
Adblock Plus now sells ads - mariusavram
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/13/12890050/adblock-plus-now-sells-ads
======
thclark
uBlock Origin it is!

Extensions: Chrome: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-
origin/cjpa...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-
origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm) Firefox:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-
origin...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/)
Opera:
[https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/ublock/](https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/ublock/)
Microsoft Edge: [https://github.com/nikrolls/uBlock-Edge#microsoft-
edge](https://github.com/nikrolls/uBlock-Edge#microsoft-edge)

~~~
rloc
The only thing to do if you haven't already. uBlock is open source and does
the job.

This all adBlock making money by blocking ads and then showing their own ads
is becoming ridiculous and unethical.

So what does Adblock stand for now ?

~~~
pythia__
Why is it unethical? What ethical principle is being violated? (These are not
rhetorical questions.)

~~~
cptskippy
Blocking Ad is itself unethical. Ads are placed on pages to pay for the
content. By blocking ads you are depriving the content creators of
compensation for their work.

Replacing Ads with other ads is worse because you're not only depriving a
content creator of revenue but then profiting off of their work. You could
argue that it amounts to theft.

~~~
dsr_
Do you also think that leaving the room or changing the channel when the TV or
radio plays an ad is unethical?

Is using fast-forward on your DVR unethical?

Is skimming past the ads in a newspaper or magazine unethical?

Is it ethical to let your eyes glide past the ads shown in a browser?

Is it ethical to read books from a free library rather than buying the right
to read a copy from a store?

~~~
ceejayoz
None of those situations are very comparable.

TV is paid on viewership numbers. Newspapers are paid on circulation. Gliding
past ads on a site is factored into the CPM values. Books in a library are
paid for and covered by the first-sale doctrine.

~~~
greenshackle
They are completely comparable.

You don't think people who change channels to avoid ads/who use DVRs is
factored into the price per viewer for TV ads?

Your individual impact might be harder to track than with ad-blockers, but on
the aggregate you are driving down the price per viewer by switching on
channels during ads, using DVR, etc.

(Imagine a world where 100% of people used a DVR and skipped ads. Obviously
the price of TV ads would plummet. By using a DVR you are contributing to
making our world, that world).

------
etatoby
I, for one, agree with them.

We started blocking ads because they had become 1. obnoxious, interfering with
the fruition of the actual content; 2. dangerous, being a vector for malware
and disrespecting our privacy; and 3. costly, for those with a slow or metered
connection.

Most people accept ads, if they are acceptable.

They are the first company to actually push through with a plan to restore
this market to sanity, so it's only natural they would take a small profit
from it. Other well-known technology companies grab well into the two digit
percent off other people's earnings.

~~~
jwise0
Well, the royal "we", perhaps :-)

I started blocking ads because they dramatically slowed down my browsing
experience. But I keep blocking ads because, fundamentally, I believe that
advertisements are neurotoxins, and nobody has the right to poison me.

The old Sean Tejaratchi quote - popularized by Banksy - applies here, I think
-
[http://www.readingfrenzy.com/ledger/2012/03/taking_the_piss](http://www.readingfrenzy.com/ledger/2012/03/taking_the_piss)

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "I believe that advertisements are neurotoxins, and nobody has the right to
poison me."

And you have no right to the content you're viewing but blocking ads on. If
you really consider ads 'poison' surely boycotting sites that use ads is the
solution or offering an alternative solution this is actually viable.

~~~
bonoboTP
When watching TV, I often switch away when the ads come. Then after a few
minutes I switch back to continue watching the program. Do you think this
behavior is also unacceptable? Or how do you feel about people who throw away
promotional stuff found in magazines and newspapers?

~~~
balabaster
On U.S. TV you can pretty much watch the first 5 minutes of the show and come
back and watch the last 5 minutes without missing anything of consequence...
everything you missed was flashbacks, bullshit and advertising. This describes
90% of all American TV content.

Edit: I guess the truth hurts. Thanks for the downvotes. Whatever, I stand by
my observation as a foreigner having watched TV in many other countries and I
can tell you from first hand experience that U.S. TV is the worst offender by
a HUGE margin.

