Adblock Plus wants to know why you're blocking ads (!)

[Batu69]

Adblock Plus has been in the headlines quite a lot recently. Adblocking is certainly popular, but the company needs to strike a balance between keeping users happy, and maintaining a good relationship with advertisers. The Acceptable Ads program is part of this, but at its second #CampDavid session there have been some further ideas about the future of adblocking.

 

There was talk about what should be viewed as an 'acceptable ad', and an Acceptable Ads Committee will oversee this. But the discussion between Adblock Plus and advertisers brought up an important question: just why do people install adblockers?

 

On the face of it, this seems like an stupid question with an obvious answer -- ads are bloody annoying, and blocking ads reduces this annoyance while boosting privacy and security. But is it that simple? Do people actually think about what is involved in blocking ads, or it is just something they feel they should do? Have things changed online since they started using an adblocker? Do they know how much content they are missing out on because of it?

 

Writing about the #CampDavid Europe meeting, Adblock Plus' Ben Williams says:

 

Quote

Someone there brought up a novel but basic idea: finding a (nonintrusive) way to ask our users why they decided to install an ad blocker in the first place. Lots of studies go after this information -- indeed, we used one such survey as the basis for an update to our criteria -- but if actual users tell us it takes some of the guesswork out of it.

 

Clearly it will be difficult to gather information about why Adblock Plus is being used without in some way intruding on a user's web experience. This is something that Adblock Plus recognizes, but ultimately it would be helpful to feed this back into the Acceptable Ads Program, as well as educating advertisers more about what is deemed tolerable.

 

Quote

Something along these lines will likely take a while to implement, because there are significant user experience issues involved in any “user survey”; but if there were a way to get this information without annoying anyone, it would lead to more granular blocking possibilities and a better idea of what we shouldn’t block. That is, what is acceptable.

 

Article source

[davmil]

3 hours ago, Batu69 said:

Adblock Plus has been in the headlines quite a lot recently. Adblocking is certainly popular, but the company needs to strike a balance between keeping users happy, and maintaining a good relationship with advertisers. The Acceptable Ads program is part of this, but at its second #CampDavid session there have been some further ideas about the future of adblocking.

 

There was talk about what should be viewed as an 'acceptable ad', and an Acceptable Ads Committee will oversee this. But the discussion between Adblock Plus and advertisers brought up an important question: just why do people install adblockers?

 

On the face of it, this seems like an stupid question with an obvious answer -- ads are bloody annoying, and blocking ads reduces this annoyance while boosting privacy and security. But is it that simple? Do people actually think about what is involved in blocking ads, or it is just something they feel they should do? Have things changed online since they started using an adblocker? Do they know how much content they are missing out on because of it?

 

Writing about the #CampDavid Europe meeting, Adblock Plus' Ben Williams says:

 

 

Clearly it will be difficult to gather information about why Adblock Plus is being used without in some way intruding on a user's web experience. This is something that Adblock Plus recognizes, but ultimately it would be helpful to feed this back into the Acceptable Ads Program, as well as educating advertisers more about what is deemed tolerable.

 

 

Article source

Mr. Williams better stay aggressive or another product will eat his lunch because the answer to his questions is NO ADS... "Do they know how much content they are missing out on because of it? " Answer - Simple; Don't Care. Never Did.  Wish ads didn't exist.  This is an exploding field where products better innovate & improve constantly and the name of the game is not appeasing advertisers.  You're natural enemies; just face that fact.

 

[steven36]

36 minutes ago, davmil said:

Mr. Williams better stay aggressive or another product will eat his lunch because the answer to his questions is NO ADS... "Do they know how much content they are missing out on because of it? " Answer - Simple; Don't Care. Never Did.  Wish ads didn't exist.  This is an exploding field where products better innovate & improve constantly and the name of the game is not appeasing advertisers.  You're natural enemies; just face that fact.

