Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Adblock Plus Can Now Be Rolled Out To Every Single Employee In a Company

Posted by timothy on from the sooner-the-better dept.

New submitter Mickeycaskill writes: Adblock Plus adds large scale deployment (LSD) to version 1.9 of its software, allowing IT managers to block adverts on thousands of computers in one go, months after a German court ruled the practice was legal. The move is likely to concern online publishers who rely on advertising to generate revenue.

53 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. It's not the adverts in themselves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    but the fact that you smear them all over my face, and that I can't connect to just YOUR website, but I effectively connect to fifteen OTHER sites to download scripts, just to make YOUR website run correctly. I use Ghostery and Ad-Block not because I am against advertising, but because I want a leaner and more tolerable web.

    I understand the web is more complex today than a decade ago, but there MUST be a way to make today's websites better in these regards.

    1. Re:It's not the adverts in themselves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Structure them in a way that they cannot be used as an attack vector and only then will I think about removing AdBlock. No Flash, no Java, and if you assault my eyes with flashing GIFs and CSS fly-overs, I'm taking my eyeballs and money elsewhere.

    2. Re:It's not the adverts in themselves by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, of course it is. If I'm browsing YOUR site, then I've implied that I have some trust in YOUR site. Cross site scripting demands that I also trust those other ten, twenty, fifty, or maybe even thousand other sites. If you demand that kind of trust, then I don't need your site. Drive-by installation of malware is far to common for us to trust all those unidentified sites.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    3. Re:It's not the adverts in themselves by DickBreath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think advertisers SHOULD NOT BE RUNNING CODE on my computer.

      If you must show me an ad, that's one thing. To ask to run code on my computer is quite something else. Malware has been spread through ad networks, and I promise you it will be again. And again.

      Advertisers have only themselves to blame that people block ads. At first web ads were more than tolerable. I was happy to see them, knowing they paid the bills. Then it got worse. And worse. Sites started having tiny bits of content surrounded by ads and you had to click the Next button twenty times to read a ten paragraph article that turns out to be devoid of real information. And other things I could go on about.

      Online publishers ought to be careful of the ad networks they get into bed with. Those ad networks should be careful about the actual advertisers. Some of these ads are outright deceptive -- trying to imitate the look of a dialog box on a certain widely used OS. That kind of clever behavior turns out to be bad for ALL advertisers in the long run.

      I did say I actually liked the idea that ads paid the bill in the early days. Now I view ads as a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Many of the advertisers have absolutely no sense of shame or restraint. They would tattoo advertisements to the insides of our eyelids if they could. Yes, really.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    4. Re:It's not the adverts in themselves by DickBreath · · Score: 1

      Yes that!

      Deliver ads as a set of pixels, and then, and only then, I might begin to trust advertisers enough to let their pixels on to my screen.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    5. Re: It's not the adverts in themselves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I've always wondered whether the extremely intrusive ads actually get more clicks (at least intentional ones).

      For me, at least, I go into "kill it with fire" mode whenever something intrusive pops up, or over, or starts playing sounds and I rarely even pay attention to what the ad is about. It is a knee-jerk "kill it!" response.

      Then you have the "Adwords" where they not only turn words in the page into hyperlinks, but cause popups on mouse over. These turn an article into an advertisement "mine-field" for your mouse cursor.

    6. Re:It's not the adverts in themselves by DickBreath · · Score: 1

      Advertisers eventually ruin everything.

      I gave up on Cable TV. It is now less than 1/2 content and more than 1/2 ads. And then the ads intrude into the program you are trying to watch with stupid bugs and animated people walking on the bottom 1/4 of your screen. Sometimes they obscure something important in the content of the program. At the same time the content has deteriorated to the point that it is not even worth watching. And content not worth watching definitely means the ads are not worth watching.

      Now that was off topic, but then there is the web. Will it turn out the same way? Maybe not because there are no central 'broadcasters'. There can be good sites with good ads and good advertisers who can behave decently and sell products through the ad views they get.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    7. Re:It's not the adverts in themselves by vlad30 · · Score: 1
      If content providers had some sort of person in charge of which ads were on there sites like tv stations and newspapers had in the early days (yes there was a time they considered their reputations) but all they care about is revenue gained and rely on automated scripts to supply appropriate ads for there site from the ad network, this however doesn't work very well. Additionally Organisations like Advertising Standards Bureau (Australia) have no reach on the web and can't enforce ads from other countries to disappear.