~~~
burkaman
Have you ever watched American TV? This reads like someone who turned on Bravo
at 2PM one time and decided all TV must be like that.

~~~
Intermernet
I think what they're commenting on is the sort of editing time-line
encountered on such shows in the genre similar to "greatest ice-road vintage
trucker sale digger catch".

These tend to be, in a 30 minute slot:

<2 minute highlight reel>

<2 minutes of original footage>

<1 minute of "coming up next">

<5 minutes of ads>

<1 minute of "previously on...">

<3 minutes of original footage>

<1 minute of "coming up next">

<5 minutes of ads>

<1 minute of "previously on...">

<3 minutes of original footage>

<1 minute of "next time on...">

<5 minutes of ads>

Which gives 8 minutes of original footage stretched over 30 minutes, with 15
minutes of ads and 7 minutes of rehashing.

This format, although now popular in other countries, is a "modern-classic" of
US television.

~~~
burkaman
Yeah, I get that, but that's a fairly small sub-genre of TV. It's a common
stereotype, and I agree it's warranted because that style is obnoxious, but
it's not actually a problem if you live in the US and want to watch something
different.

~~~
balabaster
They do the same thing with sports - cutting out action to cut to commercial
breaks... and I don't mean during timeouts or whatever. They cut off soccer to
go to commercial break during play! Soaps are the same... educational shows
are the same. Commercials every 10 minutes. It's a joke how much advertising
is done on TV you pay to watch content - not ads.

While the UK isn't exactly a model citizen in this respect, at least on the
BBC which everyone (arguably) pays a TV license for, there is content wall to
wall... because you pay for that. On channels you don't pay for, there is
advertising, and I think this is totally fair. But why should people pay to
(mostly) be advertised to and not to be delivered the content that they're
paying for?

------
cousin_it
People talk about the ad blocking arms race, but they forget that advertising
itself is an arms race. Often it doesn't even benefit the advertisers!

For example, everyone would buy food even if it wasn't advertised, so the food
industry as a whole might well be losing money on ads. (If you're feeling
nitpicky, substitute "cheap food industry" for "food industry".) It's a kind
of prisoner's dilemma situation where each firm keeps spending money on ads to
avoid losing market share to competitors, but all firms together would be
happier with a blanket ban on advertising. I suspect that many online ads are
also fighting for a share of a fixed-size market, and would benefit from a ban
as well.

Ad blocking is a gradual way to institute such a ban without requiring
everyone's consent. It's probably already making many companies richer without
them realizing it, by suppressing the ads of their competitors. In fact, these
are the companies you want to get richer, because their products are spreading
by word of mouth instead of ads.

~~~
arjie
Blanket bans on advertising favour market incumbents. It's true that some
companies will prosper through word of mouth but in the early adopter stage
you need to reach those early adopters. If you're small and your early
adopters are distributed, you'll die before you catch on through people
talking about you.

I'd wager the net effect would be to entrench big brands.

~~~
Jordrok
I still don't see how this works out as an advantage for the little guy. At
best, for every ad the new startup buys, the big incumbent buys two and you're
back to more or less where you started. Worst case, the big incumbents and
shady scammers buy up the majority of the advertising time, training consumers
to ignore ads and making it even harder for a legitimate newcomer to get their
foot in the door.

~~~
arjie
> At best, for every ad the new startup buys, the big incumbent buys two and
> you're back to more or less where you started.

Are you? Previously no one knew about the startup. Now one in three people in
the targeted segment see it.

------
Yuioup
This is extortion, plain and simple. Essentially they're forcing advertisers
to funnel all ad content through them.

Good thing for uBlock Origin because otherwise they should be indicted to
anti-competitive behavior.

No, I don't like ads and I run uBlock Origin. I don't work for an advertising
company and couldn't care less about ads.

But what Adblock Plus is doing here is illegal.

~~~
libertymcateer
>But what Adblock Plus is doing here is illegal.

What law are they violating?

I'm a software lawyer.

As far as I know, nothing they are doing rises to violation of any law or
regulation with regard to this particular move.

Is it unethical? Maybe. That doesn't mean it is illegal. It is _certainly_ not
coercive - you can freely install or uninstall adblock, and you are free to
advertise or _not_ advertise with them. They do not have a monopoly, natural
or otherwise, and their product is wholly voluntary. If _Microsoft_ were
installing ABP as a matter of course in IE and _they prevented you from
uninstalling it_ \- then there is an argument that this would be anti-
competitive.

An independent third party distributing totally voluntary, uninstallable
software? Unlikely.

