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Which Is Better, Adblock Or Adblock Plus?
An anonymous reader writes: Wladimir Palant is the creator of the Adblock Plus browser extension, but he often gets asked how it compares to a similar extension for Chrome called Adblock. In the past, he's told people the two extensions achieve largely the same end, but in slightly different ways. However, recent changes to the Adblock project have him worried. "AdBlock covertly moved from an open development model towards hiding changes from its users. Users were neither informed about that decision nor the reasons behind it." He goes through the changelog and highlights some updates that call into question the integrity of Adblock. For example, from an update on June 6th: "Calling home functionality has been extended. It now sends user's locale in addition to the unique user ID, AdBlock version, operating system and whether Google Search ads are being allowed. Also, AdBlock will tell getadblock.com (or any other website if asked nicely) whether AdBlock has just been installed or has been used for a while — again, in addition to the unique user ID." Of course, Palant has skin in this game, and Adblock Plus has dealt with fallout from their "acceptable ads policy," but at least it's still developed in the open.
If the ads on a site are so obstructive or malicious that you want to block them then stop using that site. Blocking ads only encourages site operators to use more aggressive ad serving tactics and resorting to that kind of subsidized assault on the user is usually an indicator that the site doesn't have anything useful on it in the first place.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
The real question is: If you value privacy and dislike ads, why would you ever use Chrome?
The entire goal of that browser is counter to user Privacy and choice. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, if you don't care about that stuff then I'd same Chrome is probably the best browser out there. But I do value those things, and in fact they are probably my #1 consideration when choosing a browser so I use Firefox despite its many faults.
You'd not only rightly reject Google Chrome you'd also reject choice as a reason to favor nonfree software. Chrome is a nonfree browser so that is right out. A choice of nonfree programs doesn't satisfy what computer users need—software freedom. Choice is easily satisfied in that there's more than one alternative but choice of software says nothing about how well the alternatives address important needs to control one's computer (rather than letting the software control the users). So choice of software is a weak substitute for the freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify software.
Digital Citizen
Which is pretty retarded because you could have just unchecked the box instead.
Yeah, but entitlement!
Even better is to redirect hosts on the router so it applies to the whole network.
New clients on the network (such as friends and family when they come over) would be covered too.
Adblock Plus is better than Adblock. It's because of the Plus.
I say this as a person who uses neither, is not qualified to comment, and doesn't know what the difference is! So how can I say that Adblock Plus is superior?
Conditioning. Consumer conditioning has imparted to me that Plus is superior, always. Also, SE (Special Edition), Extended, Premium, LE (Limited Edition), GT (Grand Touring), European (just go with it...), natural, organic, vegetarian (although vegan snorts in derision at mere vegetarian), soy-free, soy-based, nut free, olive oil containing, hand made, artisinal, imported, domestic, and a thousand others I can't remember at the moment.
I'm a well-trained consumer in a consumer society. I derive my sense of individuality by corporate branding and consumption habits!
This.
You'll have to explain in great detail why he, who made his white listing process extremely transparent and even allowed users to vote on it, he who kept his add-on fully open source and under permissive license that allows you to fork it. And he who unlike those who forked it, actually continues to work on developing the add-on, while allowing you to completely turn off all of monetization functions with a single check box on first page of options is somehow "can't be trusted now". If you are this paranoid, then how could you trust him in the past? Surely you had no way of knowing back then what his monetization scheme was, and it was far more likely to be something really insidious rather than benign "just uncheck this box once and you're good" that it is today.
So tell me. Why should I not trust him. Be specific, and try no to sink into the old "but turned the monetization options on by default when he implemented them (and I won't tell you that he actually warned you about it upon installation because that goes against the message I'm trying to deliver), that makes him completely untrustworthy" hyperbole. You'll also have to tell me who offers an alternative that is actually developing the add on. Whoever forked Adblock Edge is certainly not that person. It's still stuck in previous version of Adblock Plus apparently, because whoever forked it couldn't even be bothered to update his fork by copy pasting code from new version.