      Additional reason for Adblock - Children I hate when my kids see an advert on internet or tv as most ads are not appropriate for them and when they inevitably click on them all sorts of crap happens to the computer coupled with the kids screaming, adblock is one thing I gratefully install.

      --
      Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
    8. Re:It's not the adverts in themselves by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 1

      A coworker got infected by visiting a reputable programming reference site. He didn't know, and virus scan didn't pick it up. Other employees did get detected malware from the same site, so the security folks examined everyone who visited the site, and detected an anomaly.

      Our security settings do not allow us to disable scripting in Internet Explorer, which is the only allowed browser. Nor Flash, because it's needed for training.

      This is not hypothetical, and security best practice does not solve the problem. Because best practice should be to only enable scripting when absolutely needed, and that should be never.

      I realize web 2.0 has a lot to offer, and I have no issues enabling worthwhile content. Slideshows no. Loading chrome and doing everything else by script no. Crapping out a bunch of absolutely positioned DIVs and fixing up the UI with script, no. But only your site, no advert business, nothing external.

      There's a NOSCRIPT option for a reason, and your server should be able to inject a dynamic IMG SRC in that section unless you really don't deserve advertising money.

    9. Re:It's not the adverts in themselves by amber_of_luxor · · Score: 1

      Take a look at the adds that fans have uploaded to YouTube sometime.

      I seriously doubt that the only clicks those videos are getting, are from people who want to see what commercials in other countries are like.

      --
      Wind Beneath Thy Wings
    10. Re:It's not the adverts in themselves by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

      Ah everything is code. Even jpeg data is a sequence of instructions for the jpeg decoder FSM. Therefore nothing from the advertisers should run on my computer! But in seriousness, I agree. I think though that channel is doomed, exhausted forever. On the PC, I run noscript and adblock. On the phone, if I can't close an intrusive ad in half a second I close the page. I downloaded a stupid puzzle game (research, I swear) for the phone and the game asked me mid-play. "interested in annuities?" That's sheer desperation. It's game over for ads. (Uninstalled the game a second later.) The only "ad" I remember clicking on in years -- when I wasn't searching for something to buy on Amazon or Google -- is ArsTechnica's "tech deals" post. And the difference between us and non-tech folks is they are only slightly more patient waiting for the ads to be over b/c they don't know they have the technology that could bypass the ads. Only the outliers click and outliers' outliers buy. And the multibillion empires like FB seem to be based on the premise that there are enough of the latter.

  2. Ugh by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2

    I'm not looking forward to this arms race. Close one door with advertisers, they open a new one that's more obnoxious.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    1. Re:Ugh by Blue+Stone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ad blocking was born in response to the arms race advertisers launched (and lets be fair here, also the websites that hosted them) where their ads became increasingly intolerable, obnoxious, disturbing and disruptive (to simple reading comprehension, never mind anything else). This behaviour *necessitated* a response; intitially simple pop-up blockers (now integrated into browsers AS STANDARD!) and gradually moving forward.

      If anything, we've seen a lull in hostilities for the past few years as ad blockers have proved very successful, limited only by their install base.

      The next round will probably involve websites refusing to show content until adblocking software is disabled (seen here and there already) and if/as this becomes more prevalent, ad blockers responding with stealthing mechanisms.

      Since users ultimately own the rendering device, I'm not certain the advertisers can ever win. And god knows, they lost the moral argument long, long ago.

      --
      Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
    2. Re:Ugh by stoned_ritual · · Score: 1

      The industry workaround for "owned rendering devices" is in licensing the use of the rendering device, but ownership will not be given, expressed or implied in the new EULA on your smartphone contract. Actually, I'm curious as to how that works out currently, with people effectively renting their devices from service providers, how much ownership of the device can you actually claim?

    3. Re:Ugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I see you've just identified the need for free and open hardware. I agree. There is a lot money to be made giving consumers what they really want.

      The short term money is now obtained from fucking consumers at every turn. The long term money is giving customers what they really need.

  3. Contributor by MSG · · Score: 2

    I wonder if AdBlock should refer people to alternative means of supporting web sites that publish useful content. I'd like to see something like Contributor gain widespread acceptance.

    https://www.google.com/contrib...

  4. Re:I get that ads are nessesary for websites... by grimmjeeper · · Score: 5, Funny

    The few bad apples in the basket resulted in us throwing the entire basket out of the window.

