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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)."
Adblock developers have previously tried to monetarize the addon in very shady ways. I bet this is just another one of those. The announcement quite clearly reads as "we will still block ads, but we will not block Google's ads". I can bet that Google is directly paying them not to block their ads, but still keep continue blocking everyones else. This means increased income to Google, which now suddenly is the only provider whose ads aren't being blocked. This isn't new from Google either - they're currently under monopoly abuse investigation in EU after their contracts with advertisers said that advertisers cannot advertise on competing ad networks, like those from Yahoo and Microsoft.
Shady people, shady deals.
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.
There's no such thing as "unobtrusive ad", just like there is no "unobtrusive DRM".
With a toggle or not, it's the thought and default what counts, and we need something to recommend to non-technical friends to make their www browsing palatable. I for one go with several partially redundant layers of anti-crap defense and put some time into maintaining them, but ordinary people deserve to have something decent out of the box.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I don't have a problem with this, even if Adblock is getting revenue from it. I want them to be able to continue to support the product, and I want the sites I go to to be able to afford to continue to exist, and I am happy if they are able to make a profit even. We all win. The only reason I started using adblock is because of all the disruptive, distracting, ads that interfere with the actual reason I came to a website in the first place. As long as they're able to keep blocking those, and sites that do tracking, I'm happy...
I don't have a problem with ads on web pages (hosting isn't free, y'know) but I don't like putting my systems at risk to plugin and browser vulnerabilities. If an ad company promised no flash or potentially dangerous scripts or images I'd add them to my whitelist.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I'll turn it off and move on. Setting it to this option as default is a little shady, but I'll pick up my pitchfork when they remove the off switch entirely. Adblock is a wonderful plugin, I don't fault its creator for trying to make a little bit of money off of it. As long as the plug-in allows me to keep blocking any ad, I'm happy.
Have fun with a very non-functional web. I used to go that way, but turning javascript ON for sites I wanted to access it became more annoying than the ads I was trying to block. Plus, this brings the ads back on those sites.
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.
I don't use an ad blocker. When I got to a site (usually via google), and I get confronted with an annoying ad, I click back ASAP, increasing the bounce rate for that site. Google DOES note this. Some might argue that a bounced visit is worse for a site than no visit at all. At least from an SEO point of view.
Actually I try to filter my adds through adblock to not block the unobtrusive text based adds (which Google became 'famous' for). If this option is able to do the filter work for me instead of me opting out every single add I find annoying manually, I'd actually very much like the option. If it has this as intention, I'm willing to try it out, see if it can get the job done. I can always put back my original filter list, can I?
noscript and flashblock? That's what I run. I don't have any annoying pop-ups or animated ads (which seem to be mostly in flash) Ads are no longer a problem for me, so I never bothered to install adblock. What am I missing here?
I don't like the incentive that the addon maker should decide what ads are "acceptable" or not. I will choose which sites to allow ads on, if they are in the way of content, I will get rid of them, otherwise I will usually allow them.
Heres an example: ads on youtube. I use noscript to block the in video ads, because I am not waiting through 15 seconds of wasted bandwidth and time to get to a video. Ads on the side? Those are fine, and I allow them under adblock. Does your site pop an ad up when I load a page? Adblocked. Ads on the banners and sides, that are not animated / sound, usually just a single image or some text? Perfectly fine.
I have never bought anything based on an ad before, from TV or internet. I always research purchases, or when it comes to consumables like food, I try different brands. It is almost like wasting bandwidth to throw ads at me, but I do know there are plenty of people that eat up ads like candy.
we wouldn't need AdBlock at all. For example, who complains about ads on the Google search page? The ads are highly relevant, and largely unobtrusive. If advertisers were smarter, they'd go one step beyond Google and give the consumer direct control of their ad placement. I don't mind ads when I'm buying, but when I'm not, I want them out of the way. Sounds like a UI problem to me. How hard would it be to solve?
