Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Rolls Out Code To Nullify Adblock Plus' Workaround (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Wall Street Journal issued a report Tuesday that said Facebook will begin forcing ads to appear for all users of its desktop site, even if they use ad-blocking software. Adblock Plus, the most popular ad-blocking software, opposed Facebook's plan and found a workaround to Facebook's revision two days later. Now, TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook is well aware of Adblock Plus' workaround and their "plan to address the issue" is coming quick. "A source close to Facebook tells [TechCrunch] that today possibly within hours, the company will push an update to its site's code that will nullify Adblock Plus' workaround," reports TechCrunch. "Apparently it took two days for Adblock Plus to come up with the workaround, and only a fraction of that time for Facebook to disable it." An update on their site says, "A source says Facebook is now rolling out the code update that will disable Adblock Plus' workaround. It should reach all users soon."
This game of cat and mouse
Evidently.
I avoid Facebook ads the easy way: I never go to the fb site. I call it "NoShit", it's cross-browser, cross-platform, and it doesn't even require installation.
Because kids around the age of 16 have never before told their parents one thing while doing another?
Did you life a particularly sheltered life? Because I am pretty sure that has been normal for at least several thousand years, and hardly an Online Generation thing.
Facebook is, allegedly, attempting to do the whole 'trusted ad' thing with their bypass - they vet ads, they're served from Facebook servers, they don't allow JS, Flash, or other active content. Which ignores malicious images and buggy browser render engines which can allow them to run arbitrary code. So, you know, +5 for good intentions, -100000000 for failing to understand the attack surface.
All Facebook has to do is put up a wall if you're running an ad-blocker that says "You must disable your ad blocker to view this site." Ad Block Plus doesn't seem to do "workarounds" for those types of blocks, it's what other sites that absolutely insist you must see their advertising does, and most importantly it respects the preference of the user to not see ads.
Something that says "Oh, you're running an ad blocker? Well we're going to force you to view ads anyway!" is like having a concert at a park, and dealing with people who want to stand outside the park and listen to it for free by picking their pockets. If you really feel that you don't want people to see your stuff without "paying" (viewing ads or whatever), make that a condition of viewing your stuff, don't force them to pay when they don't want to.
I'm 100% with Adblock/U-block/etc on this. And as I've said before, I think they need to go nuclear on this if Facebook doesn't relent - if they continue to try to bypass ad-blocking plugins, then it's time to simulate clicks on ads so Facebook's advertisers stop wanting to advertise there. Two wrongs don't make a right, but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
It's kinda scary to see kids around the age of 16 live a double life...
I've never heard of a society that heavily used surveillance in which this didn't happen. In Nazi Germany and many Communist countries it was what they now call human intelligence, often in the form of neighbor snitching on neighbor, often for the most trivial reasons. It could be something as insignificant as, your neighbor has a dog that barks and wakes you up at night, so you turn him in for something and get rewarded. Or maybe he expressed the wrong opinion, went against the Party or whatever. The average person quickly learned to keep their head down, shut up, and profess whatever the "acceptable orthodoxy" of the day was.
As soon as employers started reviewing Facebook accounts for "ideological purity" (although I am sure they would call it something else, something more flattering), it was obvious that the same type of pressures applied. It's just a cleaner, nicer, more comfortable pressure. Instead of being "disappeared" you just don't get that job, or that promotion, or that loan. No one and I mean no one is such a perfect Boy/Girl Scout that there isn't SOMETHING they'd rather not have made public. Much of life is based on learning from mistakes. When you can't do that without serious consequences, you learn to use deception. It becomes a life skill, like knowing how to pay a bill or maintain your home. It's the exact opposite of having a more open and tolerant society, because surveillance does not recognize the value of choice, and without choice there is no real openness.
Oh c'mon, the movie was all about snarky catch phrases and terse one-line jokes. And the effects, let's not forget the effects.
What kind of big lesson in logic and tactics do you expect from a popcorn flick?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The idea of the advertisers is that the site actual content is the distraction to make you see the advertisement.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Keeping such close tabs on your daughter will just mean she'll have to show off her snatch to people in person. Is that what you want?
I practically never lied to my parents when I was 16. But half of my friends did. The main difference was that my parents were not control freak and their rules did make perfect sense. We got a mutual trust and we used to talk about our day every single day. A lot of friends were not allowed to comeback home with a girlfriend. My mom explained to me: better here than in the wood. You know that your son will have a girlfriend, the choice is: he lies or he does not because you accept reality. I also knew that if I called for any issue, any hour day/night that they will come and not shout at me (even when drunk).
When a 16 years old lie, in 99.12566% of the cases, the fault lies on the parents side.
Jesus was a real person. Now, whether or not you believe he was the son of God, the Jewish Messiah, a charlatan, or a used wagon salesman is left as exercise to the read. But dude was real.
