it myself before I find something relevant and/or useful.
Don't get me started on porn - seen her, seen her, yeah this is a copy of that other site, yeah these are all copyrighted images with the logos removed.
Fuck you internet, and fuck you google.
Okay, here's common sense 101:
Publishers want their ads to be seen, so they can generate revenue. They hate AdBlock because it cuts into their revenue.
AdBlock users hate ads. They don't want to see any ads.
They are polar opposites, you simply cannot reconcile these two parties. Establishing a "don't block me" list in AdBlock will only result in mass abandonment by AdBlock users, who will flock to a forked or alternative plugin that does what it says on the tin, without any backhanded deals.
Do you think the ad publishers would ever consider asking US, the users, if we'd mind seeing their ads ? No, they shove them up there and make us punch the monkey or watch their obnoxious videos, you know, to politely remind me that Tiger Woods would very much like it if I bought razor blades in-between blog posts, you know, because Tiger cares.
It's quite simple: if AdBlock sells out, someone else will write an unbroken plugin to replace it, and if that fails, well I guess we'll have to make do with proxomitron. Either way, AdBlock loses.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I meant capitalist world but that was my best Freudian slip in a long while :)
I dont read
Fuck the webmasters, it's their own fault for making ads so obtrusive in the 1st place. Webmasters can bitch all they want, but they'll never get any ad revenue from me - I shop online from sites that earn my business.
Take what ye can. Give nothing back!
They may have the right to show ads, as you say. But they have absolutely no right to demand that I view them.
As for Wired, well their site is a horrible, confusing mess even without their ads.
The hell they don't. You're visiting their web site hosted on their hardware, at their expense, and maintained with their time/money. If they turn around and say "Unblock or stop accessing", then that's perfectly within their "rights". And it's perfectly within /your/ rights to stop using the site in protest.
You can get a jumbo list of around 6400+ servers that maintain cookies, counter, oix, phorm, webwise and all the other related types of tracking. That stops any other subversive attempts of reaching these sites through other protocols than http.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
This was true a year or two ago, but I've seen a marked decrease in the number of ad-spam sites in my google search results - practically none these days. Either my search skills are somehow better than average (unlikely); or you're working off of outdated data.
I always wondered what the "plus" was for, and now I know:)
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
When VALinux release a browser or a plugin that I use then I won't mind it displaying only its own ads.
Imagine MS put in ad blocking in a release of IE but it allowed ads to be shown on MS sites or through their ad network.
You don't mind because of who they are, not because of what they are doing. If you don't understand why that's wrong, I don't know what to say.
Regardless, the proposal sucks.
A good portion of ad revenue comes from non-regular visitors. People who land on the site read a page, then find an interesting ad to click off on.
Regular visitors tend to become ad blind. Giving regular visitors the option to see ads isn't a big plus for webmasters.
Dual Opteron < $600
I really wouldn't mind if this would lead to a minimal accepted standard of what a "good" ad is: No animation or even flash, no sound or music, limited size (both in pixels and bytes), limited amount of ads per page, clear indication that it actually is an ad. *Then* add an option to ABP to allow these "good ads".
When I'm now and then browsing the web without an ad-blocker I'm totally shocked what's going on out there. Some pages are not only taking ages to load, they're actually unreadable and the content is so well hidden among all this flashing, moving, changing and talking stuff that I can't imagine this is in the best interest of all. Getting some sane standards here would be a real godsend. I certainly don't mind an ad here and there if I can rely on them behaving themselves.
But just having a flag that causes ABP not to block the ad is like a spam blocker respecting an email header not to block that spam. Totally insane, if you ask me.
First!
Boy, I hope they don't extend this idea to the FireFox plugin I use, StupidCommentBlocker Plus. That's the plugin that blocks out all the idiotic comments on various websites. I use it all the time for Slashdot.
Otherwise, this entire site would be so annoying to read.
A button in Adblock would be cool to show seldom in one corner of the website to say "Support this site".
Then it would download the ads but not show them (or optionally show them [or optionally click them]). Your favorite sites would get more income. My browser knows what sites I've been to often, no extra tag necessary.
As far as I know, most people don't use ad-blocking, so the ad companies won't get weird ideas to circumvent that.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Adverts don't have to be flashing, bouncing, animated AVIs with extra-embedded javascript.
There's a few sites I visit which have adverts done with this thing called 'text'. I can see them, which must mean that adblock isn't blocking them.
PS: Adblock is a tiny percentage of Internet users and they're all rabid anti-advert types so any revenue being 'lost' is just background noise.
No sig today...
Webmasters have neither the technical or legal ability to force people to display their advertising or block them from the site.
So who cares what they "demand" or "say"? Your argument here is entirely hypothetical.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Why not just have a "Flashblock" style placeholder which a user can "show", "always show" or "never show" or just ignore?
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Ugh. No. Maybe it's just me, but my browsing experience slows way down waiting for all the various ad server domains to resolve. For the record, there are a handful of sites that I have turned off Adblock for because I appreciate what they are doing and because they don't do it in an annoying way.
That's even worse! It would mean bandwidth wasted on ads that are guaranteed not to have any effect. That's just a waste of money both for you and for the site owner. No good ad system works based on the number of times an ad is viewed. They work based on which ads get clicked on or generate sales.
I agree. The only way to make this whole system fail is to refuse to enable it. The great trick of the advertisers is making you think they have some entitlement to stick themselves into your life.
You want things to change? The system must fail in order for it to change.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
According to the article, about 5% of Firefox users have adblock installed. That's a tiny percentage of Internet users and most of them wouldn't click on adverts anyway.
This puts the level of loss in the 'background noise' category. I don't think it's worth alienating adblock fans over a personal guilt trip.
No sig today...
there is an "always no" option (ie. don't ask me this again, I don't want to see any fucking ads.. ever), I'm OK with it. I'd be using that option, BTW :->
I am the maverick of Slashdot
So I should rather use WontAdBlock? Thanks a lot.
...
sudo apt-get lynx espeak
Actually, that's horseshit.
They do have both the technical and legal ability to do so. You agree to their terms the moment you access the site. If you don't like the terms, you are free to browse elsewhere.
There's a gaming site here in Australia (PALGN) that at one stage detected if you were blocking ads and asked nicely for you not to (they linked to an article they'd written on running costs, etc for the site). It was quite reasonable, they didn't force anyone to view their ads, but they could, and it would be 100% legal.
Just like it's 100% legal to block certain countries, IP ranges, etc from your site, it's 100% legal to block people who are blocking ads. It's your site, you have the right to refuse entry.
Just because you "think" something is true doesn't mean it is. Maybe check your facts before posting.
Or the big content sites could serve the ads through their main web servers so the content couldn't be blocked easily. (The content sites would kinda be like a proxy.)
I run a couple of ad supported sites... I'd love it if more people saw the ads and things like adblock didn't exist. As mentioned in the original story, if adblock was meant to restore balance it has gone too far in my opinion. I hat pop-ups, pop-unders, and even flash ads. Those are what I think what caused the tipping point and created the need for tools like adblock. I only run flashblock and the browser's pop-up blocker because many of those ads are annoying. But a page with a banner and a skyscraper and one or two smaller ads is just paying its expenses and not going too far imo. If I don't want to pay, I should put up with a couple of not-too-intrusive ads.
Actually, until ads quit infecting my computer, I'm going to be blocking everything I possibly can. My virus/malware infection per month ratio dropped dramatically with the addition of Adblock Plus.
Perhaps the advertisers should be going after the reason most people are blocking ads these days.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
As stated, this is really just AdBlock trying to make you feel guilty about blocking the ads on your favorite sites; there's no advantage for the user because it's easy to select "Disable on www.example.com" for any page you want to support.
Adblock gives us power over advertisers, and we should be using that power to make advertising better, by demanding concessions from the ad companies. Put together a list of companies (or adservers) which agree to a certain code of conduct-- no Flash, no animation, no NSFW, etc, and then give Adblock users the capability to show ads IF they are on sites the user wants to support AND if the ads come from a company on the list. It wouldn't even have to be the whole company; adservers could provide special "sanitized" feeds which would be put on the list. If they break the pledge, Adblock users complain and they get taken off the list.
----
Another, completely different idea: one thing I dislike about ads is how they clutter up a page. What if you could tell Adblock to shunt a page's advertising over to a specially designated ad window. Each ad could be labelled with the name of the site it came from, and you could peruse it at your leisure (or not-- the website will still get credit for eyeballs). Of course, you could specify which sites should have their ads shunted, and which should have their ads blocked. (And yeah, I know that this sounds a little like bringing back the pop-up ad, but in this case all the images end up in one window, which you can keep minimized if you like.)
Is this sort of behavior possible for a Firefox extension?
Wrong. They choose to build their website, host it on their hardware, at their expense, and maintain it with their time/money. And they're free to choose to show ads.