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I wish request policy would add a black list functionality so I could block things like facebook even if I have the rest of the scripts on a particular site enabled. Request policy is nice in that it enables or disables scripts based upon the site you're visiting not the site that's serving the script so I can enable sites for my bank and have them disabled elsewhere or more commonly enable them elsewhere and disable them when I'm at my bank site.
I mean I paid good money to use this tool every single day that I surf the web. I use this tool on different browsers, running on different platform....all of that cost me good money.
It's about time we all demand a refund from these insensitive clods and go back to use the ad blocking tool that comes with IE 6.
Wow. If you don't pay off the guy, it sounds like he distributes software that breaks your Terms of Service and helps people cheat your site. Gotta love the web.
Then find another program to block your ads, Mr. Entitled, or switch to ELinks.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
The reason I decided to even try Adblock Plus in the first place was because of a particular (Flash-based) ad on deviantART which was ramping my then single-core CPU to 100% and not only jamming up my browser, but was also causing the normally invulnerable-to-lockup mouse cursor to stutter as I moved it around.
More to the point, I originally used ABP not because of a hatred of ads, but because of a single ad which was bringing my computer to its knees. So I don't see this change as a big deal - it's easy to change and the classification of an acceptable ad sounds like one which is unlikely to cause performance issues.
To all newcomers - people here are very close-minded and can't handle complaints about Linux. Keep this in mind.
How DARE they give their free-to-use software more options for the user. I'd rather if on top of ads, it also blocked every website in it's entirety as well!
Why you haters aren't using WGET to pull down a page/strip out all HTML & Javascript/run it through a TeX parser I'll never know.
There's already an obvious way to permit no-annoying ads while blocking annoying ones, which is to have the subscription blacklist you already use for AdBlock delete the entries for the annoying ads. No need to build a special whitelist capability, unless you want to prevent people from using alternative blacklists.
I'm not actually too bothered by having a few ads, as long as
Unfortunately, that kills off most of the advertising services that might be used to support web sites I like (especially the no-tracking features, because the ad services use those to prevent web sites from faking view data.)
The current advertising-like annoyance I still get is Disqus's takeover of the site-comments business. It thinks that I'm blocking its cookies (I'm not), so some combination of Linux, Firefox, NoScript, Ghostery, AdBlockPlus, FF's Don't track is breaking it. (Also, it has lots of other problems, like not being good at keeping track of multiple identities - my comment histories on BoingBoing and various newspapers aren't supposed to all get lost, which happens if they get mushed together into one Disqus ID.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I can see this as only a good thing. There is now an insentive for ads to be less intrusive and "acceptable"
Adblock developers have previously tried to monetarize the addon in very shady ways. I bet this is just another one of those.
*long whistle* Nice ads you have there! It'd be a shame if someone were to come along and block 'em. *extends hand*
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Or just switch the checkbox on the preferences...
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The correct saying is "have a cup of concrete and harden the fuck up"
Make SELinux enforcing again!
Not to forget the bandwidth! Be it mobile bandwidth that is restricted for everyone everywhere, or fixed-line bandwidth in developing countries that is often limited in speed and volume, ads can be an unacceptable overhead that costs real money just to download.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
At least now I'll know why AdBlock Plus appares to "break" on it's next update, and how to fix it so it stops ALL ads again.
I know the websites make money from eyeball revenue, but I spend way too many hours of my day on the 'net to spend it inundated by advertising. Were I spending a few minutes or an hour surfing the way the general public does, I wouldn't bother blocking ads at all. But I am constantly on documentation sites and such, and even they blare the media message 24x7.
It's too distracting when you're supposed to be working. Would any company tolerate their background music provider suddenly shilling products instead of setting a work-conducive mood? How about some ads embedded in your Powerpoint presentations and company paperwork?
That's the level that "internet advertising" interferes with my ability to work if I don't use AdBlock Plus.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I love ADP, but personally I never use the built-in filters. I just create custom-filters for really annoying ads on the sites I frequent. My experience is that I don't need that many rules to make browsing tolerable.
Why on earth do you think websites /have/ ads? It's to defray bandwidth and other costs.
