iOS Ad Blocker "Crystal" Will Let Companies Pay To Show You Ads

pdclarry writes: Apple's iOS 9 now supports ad blockers. The most popular of these, Peace, was withdrawn after only a couple of days because the developer thought "it just doesn't feel good." Crystal then quickly rose to the top of the heap. But the developer of Crystal has announced that it will allow "acceptable ads" — for a fee from the advertiser. Crystal is a paid app; so you can now pay for the privilege of seeing ads.

Comments

That's just... dishonest

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear consumer,

Pay me money for my ad-blocking app!

Dead advertiser,

Hey, I got all these saps... er customers to pay me for ad blocking! Now pay me money for the privilege to advertise to them!!

Sincerely,

Jackass developer.

Re: That's just... dishonest

[mattventura]

The sad part is that for whatever reason, stuff that you would never dream of paying for on a desktop costs money on iOS. Everything from adblockers to solitaire games either seem to cost money or be ad-riddled.

Re: That's just... dishonest

[fracas]

I actually did pay for it, and just demanded a refund. This is total bait-and-switch to the consumer, and extortion of the advertiser. Dean Murphy is scum.

Re: That's just... dishonest

[AuMatar]

THe reason is that it costs money to develop for iOS. Developing for windows, Linux, and even Mac is free. iOS costs 100 a year. Even Android is just 25 one time (and that's only to put your apps on the play store, not to make a sideloadable app). Because of this, devs wanted to make their money back. That stopped the early creation of free (cost) and open source software.

Re: That's just... dishonest

[TWX]

It may not actually be, but sometimes it feels like a perversion of the open-source movement, which had a whole lot of people writing small utilities or programs and distributing them because they enjoyed doing it. Obviously Linux and Free/Net/Open BSD had the most truly free software, but there was a lot of open-source software distributed for Windows and MacOSX platforms. At some point the application-store model took over as it became increasingly difficult to install software from any random source onto iOS and Android platforms and the small-transaction model became more and more prevalent. Now it's working its way into Windows devices and MacOSX devices.

I suppose this is why I don't install a lot of non-stock programs on my phone. There have been some programs that started out all right, but after they became somewhat popular the developer started adding ads and requesting increasing permissions. It would be one thing if these programs did something truly original and novel, but some programs like loan/mortgage calculators are based on algorithms that anyone can implement.

Re: That's just... dishonest

[stevel]

See http://www.imore.com/how-to-ge...

Re: That's just... dishonest

[pushing-robot]

1. You can buy a new Mac plus iPhone for half that. Replace the iPhone with an iPod Touch or iPad to save a few hundred more. Used devices also work fine.

2. With minor tweaking you can get OS X running in a VM, use XCode's iOS simulator to do most of your development testing, and invite friend(s) with iOS devices to do on-device beta testing.

3. Then again, if you have no interest in owning or using an Apple product, it's probably best you don't develop for the platform.

4. http://www.penny-arcade.com/co...

Re: That's just... dishonest

[Anonymous Coward]

Starting with IOS9 you can compile and deploy apps on your device without being enrolled in IOS Developer Program. You only need to pay if you want to publish it in the App Store.

That sounds like fraud to me

[msobkow]

Changing the terms of the agreement for purchased products is not in the same league as changing the terms of a free product. When people pay for something, they expect it to do what they paid for.

Dear Crystal author.....

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Dear Crystal author,

Fuck you.

Sincerely,

-JustAnotherOldGuy

Re:Dear Crystal author.....

[Opportunist]

close page
search for another page serving same content
5 seconds of googling later...

You don't want to give me what I want? Ok. No problem.

NEXT!

Re:Dear Crystal author.....

[The Grim Reefer]

BRB, there's some lawyers at the door who say they're from Apple. Should I use a shotgun or a chainsaw?

Yes.

Old adage

[qbast]

If you are not paying then you are the product. Unfortunately if your are paying, nothing prevents company from selling you anyway

"Supports"?

[wonkey_monkey]

Apple's iOS 9 now supports ad blockers.

I think you mean "deigns to allow you to install".

Should Go the Other Way

[Anonymous Coward]

If people are paying for an ad-blocker, that means they are willing to PAY for sites without ads. The smart thing to do would be to sell ad-free access to sites through the "ad-blocker" - the site gets paid, the user is happy.

Just figure out a way to do it that doesn't involve tracking the user in the process because modern ad-blocking is at least as much about tracker-blocking as it is about ad-blocking.

