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The Real Cost of Mobile Ads
New submitter cvdwl writes: A New York Times (mildly paywalled) article and associated analysis discuss the consumer cost of mobile ads, assuming a US$0.01/MB data plan. The article provides one of the only estimates I've seen of the the real cost in time and money (and time is money) of mobile advertising. Ethics of ad-blockers aside, this highlights the hidden costs of data-heavy (often lazy and poorly developed) web-design. In a nutshell, the worst sites took 10-30s load 10-20MB, costing $0.15-0.40, over 4G due to a blizzard of video, heavy images, and occasionally just massive scripts. The best sites had high content to ad ratios, typically loading 1-3MB of content and >500kB of advertising.
typically loading 1-3MB of content and >500kB of advertising
I'm pretty sure that should be <500kB of advertising.
The best sites had high content to ad ratios, typically loading 1-3MB of content and >500kB of advertising.
I guess somebody doesn't know than > means greater than, and would make the site worse, not better.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
We pay to be spied on via analytics, and potentially have malware delivered through badly written ad platforms, and as a result we effectively subsidize the profits of ad companies.
At least, I assume it is, NYT is paywalled and I've blocked them in my browser entirely.
Tell you what, let the ad companies pay for all that cellular data and see what they do. Because I assume millions and millions of dollars are used daily to deliver their "product".
Ad blocking is about security, it's about privacy, and it's about making the best use of a metered resource.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Until the advent of adblockers for mobile devices, browsing the Web on a mobile device was not fun.
I've been considering a proxy-like service that allows a user to proxy through a server that strips out all the bad stuff like ads, beacons, tracking junk. I'd like to set this up and try it with my family and friends to test the viability.
I block them all. The biggest advantage for an android phone over all others is that it's easy to blot out all ad's from all networks across all apps.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I sometimes see those "if you like this site, please turn off your ad blocker" banners on sites that I do actually like.
So, a few times, I have turned off the ad blocker, just to see what would happen. The results are always either, one, incredibly intrusive and distracting autoplaying videos playing at random moments, or two, the site just stops working completely because, even on a medium-performance laptop with a business-class data connection, the web browser just can't handle the gigabytes and gigabytes of advertisements that the site is trying to push over the wire.
Maybe if there was a browser that let you opt out of loading, then autoplaying, enormous video files without plugins, I would consider it. But until then, the blocker stays on, thanks.
If you live in America, Jesus you guys have the worst cell phone companies in the world and you just accept it.
This underscores one of my main reasons for running some ad blockers. Even in the desktop world, not everyone has a quad-core 3GHz i7 machine with 16GB of RAM. I have an older Mac limited to 2GB (and a slower processor). Some sites I visit lock up my machine for many minutes while they try to render 23 flash video ads, 400 pages of java, and a GB of browser chrome. I've just learned to not visit some of those sites any more since they ruin my browsing experience.
And no, I do not feel the need to spend $1500 on a new machine just so advertisers can serve me up more ads faster.
If other sites adopted the /. style of ads, we'd probably not be complaining that much.
But there's something infuriating when I load up my browser, load up a news page and get the top banner, then nothing as it attempts to load every ad on the face of the net into the page. No, that's not the part that pisses me off, it's the fact that I can click "stop" to stop the page from loading and, low and behold, all of the content that couldn't load is now there, without the ads.
Loading your BS infected ads before your content shows me exactly what the deal is.
What about just blocking ads while using a metered service such as data? If it's on Wi-Fi, let them through. Well, as a compromise. Okay, mod me down now.
typically loading 1-3MB of content and >500kB of advertising
I'm pretty sure that should be <500kB of advertising.
Yep... mea culpa. As soon as I saw it go up, I cringed and went wildly searching for the edit function. And the sentence before that should read: ".. took 10-30s to load 10-20MB ...". Submit in haste, repent at leisure.
