
Adblock Plus, scourge of websites, seeks industry deal - eplanit
http://news.yahoo.com/adblock-plus-scourge-websites-seeks-industry-deal-054819346.html;_ylt=AwrC1CnQVLdWzlQAWc_QtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByNXM5bzY5BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMzBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--
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rosser
I thought ABP was the yesterday's news of ad blocking. The memory footprint
problem alone was enough to get me to switch to µBlock, let alone shenanigans
like this.

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deanclatworthy
To you and I and the majority of readers here - yes. But to the average
internet user Adblock plus is by far and large the most popular.

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Jach
The average internet user doesn't use any adblock. Those that use ABP will
swiftly find and change to the alternative the moment they start noticing ads.

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rewqfdsa
Isn't this business model plain extortion? If you want to create an open-
source adblocker, fine. That's your rights to publish that software, and it's
within the rights of users to run that software.

But requesting money for making modifications against the interest of users to
the default settings of that software is just sleazy; I can't think of
anything that would make this sleaze illegal, but it's still no good.

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beau26
Yup. The problem with "solving" ad blocking is that it isn't lucrative. Ad
blockers are trivial to create, but very difficult to monetize. These guys are
as much scumbags as shady advertisers who bombard you with terrible ads.

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outsidetheparty
What I find most distressing about all the debate re ad-blocking is the built-
in assumption that advertising is the only way we could possibly fund content
creation on the web: that it all just comes down to compromising on what the
"acceptable" level of advertising is.

I don't accept that premise. The debate should be framed as "Adverting: is it
good or bad?" but somehow we let it slide into "Advertising: should it be
extremely obnoxious or slightly less obnoxious?"

Advertising changed the web, it made it worse in most ways -- it encourages a
constant stream of low-value content that serves as a framing device for
banner slots. If advertising magically disappeared one day, I think nearly all
kinds of website would be able to find a revenue model that works (in most
cases it would boil down to "make less content, of higher value, that people
would actually be willing to pay for.")

The only types of sites that literally could not survive without an
advertising-based revenue model are the clickbait listicle aggregators of
other peoples' content. Which, yeah, I'm kind of okay with. People would still
find their way to their memes and cat videos, they'd just do it on a hobbyist
level. Ultimately we'd all, publishers and end users alike, be better off
without ads.

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matt_wulfeck
The very minute Adblock plus is compromised I will switch adblockers.
Thankfully everything is done client side and its relatively trivial to create
blockers.

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labster
Well, if that minute ever comes, consider uBlock Origin. Easier to use, and
without that whole speed penalty on the browser that ABP has.

I heard that Firefox improved ABP performance in the meantime, but I've never
had a reason to switch back to software that whitelists some ads. uBlock is
also available for Chrome.

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martinko
Just switched to uBlock because of this article, thanks.

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libeclipse
Also note that there's a difference between uBlock and uBlock Origins.

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oAlbe
Mind elaborating on the differences please? They just look like two different
addons from different developers to me.

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anc84
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ublock/comments/32mos6/ublock_vs_ub...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ublock/comments/32mos6/ublock_vs_ublock_origin/)

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k__
I thought they already had a whitelist?! Or was this AdBlock (without the
plus)?

Well, I don't used it anymore, switched to µBlock Origin. Brave seems to be a
nice alternative too. I read it is much snappier and has adblocking built in.

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beardog
This is like if Mozilla forced Google to pay them if they wanted to keep
adsense ads showing.

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smegel
I just use FlashBlock and a Chrome extension that stops html5 vids from
autoplaying (and disconnect to limit tracking). Can't say I've even really
thought about the ads that do appear.