~~~
Yuioup
Ok. I can't edit my original statement. I shouldn't have put it that strongly,
I guess.

------
dexwiz
Adblock Plus sold out a long time ago. I switched to uBlock about a year ago,
and haven't looked back.

~~~
libeclipse
Note the difference between μBlock and μBlock Origins.

~~~
zx2c4
Use uBlock Origin, not uBlock.

~~~
oneweekwonder
What the diff?

~~~
antome
uBlock was maintained by one person, but they wanted to move on to other
projects, so they handed the project to someone else. The other person
horribly mismanaged the project, and contributed essentially nothing. The
original developer decided to return with uBlock origin.

~~~
martiuk
The other person also begged for donations while contributing nothing.

------
bluesign
I hate Adblock Plus, but this doesnt sound too bad

'''which will allow blogs and other website operators to pick out so-called
“acceptable” ads and place them on their pages. If a visitor using Adblock
Plus comes to the page, they’ll be shown those “acceptable ads,” instead of
whatever ads the site would normally run.'''

~~~
shostack
The question is, how do you ensure they are just swapping existing ads, that
they are all not acceptable, and that they aren't inserting ads where there
were none?

------
DanielBMarkham
I hate ads, absolutely hate them. I hate them on TV. I hate them on
billboards. I hate them on the net.

If I want something, I decide I want it. I research it, and I make my choices
based on multiple sources. Dancing clowns and phony sales do nothing but waste
my time and annoy me.

Having said that, we need some way forward, even if it's nothing but a small
step. I propose that all advertisers voluntarily place ads (and paid product
endorsements) inside and <advert></advert> tag, preferably with an alt
attribute. My browser could show me the ad or the text. It's up to me. Ad
Blockers would no longer be a thing. Who would need them? And if advertisers
really wanted me to see the full-bandwidth version of whatever schlock they're
peddling, over time they'd develop a reputation for delivering
funny/interesting/engaging ads. Then I might let some through. Hell, I might
start following them on Twitter.

But don't hijack my browser, track me against my will, and force me to look at
things I don't want to simply to find out what kind of car accident happened
outside last night. Content producers and consumers should not be in an
adversarial relationship. Yet this is what they've created.

~~~
witty_username
How do ads hijack your browser and track you against your will?

If you don't want tracking, don't visit the website. Ads don't force you look
at things. You're looking at it.

~~~
nercht12
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/09/online-trackers-and-
so...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/09/online-trackers-and-social-
networks)

------
thr0waway1239
A missing factoid via the corresponding WSJ article:

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/adblock-plus-is-launching-an-
ad-...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/adblock-plus-is-launching-an-ad-
exchange-1473768022)

"Advertisers will not be able to target ads via the Acceptable Ads Platform
using the granular behavioral data many have become accustomed too, however,
to preserve user privacy and security.

Rather, they’ll have a limited set of information with which to target their
ads, including the domain on which an ad would appear; the device, browser and
operating system on which it’s being loaded; and the geographical location
it’s being loaded from."

OK, so the "limited" set of information is already 5 pieces of information,
and without specifics about the geographical location I am going to assume it
can vary on any scale determined and changed by ABP at their discretion. In
combination this is very likely to be a UUID for a vast majority of people
(sorry, I don't have a reference, but that is what I have read somewhere).
More pertinently, I have a vague feeling that this combination is enough for
retargeting (people in adtech, please give us your input).

Folks are mentioning uBlock Origin. But there is tremendous pressure from
online publishers, who I expect are soon going to turn this into a game of
Whack-a-Blocker.

~~~
ilikepi
> OK, so the "limited" set of information is already 5 pieces of
> information...

Ehh...it'll probably be the useragent string and the result of geocoding the
client IP address. This is fairly narrow (especially for obscure and/or out-
of-date browsers), but I think calling it "unique" might be a stretch. I guess
it would be highly dependent on the population of your city or town and on the
popularity of the site itself. I might be one of just a handful of people who
reads HN while laying in my bed at night on an iPhone 6S, but I'd expect quite
a few people in a major metro area are hitting big media sites from Chrome on
Windows.

EDIT: trivial wording tweak

~~~
thr0waway1239
This is what I used to think, but the diversity of the devices in the
developing countries (for example) adds more specifics. Even in countries
where there is a lot more homogeneity of devices - you mention HN for example,
but if I install ABP on my device and visit multiple sites using the browser,
remember that the list of sites is another little trail of breadcrumbs. That
could only become significant if the advertisers themselves share this data
amongst themselves and combine it with user-agent + geocoded address, but you
can count on a service which will pop up to facilitate exactly that (assuming
one doesn't already exist). Not to mention, what if these ad networks
consolidate at some point in the future?