They're also free to choose to disable access to people who block them, and suffer any reduced exposure / revenue that may result. But making that choice costs them; they don't want the opportunity cost, but they want the potential exposure / revenue.
They take the old adage "You have to spend money to make money", shorten it to their advantage and at your expense, and end up with "You have to ... make money".
Who's the real leech - the person using a website with AdBlock turned on, or the person who built that website and wants everybody but him to pay for it?
There's vanishingly few examples where the former is the case. I'll remind you that /. is owned by SourceForge, Inc - a publicly-listed company with a market cap of over $62 million dollars.
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Mods, he may not be offtopic.
SigBlocking is not the cure for $600 promos.
Depends on how good his comment is,
Everyone mods it up.
Later, it goes to +5...
Like that's the seal of approval.
It's related to the Captcha problem.
No software can strip the ads out of this post.
Text is Static - there is no LetterItemVeto.
Embedding may be the bane of the future.
Like the caps, my friend?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
They may have the right to show ads, as you say. But they have absolutely no right to demand that I view them.
As for Wired, well their site is a horrible, confusing mess even without their ads.
The hell they don't. You're visiting their web site hosted on their hardware, at their expense, and maintained with their time/money. If they turn around and say "Unblock or stop accessing", then that's perfectly within their "rights".
How will they stop me putting my hand up to block the things I don't want to see?
If advertisers hadn't decided they could freeze my browser for THREE FUCKING MINUTES loading a video ad in a sidebar then I would have kept doing that instead of finding, installing and grokking adblock. But they just HAD to ramp up the unpleasantness, so we had to upgrade our blocking mechanism.
You can't take the sky from me...
They certainly can try, but ultimately there is no way a webmaster can "detect" if his advert was displayed properly, short of looking over the end-user's shoulder.
In the USA it's perfectly legal under copyright law for browsers to alter the display to remove ads. If webmaster wants to replace his homepage with a TOS contract, that's another story.
(Also it is hilarious that you "think" something is a "fact" based on one site who detected one ad-block method, and decided to be an asshat about it. Typical nerd spazoid reaction, I guess.)
Point being, most webmasters know adblocking is just a fact of life and they've learned to live with it. If Taco tried to stop adblockers from accessing Slashdot, most people would end up having a nice laugh at his expense.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
They may have the right to show ads, as you say. But they have absolutely no right to demand that I view them.
If you're not willing to support sites you like by viewing ads, why do you visit the sites? No one is *demanding* that you visit their site. If a majority of people started using noscript and adblockers web sites would drop like flies and your internet searches would come up much emptier if not empty. My bet is even /. will go offline if advertising revenue dries up.
It's pretty safe to assume that if a site has ads, they want you to see the ads. Every ad provider that knows about the tag will require its use on every site that uses their ads. They might as well just make it a one-time option to enable ads on sites you visit frequently.
Also, if people really care about encouraging "acceptable" ads, they should create a new subscription list that only bans the obnoxious ones. Then maybe you could use the strict list on one-off visits and the "acceptable" list for sites you visit regularly.
Nonsense. Responding to an request, they provided a text file containing rendering instructions compliant with standards (or not, but close to compliant). End of transaction. You don't violate any of their rights by not reading their reply in the way that they expect you to.
You don't HAVE to use a browser at all to view their site. You could use wget piped to less and 'render' it in your mind's eye. Alternatively, you could use a simple (or complicated!) algorithm to render the parts that you were most interested in and suppress those parts that you were not interested in. The fact that someone else will give the webmaster money every time someone downloads the instructions and subsequently renders the ad in no way changes the fact that you are free to use your computer to process information in a manner you see fit.
From a pragmatic standpoint, I agree with you that in order to support websites that ads should be viewed, but claiming that you're required to process information the way the sender wants you to simply doesn't seem to have support.
The key issue here is "right" versus "practical capability". A site owner has the right to demand that you watch ads on the site. But there is no practical way to enforce that policy. Thus the current quagmire.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
I just saw this on the slashdot front page:
____
Disable Advertising
As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable advertising.
____
Erm.... Adblock Plus and noscript took care of them for years. Why start offering good posters "candy" we've had for years? I have no qualms about blocking every ad and interstitial out there. Its your choice to put them there. Its my choice to "not consume".
And go ahead, detect Im using ABP and NS. I'll start using a blocking proxy. Simply solved. What's it again? apt-get install squid?
I suppose you could combine the ideas behind display ads and CAPTCHA -- "To navigate to the next page, please select what color the shirt in the HBO ad above is."
Shit, maybe I should patent that.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
They're displaying their site on my hardware using my time to view it. If they don't like me blocking their ads - tough.
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
If the ads come from their own website, I'm perfectly okay with that too. It means it's 99.99% less likely that the ad is running javascript that will exploit a vulnerability in the browser, install code, and turn my pc into a zombie.
When the advertisers realize that we have legit reasons to be worried about code running on our boxes, and they do their ads securely, and they play by our rules, then I'll be happier about seeing ads on the net. But right now, any ad appearing in your browser window only means that you're probably already compromised.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
They do have both the technical and legal ability to do so. You agree to their terms the moment you access the site. If you don't like the terms, you are free to browse elsewhere.
You have it backwards. By making a website available to the public without requiring logging in to a registered account, the site owners are agreeing to the public's terms that we the viewers can browse their site with no obligation to view any ads that they may be hosting or otherwise providing any sort of compensation.
As for agreeing to a site's terms as soon as you access it? Let's take this one for example:
Show us where the terms are that we must agree to before accessing any of the content hosted here. Nothing on the front page as far as I can see.
This space unintentionally left blank.
Right, there's no way AdBlock Plus could have a setting to permanently disable the dialog (and automatically leave ads out).
-- listen to interesting music, support independent radio... WPRB
Generally, pertaining to the whole thread, it appears to me that you made a weak argument and you are trying to defend a losing battle. NoScript, at the least, made a very poor decision from a marketing and public relations point of view. That's NoScripts' fault. Whatever their intentions they were in the wrong, if only because they alienated so many faithful users (like myself) and put their very own product line at risk.
If a company does something sleazy and thoughtless like this then they will get rightly lambasted for this. I remember reading there (unsolicited(?) front page apology about the matter before this became a Slashdot story. They still have me as a "customer", and I have less to worry about because of their retraction.
"Then i go back to my nicely locked down browser (no cookies, flash, etc without my OK) but in the process I've virtually guaranteed that no site i visit will ever get a dime in revenue from me unless they embed the ads from their own domain (haven't quite figured out how to block THOSE)."
There's an addon called "Remove It Permanently". It allows you to remove just about any object in a page (with a few options like similar or by domain). In conjunction with adblock and noscript, the internet is manageable again for me.
But does that include updates? It certainly includes the same person downloading it across multiple computers, or when upgrading to a new computer. I'd rather suspect it includes updates, which means the actual growth rate is not +800k/week. When ABP pushes a new version, I personally account for 4 of those, my wife for another 2. That's for every new patch. I have other accounts which would, when I use them, account for another 7 or 8 downloads. Computing actual humans from download stats is a terribly tricky thing....
I don't know about Firefox users but with Opera's adblock I get forwaded to an "adsblocked.html" when I try and access zShare:
http://zshare.net/
Oh for reference I'm using Fanboy's Opera Adblock List, which you can find here:
http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/
Personally, I start with an empty list. If an ad annoys or offends me, then I add the ad-server's entire domain to my list of blocked sites. My list of blocks is around 30 long accumulated over ~2 years. It doesn't take much to eliminate the really bad ones out there.
It's perfect tit-for-tat. Evil ads get punished. Good ads get rewarded. (Then again maybe I only surf sites that use good ads, it's hard to tell.)
AdBlocker Plus exists for the purpose of helping people navigate the web without being inundated with obtrusive flash-based pointless graphics bandwidth-hogging advertisements that don't pertain to my interests. I understand that companies need to make money, but somehow Google and its text-based ads manage to be unobtrusive and are more likely to pertain to my interests. I've clicked on more Google text-based ads than flash-based ads. To me, all these flash-based ads on CNN and other websites are like going to New York City and trying to find the addresses of businesses you're trying to seek, which is one reason why having a Garmin GPS unit is very helpful for those in unfamiliar places.
My message to the advertising world: Change your ways and get away from the 'ALL IN YOUR FACE' advertising on the web, because if you don't, you'll go the way of the dinosaur. Understand that at this time more than any other, people's time is worth more than in the past. If you're going to advertise, do so unobtrusively and intelligently, like Google, or even besting Google. Trying to find the information we need while being bombarded with flashy graphics is very distracting, which is why I'm a strong advocate of AdBlock Plus. I hope the author of AdBlocker Plus does not change the FireFox Plugin, forcing the advertising industry to change the way it advertises. A simple Bolded text headline will do, with an unbolded paragraph below explaining in more detail the service/product being offered.