... grumble, grumble, grumble, mutter, mutter, Millenium... Hand... Shrimp, I tol' 'em, I tol' 'em.
adblock.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Years ago we had laws that came about from unethical ad companies that would robo dial people ten or more times a day and use up all their fax paper pushing dubious products. Basically the law stated that advertising was illegal if the receiver had to pay anything to receive it or it prevented genuine messages from getting through (by using up all the fax paper, or answering machine tape, etc.). This was years before the mobile industry really took off.
Unfortunately in recent times those unethical ad companies bribed enough corrupt politicians to take those laws off the books or otherwise make them ineffective, I'm not sure which. These laws need to return.
While trying to click on this post I accidentally hovered over a banner ad that suddenly went full screen. The new Taboola ads are the worst. They are shamefully inappropriate in an almost comical way.
I have a list of 10 websites that I bring up on my iPad every morning (/. being one of them). I don't have a good WiFi connection, so I use the 1GB/mo cellular plan from Verizon. About a year and a half ago just scanning through those sites and reading the headlines used about 10MBs of data. Fair enough. Last month *just reading the headlines* was taking about 45MBs. I installed the Peace ad blocker when iOS9 came out, still have it, even through it's been discontinued, and this morning going through those sites and even reading a couple of articles took 8MBs. For some reason I could only get a 3G connection this morning, instead of LTE. I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE! until I went to turn off the cell radio.
If anyone wants me to go back to the old days they are going to have to pay ME for clicking on their ads.
Why is /. so crappy on an iPad? The comments don't behave well at all.
At a minimum allowing every site to run arbitrary code is moronic. Which means I need to know if I care enough about your content and have any trust in you before I allow you to run scripts.
How should a site go about gaining the user's trust? I imagine that one way to gain the user's trust is to offer a subset of functionality that works without any client-side script. But this is impractical for a lot of sites, and UX could suffer severely. For example, in a web application for drawing a picture, there is a workaround for not being able to use JS+SVG or JS+Canvas, but it's painful. The site could use server-side web forms, which allow interaction only through clicking, not dragging, and re-send the entire picture after every click. That not only wastes more bandwidth than wise use of scripts but also makes it difficult to use many paint tools.
But I'll just click the back button and move on.
Have fun using your search engine all day but not finding anything because you hit the back button on every result.
People have been bitching about web ads and blocking them since the 1990s. And now it's rather suddenly a big thing. I'm not trying to downplay the issue, but just trying to figure out how it suddenly got huge. (Just as I wouldn't downplay how great Iron Maiden's Powerslave album is, but it's as though there are suddenly a lot of news stories in 2015 about how cool the song "Aces High" is. I don't disagree; I just don't see why it's on the tip of everyone's lips, but wasn't a year ago.)
If you like Iron Maiden and ad blocking, that's fine. If you don't like Iron Maiden or you prefer to look at ads, that's fine too. I'm not talking about the sides -- what I don't get is how it's a big new thing? Is this all merely about how it recently got a little easier for iOS users? Did Congress pass some new law about it? Did ad blockers (or countermeasures against them) suddenly get more or less effective? Was malware found in a junkbuster binary? Did Google have a shockingly large loss for a quarter? WHAT HAPPENED?
Ethics is not at all concerned with your perceived entitlement to peoples' eyes and internet connections.
Which is why you unblock what actually makes the site function while cutting out all the pointless junk it tries to load alongside it
Until "what makes the site function" crashes because it raises an exception when querying "the pointless junk". This has happened with an HTML5 Pac-Man game that someone recommended to me in a comment to a story about the demise of Flash. Normally I use the tracking protection that Firefox exposes through about:config, and I had to click the back button because the error console showed a ReferenceError: _gaq is not defined when the site failed to properly catch the failure to load Google Analytics. This caused me to feel embarrassed to myself when I couldn't offer my opinion on it.
After I buy a product, I see ads for it. That's a complete waste of time and bandwidth.