------
brentm
This is nothing but a pirate business model, it's deplorable. Blocking ads
alone is pretty bad but wedging yourself into the middle and then collecting a
marketplace fee is nothing short of a pirate move.

~~~
John23832
I'll just say. Google offers and maintains reCapcha, while at the same time
scrapes the internet using bots.

Wedging yourself in the middle is an awesome business plan.

~~~
bjacobel
Google doesn't make money from reCaptcha[1], and reCaptcha isn't deployed to
stop the kind of crawlers Google operates (you'd just add a line to robots.txt
if you wanted to do this), so I'm not sure how this is relevant.

[1]: OK, maybe in the extremely broad, indirect sense that reCaptcha helps
Google solve image classification problems, which make Google products like
Maps/Books/Images better, which increases traffic, which increases ad revenue

~~~
John23832
reCaptcha definitely does contribute to google's bottom line.

Google is involved in making it harder to scrape the web for the average
person. They are involved in most web standards. If you go in to most
robots.txt files, they have root forbidden for user-agent: *. But you can be
sure that Google is whitelisted.

Google has a vested interest in making it harder for the average person to
scrap the web. This is because they position themselves as a repository of
information. This is a clear case of wedging yourself in the middle.

------
RubyPinch
[https://acceptableads.com/en/](https://acceptableads.com/en/) for anyone who
was looking for it

~~~
ildoc
there's no such thing as acceptable ads

~~~
BenElgar
I disagree. See the Stack Overflow model:
[https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2016/02/why-stack-overflow-
do...](https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2016/02/why-stack-overflow-doesnt-care-
about-ad-blockers/)

------
Animats
Business plan:

1\. Tell users you're doing something for them.

2\. Get lots of users.

3\. Change product to screw them.

4\. Profit!

This happens too often.

~~~
vegabook
\----------> erroneous comment deleted. Original suggested GPL was protection
against dual versioning (Open Source/Enterprise) as opposed to permissive
licences which enable @animats business model analysis.

~~~
exolymph
AdBlock Plus _is_ GPL: [https://adblockplus.org/license-
headers](https://adblockplus.org/license-headers)

------
luxpir
Just another anecdote to "ad" to the pile:

In an effort to keep my Chromium/FF instances 'clean' I just use https-
everywhere and uMatrix (since it came out - my trust in noscript and abp was
waning a long way back). It's nice to block the vast majority of low-hanging
trackers. I'm hoping that having FB, GA and myriad other tracking scripts
auto-disabled circumvents some of their even smarter tracking methods (IP,
cookie) but I'm always open to modify the setup, just not at the expense of my
limited computing resources.

Using 10 privacy extensions is a non-starter, for instance. Not to mention how
little I trust _most_ of the ad blocking efforts out there.

At home I have a pi-hole set up (as well as the pi being a media centre, IRC,
IM and NAS... so versatile!) to block the low-hanging scripts and calls on my
family and guests' browsing. It's a shame it blocks Piwik by default, but I
can understand the reasoning. Log-based analytics really should be the norm,
anyway. The speed boost is non-trivial, as is the peace of mind that most of
our private life is not being sold to the highest bidder.

EDIT: I've just gone into the Privacy settings in uMatrix and checked
everything on the basis of this post-as-reminder: Cookies, local storage, user
agent, strict https... Don't think the last one allows me to drop https-
everywhere yet though, only to avoid mixed content. I may end up unchecking
that box if it gets too annoying... I know the risks!