Nothing pisses me off more than my time being wasted and attention distracted. The advertising world needs to respect people, and if it doesn't, then more really useful plugins like AdBlocker Plus will become mainstream. Here's another note to web administrators and advertisers: If I can't circumvent the obtrusive flash-based advertisements, I stop going to that website. Seriously, the industry needs to change.
Also, Kudos to NoScript!
OK, end of my rant/tirade.
Imagine MS put in ad blocking in a release of IE
Oh, you mean like InPrivate Filtering?
Thus, I don't give a damn if or how I get modded (I'm fine as long as my opinion doesn't go unnoticed by).
To me, this looks like the author is just hoping (or already has) to gain profit from advertisers by not blocking them by default.
Don't change anything, for the love of God! Let users have their freedom, whether 'tis by choosing from subscription filters, or by filtering out individual advertiserson their own.
Don't give the advertisers any edge in bypassing your filters - that'll just make AdBlock redunant and useless.
-- Chaos, panic, pandemonium... My job here is done!
It's legal to creative derivative works without the consent of the copyright owner?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
If you view source on that site, the method of adblock detection they are using is trivial. It would be easy enough to workaround if anyone cared.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Sites could feature a small reminder or post to whitelist the site. Appealing to altruism would be effective, although I really doubt the ads are going to generate any money.
I don't recall the legal basis, but yes it went to trial. IIRC webmasters sued a spamware company that was replacing banner ads with their own, and lost.
I doubt something existing in temporary memory that isn't distributed is considered a 'derivative work', but I'll leave that up to the legal experts who aren't named Stallman.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The first time you get infected by some malware in an advertisement that was put onto an ad network by a malicious jackass, you'll change your tune.
No doubt. I'll start whistling dixie and wonder who the hell wrote malware that targets Konqueror on FreeBSD/amd64.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
As long as my ISP insists on capping my bandwidth, I am not going to use it to download ads. For all intents and purposes, I *am* paying for the content. 44.95 a month.
But, with that said, if I visit a site often and their ads are unobtrusive (i.e. small and unmoving), I would consider enabling them.
-Kinsey
I use adblock plus because of two other reasons, security, and until recently being on dialup it made pages actually load like within one day or something. Really, web pages have become so bloated now that for dialup users it's like being way back in 95 or something. And the security angle is legit, too many ads have been proven to be vectors for malware.
Personally I have nothing against ads, as long as they are plain text. Anything else, including active javascript or flash based ads, or animated gifs, I don't want to see or load them. If the content is good, they have my eyeballs, if the ads are in good taste, relevant to the site, and don't abuse my security or force me to try and load full megabyte a page crap (like those 'click for the next page' websites, frequently linked to in articles here, when it is a slim paragraph of text and 9/10ths of the page is ad), then OK, none of that crap, I will check them out. If it is something I am interested in, fine, if not, fine, same as ads on TV or radio. I've never bought a used car from any of those obnoxious screaming car salesman type TV or radio ads, and won't do that from any website either. Too loud and flashy and it crosses the line into being annoying, that is what adblock is for. And all the javascript proponents in the web0sphere have yet to come up with secure javascript, it is totally INsecure, so I mostly block that on general principles and do a very careful whitelist for exceptions and it is always temporary, don't have a single site on permanent "allow". These doo doo heads brought blocking their stuff on themselves by crossing many lines into serious bogus and stupid land.
Palant's proposal could be more acceptable if it actually went further. I really object to the high-motion 'video' adverts, but find static images are often ok. Why not tag the ads as 'motion', 'static', and perhaps some content classification to indicate visual 'safety' (such as kid-safe). Sites that violate would be rapidly blacklisted, and so is an incentive to comply with correct tags and not cheat. What about a tag or list of OSS sites that need our support, and block the commercial sites. Aim to establish a 3-way contract between the visitor, the web site an the advertiser and feed. If I (the viewer) can establish my own viewing policy, I would be more likely to participate. What happened to the obscure feature in the earlier Adblock (not plus) that allowed me to upload the add, but not to see it? From the advertiser's view, this looked like a hit. Is this ethical? Do I care? Is the advertiser being equally ethical in his sneaky ads?
I'm pretty positive that if a user has already installed adblocking software, they don't respect the site owners opposition to adblocking. Seriously, do admins think they will change their mind the second time around?
The history of meta-tagged sites could in theory be stored in an external DB separate from your normal history.
Matter of fact, for your convenience, they could just upload it to the author's website, and fetch a PHP file to query whether the prompt shouild be shown or not.
I was given a choice to disable ads, too. Well, whatever, I clicked "yes". I did not see ads on slashdot thanks to AdBlock anyway.
But I'm contributing in another way -- I save /. some bandwidth.
I have a better idea.
How about we allow such a META tag, alright, but also provide some way for the content authors to specifically identify all ads on their page as such in the markup? And come up with a social contract of a kind: you have the right to request me to view or not view your ads, but only if you tell me where the ads are in your page. If I chose to refuse your request, then all HTML elements on the page identified as ads are hidden (so no need for URL-based blacklists in that case, and this can obviously handle all kinds of inline-expanded ads, too).
Of course, this would be abused (either by not tagging ads as ads, or by tagging non-ads as ads). So here's the catch: let users register their complaints in a centralized way. If one particular site has lots of abuses reported, it is added to the blacklist of misbehaving sites, for which there's no "Do you want to view ads on this page?" prompt at all, and adblocking is enabled by default (using the URL blacklists).
Ever seen that thing at the bottom of the page that says 'Terms of Use'?
"an in-line dialog box noting the site publisher's desire to prevent ad blocking. The user would then have to choose to respect that wish or not."
All websites that have advertising want that advertising to be seen, otherwise it wouldn't be there. People don't want to see these adverts -- that's why they use Adblock. The proposed dialog box is stupid and pointless.
People who land on the site read a page, then find an interesting ad to click off on.
I don't know about you, I've never once seriously considered clicking on an ad.
Property is theft.
74 minutes after Adblock Plus-Minus was released, a Greasemonkey script was released to remove the new tag from all websites visited.
Property is theft.
I don't care about you.
I don't care about your business model.
I do care about the bandwidth that I paid for, and that you are using to deliver ads. The bandwidth and time required to download and view your ads takes away from MY bandwidth and time.
If my not viewing ads causes you to go out of business, I DON'T CARE.
I pay to support sites (and services) I care about. If you give your shit away for free, don't be surprised when people actually take it.
The internet existed before you, and will continue to exist without you.
-ted
Sure, but once you make a well-known tool to automatically do this, the advertisers will find a way to detect and ignore such downloads (though I guess it still has the nice side-effect of wasting their bandwidth regardless). Thus this can only be done on a small scale, with people writing their own tools to do this and not making them well-known.
The only thing that makes less sense than this is converting AdBlock into an ad-supported service.
How the fuck did this get an "interesting" mod?
Yes, of course it is. You can do WTF ever you want to copyrighted works, you just can't (necessarily) distribute the original work and/or its derivatives.
If I hated Coca Cola but loved a song that referenced it, I could clip that part out and only listen to my version--I just couldn't (under most licensing schemes) give the Coke-free version to anyone else. I could even write a program that cut that part out for other people, taking an MP3 or wav file or whatever as input, and distribute the program.
I hope the person who modded that insightful gets bitchslapped by a meta-mod.
The ones who serve the ads from their own domains usually haven't gone so far as to obfuscate the URLs, so I usually just block the URLs by pattern.
And yes, they're usually among the most obnoxious. Somehow internal marketeers often have the worst taste.
-josh
I don't understand why this isn't the case by default, but Firefox I think is going to need a permissions / sandbox environment for extensions. The idea of AdBlock looking through my histroy just gives me the willies.
Something similar to Java's JNLP/Webstart, where plugins could request permission to view specific features, and the user could decide to deny them. The request could come up when the extension is installed, and could also be prompted for a one-time use.
Specific areas that would really benefit from protection include:
An extension could have some or all of these blocked. For example, I'd like to be able to prevent an extension from ever opening a page or tab on restart (Thanks, I know I upgraded, I don't want to visit your page...), but still allow it to add a right-click menu item.
The restrictions could be an intelligent hierarchy, so that an extension could pick a subset of them, and request them. The more features an extension wants to accept, the higher the warning level when being installed. (i.e.: if an extension wants , then it gets flagged red, if it only wants one or two [excluding history, bookmarks, forms, or passwords], then it gets no flag at all.)
Anyone can disable ABP for a page. Some sites have earned me downloading their ads (phoronix xbitlabs ./)
I wonder how would be the "active decision about ad blocking". Like,
Do you want to display ads from MAKE_A_LOT_OF_MONEY_FAST_CALL_1_800_MONEY, Inc.?
Time to play around with FF extensions development to do the fork...
No.
Maybe I would have if they'd put it where they usually put advertisements.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Remember the original Adblock? Me neither.
100% of the value in ABP is the fact that it blocks ads. As soon as that changes, I and everyone else who cares to will switch to ABPP, which I guarantee you will show up within a day or two.
I got the same option today, and here I thought I was special !
