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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 The most popular of these, Peace, was withdrawn after only a couple of days because the developer thought "it just doesn't feel good."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.
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.
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.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Dear Crystal author,
Fuck you.
Sincerely,
-JustAnotherOldGuy
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
If you are not paying then you are the product. Unfortunately if your are paying, nothing prevents company from selling you anyway
Apple's iOS 9 now supports ad blockers.
I think you mean "deigns to allow you to install".
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
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.
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.
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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.
...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.
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).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
How about an ad blocker that blocks ads.