I, for one, don't want the web to go the path of paywalls and micropayments, and would rather have some ads that are relatively easy to ignore.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Adblock Plus can be used for this sort of thing. I use it to block anything related to facebook, then add an exception for when I'm actually visiting facebook.
What bothers me the most about this ...stupid move. Is that they make you opt-out . That tells me hes getting money for the amount of people who stay in. Why else would he even care? its a free program to begin with. Nope hes gone to the darkside thats for sure.
Jack of all trades,master of none
I have another comment/question as well, Advertisers want end sales. So just loading up the ads means nothing if the ads don't produce. And those who say it costs money to run a web site well how much does it cost? Ive seen prices all over the board but most are under 20 bucks a month. What does it cost to run a site say like Slashdot? Which does run intrusive ads BTW. It seems to me running a website for free and depending on 100% advertising is a very stupid business decision. Make one mistake and piss off your membership and your out of business . And i do use an adblocker that i payed for not free ones.
Jack of all trades,master of none
It's too distracting when you're supposed to be working. Would any company tolerate their background music provider suddenly shilling products instead of setting a work-conducive mood?
Yes, I seem to remember a device called a "radio" that does exactly that. Of the dozen offices I have worked in, three had music with commercial breaks playing at a low volume in area where the workers chose to enable it.
Regardless of the motives on the part of Adblock Plus or conspiracy theories in other postings- the whole reason I started blocking ads was EXACTLY because of ads that:
1) Contain animation (of ANY type)
2) Contain sound
3) Use Mouseovers or now page floating/etc
4) Are unreasonable numerous or large
5) Delay page loading
If I could use Adblock to stop only the above and allow reasonably sized and fast loading, relevant, text based, or static image based ads, I would do so. I have said that for years.
I am actually just as distressed now by things that are NOT ads, but contain constant or time delayed scrolling and other animations on sites. It is EXTREMELY IRRITATING while trying to read something (not to mention battery draining). But web designers seem to think it is cool and mandatory now. Used to be easy- turn off Flash and animated GIF. But since they are all Javascript now, there is no effective way to stop them without breaking the needed parts of pages (and don't EVEN suggest greasemonkey or the like... far to complex and/or time consuming). I wish there was a Firefox plugin that could auto detect Javascript animation or loops and just stop them.
On *Nix systems you can use curl or wget. I can imagine it wouldn't be too hard to code up an extension to call one of those and pipe it to /dev/null.
I will take for granted that this information will not, in any way, be used to do anything abusive.
I don't really like that this is going to default to on, and it reeks of sell out.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
You say, "So here's their options: paywall or ads."
But there is a third option to this: GTFO.
The Internet worked just fine back in the 1970s and 1980s before it was commercialized to such a stringent degree. Who says that viewers of your web page should be the ones paying for it? Has it ever occurred to you that your web page itself is the advertisement? Develop a viable business otherwise, and then go ahead and post a webpage to advertise your business if you like. But don't expect us to pay for it. Support your webpage through the proceeds of your business. Your web page is an ad.
Seriously, this isn't too hard to figure out. Not EVERYTHING has to be "monetized."
NoScript is a WHITElist, you only allow the sites you trust to run scripts, it means NO by default. It is perfect, the best sites can run without scripts just fine, and you know immediately with noscript when something was designed with accessibility and standards compliance in mind, versus dis-functionality and laziness.
A script-less web experience is the fastest there is, zero running code in client is faster than the best of the engines; and selectively picking whom you allow to execute scripts makes for a very fast web experience, especially with slower machines.
The reason i started using noscript, is because some sites started to use scripts to defeat adblock. Ad related scripts come from third party servers most of the time. It also happens to do a flashblock like experience not only to flash, but the rest of the annoyances that make web browsing slowdown to a crawl. If you want that particular web thingie to execute (say, embedded video) you click to it and allow it temporarily; in short it will only run after you tell. You can't imagine how wonderful it is to regain back control; i want nothing with a browser with an incomplete implementation of noscript; especially coming from one of the ad serving companies...