I'll probably leave it off though, I've been here long enough to develop ad blindness meaning I just drive down Slashdots CTR every time I visit if I'm seeing ads. I think I've clicked one ad in the time I've been here for a Sun Microsystems deal.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I'm not sure what you're trying to do with your post, but there seems to be a strange pattern with the line lengths. BUY TOMS TOP TOFFEE IT'S TOFFEE THAT'S GOOD FOR YOUR TEETH! Maybe you were saying something about it being impossible to strip out inline advertising in 'infomercial' style content?
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Exactly. The actual clickthrough rates on site ads are so low that bothering with individuals doesn't matter. Making the ad a few pixels higher might even make up the difference.
This does not make sense for site owners or ABP users. But the site owners are always desperate and ABP's maintainer is probably sick of listening to them.
Ironicly, just yesterday I noticed a new message on slashdots homepage.
"As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable advertising."
I havent clicked the radio button yet, cause frankly I dont need to :D
Here's the question though: might it also be within your "rights" to selectively download parts of the site, as long as their server is happy to serve those parts? Even if one of those parts happens to be a block of text that says, "stop doing that"?
Frankly I think the word "right" doesn't fit, and though we all use it in this context, it can lead the conversation to confusing places. My view is that, if I send a GET request (provided that it isn't illegal to make the request), and the file gets served, I've done nothing wrong nor failed in any responsibility to the site owner.
This is not to say that I don't support sites and projects that I think are worthwhile, or remove sites from Adblock when asked. But it's my call. Hypothetically, were someone to demand patronage of me, my only option wouldn't be to stop visiting the site, I'd also have the option to just ignore the demands. As long as the server is also configured to ignore them, my relationship to the site owner has not changed.
Most of the useful content on slashdot.org is comments. Many of them were written by me. It says on the bottom of the home page, "Comments are owned by the Poster". If I were to send SourceForge a bill for all the content I've provided to this site, would they be on the hook for paying it? Would their only option be to respond to it by blocking my account?
I think that they'd probably ignore it, since we don't have the kind of relationship that prevents them from doing so.
You agree to their terms the moment you access the site.
The problem is, the author doesn't get to decide what constitutes access. At least not where I'm from. They can also tell you that you have to be sitting in a blue chair when you read their site, and put it on a page with "Terms" really big at the top, but it doesn't mean anything.
Just don't do it on a site where people can post comments.
The Daily WTF puts old computer ads in a folder that's, oddly enough, named "ads". A lot of their traffic is from people who've never seen the site before. They pop in, they post about how terrible it is that they can't see the ads, and they leave.
So yeah, you can annoy people all you want. But if you *have* to harass people just to make a buck, it's probably a sign that a new line of business might be more lucrative.
Hell, let's just call it the "SCO approach."
My own personal mod troll strikes again. It must really burn you guys up to know that even with several of you, I can still keep ahead of you. My sincerest thanks go out to all of you out there moderating funny comments as "Insightful" or "Informative" as appropriate — you know who you are.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes. You can also blink during Taco Bell commercials without clearing it with their legal department. We don't have thought police (yet).
Not on machines I own. Maybe if I had a jealous wife...
Because I know the sites need revenue to survive and I don't want to subscribe to 850,000 web sites (okay, it'd be just a handful really) I refused to run anything like adblock. I'd block popups and let other ads display.
However modern ads are even more obnoxious than pop-up and pop-under ads: they pop out and float over the content, they start playing annoying videos and audio without my prompting it, and they stay in the way over the content even after they're through playing. I stuck it out about a week and then finally installed adblock.
Now, the sites and advertisers lose out. Eventually when everyone gets fed up and turns to ad blockers, everybody will lose because the sites will either go subscription-only or shut down completely. Advertisers have gone too far and are alienating people who were willing to not block them to keep revenue flowing, but do they really think I'm going to buy their crap if they negatively impact my computing experience? Hell no! I'll just block their ads, and won't even be aware of what they're selling. If I happen to buy from a competitor because I got so annoyed that I didn't see their advert, well, tough shit. They brought it on themselves.
Everybody loses!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I'm entirely with the OP on this.
I'll add that I would be more compelled by Internet ads if 99.99999% of them weren't worthless, annoying crap. It's the same problem I have with many television ads: Does anyone truly believe they will gain my business by attempting to insult my intelligence?
Things that blink and wiggle around when I'm trying to read. Some goddamn dancing peacock built in flash with a feather for every state urging me to take out a mortgage. Flash ads that talk! Stuff that tries really hard to look like Windows error boxes! Shit that pops up as an overlay on top of the page I'm trying to read, and obfuscates the way to make it go away! Some goddamned double underlined thing that pops up a big gaudy box that's nearly impossible to close because I had the audacity to move my mouse over the wrong word in a pararaph! Some thing that stalls a page loading for a minute and a half because it's got a thirty megabyte FLV embedded in it!
It's not bad enough that nobody pushing banner ads seems to sell anything I want. Apparently every advertiser on the face of the planet has also taken it upon himself to personally irritate, insult, annoy, obstruct, or attempt to cajole me through threats and lies ("Your system is insecure, click here to install our tool!" "492 malware threats found!" "Hide your porn history from prying eyes!"). Modern banner ads are the new spam, and it's only fitting that they be universally blocked until advertisers can find a way to be more compelling and a lot less obstructive.
Other than the odd impulse purchase from J-List or ThinkGeek or something, who seriously buys anything they see in a banner ad? Almost nobody, that's who. Search engines are the backbone of everyone's browsing experience nowadays, so if you're selling something on the web and somebody wants to buy it they're assured to find you long before you find them via stupid banner ads. And, you know, potentially turn them to one of your competitors instead because you insist on making your ads fucking annoying.
Yeah, because those blacklisted URLs come from a huge team of Adblock Inc.'s employees... /sarcasm
The users of the open versions would be reporting the ads they see. But I bet there'd be less users willing to help the non-free version all of a sudden. Then they would need a staff to keep up.
If you made it a game where the people who report the regexps that get the best score (most blocks, fewest false positives) get rewards you'd probably even do better than the proprietary programs. Just recognition as ad-fighters and some donated goodies.
Not to mention that decoding a list like that is pretty trivial no matter how they encrypt it because you're running it on your computer and can just watch their software to see what it does.
No, you cannot. Just like you need permission to make a copy, you need a version to make a derivative work. This is true even if you use one copy to produce one derivative copy.
Only because it's unlikely to come to anyone's attention. It doesn't make it legit.
Well, if you get a license to create derivative works and/or distribute them that's a different story.
The program would probably also be a derivative work if it was focused on modifying one specific song.
IANAL, run all this by one before investing a lot of time or money in any of this.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
You agree to their terms the moment you access the site. If you don't like the terms, you are free to browse elsewhere.
Not until I've seen their terms and clicked 'agree', I didn't. They're welcome to put ads up but without a pre-existing agreement I'm not bound by their optimism about me reading their site ads.
If you disagree, then by disagreeing with my post you're entering into a contract whereby you must give me a dollar and I may laugh at you.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
You agree to their terms the moment you access the site.
Hah! How exactly does requesting data from someone's computer bind me to their terms?
It's your site, you have the right to refuse entry.
Yes, refuse entry. It's legal to try.
But if you do not (manage to) block the user, you're giving them a copy of your content and they are free to use it, even if that use is chopping out half (the ads) and reading the rest reformatted to their wishes.
If you want the right to enforce your 'no', password your site.
I seem to remember an online game doing exactly this, you could skip the video ad if you had seen it before but in order to earn the "credits" which were essential to playing the game, you had to correctly answer a question about the video, typically involving to simply answer what the specific product was. (I do believe the site in question is now dead FWIW)
Adblock is a solution to the wrong problem, and this change is an annoying refinement on solving the wrong problem.
I like the sites I visit. I'm happy if they get paid. If I don't download ads, I'm screwing the people whose sites I enjoy.
I don't like the ads. I don't want to see them. But really, I don't care if my browser downloads them while I'm reading.
Solution: something exactly like Adblock, but which downloads the ads *without* displaying them. The advertiser can't tell whether I actually looked at their pixels with my eyeballs.
Everybody I care about wins. I don't have to look at ads. The site owner gets paid by the advertiser. The advertiser gets totally screwed: they pay for hosting, but get no advertising value. It's a win/win/fsckyou situation!
I agree with the grandparent post. Actually I posted a similar reply elsewhere, then found this.
Ugh. No. Maybe it's just me, but my browsing experience slows way down waiting for all the various ad server domains to resolve.
Just do what Adblock does, and download all the content I care about, and display the page. While I'm reading, continue resolving domains and downloading content in the background.
bandwidth wasted on ads
Who cares? The user doesn't usually pay by the megabyte. The ad provider does, but fsck 'em.
once you make a well-known tool to automatically do this, the advertisers will find a way to detect and ignore such downloads
The only way to make sure that I actually saw your ad, that the pixels were actually displayed on my screen and the photons went into my eyeballs, is to make me click on it or interact with it in some way.