    Yeah, it's sad that 95% of the ads out there had to ruin it for the rest of them. ;)

  5. Roll Out by Translation+Error · · Score: 1

    Oh, so now it's possible to roll out Adblock Plus? I wonder what I've been doing by requiring the plug in via the Google administrative template in group policy.

    Though, it might be nice to suppress the initial run page, which seems to be what the article is actually praising.

    --
    When someone says, "Any fool can see ..." they're usually exactly right.
  6. Why? by Lumpy · · Score: 1

    Block at the firewall/server.

    http://www.privoxy.org/

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  7. Re: Who gives a FUCK what a court says? by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

    Usually the ads are provided in distingushable elements anyway, likendiv elements with specific ids or classes.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  8. Re:Great timing by johanw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What video ad? :-)

  9. What about their "acceptable" ads? by johanw · · Score: 1

    Adblock Plus defaults to letting some ads pass. Can admins block those by default as well on a large scale deployment?

  10. Boo hoo ... by gstoddart · · Score: 2

    The move is likely to concern online publishers who rely on advertising to generate revenue.

    Boo fucking hoo.

    If the ad industry is going to be a vector for malware, then too damned bad. Inside the corporate firewall, the integrity of the systems is all that matters, and your damned ad revenue isn't even relevant.

    Yes, your model says you'll make money from ads. But nobody is under any obligation to view your damned ads.

    Don't like people skipping your ads? Make it a subscription site with login required.

    Between the security risks, and the privacy implications, I will block any and all ads for as long as I have the technology to do so.

    There are 8 domains just on this page as I type this whose sole purpose for being embedded in this page is advertising revenue. And that's not my damned problem.

    I would love to see more corporate firewalls just straight up blocking ads. Corporations would probably have far less viruses and security problems.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Boo hoo ... by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      If the ad industry is going to be a vector for malware, then too damned bad. Inside the corporate firewall, the integrity of the systems is all that matters, and your damned ad revenue isn't even relevant.

      The Internet is a vector for malware, you should filter out the entire Internet.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    2. Re:Boo hoo ... by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Well, start small ... block ads, ignore sourceforge, disable Flash, block javascript.

      That probably covers a lot of it.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:Boo hoo ... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I would love to see more corporate firewalls just straight up blocking ads. Corporations would probably have far less viruses and security problems.

      Last time I checked, squid with ad-blocking was nowhere near as graceful about removing the content as Adblock plus. I have done the whole transparent squid proxy thing before though, and it's pretty cool. If I were running a corporate network today, I'd certainly do the same. It's simple enough to provide an unfiltered proxy port to the users who need unfettered access and can handle their own blocking.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  11. Why would we even want this? by AnonymousOfCourse · · Score: 1

    I don't think I understand why IT managers would want to install software that blocks only a part of the ads of websites which don't pay the company behind Adblock to be whitelisted. If you do value the websites you visit and understand they need to get some revenue, do you want to have that website to have to pay pay the company behind Adblock a third of the revenue just to let their ads go through? Won't that just make the websites have to put up more ads? Do you trust Adblock enough not to fall for bribes that will make their software capture and send your personal browsing history to 'selected bussiness partners', or to become a new malware distribution provider? Is this crappy software the best our community can invent to both get websites some revenue and at the same time avoid the in-your-face ads?

    1. Re:Why would we even want this? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Because blocking some of the ads is better than no blocking at all. For a supposedly evil whitelist, I have never once seen an ad show up with Adblock Plus.

  12. Damnit, AdBlock by StikyPad · · Score: 1

    The only reason you work is because most people don't use you. Success is the shortest path to failure, because websites *will* find another way to serve ads, whether it's through an EULA or randomizing/obfuscating the references to ads, or even serving the pages as images. Please stop trying to become more popular.

    --
    https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
    1. Re:Damnit, AdBlock by netsavior · · Score: 1

      websites *will* find another way to serve ads, whether it's through an EULA or randomizing/obfuscating the references to ads, or even serving the pages as images.

      I would be happy about an ad strategy that doesn't break the pages I want to browse. If they come up with an alternative to current ad strategies that doesn't result in accidental malware attacks and autoplay videos and flash animations, I will be too lazy to block it.

      Adblock plus is pretty much the most effective antivirus on the market, even though that isn't even their intent, and that is the primary reason I use it.

  13. DuckDuckGo by dltaylor · · Score: 2

    When I switched to DuckDuckGo, I was prompted, very politely, to allow their advertising. I whitelisted that site ONLY, and, so far, have not been burned by them (reasonably well-targeted ads, clearly identified, without visual or audible noise, and, AFAICT, no malware).