Now if Adblock Plus starts acting too funny, i guess is time for a new fork.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Yes! I hate noisy tabs/ads, I usually use noscript, but if I've allowed a site, sometimes a noisy ad will start. I wonder if there's an extension to have sound-making tabs light up with a coloured speaker icon!
And yet every paywalled site also has ads.
Just like cable tv was originally ad free. And now it too is crammed full of ads. Yet you can't get cable tv without paying for it.
It's crap and only a sales or marketing moron would think otherwise. And frankly i'm getting damm sick of all the ads i encounter every day. I despise the people who push this crap onto the world. And tell them it's required or actually useful. It's crap.
First we get something good that we want. And pay for. Then they cram ads in without lowering the price or giving anymore value.
it's crap. it needs to stop.
will Google continue to provide the free search service to us?
Actually it would be quite simple: Instead of having big, tracking ad networks, make the same as in TV, magazines and actually everywhere else: Put the ad where the content is. I totally wouldn't mind unobtrusive ads which do not track me. Put text ads or simple images on the same server as the content (and don't overdo it), and I'll have neither the ability nor the desire to block them. Just refrain from any of the following for the ads:
* JavaScript/Flash
* Cookies and equivalent
* Accessing third-party servers
* Animations and sound
* Ads in the middle of the text
* Ads that hide part of the content
* Oversized ads
The problem is that the ad companies want too much, and that's why they get nothing from me in return.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The user still is in control of what can be displayed or not I don't see a problem.
And it makes sense to cut the throat of every ad that is animated, noisy or epileptic since they are the real reason for AdBlock Plus to appear from the beginning.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Just installed AdBlock for Chrome. First screen was: "Check if you like Google's ads", with unchecked as default. For me that's not really shady
I'm quite sure that if adblock plus will change this way it will loose part of his userbase... for instance for chrome there are at least two ad blockers (adblock - chromeaddblock.com, and adblockplus - addblockplus.org)
The issue is not that this option was added as I'm sure there's a reasonable amount of users that don't mind old-school ads (static, text etc.), but rather that it is enable by default and that you need to change a setting in about:config to disable. It should be an option in the primary context menu and it should be disabled by default, as the arguments for having it enabled are pure bullshit.
Also, using the always obnoxious first run page to inform about this is wrong because too many addon writers use it for blatant begging, propaganda or worse, and many don't include settings to turn them off (Giorgio Maone, author of NoScript, I'm looking at you in particular) so they're closed rapid-fire style without looking at them.
Something this fundamental requires a modal popup, nothing less.
Yes, it's my opinion that people don't need revenue from ads in order to run a simple website. Basically there are two types of websites: One complements a physical business and the other is virtual only. Now, if you can afford a brick-and-mortar place, or to print a rain forest worth of paper publications, you can afford a webserver. Most webservers come with with a reasonable bandwidth included and additional can be acquired fairly inexpensively, and most smaller businesses don't need much and might even do just fine with a simple LAMP webhotel/webshop that can be had for almost nothing (a few bucks a month). If you need ads to finance that, you're in so much trouble I wouldn't bother. Same thing for virtual only solutions. You have replaced the brick-and-mortar cost with hosting. Should come out even or maybe with some savings. Ads are not needed here either.
Now, someone might argue that non-profit organizations have different requirements. But how did they work before the Internet? - They relied on contributions and donations. Why can't they still do that and divert some of the funds from paper and brick-and-mortar to hosting?
I run a small hosted server myself. I pay around €50/month for it and this includes (reasonable) free traffic. I use it as mailserver and a webserver for myself and some friends, who run celebrity fansites, community websites, blogs and a podcast homepage. All the podcasts are stored on the server and the entire back catalogue is available as well. But I still don't exceed any bandwidth limits. I charge nothing from my friends, I have zero ads and I pay the hosting fee out of my pretty average salary. So a business should easily be able to afford this as well.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
I don't use Adblock to stick it to The Man; I use it due to the prevalence of excessively annoying and/or resource-hogging ads. If Adblock can block only those while letting more benign ads through, then I consider that a vast improvement, because it doesn't strip revenue from site owners who don't employ these unseemly tactics in monetizing their sites. Furthermore it provides owners who do employ such tactics a clear path to more revenue, which, unlike current solutions, actually stands a chance of encouraging change in the way things are advertised online.