They work based on which ads get clicked on or generate sales.
In principle I can make my browser simulate a click on an ad too, if I want to.
I hold all the cards. The advertiser isn't sitting over my shoulder, they have no way to know whether they're interacting with a real human or a roboclient. They'd have to do a Turing test to figure out if I'm a real human, but they can't because real humans refuse to take Turing tests.
Though now that I think about it, "Punch the monkey to win a car!" is a pretty good Turing test which some humans will gladly take. Not me, though.
What the fuck?! That's it, I'm moving on to the next website from my search results.
Creating a derivative work is another way you can create a copy. As in, the copyright is in more than just the specific words.
But modifying your copy isn't creating anything, it's modifying. That's legit - you don't need special permission to underline in a text-book, comment in the margins of an essay, or clip stories from a newspaper.
You can mostly even distribute these modified copies. It'd be misrepresentation of various sorts if you claimed the marked-up text-book was new and the publisher was selling it that way, etc, but as long as you're up-front about what it is...
Essentially in-browser content modification is legal because they gave that copy to you - you choose to use Adblocker and Greasemonkey to modify it a bit, like some people choose to use their scissors to modify a newspaper before reading it.
Having a proxy do this should be legal if they do it with your general knowledge. If they represent a modified page as the original that's likely something you can pursue with false advertising (if it's your ISP doing this) and the content provider for some sort of harm to their image.
I have been running Win7RC/Avast/FFox/ABP on a Acer One 8.9 intel n270 Atom with a 160hd and 1 gig of ram. It slows to a craw when some website has animated ads/flash/excessive pop ups. I have been careful to keep all the mail ware off of of it to maintain a reasonable performance level for surfing. Not everyone has the fastest QuadCore and 8 gigs of ram that some of these pages want to run. (ok my Core2, 2Ghz, 4gig ram laptop works better, but I can't get 5-6 hrs of runtime out of something 4 times the weight!)
My PDA doesn't support flash, but does spend a lot of time to download some pages - 1 meg of xfer for what I want 15k of text, sometimes will bring it to a halt - make me miss phone calls, ect. I sometimes have to soft reset just to get out of a bad site. Too much of the time a PDA specific site does not have what I am looking for, or I am just redirected to a static page saying we don't support that browser. A 640x480 VGA screen, 520mhz CPU, 100 megs of ram on a high speed data connection should look and run ok! When I turn off the images/ads it runs lightning fast, but on a PDA it is a all or nothing. There is not a ABP for PDAs.
I have no problem killing all ads! They have gone from a minor footprint 15k banner ads - to multi-megabyte flash, mail ware laden, computer slowing trash!. I have NOT had a mail ware infection since I stated using FF/ABP!
Yeah, please update your Google.
My guess would be that this would be an option that would default to "on", but could be turned off by the user.
NoScript's AdBlock-blocking trick was kinda dirty, but I don't see them as being hypocritical for allowing their own ads given the tremendous service(which increases safety while speeding up browsing) they provide for free.
You just need to use the Adblock-block-block addon together with NoScript, and also the NoScript-block-block add on
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I run a website that has "sponsors" as an ID for one of the <div>s (which has a couple of logos in a background image); it's autohidden by Adblock.
It's a decent enough approach, I guess, but most savvy webmasters aware of adblock will just rename things like that.
Have you considered a hosts file edit? Servers that dish out the most annoying stuff simply get added to a hosts file and null routed.
Even if the web host begged permission to display advertisements, the worst offenders that float over the article preventing viewing is simply fail to load. Non-obnoxious banners and stuff from more civil advertisers are not blocked, just the annoying ones.
The truth shall set you free!
How about a 'defer ads' option that would store all these ads that I ignore whilst resenting the advertising company? They could then be shown at a time more convenient for me to ignore and resent the advertising company.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Lol. Does he really think he gets trough with this? And does he really think we care to follow his lead?
He's cool, for making the thing in the first place. But I can fork it in what? Five minutes? Then I diff his updates, take out the stuff I do not want, patch my fork, perhaps add one additional cool feature, or fix a bug, and upload it. There. Done. ^^
My standpoint is: Advertisement is no finance model. Ever. It can not work. Period. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Lame. If I don't want ads to the point that I go install adblock, why would I want to undo that? If the site has a loyal group that wants to view ads, they already have the means to whitelist. Also, a website can put a plea 'please show our ads even though we know you will not clickthrough' on a site now. If adblock ends up pestering me - it's fork time, and the first cool mod would be autoblocking of sites with 'no really, do you want to see some ads?' tagging to support this stupidity...
If you are not going to click on the ads, then surely it is better to not show them, and waste the advertisers bandwidth.
They certainly can try, but ultimately there is no way a webmaster can "detect" if his advert was displayed properly, short of looking over the end-user's shoulder.
In the USA it's perfectly legal under copyright law for browsers to alter the display to remove ads. If webmaster wants to replace his homepage with a TOS contract, that's another story.
(Also it is hilarious that you "think" something is a "fact" based on one site who detected one ad-block method, and decided to be an asshat about it. Typical nerd spazoid reaction, I guess.)
Point being, most webmasters know adblocking is just a fact of life and they've learned to live with it. If Taco tried to stop adblockers from accessing Slashdot, most people would end up having a nice laugh at his expense.
I can see you're wanting to troll there, to be honest, you're still wrong. No matter how much you call me an "asshat" or a "nerd spazoid", it doesn't mean you're correct. Your UID shows you've been here for a while, yet you have learnt nothing of how web sites can be constructed.
It's quite simple to create a script that would detect if an ad is presented or not. If the script is blocked, well, you'd be going against the T&C of the site. If the ad is blocked, you'd know.
It's hilarious that you "think" that resorting to name calling and bullshit to support your previously flawed argument is a valid tactic. I'd suggest that you stay away from posting crap like this, but I know it would do no good...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"No, you cannot. Just like you need permission to make a copy, you need a version to make a derivative work. This is true even if you use one copy to produce one derivative copy."
Take a book you've bought, write notes in it, highlight it, cross some things out. You have every legal right to do those things to the copy you own.
I think we may have the first case of Firefox extension fanboism on our hands here, folks.
Nope, just someone with too much time to waste to try and troll slashdot.
What about a way of communicating to sites the ad formats a user is willing to accept? Breakdown ads into format categories such as animation, image, text, and unknown perhaps with subtypes in major categories where appropriate. That way those of us who want to support a site but cannot tolerate multimedia ads could, for example, select "text" for a particular site and be shown unobtrusive text ads.
Something like this would seem to be a decent compromise. From the comments I've read on various Slashdot articles on the subject, it would seem there are large numbers of people willing to allow at least text and other non-obtrusive ads.
Check it out -- http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11906
Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
Agreed - this is why I've stopped using Adblock+. I just use noscript, flashblock and have turned gif animation off. And I see almost no ads, because they are largely animated. If you have static, unobstrusive ads then I will see them and it won't bother me at all.
Get free bitcoins: http://freebitco.in
Why is everyone acting like he is about to try to pull a fast one like the Noscript guy? His proposal is actually very modest and fair. All he is talking about is not blocking a little message from the web admin that basically says "please support our site if you like it by pressing this button to add us to you ABP whitelist" and that is all.
I don't see what the harm or problem with that approach is. I would still have to choose to press the little button on the page to add them to my whitelist, and if they showed me even ONE of those damned "shoot the monkey and win an iPod!" or "You are the 1 millionth visitor!" irritating as hell flash ads they would be on my blacklist again so fast it would make their head swim. But simply giving them a chance to make a little plea seems quite fair to me. If the guy that writes Noscript would have simply popped up a message that says 'It is costing me a lot to support Noscript. Please press this button to add me to you Adblock Whitelist so I can keep making this product" I would have been happy to press the button and support his site.
But IMHO the websites only have themselves to blame. Back in the old days ( cue my oldest saying "When everyone listened to 8-tracks and dinosaurs ruled the earth) ads were some basic text, maybe a static image or if they wanted to be fancy a .gif. Now they are these irritating multimedia flashing beeping blipping popping over and under and sideways noisy as hell monstrosities. I mean is it any wonder folks want to avoid them like the clap? Everyone I do a house call for to fix a PC and whip out my portable Firefox with ABP the first thing folks say after "how come you don't have all those damned blinking ads?" is "Can I have that too?" because folks are frankly tired of 1 page's worth of text being spread over 14 pages so damned drowned in ads finding the article is like playing Where's Waldo.
But allowing a simple text plea sounds fair to me as long as Wlad makes it just as easy to put them back on the blacklist if they hit me with those damned bling bling ads. And whomever "invented" those irritating as hell flash ads should be buried up to his neck in AOL CDs and forced to listen to Bonzi Buddy tell those same three jokes for all eternity.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Yeah, then we wont have to worry about that shit for 20 years... well 50 if they upgrade the patent protection crap they want to do...
