Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Adblock Plus Reduces University's Network Traffic By 25 Percent

Posted by Soulskill on from the blocking-youtube-would-cut-the-other-75% dept.

Mickeycaskill writes: Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada claims it cut 25% of its network traffic (40% of video traffic) by deploying Adblock Plus across its internal network. The study tested the ability of the Adblock Plus browser extension (PDF) in reducing IP traffic when installed in a large enterprise network environment, and found that huge amounts of data transfer were saved by blocking web-based advertisements and video trailers. The experiment was carried out over a period of six weeks. Disclaimer: the study was funded by Adblock Plus.

6 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I believe it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    We block advertising at the web proxy on our corporate network, and the savings is substantial, easily 25% when I look at the traffic reports/dashboards. Never mind protection from a malware vector, the improved browsing experience and network relief makes ad blocking a no brainer.

  2. reduces some traffic, enables others. by nimbius · · Score: 3, Informative

    Adblock plus has a coloured history of cherrypicking advertisers to quietly ignore. It was accused of accepting bribes from google to allow their ads. it has a whitelist of ads it considers tasteful enough to allow as well. Its also been fingered for slowing the browser experience for many users.

    try microblock instead. And dont rely on just adblocking plugins to keep the network clean. null route known ad servers at home and work using a blacklist http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/. the same process can be applied to rooted android phones as well, creating an ad-free experience that saves you money.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:reduces some traffic, enables others. by Bengie · · Score: 4, Informative

      Adblock plus has a coloured history of cherrypicking advertisers to quietly ignore

      They openly advertise this, pun intended. They do claim to have a minimum quality requirement for whitelisted companies, and companies need to pay to get on that white list. Breaking the terms by having questionable ads can remove the companies from the whitelist forcing them to pay all over again. I seems to be done in a way that would cost a company more to break the rules.

  3. I believe it too, and also a pitch for Ghostery by dskoll · · Score: 4, Informative

    AdBlock Plus is awesome. Another really useful tool is Ghostery. It might not reduce bandwidth dramatically, but by blocking beacons, trackers, etc. it junks tons of JavaScript content and makes web pages render far more quickly. This really improves the browsing experience.

  4. Re:I believe it... by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Informative

    Gotta agree here, big-time. Even my own impromptu testing with AdBlock on/off shows that, as an example, roughly 20-30% of Facebook's packets carry advertisements to my browser. Sites like /. have the percentage down to something like 10% or so, personal and fringe sites maybe 5%, and at the other end, any ZDNet/CNET owned website blasts out soemthing like 25-35%. Don't ask what tomshardware.com and the gaming websites throw at you...

    While it's nothing more than an annoyance on my home machinery, I know that when I'm tethered, it makes a *huge* effing difference in data usage. I have it firmly installed on my mobile for just this reason.

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  5. Where are the uBlock people? by waspleg · · Score: 4, Informative

    I remember a related story a few months ago and I was using Adblock Edge (forked non-sell out version of ABP) and advocating it. People kept spamming my thread saying that uBlock was better. So I tried it out and am now a convert. It is in fact lighter weight and nearly transparent, but since they don't pay for placement you have to search for it 2x in the add-ons to find it.

    I primarily use Firefox, with uBlock (you can enable even stricter subsets of rules if you want, I did without issue), HTTPS Everywhere and Privacy Badger (the last 2 are from the EFF). I only see ads at work on other people's machines. There are other good add-ons for other stuff but this + wipe everything on browser close and private windows are nice.

    The only memory leaks seem to come from anything Flash based. So I'm forced to kill/restart FF every few days or it gets progressively slower and slower. I've noticed it's not really an issue without something running Flash.