Optional

[Mr_Silver]

As long as the developer of Crystal puts a tickbox in the preferences to allow you to block "acceptable advertising" then I don't see the issue. I understand that Crystal doesn't have a preferences screen right now, but it shouldn't be that hard to add one.

People who are happy to see adverts as long as they meet some sort of "acceptable" criteria can have it turned off - and people who just never want to see an advert again can turn it on.

Please don't let it be a repeat of Adblock Plus where all the nerdrage drowned out the few voices of reason that merely pointed out that all the anger could be resolved with the unchecking of a single tickbox in the preferences.

Re:Refund?

[jazzis]

http://www.imore.com/how-to-ge...

Bait and switch

[fishscene]

I requested a refund. Seems like Apple promptly granted it to me. Not sure when the funds will be returned to my account though. I *strongly* urge everyone to do the same out of principle. Sling-Media pulled this stunt with the Slingbox. We need to nip this sort of thing in the bud.

I just don't know what to say....

[MrKrillls]

Remember: "If you are not the customer, you're the product."? I don't remember ever seeing "You are the customer AND you are the product."

Re:I just don't know what to say....

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I don't remember ever seeing "You are the customer AND you are the product."

Hey man, get with the new paradigm. (The new paradigm is $49.95 a month, plus taxes and other applicable fees, shipping, handling, etc. Thank you for your continued patronage.)

Isn't that what we asked for?

[Wrath0fb0b]

I thought we said we wanted adblock because there were too many ads using (pick any/all):
      [ ] Tracking cookies
      [ ] Pop-ups
      [ ] Pop-unders
      [ ] Click-throughs
      [ ] Flash or other auto-play media
      [ ] Obtrusive (mid-article) placement
      [ ] Annoying (blinking!) styling
      [ ] Malware (usually flash based)

Of course companies do that because they have an incentive to do so. Now a company is saying -- hey, we'll give you an incentive to use unobtrusive ads -- they'll actually reach more people (including the much sought-after millennials who use adblockers the most). And we're upset that the incentive will align towards them?

I mean, if you point was to fuck the advertisers -- sure. But say that upfront, don't gripe about the method and then get all upset when someone tries to devise a scheme for reasonable ads.

Crystal == whores

[kheldan]

If that's the way they want to do things, then they're basically creating malware and nobody should use their app.

Just like cable.

[sims 2]

Just like cable.

No longer top ad blocking app.

[GrahamCox]

...and Crystal plummets out of sight in 3...2...1...

Me, I'm a bit miffed that I finally upgraded my iPhone 4S to iOS 9 so that I could install an ad-blocker, but then find that the 4S doesn't support ad blockers because it doesn't have a 64-bit chip. I have no idea why an ad blocker would require that. Some claim it needs high performance, but that doesn't make sense - surely blocking an ad reduces the performance required to display a page? Don't get it, seems like Apple just arbitrarily decided that ad blocking needs a modern device as an upgrade driver.

Privelege to be FREE of infestation #1/2... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a SMALL partial only sample of OpenBid & other ad networks malware makers have taken advantage of to infect you with:

http://www.itworld.com/securit...

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.co...

http://www.zdnet.com/ad-exec-o...

http://search.slashdot.org/sto...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023...

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.co...

http://www.securityweek.com/ea...

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/m...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

APK

P.S.=> See subject & those links (AND we're free of ads that not only INFECT US, but also STEAL BANDWIDTH & SPEED WE PAY FOR MONTHLY too) - to be continued in my next subsequent post with MORE of the same information for you vs. your b.s. advertiser

... apk

Didn't they just add a bunch of networking stuff

[rsilvergun]

that ad blockers needed to work? Firefox has all that stuff (my firefox plug-in needs it to build youtube links). I've been trying to finish a Chrome port in my spare time but Chrome is missing a lot of that stuff and I haven't found a good way to hack it in (my C/C++-fu is only so-so).

Fund the websites

[gringer]

People are prepared to pay money to block ads, and advertisers are prepared to pay money to keep ads being displayed. How about using some of that money to pay for maintenance of the websites that have blocked ads?

Re:Pay-for-access idea

[cfalcon]

How about an ad blocker that blocks ads.

what's wrong

[Tom]

Here is what's wrong with all this bullshit in one sentence:

If your company wants to show me ads, you pay me for my time and attention.

Not some software developer, not some marketing company that promises to bypass all my filters, not some spammer who will flood my inbox, not anyone who basically made it a profession to show me crap that I don't want to see.

You are using my time, my resources, my attention, you want to get inside my brain, put a message into my memory. Why don't you nitwits not get the very simple conclusion that you should put money into my pocket to make that happen?