How is it "a complete waste of time and bandwidth" to attempt to convince you to buy more for your friends and family, or to buy replacements for a consumable item such as food or printer paper?
What about just blocking ads while using a metered service such as data?
Because some people have metered service at home. In rural areas and parts of Seattle, the only ISPs faster than the 128 kbps of ISDN are cellular and satellite, which are metered.
Whether the ad exists or not, you pay the same phone+internet monthly bill unless you're a heavy user who uses up every last byte of monthly capacity.
A lot of people whose only available home ISPs are cellular or satellite end up being that type of user.
Make ads text-based or vector-graphics based or something else that uses less bandwidth.
Except that the demise of Flash Player, which doesn't work on recent Android and has never worked on iOS, has driven advertisers to pre-render their SWF vector graphics ads to video, which uses more bandwidth.
Your security & your bandwidth/speed (as in caps) - imo, those are what HURT the users of smartphones the most!
E.G./I.E. -> To back myself on the security end per my subject-line above + my statements above as well?
These 2 links are what have "hit" PC & smartphone users the past few years now:
http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
&
http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
(From when I enumerated them the other day here in another ads-oriented article, there's the ~ 30 accounts of ads sending malicious exploits in them both & they are only PARTIALLY what happened - FAR from the total!)
APK
P.S.=> Additionally, of course, there is again the fact that's undeniable you smartphones users have bandwidth caps & SINCE MOST WEBSITES ARE UP TO 50% ADS IN THEIR PAGES, you tell ME how badly advertisers are stealing bandwidth + yes, speed, since those have size too, from you users... apk
Every time one goes to a web site with advertisements the ADs get loaded and start to play, even when they are not on the screen, above, below or to the side. Yet YOU are paying for the kilo, megs, gigabytes that they send you, It get ridiculous with some pages, several video ads start playing, you can't see them, but you can hear their audio all trying to drown out the others, and YOU are paying your ISP for the privilege of listening to this cacophony. Another issue, you are mildly watching some ad, you get called away for what ever, your child need to go to the store... yet you still get charged for the gigabytes the advertisement requests while your not even in the house, so no way are you being entertained. I would insist that after 5min. playing the browser put up a query if you are still interested in watching. Yeah I know one does not want to interrupted in the middle of Game of Thrones to answer queries, but the browser knows where the data is coming from and can check once and then let it play. I would mandate that the browsers are intelligent enough to know if and when the ads are visable and totally block them if they are not visable, would save a lot of download data.
But you haven't donated to slashdot... at least with this account.
Your robot needs to read the post next time... I'm sure the GP would be happy to use APK's hosts file if it was a simple text file with a static URL, not embedded in a windows program download.
Researchers have also found that in-app mobile ads have even higher costs. The press release (here) and paper (here) showed that apps with these ads consume an average of 16% more energy – but up to 33% more; 48% more CPU time, resulting in noticeable slowdowns in the app’s response time; and uses around 79% more network data, costing an estimated 1.7 cents every time they’re used. For app developers there was also a cost in terms of increased maintenance effort, increased complaints, and lower ratings.
...about those damn HOSTS FILES!
Can adblock+ do 16 things hosts do for speed, security, & reliability:
1.) Protect vs. malicious sites/servers (past ads)
2.) Protect vs. fastflux botnets + stop C&C communique
3.) Protect vs. dynamic dns botnets + stop C&C communique
4.) Protect vs. DGA botnets + stop C&C communique
5.) Protect vs. downed DNS (adds reliability)
6.) Protect vs. DNS redirect poisoned dns
7.) Protect vs. trackers
8.) Protect vs. spam
9.) Protect vs. phish
10.) Protect vs. caps
11.) Get you past a dns blocking
12.) Keep you off dns request logs
13.) Speed up surfing by adblocks & hardcoded fav. sites
14.) Work on anything webbound (ie email programs) multiplatform.