 

The problem is many ADBlock users are divided . We cracked Admucher out of  being shareware . People who make money off blocking ads are worse than pirates who share for free . They  are stealing from sites . The internet  dont run on air  and sites are getting tired of it . Some sites are making ad versions of sites were if try to use a adblock  they simply dont work and offering a paid non ad alternative .  adblocking of the internet will be the death of the free internet in the end . Soon you will need to pay just to read the news. I dont use adblockers  because i dont want to see ads i use them because  ads have malware in them and try to track you  and  im not going to use one that makes a profit off it like there the AD Mafia as long as there's open source ones that do it for free .  

[davmil]

30 minutes ago, steven36 said:

The problem is many ADBlock users are divided . We cracked Admucher out of  being shareware . People who make money off blocking ads are worse than pirates who share for free . They  are stealing from sites . The internet  dont run on air  and sites are getting tired of it . Some sites are making ad versions of sites were if try to use a adblock  they simply dont work and offering a paid non ad alternative .  adblocking of the internet will be the death of the free internet in the end . Soon you will need to pay just to read the news. I dont use adblockers  because i dont want to see ads i use them because  ads have malware in them and try to track you  and  im not going to use one that makes a profit off it like there the AD Mafia as long as there's open source ones that do it for free .  

Yeah, but... use 'em you do.  Nobody likes condoms but the benefits outweigh the downsides.  I understand & agree with the 'no free lunch' case you're making and don't really mind unobtrusive stuff as it's ubiquitous in life but things are just out of control.  It's getting worse as advertisers designs and capabilities grow.  I don't even have a smartphone where I understand they're crushing performance and eating into data limits with their video driven content.

[steven36]

15 minutes ago, davmil said:

I don't even have a smartphone where I understand they're crushing performance and eating into data limits with their video driven content.

I dont ether i use a burner  when away from home .Im  not a young chicken like i use to be so my eyes are not as good as they use too be . I dont care to look at no little bitty screen were i will need to put my reading glasses  on too see .  And I live in the here and now  and will deal with the age of the  no more free internet when it gets here .  If its were it dont serve its purpose and cost money to just read  the news and becomes to expensive.  i will just read the newspaper and watch it on the telly . I lived  without the internet longer than i lived with it . 

[broascadilie]

Sry  but that question is just LOLLL

[steven36]

If you watch the news on TV  you have to watch commercials witch dont bother me they dont have malware if you read the news paper you have look at ads to got any kind of service that have no  advertisements  cost you extra even listening to the radio  is the same   . So its always been this way the internet  has always been profit driven  . If you take away from there profits from there free options they will only have paid ones in the end . Today's generation dont  seem to know how business has  always worked.

[straycat19]

8 minutes ago, steven36 said:

If you watch the news on TV  you have to watch commercials witch dont bother me they dont have malware if you read the news paper you have look at ads to got any kind of service that have no  advertisements  cost you extra even listening to the radio  is the same   . So its always been this way the internet  has always been profit driven  . If you take away from there profits from there free options they will only have paid ones in the end . Today's generation dont  seem to know how business has  always worked.

 

Watching on TV or listening on the radio doesn't infect your TV or radio with malware.  As long as Malvertising exists on the internet I will block every AD humanly possible.  I don't pay for 'paid' content, I use a VPN and the 'trial' access to get around that legally.  Most newspaper and other news sites allow the viewing of X number of articles before you have to pay, so if deleting all history and cookies doesn't reset this then just enter it using VPN.  Today's generation may not understand how advertising works on TV and Radio but they damn sure understand how Malvertising infects all their devices.  I remember when I lived in Germany that TV there did not interrupt the shows with ADs, instead there was a period of time between shows when all the ADs were shown at once, one after the other.  Which was convenient to go to the WC, get a beer, make a sandwich, or run out to the Imbiss for a quick brat and pomme frites.

[steven36]

16 minutes ago, straycat19 said:

 

Watching on TV or listening on the radio doesn't infect your TV or radio with malware.  As long as Malvertising exists on the internet I will block every AD humanly possible.  I don't pay for 'paid' content, I use a VPN and the 'trial' access to get around that legally.  Most newspaper and other news sites allow the viewing of X number of articles before you have to pay, so if deleting all history and cookies doesn't reset this then just enter it using VPN.  Today's generation may not understand how advertising works on TV and Radio but they damn sure understand how Malvertising infects all their devices.  I remember when I lived in Germany that TV there did not interrupt the shows with ADs, instead there was a period of time between shows when all the ADs were shown at once, one after the other.  Which was convenient to go to the WC, get a beer, make a sandwich, or run out to the Imbiss for a quick brat and pomme frites.