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
Bullshit. I didn't agree to anything by sending them a HTTP GET request.
Oh, you mean like InPrivate Filtering?
No. Not like that. You left out the important part of the sentence "but it allowed ads to be shown on MS sites or through their ad network." Which from what I have heard doesn't seem to favor Microsoft served ads over other advertising networks.
Dual Opteron < $600
There are ads on Slashdot? Well, look at that. No, I don't use an adblocker. I just don't give a shit about one small ad at the top of the page. Sometimes I pay attention, if it's funny. The only ads I ever click on are ads on webcomic sites, advertising other webcomics.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
What's this nonsense of "choice"? I've already made a choice by installing AdBlock. How much clearer can the "I don't want to see your stupid ads" message be?
What they've done is invent the double-opt-out.
Fuck you. If I care, I'll opt-in. I have yet to see a single case where opt-out was the adequate procedure. It really is that simple, just like firewall rules. DEFAULT DENY and then go from there is the only reasonable route.
So, the fact that you can't opt-out because they don't ask you in the first place is why I installed AdBlock. I see no reason whatsoever to opt out again, nor do I want to be asked if I want to opt-in. If I wanted to, I'd disable AdBlock.
Geesh. Got it? It's not that difficult.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I install it and subscribe to block them... and if I want to allow them I can already do it page by page already....
I DON'T need another pop-up to beg me....
locked out of this slashdot account for 10+ years... Im back
Well if you really wanted to try, you could compare the access logs of your webserver with that of the advertiser, and correlate pages served and advertisements served to particular IP addresses, and then blacklist those IPs from future access.
Crude and hardly real-time, but it COULD be done.
It could be worse. They could make it a subscription service for webmasters to participate in this or something like this.
They could, except the whole point of the extension is to say "no" to ads. No means "No, and don't nag me until I say Yes".
The hell they don't. You're visiting their web site hosted on their hardware, at their expense, and maintained with their time/money.
Which they've put online in the Internet, which was developed with my tax money, is running on the telco lines put in the ground with my tax money, and which I'm accessing through my DSL line that I pay for.
I figure it equals out. If they don't want people visiting their site they don't have to put it online, you know?
There are laws in most civilized countries preventing commercial entities from certain filtering mechanisms with respect to their customers. For example, it would be illegal for any US store to put up a sign that says "no niggers allowed inside", or to enforce such a door policy, with or without the sign.
Commercial interests are a part of the bigger whole, which is society and culture. They should stop pretending that they are the big picture and everything else has to run according to their rules.
One of the rules of the Internet is: You are the server, you don't control the client. You decide what information you send, the client decides how to process it. If for some reason the client turns all your tags into tags before displaying them, that's how it is, like it or not. If he doesn't want to display pictures, or titles, or navigation bars, or advertisement, then that's how it is. You don't control the client. Like it or leave it.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Does anyone still use Junkbuster? I found it quite useful a while back. I suppose it wouldn't take much work to get it back up to snuff with easylist or something similar.
What is the point of having the META tag then? Why are they discriminating between users who have a meta tag and those who don't? Will web developers have to stay wondering whether increasing the size of their HTML is going to reap enough benefits? Can't they just do the same thing for ALL sites, irrelevant of the META tag or not? It's pretty obvious that if someone puts up ads on their website, they want people to view them and be interested in them.
True. Unfortunately, almost nobody can be a significant number, for a large enough number of visitors.
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
A whitelist of approved advertisers isn't a bad idea. You could set the criteria to anything you like (i.e. no flash, no animated gifs, nothing over a certain size, no scripts, nothing adult rated etc) and then ad servers could apply to join if they agree to your rules.
To be honest though I'd probably still just block everything.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"If they turn around and say "Unblock or stop accessing", then that's perfectly within their "rights""
I agree with you in a very broad principle. It's also within my rights to ignore them.
If I use the definition at Wikipedia "A right is a legal or moral entitlement or permission.", then what I think is that their only right is to ask my nicely to look at their ads. Certainly not legally (at least not yet). I'd like to hear your argument as to why it's a moral right to compel me to view the ad.
The way I look at things is like this: I can surely put up an appealing ad on my site. I can't force anyone to look at it, no matter how much I might like people to.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Clearly they do, so the only conclusion you can reach is that such ads work so the majority of people must less intelligent than yourself.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Not necessarily. Perhaps it's so much easier to sell things to extremely stupid people that advertisers always target their ads at them.
I solved that problem with flashblock. I whitelist the sites I want to use flash on and the rest can go screw themselves.
It's actually more effective than adblock for keeping my browser responsive.
The original AdBlock extension had this feature. I don't know where it went in AdBlock Plus.
Whoosh
.
.
Whoosh
Whoosh
Sneaky
Little
Acrostics
Seem
Hidden,
Don't
Overlook
Them
Other
Readers
Grokked
Looks like we might need a new product called ABP Block Plus.
First, this is obviously stupid, like suggesting a "noblink" tag that asks the user if they want to stop tags from working on a website.
Second, if you are *dependent* on advertising, THESE PEOPLE DON'T CARE. They don't want to know. Call them freeloaders, thieves or whatever, but they get enough abuse from other (possibly worse) advertisers and they no longer pay heed to advertising anyway. Thus they would be a wasted impression of an advert. It's like the telemarketers who *insist* on calling me just minutes after I told them not to. You *really* think I'm just going to change my mind and buy something from you?
The websites that do sell advertising space have to think for a second: How long would I last in any other type of business if I relied on selling advertising space to recoup all my expenses? The answer can be measured in microseconds. At one point, there was an "ad-supported" UK ISP that offered free dialup (back in the days of 56k) for the cost of a toolbar displaying ads on your desktop. It was *really* quite good for many years and then tanked. That was the LARGEST company I have ever seen which has been able to survive solely by selling advertisement space (with the possible exception of Google, who have BILLIONS of users and an unrivalled search engine technology that actually GAVE them that power - if you get to compete with them, you'll never have to worry about money ever again anyway).
Give it up. Selling advertising space is not a business income. It's possibly a small sideline for a large website that's *already* successful by other means and that's it.
Every halfwit wants a webpage with advertising on it, creating piles of redundant sites. Tech support website - there's a million of them, and they have different "guru" users, and people as the same questions on every site. Too much information, most of it wrong.
You must be new here or have tailored you settings to ignore things like ask.slashdot.org and all of the twit comments from knowitall college students.
Don't get me started on porn - seen her, seen her, yeah this is a copy of that other site, yeah these are all copyrighted images with the logos removed.
Fuck you internet, and fuck you google.
Life happens. You should check it out sometime. This should be the last website you ever visit: http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm
This is what should lead to micropayments. You can look at the ads, or pay a fraction of a cent to remove them. That seems fair, and gives people a free alternative.
Eventually when everyone gets fed up and turns to ad blockers, everybody will lose because the sites will either go subscription-only or shut down completely.
Or they'll move over to the third option: non-intrusive, non-annoying text-based ads. I'm just wondering how long it'll actually take advertisers to realise that being polite is actually quite productive.
Silly rabbit
In TFS it says the box is "in line", not a popup. My guess with a description like that is it will take the page real estate that the ad would normally take, and not interfere (provided it doesn't get the ability to act like a pop-under, and I doubt it will).
What's the problem with this? If you don't like it, don't click the button. It gives you an option to support the sites you like by displaying their ads, and ignore ads on the remaining sites you don't find worth it.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I don't know about you, I've never once seriously considered clicking on an ad.
I have, lots of times, and even wind up making a purchase from time to time after looking into things a bit more, but if it wasn't for advertising I might not have known about the product or sometimes even a particular merchant that offered a better deal.
Some advertising is bad, but on higher quality sites, you tend to have higher quality ads. There are exceptions to that though, but for the most part it seems to be true.
I don't know why people are so against advertising. When it's done right it can be beneficial. Not only to the publisher, but also to the viewer. Without advertising revenue, a lot of sites wouldn't be able to stay online. The problem is the sites that just exist to post ads.
Think of it like the Degree sponsorship of Eureka. Some people were put off by it, but I think they handled it well. How many times do you hear of some letter writing campaign to restart a canceled sci-fi series? They usually don't go anywhere. What Eureka did was smart, their keeping money coming into the series so it doesn't get canceled. Networks don't care how many fans like a series, they care how many advertisers like advertising on the series and while Degree and Eureka may seem like an odd choice, think of the huge market of sci fi fans that could definitely smell better.
By the way, I'm a fan of Eureka and I'm a fan of Degree. Not because of the show though but because out of nowhere I got a free sample of one of their deodorants and it smelled almost exactly like one of my favorite colognes. I could probably find something similar in another brand but since they sponsor a show I like I don't mind giving them my business.
Dual Opteron < $600
If a site put the Ad there, it is safe to assume they want you to see it; if i installed AdBlock it is save to assume I don't.