I also support making it the default, and in fact I'd prefer it if they made it mandatory. I fully support protesting against annoying and browser-killing ads, but people who just want to stick it to The Man are not our allies.
A few days ago, I just went on about how I block all ads, and don't see advertising. However... I'd allow "acceptable" ads.
Without ads, there would be no Google, no Facebook, no free internet. There would be 1,000 Wikipedias, begging for money. You can't build billions of dollars worth of data centers on sunshine and ponies.
I use Spiceworks. It would be worth millions to their company, able to charge hundreds per copy if they chose. But it's 100% free. I specifically have enabled ads on their web based tools. Why? #1 - I want to support them. #2 - The ads aren't garbage, they are relevant. Very very relevant. I learn about new IT offerings and products through the ads.
Now granted, there are those who will never click an ad. And companies are learning, consumers want ads relevant to them and unobtrusive. I run ad blocking myself, but I'm not 100% behind the idea that I don't want to see any ads. Right now, it's an all or nothing, or manually turning on each site. I want to do the right thing AND have utter crap held at bay.
This is why I think this is a great tool. Rather than saying, "No ads, never, no way!" This is saying to advertisers, "Do a better job, and don't annoy the shit out of people or track them when they don't want to be tracked... and people are willing to see and click on those."
You can try to fight a war of attrition against ads. Or, they can be encouraged to be better.
And so I can't take the position that there's a vast conspiracy of subliminal trash being force fed into our minds by greedy corporations. I'm sure that's true especially in mass media.
But as Sigmund Freud might say, "Sometimes an ad is just an ad."
I8-D
come from the same server as the website. everything else deserves to be blocked.
> it's unethical to use a service without paying
why?
its unethical, if you use a service, which requires payment without paying, but there are a lot of free services.
Man, if you hadn't posted AC, I'd have modded you up! (Read my .sig)
(I'm beginning to think that ACs on /. should be banned. I can understand annonymity if you live in a dodgy regime, but not when posting the above. What are you worried about?)
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
If the site has advertising, it's trying to make money and showing ads is party of the implied contract of visiting the site (unless they have a paid "no-ads" option).
Is viewing the site from a machine with Adobe Flash Player also part of the implied contract? Because unless it is, I'll continue to use Flashblock to block a large class of unacceptable ads while leaving static ones (PNG, JPEG, text).
I use Opera, and it has a "block content" feature which is kinda manual - you go into block content mode and use the mouse to select sections of the page. Opera then blocks them when the page is viewed normally. For a site you visit regularly, it works well, but not so good for random surfing. But very good if you are surfing at work and the animated advert stand out like a sore thumb, even with CSS and images off for "stealth."
I'm tempted to go for a hacked hosts file that simply resolves most advert sites to 127.0.0.1 (see below). But I sometimes have a web server running locally (I used to have a really gaudy 404 page that would stand out like a sore thumb when these sections were requested.
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
I installed Adblock Plus specifically because I want no ads in my browser. If the developers stroke a deal with industry that's fine, it's their choice. I hope a fork will be made that will again disable all ads by default. Adblock++, anyone?:
Mr. Commercial is being backed up against a brick wall by Mr. Blocker. "Please, don't kill me!" Commercial begged. "Whatever they're paying you to stop me, I'll double it! Here!" He takes out a roll of notes from his pocket and holds it out. "Take it!"
Blocker takes the money and looks at it thoughtfully.
Use Adsuck and web pages won't even know you're blocking the ads (because they are blocked at the DNS level)
(2) Expand AdBlock blocking settings so that people can be explicit about what they want blocked, or where they want it block. Post the results online with comments like "Wow, New York Times, time to change the ad rotation as only 9% of AdBlock users want to see any ads on your site." Or "Major shout out to Victoria's Secret who have the best ads for the third straight month!"
With a little creative effort, AdBlock and related products could become major agents of change in the ad world.
I come here for the love