15.) Give you easily controlled data
16.) Do all that & block ads better than addons more efficiently in cpu cycles + memory usage
* ANSWER ="NO" to each on ab+ doing it as well or @ ALL + hosts = already on every device natively.
APK
P.S.=> Ab+ does less than hosts & less efficiently - hosts do MORE w/ less + Hosts start w/ the IP stack before REDUNDANT inefficient addons BEGIN to operate (as 1st resolver queried).
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Ab+'s 128mb memory inefficiency http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-conte... (hosts consume 3-11mb using my program initially).
---
ClarityRay defeats it by dumping addons in use in a browser via native browser methods!
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Ab+'s paid to not do its job http://www.businessinsider.com...
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Ab+ adds complexity from a slower mode of operations (usermode = more messagepassing overheads vs. hosts in kernelmode).
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AdBlock's SLOWER than hosts: http://superuser.com/questions...
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What's best?
APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit http://start64.com/index.php?o...
MalwareBytes' hpHosts Admin (MalwareBytes employee) hosts & recommends it http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl... & MalwareBytes = BEST antivirus http://www.av-test.org/en/news...
&
It's GUARANTEED safe per 57 antivirus programs in BOTH its 64-bit model https://www.virustotal.com/en/...
+
Its 32-bit model too https://www.virustotal.com/en/...
... apk
See subject & APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit http://start64.com/index.php?o...
FREE & not 'souled-out' to advertisers, + adds speed, security, & reliability, doing FAR more w/ FAR less, more efficiently vs. browser addons & locally installed DNS servers @ home + fixes DNS' redirect security issues!
It obtains its data vs. online threats & adbanner blocking from 10 reputable sites in the security community!
It SPEEDS YOU UP 2 ways (adblocking + locally cached in RAM favorites placed @ the TOP of hosts for fastest resolution speed), whereas by way of comparison, other "so-called security 'solutions'" SLOW YOU DOWN!
It does all that using something you already have vs. "bolting on browser addons 'MOAR' in addons that's usermode slower & increases messagepassing, cpu + ram overuse overheads!
* :)
MalwareBytes' hpHosts Admin (MalwareBytes employee) hosts & recommends it -> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl... & MalwareBytes = BEST antivirus per this VERY recent testing of them all http://www.av-test.org/en/news...
&
It's GUARANTEED safe & clean per it being checked by 57 antivirus programs recently in BOTH its 64-bit model https://www.virustotal.com/en/...
+
In its 32-bit model also https://www.virustotal.com/en/...
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"The premise is quite simple: Take something designed by nature & reprogram it to make it work for the body rather than against it..." - Dr. Alice Krippen: "I am legend"...
APK
P.S.=> By "yours truly" - "The Lord of Hosts" so-to-speak:
PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:
"The image this title brings to mind is of a mighty military commander, one who can at a mere word summon rank upon rank of protective power" from https://answers.yahoo.com/ques... & THAT WORD = hosts!
(Accept NO substitutes!)
...apk
Learn to read. Rooted phones are noted. ADB can do a hosts file import using its pull command easily for a smartphone from a pc (where you develop apps for smartphones anyway using that Android Debugging Bridge).
See subject: AdBlock Plus did http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... & what do THEY DO? Not block ads by default BRIBED NOT TO DO THE SINGLE JOB THEY HAD http://www.businessinsider.com...
* YOU FAIL as always vs. me, especially on THIS note -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
( I find it HILARIOUS you fools either troll & stalk me over that OR downmod it constantly which I just blow past & repost since I have NO LIMITS unlike most ac posters, on how much I can post here... nullifying your 1 effete 'weapon' with ease, & showing everyone here YOU CAN'T TOUCH THAT LIST or me, lol... YOU ARE HELPING ME, & moreso with LIES outta you!)
APK
P.S.=> When will you dolts EVER LEARN that spouting falsehoods IS YOUR UNDOING morons... apk