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Adblock Plus To Offer 'Acceptable Ads' Option
Many readers have submitted news of a week-old announcement from Wladimir Palant, creator of Adblock Plus, about a change to the addon that will allow unobtrusive ads to be displayed. The change has been controversial because most people who run the addon strongly dislike seeing any ads. Palant hastens to point out that this is a toggle-able option, and by changing one setting, users can resume ad-less website viewing. Many are upset, however, that the setting defaults to allowing the display of "acceptable" advertisements. The description of "acceptable" ads includes the following criteria: "Static advertisements only (no animations, sounds or similar); Preferably text only, no attention-grabbing images; At most one script that will delay page load (in particular, only a single DNS request)."
It is the default. They explicitly noted that most users aren't interested in tweaking settings and that's why they had to make it default and even change it for existing users.
The summary fails to cite some of the core reasons for the complaints, which are that this feature will be enabled by default as well as the fact that the Adblock project is hoping to make monetary agreements with advertisers.
I do wonder if it is the default, though.
Yes and no.
No as in when you first load up the new version, you get to choose whether you want the option.
Yes as in if you use EasyPrivacy it's enabled by default.
I remember NoScript, the other addon people install when they're trying to prevent large attack vectors, updating for very minor changes, and automatically loading their home page. Those loads translated to ad hits, which generated revenue. They eventually added an option for this, and I'm sure the people that cared enough turned it off.
However, I don't remember anything similar happening with AdBlock... Can you site a specific incident?
There's a reason there is no "Disagree" mod...
There's no such thing as "unobtrusive ad", just like there is no "unobtrusive DRM".
I disagree. You can have a small pic and a bit of text. That's pretty unobstrusive. I'm willing to put up with that in limited amounts (I don't klick on it anyways, but that's a different matter). Loading a huge flash animation is a completely different beast.
And I truly do not understand your DRM analogy. A pic with a bit of text to the left or the right of the main webpage is like DRM how?
My main reasons for using adblock+ is not to kill adds, but to protect my systems from hosts I consider hostile. Ad networks are a major malware vector because most ad network providers are mostly sleazy scum that can't be bothered to secure their networks. Either that, or they try to exploit javascript and other mechanisms to extract information I don't feel that they are entitled to. I'm sure as fuck not going to execute any script that comes from them.
Second comes browsing improvement, because some ad networks are so badly performing that they hinder the use of many web pages. I also found adblock plus the absolute best way to improve browsing performance on low-end netbooks. (Noscript helps a lot too)
Maybe this new option will enable a real no-bullshit way to enable advertisements that respect instead of exploit end users. I would would not mind that at all. Really, though, I don't want to execute any scripts from ad networks at all. I probably would not mind enabling Google's ad services either. As far as I know they're reputable as far as security is concerned.
Google ads apparently aren't unblocked (yet), but someone on Hacker News asked the developer earlier and apparently monetization is part of the plan:
I don't think that we get anything yet but we indeed hope to get some income this way to make the project sustainable. This doesn't mean that paying us is the requirement to be added to the exceptions list - the requirements a formulated here and they will probably become more precise as we gain experience (suggestions are welcome). As to Google: no, they have nothing to do with it. We didn't talk to Google, we didn't take money from them, there is no conspiracy here. We did look at Google Ads as a typical example (unblocking them is the most common request we get yet most people lack the knowledge for that) but they don't meet our requirements at the moment. Google's search ads are a different thing and they can meet our requirements depending on how the website configures them - and we did add an exception for them on one particular website.
TBH, most people that install noscript want bugs and functionality worked on regularly. Plus, I have a hard time imagining that they get much money like that as I don't recall ever seeing any ads on that page.
Then you have never looked at the page. It's full of ads. That's why the asshole that runs noscript silently killed ad-block without telling users, so that his ads would be seen.
http://www.schillmania.com/content/entries/2009/adblock-vs-noscript/
I think he was suggesting that the shit being advertised is what winds up in the landfill when the consumer eventually figures out he was sold shit.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
No. It is clearly a move to attempt to make money from what is perceived to be a captive audience that will not notice.
I don't mind people wanting to make money. However, I see a clear conflict of interest here, when then interests of the source of such money are orthogonal to the actual users of the product.
dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
adding his own site to the whitelist of ad-block plus a 3rd party extension unrelated to him or his extension without asking or even advising the user and trying to hide it is what makes him an asshole.
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
I dunno about you, but some days I can think of nothing else.
I can see the fnords!
There was a big commotion about NoScript vs. AdBlock a few months ago, and the NoScript guy apologized profusely. He said it was partly an accident, partly a miscommunication, and partly him behaving badly. AFAICT it all got resolved in the end.
So, the GP was not lying. The present situation on the NoScript page is not the problem referred to.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Yes. One might wonder what he's doing for a living...
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!