Creepily controlling uses of technology become more and more accepted. I'd wager that most parents who use products like life360 would've absolutely hated having it used against them as a teenager. You know what tracking applications encourage? It encourages teenagers to leave their phones at home, school, or work whenever they're doing something they'd rather not have their parents spying on. Imagine your daughter goes to a party with alcohol, but she leaves her phone at home, or school instead of taking the tracking beacon with her. Now instead of being able to call you, or emergency services if something bad happens, it just happens.
Great parenting, lots of trust in that relationship.
I'm the only one who thinks that the correct response to sites which have too many/annoying/whatever ads is to just leave?
To this day I browse without any ad blocker (strange, I know) and I mostly visit sites which don't have too many ads.
I excluded my parents when I was 10. When I was 12, I built a computer so as to separate my point-of-contact from them so I could better-conceal my activities. My parents didn't raise me; I raised myself, and took action to avoid interacting with them so much. Routine. Don't raise any concern, and the oblique talks and arguments and car rides are all just motions, and not communication.
Not trying to nullify any problems you may have had with your parents (unless you're just a self-centered dick) ... but you paid for all that yourself - computer, housing, food, clothes, etc ... - when your were 10 and 12? Wow. Congrats on truly raising you yourself. Dude. Why did you even *have* parents. Would have been way better to just go it alone. Good luck with your own children.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I wonder what the advertisers think they'll gain if they manage to win this particular arms race. A wider audience of eager ad consumers?
Ad-block users aren't just people who don't like ads, they are the subset of the population who disliked ads enough to install a blocker. It's like when Microsoft changed the registry settings users had deliberately set to avoid the Win 10 "upgrade"... all they'll succeed in doing is angering those users.
Bypassing my ad-block won't turn me into a happy consumer of ads, but it will turn me away from that site.
Procrastination Man strikes again!
Well slashdot is useless. We get a link about adblocking, and everyone just focuses on facebook bashing and insulting parental strategies.
Note the statement: "A plurality of New Testament scholars, applying the standard criteria of historical investigation, find that the historicity of Jesus is more probable than not" and count plus review the SEVERAL references provided for that statement on the Wikipedia page.
Are you fucking serious, chief?
A- that page says nothing to support the historicity of hey-zeus, short of saying that a plurality of scholars of that particular work of fiction think his existence is more probably than not.
What *fucking* right do they have to make that assertion from a known fictional book? They're immediately discredited.
My childhood pastor was part of a plurality of christian pastors who believed that I was going to hell. Fortunately, I don't care how large the majority is that backs him- he was still a fucking idiot.
Please study some actual sources, particularly Tacitus,
Tacitus? Holy shit, maybe you should do some basic research before embarrassing yourself in public.
First of all, Tacitus wasn't even born until 25 years after Jesus' death. He could not possibly have known Jesus, met him, or heard him speak. Never even saw his dead body. All of Tacitus' writings were made up long after Jesus' supposed existence and were also in part cribbed from later works.
For example, Tacitus wrote this: "Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians."
Except that the term 'Christian' was never in use during the reign of Nero and there would not have been 'a great crowd' unless we are speaking of Jews, not Christians. Whoops.
The entire "torched Christians" passage of Tacitus is not only fake, it has been repeatedly "worked over" by fraudsters to improve its value as evidence for the Jesus myth. No Christian apologist for centuries ever quoted the passage of Tacitus – not in fact, until it had appeared almost word-for-word in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, in the early fifth century, where it is mixed in with other myths. Whoops again.
In short, the passage in Tacitus is an absolute, well-documented fraud and adds no evidence for a historic Jesus.
Even conservative writers such as James Still have problems with the authenticity of the Tacitus passage: For one, Tacitus was an imperial writer, and no imperial document would ever refer to Jesus as "Christ." Also, Pilate was not a "procurator" but a prefect, which Tacitus would have known.
And before you start quoting Josephus, understand that Josephus is now very well-known to be an utter fake. Virtually every theologian agrees that it's bogus from start to finish. Not a single writer before the 4th century – not Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, etc. – in all their defenses against pagan hostility, makes even a single reference to Josephus’ wondrous words.
Be honest- you're afraid of looking like a fool because you believed all this shit for so long. But it's not entirely your fault. People you trusted and looked up to lied to you, and they may have even believed it themselves....because people they trusted and looked up to lied to them. And so on.
But there's no proof whatsoever that Jesus ever existed, and the reason for that is simple: it's because he never existed.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Sigh... we could play "dueling scholars" all day.
Yes, and I'd win every time. That's because the evidence doesn't support your position.
I find it illuminating that you wouldn't or couldn't refute a single one of my points. You thought you'd buffalo everybody here with your reference to Tacitus, but when that blew up in your face suddenly it's, "dueling scholars" and "the moon landing was faked".
Thanks for playing, better luck next time.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...