    You want a site whitelisted? Treat me with respect.

  14. This is about "Adblock Plus" not "AdBlock" by xenoc_1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seriously folks, pay some attention to the name of the product and what it means. It's stuff that matters.

    "AdBlock": A Chrome, and later other platform, ad blocking extension that has nothing whatsoever to do with "Adblock Plus" either in terms of codebase or project history.

    "Adblock Plus" (note no MixedCase): The increasingly-monetizing adblocker which is owned and marketed by for-profit company Eyeo, that Wladimir Palant created to make money with the open source adblocker he took over as maintainer years ago, but did not create. The one that takes money from advertisers to whitelist so-called "Acceptable Ads" and has that feature turned on by default, so most non-techies see ads from Eyeo customers.

    "adblock": Not a product at all but a generic term for an advertising, and sometimes also privacy, blocking extension for browsers. There are many competing products which might be generically called "adblock".

    "adblocker" A more obviously generic term for the set of "adblocker" products that include, among many others, AdBlock, Adblock Plus, Adblock Edge, Bluhell Firewall, uBlock, uBlock Origin.

    "Adblock" One of, if not the, earliest adblocking extensions for Firefox. Long obsolete, it was the inspiration for, and partially the codebase for the first version, of Adblock Plus. The maintainer of AdBlock (note the MixedCase) also claims Adblock is an inspiration for AdBlock but is no part of its codebase.

    The article is about only Adblock Plusâ from Eyeo Inc. Which has the most commercialized, most cooperative with advertisers, and some including me would say, most skeevy business model of any of the major adblocker. Though the drama around the creator of uBlock forking it to "uBlock Origin" and the massively overlarge donation-begging by the new uBlock owners are some evidence that new-uBlock is pretty skeevy too. Which is why this tablet has uBlock Origin running in Firefox.

    1. Re:This is about "Adblock Plus" not "AdBlock" by xenoc_1 · · Score: 1

      And I say unto thee, "RTFP". I explicitly noted that with this: "has that feature turned on by default, so most non-techies see ads from Eyeo customers."

      Wherein I made clear that most non-technical users, which are not most of us Slashdot members, will leave it as-is. Implied, and from years of experience with non-technical users, because non-techies don't know/don't understand how/are afraid, to change anything from "normal".

      Which means that Eyeo, Inc. continues to create a big user base of "pay for play" payola opportunities to sell to Google, Amazon, and other ad networks. And indeed they do sell the right to be listed as "Acceptable Ads" - it's right on their website, buried in weasel-words but there, and it's been in plenty of news articles about them. You do the DuckBingGoogle if you want cites of sites. Yes, the small guys, like my blog or yours, can probably get listed as "Acceptable" for free, and Eyeo will have a big public discussion on each and every one of those on their site, because, "transparency". But the details of the huge moneyflows from Google et al will not be there.

      Here's the thing: Ad blockers are not default in any browser nor as part of any operating system. Which means that anyone who installs an ad blocker has already made an affirmative choice to block ads. That means it's contrary to common sense and clearly against the desire of the user, for any "ad blocker" to have a default setting that deliberately allows ads - ANY ads.

      Unless, of course, the "user" AKA "the customer" is NOT the person who installs the adblocker. Unless that person is the product. And for Eyeo, the person using Adblock Plus is no longer the user/customer, they are the "product" - the eyeballs being sold to their real customer, the companies that pay Eyeo to be part of the "Acceptable Ads" program.

      It's not "you can just turn it off". It's how the very concept of a partially non-blocking adblocker, and a very non-transparent financial arrangement between Eeyo and "BigAdNetworks", is inherently contrary to the baseline concept and user case for an adblocker.

      Obviously I didn't need somebody to lecture me about the existing of Adblock Edge, or the ABP checkbox, or the other various adblocking options, when I put references to such things right in my post.

      And for the record, in the years of using Adblock Edge, its brief predecessor Adblock Light, the pre-Acceptable Ads Adblock Plus, and since this month, uBlock and now after reflection on their ethics, uBlock Origin instead, I have and continue to un-block many sites, specific third-party networks, major affiliate-link trackers such as Amazon Associates, Commission Junction, Shareasale, Linkshare, etc., so that small webmasters and some large websites who aren't eyebleed-inducing, can get some potential monetization from my use. I even sometimes go back to look for and click through an ad of specific interest, or via a site's affiliate link, to a product/service I'm considering buying. I also run a few affiliate link ads on some of my own sites - and make sure I do nothing to force people to unblock them. In fact, I suggest adblockers and privacy blockers right in the privacy policy on my sites.