The main situation the current system dose not cover is: some sites (like /., Google) almost certainly would prefer me to participate even with no ads then go strait to their competitors. Other sites would prefer me not to use their bandwidth. A meta tag for this might be useful.
The basic idea of an option to prompt for an allow exception after X visits in Y days seems sound - no need to involve the site.
I've read a few comments here that talk about Wladimir Palant's desire, in writing Adblock, to restore some sort of parity to website advertising. A rather noble goal and pretty logical idea.
However...
The goals of the vast majority of people who are running website ads are not noble. And their only logic is to get you to either view and click on that ad. The parity that websites provide content even thou it's our bandwidth that we use to view them does not really matter to them. How many times have I seen plays on this same theme: "If your not viewing our ads your stealing content."
Gah, with that mentality there is little room for parity. They, the collective they, are going to try to screw me over with as many ads as they can get away with in exchange for the content. They have been doing it, and are very comfortable with that model, for many years now in media.
But the catch is with my internet I get to control what I see by in large. And as such I'm blocking everything I can. Via my hosts file, plugins, or whatever other means I can utilize. Until content providers understand that it's my time that they get to compeat for with their content. "If your showing me obnoxious ads during the content your stealing my time." Is what they have to learn.
Of course that will never really happen imo. The public by in large are too complacent to really put up a fight against the media. But in my little corner of the world they get nothing. Nothing.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
What he said.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
As long as the extension offered users an option to set a preference that they wanted to never see the popups, and always hide the ads anyway.
they'll never get any ad revenue from me - I shop online from sites that earn my business.
How do I shop online from my local newspaper's website?
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
I mainly use Adblock to get rid of overly obtrusive ads. Really, when I hit up weather.com and half of the screen is covered by an add, my blood boils. It's like someone shoving a pamphlet in your face when you look outside the window to see if it's raining. Sites with minimally obtrusive ads, I don't block as that's just too much trouble for something that doesn't bother me.
I think Adblock's future relies on how obtrusive the notice becomes. If a notice comes up every time you goto a site asking you to allow ads, then I'm sure a competing addon will have a shot at Adblock. Otherwise, if you can suppress those notices altogether, then that would make the feature worthless for someone like me who would suppress them.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Sure, but is the inefficiency significant? Does it slow things down enough for a human to actually notice?
*sigh* back to work...
What part of "NO G*DD*MNED ADS" do you not understand?
Sheesh
I agree to no terms that I don't explicitly agree to.
You seem to assume that a site can have an unwritten term that is automatically agreed to, specifically that ads not be blocked. In that case, why not other unwritten terms, such as providing nude photos of the cutest female in the family? That the person browsing automatically owes a dollar per page view? Unwritten terms aren't worth the electrons they aren't written on.
A site can enforce whatever terms it wants, by having me agree first and then providing the content. If the site wants to announce a no-ABP policy and then let me into the interesting areas, that's the webmaster's prerogative (and it's mine to accept or go away). If they provide pages that I can just call up in the normal way of browsing, they can't have hidden terms.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I disagree. If I wanted to see ads I wouldn't have installed ABP in the first place.
I don't want to click no on every site I visit for the first time. It's a PITA. As much so as seeing the ads themselves.
This idea is stupid.
I did too, but I chose not to. I've gotten a lot out of Slashdot over the years, and if they make a few clams showing me ads, then more power to them.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Even then you could fetch the content without rendering it.
With some forethought and planning I think you could even have a secondary rendering engine underneath your display renderer that would fool any method of ad-blocking detection short of taking screenshots and sending them home for image analysis. The first engine jumps through whatever hoops the site wants a 'clean' browser to jump through and the display renderer could filter that "rendering" of the page.
None of this helps dial-up or other lower-speed users though, so I hope it doesn't come to this particular virtual arms-race.
You want to know how to keep people from blocking your ads? Keep them as a small banner (or text), at a consistent size, at the top or bottom of the page, and no animation, tracking crap, or flash. Oh, wait. That's exactly how it used to be. You all decided to start with the nonsense, though. And then we found a way to stop you from doing it to us. You reap what you sow. Advertisements, I'm sure, would never have been blocked in the first place had you not been so damned obnoxious with them.
So now, even if you were to go back to unobtrusive banner ads, we would never see them. That's your own damned fault.
Suggesting one unblock ads is fine. Expecting it to make any difference isn't.
The web is designed fr *user* control, not the other way around. It's up to the user (and the browser) to decide which content to display, and how to display it. The page author can provide *suggestions* on how that content is to be displayed, but the browser is free to ignore it.
In some cases, the browser is simply incapable of showing the content - say, images in lynx running on a text-only terminal, or a browser designed to assist the blind. In others, it may be due to user intervention - blocking images to reduce bandwidth usage, for example, or applying a custom stylesheet to reformat content for a small screen.
Or, it may simply be a case of a user not wishing to expose themselves or their computer to ads. There's enough malicious code out there being propagated by ads that it's probably in the user's best interests to block them (particularly if you're running Windows). Most webmasters aren't serving their own ads - they use an ad network. These networks don't exactly have the best track record in preventing malicious code from making it out to users. They tend to only act reactively to such things - at which point the damage has already been done. This of course isn't the webmaster's fault, but it means a webmaster simply doesn't have the control over the ads necessary to be able to make the judgement that "the ads my site serves aren't annoying/intrusive/malicious". They just don't *know* that, because they aren't the ones serving the ads.
Not to mention the fact that if a tag like this becomes common, *all* webmasters will add it, regardless of content. This will make the "This author says their ads are good, view them?" statement meaningless.
I don't mind text ads, and static graphical banners i can tolerate..
On the other hand i don't like flash ads, and absolutely detest ads with sound (they interfere with whatever else i might be listening to), any kind of popups are also incredibly annoying.
So do what I do, and just run Flashblock (I run nothing else). Now the pages you visit can make SOME ad revenues without driving you insane, plus you get the security of no flash hijacking. And if you decide you want to see the content, you click on the button (or add the site to the whitelist).
I consider Flashblock to be the ultimate compromise, because it's one that advertisers and I can definitely live with. And since I like my web free as in beer, I'm willing to do what I can...within reason.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Nobody is saying that they will succeed. My point is that they are 100% within their rights (as the owner of the site) to /try/. I am within my rights to circumvent it (seldom worth the trouble) or to stop using the web site. The latter is much easier as there is very little online content that I feel I /must/ have - and if sufficient people do leave because of obnoxious advertising, their page hits will drop, leaving them to realize that maybe they need to change something.
Or even better: hit the monkey tree times to be able to make a comment!
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
... and replaced it with the Super-Minimalistic Department of Super Redundancy and Checks and Balances See-Saw Redundancy Department.
Wahwah, stop being such a butthurt nerd and try posting in a conversational style.
And you are still wrong. One could hide ads using a local proxy server, user stylesheets. greasemonkey scripts (etc), a custom plugin loader (i.e. flashblock), or even in the video driver. Good luck detecting that.
Never mind the fact that sites have miminal control over the advertising content anyway and aren't going to write a bunch of trigger scripts around someone else's Punch The Monkey ad. It's just not worth the effort in the big-picture.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Then we'll need another newer tag.
Two words: /etc/hosts
I have never run AdBlock on any system (98% of my browsing is Safari on OS X) and I still see very few ads. Is it as good as AdBlock, or as easily configurable? Maybe not, and no. Does it do a pretty awesome job, with every browser on the system, with nearly no configuration EVER needed, and no per-browser setup required? Yes. And also block lots of spyware and adware? Yes.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I love adblock but if it starts to interfere with my browsing with popups, I'll uninstall it immediately and use an alternative, or hack my own.
I don't even have the same perception of the Web as the other people. I can browse without having my brain cells burned by all those flashing ads and shit. Everytime I have to use someone else's computer I miss my adblock.
I know the web sites need financing and publicity is their moneymaker, bla, bla, bla. Yeah, right, but it's not my fault. If this business model doesn't work, find another. Just stop flashing those ads all over me.
I just wish I could get some other adblocks, maybe in the future:
I don't have the time to learn about all the fantastic things they're trying to sell me, and I don't have the money to buy them, anyway.
There is no difference (other than media) between an ABP filterset and a set of pages custom-cut to fit over a particular edition of a newspaper or magazine and block the print of all advertisements therein, leaving non-advertisement text and pictures visible via cut-outs.
Let's say you obtain said magazine and page-by-age place the "PABP" (paper ad-block plus) "filters" such that you can read the entire magazine without ever setting eyes on a single advertisement. Is this illegal? Immoral? Unethical? I can't see how it is. Doesn't matter if the magazine is sold or given away for free. Once you get it, it's yours and you can look at any part of it you like.
In the paper publishing world, delivery of the "substrate" media (the magazine, newspaper, etc) is exactly equivalent to delivery of the advertising media. They cannot be separated. The advertiser, therefore, knows that his message has been delivered and counts on its positioning and his own unique presentation to make it eye-catching enough that the reader notices.
