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iOS 9 To Have Ad Blocking Capabilities
An anonymous reader writes: iOS 9 will reportedly carry ad blocking capabilities for it's Safari browser when it is released later this year. The feature wasn't rolled out with the usual fanfare one might expect, and flew under the radar. ZDNet reports: "It's not immediately clear why the new ad-blocking privacy feature was included in iOS 9, due out later this year. After all, the iPhone and iPad maker has its own advertising network -- even if its success was limited (which is putting it nicely). What's clear is that allowing ad-blockers in iOS 9 could deliver a serious blow to Google, the biggest rival to Apple in the mobile space, because advertising remains a massive portion of the search giant's income."
This makes sense in the Apple ecosystem. It speeds up web browsing and streamlines the experience, and if ads are blocked at browser or OS level, it gives Apple a chance to create their own approved ad market. I think it's a step too far to assume that they can insert unintended content arbitrarily into a web page or existing ad slot.
> though, it might finally lead to ads being delivered from the same host as the rest of the content on the page
This cannot be done. much of graphical and especially streaming content is from more robust "content delivery networks", such as Akamai, that host much larger proxies closer to the web browser's "final mile". Even modest icon or graphical content on a web page will overwhelm many corporate core web servers without these third-party hosted proxies, and it's especially true for ad content. Slashdot itself benefits from its extremely simple format, and can thus handle its load quite easily with quite modest resources. But if they tried to host the advertising content all on the same systems, I'm quite certain it would collapse the servers if not the firewalls themselves.
But if they tried to host the advertising content all on the same systems, I'm quite certain it would collapse the servers if not the firewalls themselves.
A plan with no drawbacks!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The ad-blocking better include those bloody irritating ads that switch you out of the browser with no warning to the App Store for Clash of Clans, or some other flavour of freemium shiteware the kids are degrading themselves with these days.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
iOS drives 75% of Google's mobile revenue meaning this could really hurt them depending on how much is blocked. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05...
Yes, and indeed ONLY to Safari. iAds in apps are not affected.
I prefer the rooted Android solution where ads are blocked in the hosts file. They are blocked then for ALL apps, not only the browser (and disabeling the Google add service with Lucky Patcher kills the remaining few).
After reading the linked ZDNet article, looks like Apple is only allowing extensions in Safari to block content with in the browser. Thus allowing things like Ghostery and NoScript to be possible or more affective in iOS 9. Bottom line, if you want ad-blocking in iOS 9 you will have to wait for the proper ad-blocking extension to be available, or write one yourself.
I think if you say HOSTS file three times in a mirror, APK shows up.
(Which is a great initialism when you're talking about android.)
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
It's not immediately clear why the new ad-blocking privacy feature was included in iOS 9
Well there's a pretty obvious reason why, and I don't see any reason to discount it. It's a feature that users will like, and Apple is in the business of trying to make devices that people like. Even more specifically, Apple's general approach to making "devices that people like" tends to be to try to take the hassle out of using the product, as much as is possible. Ads are a big hassle.
It seems like a pretty obvious answer, so much so that I don't see a reason to go hunting for another one without some kind of additional information that there's some other reason.
If it gets really popular, how long until sites remove ads altogether and instead switch to paywalls?
I understand why people want to block pop-up and pop-under ads. I have those blocked too (and I don't think you even need to block those since not many people use them anymore.) But I don't understand why people want to block regular banner ads. Coming up with content then hosting it on a website isn't free. If advertisers want to pay for it because they think displaying an easy to ignore banner at the bottom of the page makes me more likely to buy their crap then all the better. It is better than having to pay a subscription for the content.
But since no one wants to pay for a subscription, and because so many people have ad blockers (or maybe advertisers have figured out how easy it is to ignore banner ads) websites are starting to go with sponsored content. I am sorry but sponsored content is at least 1000x more annoying than banner ads. Wonder why that site is singing the praises of some POS product? Well zoom into that tiny little dot at the bottom of the article to see the words "sponsored content."
I say bring back the banner ads. It really is a pretty painless way to pay for content. I think John Oliver gave a really good summary of the problem with sponsored content AKA native advertising:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
There have been antitrust allegations around Apple's new streaming music service. This seems to me to be just another way to prevent the competition from actually competing.
People used to scream holy hell when MS did this kind of shit, but Apple is just as bad and in many cases much worse. I guess they saw that Microsoft got off with a little wrist slap so why not use borderline illegal (or blatantly illegal, once in a while) anticompetitive tactics.
Here is a paragraph from the article that you quote, to put this into perspective: But Castle says he will be surprised if this goes anywhere. Apple, he notes, has a lot of competition in the streaming music space: Spotify, YouTube, GooglePlay, Amazon. "There are inquiries all the time" he says. "They ask a few questions. You send a response and that's it."
In other words: There's lots of smoke without a fire.