      Difference between that and the skeevy policies of Adblock Plus/Eyeo: Transparency and full choice. Choice on my part as to ads I want to see, choice on visitors to my sites on how they can not see ads and not get into my analytics. No pay-for-play, no whitelisting decisions made for somebody else.

      Anybody who can't see the difference is either a) brainwashed, b) a sockpuppet for the ad industry, c) a sockpuppet for Eyeo/Adblock Plus (which really is part of the ad industry at this point), or d) naïve.

      Ghostery, Inc is totally open and fully upfront about their connection to the advertising industry. And their not-quite-equivalent feature is OPT-IN, rather than OPT-OUT.

      AdBlock (Chrome) as far as I know was never really Open Source - it was one-time-nag (install-time) donationware but not with a "libre" li

  15. Re:wait... Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    after a German court ruled the practice was legal

    I think you misread that part.

  16. I'd Like the Old Internet Back Please by lazarus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't care what happens to websites that rely on advertising revenue to stay alive. I preferred the "web" when the content was provided by enthusiasts, not corporate clowns. And yes, that definitely includes this web site.

    I don't feel even the slightest bit of shame for blocking ads. You use technology against me. I'll use it against you.

    --
    I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
    1. Re:I'd Like the Old Internet Back Please by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I preferred the "web" when the content was provided by enthusiasts, not corporate clowns.

      You mean the tiny web with less content which was more difficult to find and for the most part had a lack of common content aggregation beyond (and I'm throwing up in my mouth as I type this) web rings?

      No thanks. I'll take today's web with a basic adblocker any day. The internet was orders of magnitude less useful when run by enthusiasts because quite frankly a lot of people don't share things for free.

  17. Enough is enough by raxtich · · Score: 2

    You know, I was willing to accept a few ads on a website because I understood the need to generate revenue. But I finally had to resort to installing AdBlock because it seems many websites forgot about actual content in favor of revenue. It got to the point of absolute ridiculousness, there were pages with maybe one or two paragraphs of content buried under tons of zooming, flashing, auto-playing, screen-covering crap that it just wasn't worth the bother, so I would just click away. It also doesn't help that the #1 reason for my browser crashes and lockups where because of some stupid Flash ad.

  18. Your router by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2

    Whatever you use for a router can do it. I have a Netgear open source router. Flashed it with Tomato firmware, then installed the MVPS Hosts file on it. A startup script updates the Hosts file at boot, and then every four days after booting. Of course, the concept isn't exclusive to Netgear, or to commercial routers. Install it on your gateway, whatever that gateway may be.

    I would be interested to hear how much bandwidth you save by blocking advertising for a company. I'd also be interested in learning how much your internet improves in terms of responsiveness. It made a big difference for me, but I don't administer hundreds or thousands of computers.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  19. Re:I used to work for Broadcom by DickBreath · · Score: 1

    That is a real shame.

    It would seem better to use ad-blocking at all the major internet backbones and interconnection points.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  20. Re:flash driven ad's suck by DickBreath · · Score: 1

    While I agree with your sentiment, the word you are looking for is 'bite'.

    flash driven ads bite

    For example those unwanted "Video Bytes" inserts on Slashdot which should be titled "Video Bites".

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  21. Re:I just want some security myself... by weilawei · · Score: 1

    10 minutes later, the VM was infected with a rootkit, proven when I snapshotted the VM, and scanned its disk with an AV utility.

    I don't know what websites you browse or how your security is set up, but you are doing something incredibly wrong if you're getting infected 10 minutes in.

    My own policy is no box touches a network (beginning with installation) until a firewall is active and all services are locked down/disabled except for absolutely necessary ones. Then, I take a flash drive and drop a copy of a few essentials on to the new box (browser, plugins, firewall/AV for windows boxes). Once the box is locked down, it can go online and finish getting updates. If I were really paranoid, I'd host a local repo.

    Viruses? Malware? What are those? I'm forever cleaning off boxen for friends and family, but I never have to clean my own...

  22. Question by Stan92057 · · Score: 1

    Question how do we keep sites from scanning our PCs to see if we have an ad blocker installed? what can be done if anything to stop them from doing that. If they can scan for an ad blocker im guessing they are scanning for everything we have installed.