~~~
philbo
As a NoScript user I'm curious what eroded your trust in it. Should I be
looking at switching away from it for some reason?

~~~
luxpir
Nothing major, beyond the controversies listed here[0] and the developer's
more cavalier approach to whitelisting. Plus resource usage was double what
was on offer by the much more fine-grained uMatrix. At the time at least.
Maybe still.

The Tor project still bundle NS in with their browser, hardened, I believe
(stricter whitelisting, for one) but they clearly still trust it. Better than
nothing, but far from perfect IMO.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoScript#Controversies](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoScript#Controversies)

------
dawnerd
I block ads primarily for privacy reasons. I don't mind ads in themselves if
they're just static and not trying to track my every move. I don't want ads to
be "relevant" to me. I find that not only is it just creepy but really useless
to see ads for something long after I've purchased. I'd rather it be more of a
discovery tool for new products (movie trailers for example).

------
joelthelion
uBlock Origin is where it's at nowadays.

------
micro_softy
There are other ways to block ads besides this one solution. The web ad
delivery mechanism is brittle.

But when will this game end?

Advertisers should just pay consumers (users). Why bother with a middleman?

Request for Project (RFP): Let _all_ users sign up to be paid by advertisers.
(This is not a new idea.) Sign up with enough advertisers and one can have
"universal basic income".

Users should not be giving away their time for free. Every time a web
advertiser distracts a user, they are "stealing" the user's time.

Advertisers pay for this privilege. But they do not pay the users. They pay
off someone -- you know who -- to help them steal users' time.

Just pay the damn users. Enough of this silly game.

Added benefit: It would open up the search engine market and social networking
(photo database) market to competition and innovation.

------
zxv
uMatrix allows you to fine tune rules for each web site.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/umatrix/ogfcmafjal...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/umatrix/ogfcmafjalglgifnmanfmnieipoejdcf)

------
b3lvedere
I block ads (and lots of other things) because i will block any network
traffic i do not want on my own network infrastructure.

------
gravypod
I've got a deal for any company out there. Rather then spending millions on
advertising provide to me a datasheet. Hell, pay for ad space where you can
show off your datasheets. I'll buy the product with the best possible features
for my use case.

If companies start doing this, I'll exclusively buy provided products from
them rather then from advertised companies. If the data sheet you provide
lies, I'll never buy your products again, so keep that in mind.

This is a simple and transparent way to get me to buy your products and it
costs you less! Isn't that great!

------
consto
Juts use μBlock Origin.

------
tedmiston
If you think about it, it's like responsive design for your ads. The
"responsive" case being to show the nicer ads and the default case being to
show the normal obtrusive ads (depending on the user's level of ad blocking).

I'm not saying I outright support, but some ads are useful — The Deck is one
example. Amazon's "people who purchased this also purchased" is (kind of)
another.

~~~
majewsky
I wouldn't think of "people who purchased this also purchased" as an ad. An ad
is characterized as not relevant to the current activity, but these
recommendations usually are (except when they are hilarious, but that's
another thing).

~~~
tedmiston
Yeah, the more I think of it, I tend to agree. Just because it's an
unsolicited recommendation that influences your purchasing decision doesn't
make it an ad.

I'm not quite sure how to categorize their affinity analysis in general.
Perhaps it could be thought of as a cross-sell / upsell / impulse buy,
depending on the item recommended.

------
gallerdude
It's pretty despicable - let's block everyone elses ads so that we can put up
our own and make money from them instead.

~~~
theandrewbailey
That sounds exactly like what browser based malware/adware does.

------
chris_wot
Adblock needs an adblocker. An adblock-blocker, if you will.

~~~
jasonkostempski
To view this page, please disable your ad-blocker-ad blocker.

------
cletus
What's next? Hijacking affiliate links?

I do use Adblock Plus because there's a nice fanboy annoyances list that kills
the latest scourge of Web UI: the pop up, in particular the "sign up to our
newsletter since you've been here for 2 seconds!" pop up.

Is there ublock origin equivalent for this?

~~~
detaro
You should be able to use all these lists with uBlock too.

EDIT: the specific one you mention is even offered (but not turned on) by
default in uBlock origin.

------
test6554
Why not keep adblock plus, but also install ublock origin and three other
adblockers as well?

Not only would they all have to sell out like adblock plus, but advertisers
would also have to pay each of them before you saw a single ad.

------
te_chris
Oh goodie, a new tech protection racket. Keep innovating, gents!

------
unfunco
What happens if I develop an adblocker that also blocks Adblock Plus ads, but
then I start adding in my own ads over the Adblock Plus ads? Where does this
end?

------
Zekio
Really should change the name something else at this point

~~~
joelthelion
Change Adblock Plus to simply AdPlus

~~~
rschuetzler
AdBlock Plus Ads

------
gbin
It is borderline malware at that point.

