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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.
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?
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
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
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.
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."
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