The whole system is at fault though  its not just ads on websites even free antivirus who suppose  to be protecting  us from malware comes with 3rd party gifts and ads on the gui .Even  if you install the latest windows its full of ads  and tracking. Google is a ad marketing company .Linux sites gets its money from ads and donations  .Nothing is really free and as long as the industry dont know how to make ads right  people will try to block  them. And in the end Big money  will win because they own the internet and you too.

[DKT27]

Internet runs because of ads. If everyone blocks ads, sites like nsane, which is not here for any profit, would not be here to serve you guys.

 

I personally think this acceptable ads option should have existed from start, or, atleast the ABP guys need not make any money for doing it.

[straycat19]

Quote

And in the end Big money  will win because they own the internet and you too.

 

That is an incorrect assumption.  No one owns me.  I would argue this point with you but it isn't worth the time because these posts are just a person's opinion, regardless of how silly or inept they make one look.

[steven36]

2 minutes ago, DKT27 said:

Internet runs because of ads. If everyone blocks ads, sites like nsane, which is not here for any profit, would not be here to serve you guys.

 

I personally think this acceptable ads option should have existed from start, or, atleast the ABP guys need not make any money for doing it.

I fell bad for sites  too who  do it for non profit  but i dont trust ads not to infect me . Like now I'm on my Linux Machine  with no anti malware  i depend on my browser security  and them patching thorough the updater .

 

3 minutes ago, straycat19 said:

 

That is an incorrect assumption.  No one owns me.  I would argue this point with you but it isn't worth the time because these posts are just a person's opinion, regardless of how silly or inept they make one look.

They own the services  they provide you for free . Its there call if they want to charge for them or not . This why so many things are turning to data harvesting  and can just make ads from you're  data or make products based on it were noobs not experienced in network sniffing cant see . If you want to start a site you could own a piece of the internet  too but you dont own the rest of it they do.

[davmil]

5 hours ago, DKT27 said:

Internet runs because of ads. If everyone blocks ads, sites like nsane, which is not here for any profit, would not be here to serve you guys.

 

I personally think this acceptable ads option should have existed from start, or, atleast the ABP guys need not make any money for doing it.

& I've donated (aka supported) this site.  That's what I do when I want content or anything else - pay for it.  Spare me the advertising and let me pay for things that are of value to me.  Otherwise, bomb away with your ads - it's worth what you pay. 

 

Ask that the rest of you send the admins $5-10 bucks to keep this valuable site up and running so we save time and get valuable content for a nominal fee.

[DKT27]

1 minute ago, davmil said:

& I've donated (aka supported) this site.  That's what I do when I want content or anything else - pay for it.  Spare me the advertising and let me pay for things that are of value to me.  Otherwise, bomb away with your ads - it's worth what you pay. 

 

Ask that the rest of you send the admins $5-10 bucks to keep this valuable site up and running so we save time and get valuable content for a nominal fee.

 

That's also a way to help us pay for the server costs and we appreciate it.

 

I must say, from the looks of it, both ads and donations are required though.

[VileTouch]

some ads i don't mind. a reasonable banner with no scripts or tracking cookies are ok. just an image with a link...unless it's NSFW or something shady i might even click it. those are the true ads. the rest is just malvertising.

the problem is not the ads themselves, it's the ad networks that collect everyone's data. if you do business directly with the target it's unlikely that problems arise.

 

for instance, i wouldn't mind ads from hardware/software manufacturers or relevant websites (vpn services?, torrentfreak perhaps? ). if it's just a static image and a link that points directly to them. you get paid, they get actual customers, we get interesting content. everyone's happy.

[davmil]

4 hours ago, DKT27 said:

 

That's also a way to help us pay for the server costs and we appreciate it.

 

I must say, from the looks of it, both ads and donations are required though.

Your ads are acceptable and non-intrusive.  I don't block them.  Everyone appreciates all the work you guys put into the site; I've followed for years now.