In the electronic publishing world, some genius decided to separate the advertisements from the content. Where previously it would have impossibly difficult to block the ads (who is patient enough to make a paper cut-out for every page of a magazine and carefully place it so that only the articles' text shows through?), now blocking is only a matter of applying a series of regular expressions. But the same principle applies. Once you've downloaded the "substrate" content (i.e. the pages hosting the advertisements), you are under no obligation follow any of the links. It's YOUR bandwidth, not the advertisers. If anything, the advertisers are stealing from YOU when they download commercial media without your consent.
The real problem is this: Advertisers are lazy. They are faced with a new type of media and are unwilling to invest the time and money to fully integrate the advertising with the "substrate." It's not impossible, and it doesn't have to be expensive. Look at the Hemmingway mock-prose competition that gets held every year. The contestants are required to incorporate the name of the sponsor in every submission, or the submission is disqualified. And for the price of a few trophies and a little PR, the sponsor of that contest gets amazing amounts of advertising.
Unfortunately, really integrating advertising with its "substrate" media takes a lot of thought and effort. So basically it boils down to a bunch of stupid lazy individuals who would rather point fingers at "evil users" than do their jobs. Sorry, fellas. The Whinery Tour starts every hour on the hour. Queue up under the sign with the picture of Sour Grapes.
I don't think it does, but my parent poster implied that there's a perceptible difference. I was just correcting him, saying even if there was, he had it backwards.
If he meant human efficiency, not computational, then I'd say he definitely had it backwards, as installing ABP and letting it self-update is much easier even than downloading a pre-made hosts file every so often.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Yes, of course it is. You can do WTF ever you want to copyrighted works, you just can't (necessarily) distribute the original work and/or its derivatives.
it seems like it's the guy that wrote AdBlock that's creating the derivative work and distributing it to you.
I just wish that people that felt strongly about blocking ads would have their add-on put something to the request headers that indicated as much. At least let the site owner decide if he wants to deliver you content with non-Flash/non-Java/non-Whatever advertising or not deliver you content at all. That would at least be putting your money where your mouth is, rather than the freeloading that's going on now.
The web as we know it exists largely because of advertising. If everyone blocked ads I'd hate to see what things looked like.
That's fair use.
17 U.S.C. 106 the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: ...(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work...
17 U.S.C. 101 A derivative work is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a derivative work.
Hence, editing out mentions of Coca-Cola (R) in a song, (an editorial revision) is a derivative work and can only be done with the copyright owners consent.
Fair use may allow you to subsitute "Pepsi" as a parody, but that's a question for a lawyer.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
The worst offenders go in my hosts file, but they are not null-routed. Instead they go to 132.147.63.12 so not only do I not see their irritating ads, but I contribute just a fraction to the demise of our favourite hate figure by costing them a little bandwidth every day.
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
So the guy who makes FX plugins for an audio editing program is creating and distributing derivative works?
Answer's yes, if your above statement isn't false, which it is.
Reductio ad absurdum, gotta love it.
Man, I bet you hate Tivo, huh? Probably public libraries, too. The book publishers should totally get to decide whether you loan out books for free--after all, it's their content, right? Even after you (or a library) have legally acquired a copy? And god forbid you rip the ads out of one of those old sci-fi books, or a comic book. Ought to be illegal.
Everyone should have to tell publishers of any copyrighted material what they intend to do with and/or to it before they receive a copy, especially if the publisher's just giving away ad-laden magazines on a street corner to anyone who asks, for free. That way they can refuse to give a copy to someone who's gonna rip the ads out before reading it.
Ditto for those free newspapers every city seems to have. Ought to have to swear on a bible that you won't just use it for bird cage liner without looking at the ads before you can take one.
But nobody is saying you'll have to click no, as we are talking about an opt in not an opt out. And that sounds fair. It makes it easy for those that don't really know how to add stuff to the ABP whitelist (like my 67 year old dad who loves his ABP and thinks a PC is "broken" if he doesn't have it) while at the same time leaving the default adblocking behavior alone. So really, what's not fair or right about this?
You will simply have a small block of text with a button at the top or bottom of the webpage, placed there by the webadmin. It won't be like a toolbar on your browser or a pop up, but more like a bit of text on the page you are viewing. It will simply say something like "please support my site if you like it by pressing this button to add my site to your ABP whitelist" and then you are free to ignore it or press it...your call. It still leaves the default behavior in your hands and gives you a butt simple button to push if you actually like a site and want to support it.
It seems completely fair to me and will give a chance for honest web admins to make their case directly to the viewer while at the same time giving the choice to us, the web surfer to allow or deny their request. Don't worry, if you want to never see an ad again nobody says you will have to opt out or push the button. Just ignore the text on the website and everything is just as it is now.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You're right, the proposal isn't bad. But my response was mostly aimed at the parent to my post, and in defense of the "isn't open source grand?" line.
Adblock is (a) popular and (b) designed around something selfish.* For both those reasons, it's not the sort of project that a larger percentage of users will have an irrational love for. If it stops doing its job, one of the many other options will step up to take its place, or there will be a fork.
I think maybe the maintainer is worried about it exploding too much. He figures that by making the default a little friendlier to webmasters, people new to ABP will at least see some ads but anyone that wants to can go totally clean.
It's an interesting slope that things slip down as they become more conservative to better fit the masses. Ah well.
* I block ads. I have for a long time. Selfish might be the wrong word. I don't know what the right one is.
yeah, as long as you don't then distribute those derivitive works...
There are some sites I actually want to see the adds on, well one really. They guys at Penny Arcade tend to advertise things I tend to like. Once upon a time I figured out how to unblock only their site, but I've re-installed firefox since then...
Anywho, if there was a super easy way to selectively disable blocking on certain sites, I'd use it. I don't begrudge folks making a few cents off my eyeballs if they pick the right adds.
It's practical to keep a browsing history. It helps when I'm searching for something and the visited links are highlighted. It also helps when I'm trying to remember the address of the blog I commented on the other day to see if there are any replies. I often use the address auto-complete feature to visit sites I don't have bookmarked, and I don't care if someone sees I've visited Slashdot. If I'm actually doing something sensitive, then I'll just break out Chrome in Incognito mode. No need to make most of my browsing more difficult because some of it is sensitive.
Deus est fatalis
I do block things that stall a load, yes.
But the biggie for me is *)(^$# blinking!
I don't mind ads.
I understand why they're there.
I use them myself.
But for crying out loud, blinking/animation isn't just calling attention to itself, it's distracting!
(And I need to acknowledge some bias due to having seen 486's brought to their knees servicing the blinking gifs on a single page . . )
I'd even be willing to have a setting in my browser that says, "non-pornographic, still ads, without cookies accepted". No, I won't accept a site-by-site cookie for this.
But one scrap of blink, and I block.
hawk
but not enough to pay for it.
If Slashdot went to a subscription only model, I would stop using it.
Capitalism can be a real bitch.
-ted
This is pure idiocy. What about all the sites out there that provide tremendous services for free, but have their ads blocked? You are nothing but a hypocrite.
Clever signature text goes here.
Yeah, because ALL webmasters did that.
Clever signature text goes here.
So the guy who makes FX plugins for an audio editing program is creating and distributing derivative works?
Good point, i agree that it doesn't make sense. I shouldn't have corrected a bad analogy used against a bad argument
Man, I bet you hate Tivo, huh?
This is actually the only analogy that makes sense, most of your examples below are examples of people buying an item and then using it differently than the seller would like. The seller has his money, end of story. You didn't buy the web page that you viewed with your adblock, the web page was paid for by the advertising that you stripped off. It's easier to see if you don't look at the web page as being free, but instead costing whatever fraction-of-a-penny that the advertiser pays per impression.
Probably public libraries, too. The book publishers should totally get to decide whether you loan out books for free--after all, it's their content, right? Even after you (or a library) have legally acquired a copy? And god forbid you rip the ads out of one of those old sci-fi books, or a comic book. Ought to be illegal.
Everyone should have to tell publishers of any copyrighted material what they intend to do with and/or to it before they receive a copy, especially if the publisher's just giving away ad-laden magazines on a street corner to anyone who asks, for free. That way they can refuse to give a copy to someone who's gonna rip the ads out before reading it.
Ditto for those free newspapers every city seems to have. Ought to have to swear on a bible that you won't just use it for bird cage liner without looking at the ads before you can take one.
I look at the situation as more akin to reading books cover-to-cover in a bookstore without buying them. The bookstore is not going to go out of business if only a few people do that, but certainly if everyone is doing that then it's over.
Do you ever click on the ads? Usually that's the only way a site gets paid; so if you never do click on them, disabling them will lower the bandwidth requirement on the adservers (ever so slightly). I don't know what deal slashdot has for their ads but maybe that is part of the reason for the offer, besides the good will it creates.
I was given the option as well, though I haven't chosen to disable yet. I was a little surprised with the reminder there were ads. I use adblock!