    --
    Jack of all trades,master of none
    1. Re:Question by orient · · Score: 1

      Question how do we keep sites from scanning our PCs to see if we have an ad blocker installed? what can be done if anything to stop them from doing that. If they can scan for an ad blocker im guessing they are scanning for everything we have installed.

      They do not scan your computer. Their scripts running in your browser just check for a cookie or a session parameter that should have been set by the ad-showing script. If that's missing, you have an ad blocker.

      --
      Laudele lor desigur m-ar mahni peste masura.
    2. Re:Question by Scoth · · Score: 1

      This gets into the arms race thing again. Right now some sites/ad networks are doing things like setting cookies, parameters, checking logs, etc to make sure that you've hit the ad server. Alternatively, sometimes they'll use annoying NOSCRIPT code (or just rely on ad scripts to do something to the main page content) to blow up the website somehow if the ad scripts aren't loaded. There are any number of ways to detect whether adblockers are running or not.

      Right now, most websites are still feeling like bad press and lost market share generated by turning away visitors with adblockers aren't worth it, so you'll usually see something fairly unobtrusive asking to unblock the site. At some point, especially if adblocking reaches a tipping point, more and more sites might actually start blocking content if ads are blocked. If this happens, adblockers will have to come up with a way to convince the networks that the ads are loaded, even when they aren't. Sadly this might require going back to the way adblocking used to be done whereby the whole page was loaded, and then ads were removed. This will hurt the bandwidth savings since all that will have to be downloaded anyway, and may also open up some attack vectors since scripts will have to execute somewhere.

      Just the nature of the arms race. Probably the best-case scenario is that most mainstream websites will never want to risk alienating visitors and completely wall off their content to adblockers. We may start seeing more paywalls and microtransaction requirements though.

  23. There are other options now by Foresto · · Score: 1

    I've already dumped Adblock Plus and moved on to uBlock Origin, which I trust a bit more to do the right thing.

  24. Fire any administrator who does this by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

    Seriously WHY would you want to deploy a plugin to 100s of users when you can be far more effective and far more secure at the gateway??? Run a proxy, filter at the proxy. Your individual machines should not be getting direct access to the internet anyway.

    1. Re:Fire any administrator who does this by vyvepe · · Score: 1
      Can the proxy filter remove specific tags from an html document?

      Like for example remove all div elements with class name "advertisement"?

    2. Re:Fire any administrator who does this by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

      Yes they can. http://www.psl.cs.columbia.edu... is specifically designed for the extraction of content based on class names.

  25. ADP Large Scale Deployments in IT? WTF? by kosmosik · · Score: 1

    As I know from my job experience large scale IT deployments inside their WAN networks can filter whatever the fuck they want. Sudden appearance of ADP as an enterprise deployable package - who the fuck cares? We are right now black/white listing all the stuff we need. Who needs to introduce something like ADP that probably can mess with loads of internal services and need to be tested if you could just not use it? if an user has a problem with advertisements he/she is probably far away of what he/she should be doing on their workstation.

  26. Re:I just want some security myself... by weilawei · · Score: 1

    Seriously, when was the last time you were infected by a flash drive? I suppose you pick them up in parking lots and plug them in, do you?

  27. Re:Who gives a FUCK what a court says? by amber_of_luxor · · Score: 1

    >When an ad looks like editorial content, it becomes hard to impossible to have an automatic script that identifies ad content

    There is/was an extension for Firefox that identified opinion pieces as third party advertising masquerading as an opinion piece.

    The surprising thing was how much content on "news" sites was third party advertising, masquerading as a "reliable news source".

    --
    Wind Beneath Thy Wings
  28. Cry me a river. by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

    The move is likely to concern online publishers who rely on advertising to generate revenue.

    Choose a phrase composed from the following words in any descending alphabetical order : "shit" ; "tough."

    If loss of advertising revenue means that I have to choose which websites to pay for my news, mail service, etc, then that's just dandy and fine. Oddly, when I go to the cinema to watch a movie, I choose which one I want to watch then pay (and annoyingly still get some adverts, but by turning up 20 minutes late I can avoid that). When I go to the newsagent, I choose which newspaper I want to read, then buy it. What is different about the web?

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  29. Re:Hosts = already on everything & updating? by ZorglubZ · · Score: 1

    Can the HOSTS file block these incessant ads about the glory of the HOSTS file? Is it truly the final solution that will forevermore remove the blight that is APK Hosts File Engine spam? If so, sign me up!