 

[steven36]

19 hours ago, DKT27 said:

I personally think this acceptable ads option should have existed from start, or, atleast the ABP guys need not make any money for doing it.

the whole thing  though  with acceptable ads option though  sites  have to pay ABP money and now ADBlock in Google  has it too  . It would of  never been there if ABP   was not making a profit from Ads  .That's  what  the whitelist feature  on all adblockers is for people who want allow them on certain sites . It started out as a open source and was good  tell 2012  when they added acceptable ads i used it for many years  combined  with admuncher  .  After v2.1.2 it became only half a adblocker.

 

 

If  you dont want people to  block ads  you should not make ad blockers  that's like a crack dealer  who sells crack  and tells a junky  not to smoke it .

 

Also its bloatware  I switched to a fork of it ABE witch was based on  v2.1.2 without  acceptable ads option for awhile and once uBlock Origin for Firefox came out i switched to it and  never looked back  its light as a  feather 

 

Even adstomper who made ABE switch to uBlock Origin

 

 

 

[pc71520]

I no longer use ABP.

[CODYQX4]

ABP is bloated and stagnant, and all it's forks are as well. Just use uBlock.

 

That can do a lot of what NoScript does, as opposed to just being an AdBlocker. They've even started doing "Script Surrogates", so instead of blocking a script like Google Analytics and breaking the page, they can inject a neutered version that does no tracking, or really anything, but prevents the page hosting it from erroring out.

[Alhaitham]

For me

 

Nothing beats Adblock Plus + NoScript

 

[xyzdev]

uBlock ftw.

[DKT27]

I personally think uBlock Origin's latest version takes it to another level.

 

When compared to ABP, with uBO, Firefox still uses lot of RAM, but it's browsing experience has changed a lot. It's more speedy to start and loads pages faster when ads are being blocked on them.

 

The only change I would suggest to the uBlock Origin's developer in uBO is to make the open dashboard button easy to find or access. It took me a long time to find it.

[steven36]

10 hours ago, DKT27 said:

When compared to ABP, with uBO, Firefox still uses lot of RAM, but it's browsing experience has changed a lot. It's more speedy to start and loads pages faster when ads are being blocked on them.

every add-on  causes a small foot print some more than others Ive not tested ABP in a long time but i have  before  it always used  more than any other addon .

 

 

as you can see  i have more add-ons that use more ram than uBlock Origin  ...the reason grease monkey uses so much i have 8 user scripts pushing it .

 

If you dont need grease monkey best to disable it in addon manager because even  if you turn it off  it still uses a lot of ram compared  the all others but ABP or ABE or ADGuard addons will use much more than grease monkey even . UBO  is light as a feather  compared to the other addons for adblocking

[DKT27]

On 15/2/2016 at 10:15 PM, steven36 said:

every add-on  causes a small foot print some more than others Ive not tested ABP in a long time but i have  before  it always used  more than any other addon .

 

Spoiler

 

as you can see  i have more add-ons that use more ram than uBlock Origin  ...the reason grease monkey uses so much i have 8 user scripts pushing it .

 

If you dont need grease monkey best to disable it in addon manager because even  if you turn it off  it still uses a lot of ram compared  the all others but ABP or ABE or ADGuard addons will use much more than grease monkey even . UBO  is light as a feather  compared to the other addons for adblocking

 

That's interesting there. How are you measuring it. Unless I'm not away of any method for doing so.

 

Eitherway, it turns out lot of my scripts now have an option of an addon now, which are better to manage, so I probably do not need it enabled I think.

[steven36]

15 hours ago, DKT27 said:

 

That's interesting there. How are you measuring it. Unless I'm not away of any method for doing so.

 

Eitherway, it turns out lot of my scripts now have an option of an addon now, which are better to manage, so I probably do not need it enabled I think.

I use about:addons-memory the version at AMO  dont work with Firefox 44  I have a patched version that does though even though ive not needed yet because Im using Firefox 38 ESR .

 

The developer posted the fix he just not posted the addon  yet for For Firefox 44

https://github.com/nmaier/about-addons-memory/pull/23

 

This  is the future of Firefox  and Web  extensions  all old addons will be broke.