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ASUS To Include AdBlock Plus On All Phones and Tablets In 2016 (betanews.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-more-ads dept.

JoeyRox writes: Starting in 2016 Asus will ship all phones and tablets with AdBlock Plus integrated into their mobile browser. The ad-blocking software will not only be pre-installed but enabled by default as well. The move to include ad-blocking software on mobile devices is significant because unlike desktop users the percentage of mobile users presently employing ad-blocking software is very low at approximately 2%.

7 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Just serving the customer by jones_supa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The sorts of politically incorrect software that Asian electronics companies can ship is sometimes funny. I'm sure there are a few smaller vendors that even ship a Torrent app with the explanation being up front "the customer wants to download pirated movies". I love it.

    Baking in an adblocker will certainly raise eyebrows in Google and other big advertising syndicates.

    1. Re:Just serving the customer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How much do you want to bet that ASUS ads will be on the non-intrusive whitelist of adb+?

    2. Re: Just serving the customer by Gort65 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They're really not. Anyone who pays the owner money can advertise whatever they want.

      If you can show some credible evidence that they don't follow their own guidelines for what's an acceptable ad, which seemingly restricts what advertisers can push out, then "advertise whatever they want" is a bit sweeping.

      I'm in two minds about the Acceptable Ads feature in Adblockplus. On the one hand, it's giving in somewhat to advertisers, but on the other hand, it's arguable that it encourages/pushes advertisers to limit their excesses, which is itself a good thing. I use Adlbockplus myself, but I do turn off the Acceptable Ads feature (personally got fed up with the excesses of the advertisers over the years, so decided to burn all their houses). Still, as long as I can disable the feature, and Adblockplus still blocks ads, then I'm fine with it as an interesting compromise (for others to try out ;) ).

  2. Re: End of the advertising-era for the web? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yeah, but that's not how it will work. It's 10 bux here, 10 bux there, pretty soon you have to fork over a hundred dollars a month to read content you might only have perused before. It breaks linking, it makes sharing difficult - it's really not the best way to go.

  3. Adaway is the best adblocker I've ever seen by lord_rob+the+only+on · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But your phone has to be rooted to use it. Adaway can be downloaded from D-froid [ http://f-droid.org/ ]. Each known ad web url is redirected to 127.0.0.1, really rocks :)

  4. Re:Interesting: what next? by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I very much agree with this. Web sites need to support themselves. I don't think the web would work quite as well if you had to pay a fee to every website you went to, even if it was a very small amount. As long as the ads don't move or make sounds, and don't try to cover up the content, then I don't really have a problem with them. I think that advertisers are shooting themselves in the foot. If there weren't so many terrible ads on the web, we wouldn't even be having this discussion right now.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  5. You're right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Gonna have to post AC here...

    it's arguable that it encourages/pushes advertisers to limit their excesses

    It definitely, as a solid fact, does do that. I work in ads. We recently made sure all our ads were "acceptable" (and they previously hadn't been) per the adblockplus guidelines, in the hopes of getting onto their optional whitelist.

    This came down from above; it wasn't my decision. I see it as pointless, because I personally use adblockplus too, and I sure as fuck don't enable the "acceptable" whitelist. I infer, then, that nearly everyone else does that too. But it doesn't matter; the strategists above said let's try to "work with it" and who knows, maybe some people do enable the whitelist.

    And strategic wisdom aside, the consequences are that our ads are now less annoying for the people who don't block them. "Less annoying enough?" you might ask and that's a whole other debate. But the effect is exactly as you describe: it got us to limit our excesses. IMHO we did it for the wrong reasons, but it happened.

    And we're not even on the whitelist yet. I think very few advertisers ever will be, but many of us want to be on it, or want to keep that option open if our numbers suddenly start falling (they actually haven't; even still, as of late 2015 I am convinced that a supermajority still aren't blocking).

    Give adblockplus some credit, everyone: with this "sellout" move of the "acceptable ads" whitelist, they really did do the whole world some good.