I don't like ads but I still want to contribute to the sites so I just pay
with contributor:
[https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/](https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/)

Disclosure: I work for Google but those opinions are my own.

~~~
tedmiston
First time seeing Contributor. This is interesting but… can you really use it
everywhere, or do creators have to opt-in? I don't see pointed how Google
sends money to authors.

~~~
cbr
The ads you see are generally the result of an auction. When you use
Contributor it bids in that auction for you, and typically wins it for a small
fraction of a cent.

Publishers generally don't have to opt in: if you're a publisher advertising
with AdSense, and a visitor shows up who uses Contributor, they'll see "thank
you for being a Contributor!" and you get a micropayment from them into your
AdSense account.

(Disclaimer: I work for Google, on things completely unrelated to ads.)

------
lolc
Collective bargaining power is a nice thing to have. But it's also the
question of who you're handing the power to. AdBlock Plus is out.

------
euske
I think the problem here is to leave decisions about what's good/bad ads to
other people (e.g. EasyList). I believe blocking technology itself is a user's
right and should be allowed, but deciding what's good/bad for others is
meddlesome. Individual users should make their own decisions about what should
be blocked and what's not, as easily as possible.

------
helthanatos
I am not particularly upset (besides they have been going this direction for a
while) I just don't like obtrusive ads and, odly, some websites have so many
ads that their styling is incredibly messed up without them. I may switch to
another adblocker if I see too much stuff, but seeing some ads doesn't really
anger me.

------
nsgi
Thought the point of Acceptable Ads was to force publishers to self-regulate
the ads that they publish to provide a better experience for all users and
restore the balance of power. By allowing publishers to only provide
acceptable ads to Adblock users, this seems to defeat the point.

------
andreareina
I agree with _an_ acceptable ads program. It shouldn't be an ad blocker
running it, not if it's monetized. Paid access onto the acceptable ads list is
the reason I stopped using ABP in the first place; this just put the nail in
the coffin.

------
NosliwPilf
Pretty soon competition in ad-blockers will result in advertisements.

The first guy to invent the Ad-blocker-Blocker will be rich. That is, until
someone creates the Ad-blocker-blocker-Blocker. Then that is the guy who will
be rich. That is, until the....

------
yellow_postit
Is there a middle ground between block all ads and each user individually
white-listing sites? Anyone which produced a curated list of "allowed" ads
would hit a similar narrative.

~~~
blakeyrat
I'd support a tool which gave me the opposite of that: I'd like to see the ads
at first to give the benefit of the doubt, but then be able to blacklist the
site if it turned out I didn't like them.

When I say "blacklist the site" I mean _the domain I 'm viewing the content
on_, not the domain the ads are being served on. Otherwise you're "punishing"
poor sods who just happen to be using the same ad network as an abusive site.

I'm not sure any tool allows that right now. They all block-by-default and
have a whitelist instead.

~~~
Nadya
_> I'd like to see the ads at first to give the benefit of the doubt, but then
be able to blacklist the site if it turned out I didn't like them. When I say
"blacklist the site" I mean the domain I'm viewing the content on, not the
domain the ads are being served on. Otherwise you're "punishing" poor sods who
just happen to be using the same ad network as an abusive site._

If the ads are being served from the same ad network - then you will be served
more or less the same shitty ads you didn't want to see on Site A when you
visit Site B. Because it is the _ad network_ tracking you and deciding which
ads you see with very little, if any, input from Sites A or B.

Furthermore, since advertisements are a security risk they should be
blacklisted by default and only whitelist sites you trust. Which is still no
guarantee you won't get infected by the 3rd party Ad Network of that site.

~~~
blakeyrat
> If the ads are being served from the same ad network - then you will be
> served more or less the same shitty ads you didn't want to see on Site A
> when you visit Site B.

Not true.

> Because it is the ad network tracking you and deciding which ads you see
> with very little, if any, input from Sites A or B.

I don't care about "tracking". I think that's extremely overblown paranoia.

> Furthermore, since advertisements are a security risk they should be
> blacklisted by default and only whitelist sites you trust.

That is your opinion; I do not share it.

Regardless of what you "think" I should be doing, the simple fact is that I
want a program that does X, and a program that does X does not exist.

~~~
Nadya
The second statement that you separated from the first statement was to
explain to you why the first statement is correct. I used some weasel words
there ("more or less") because there will be some _targeted_ ads based on A or
B - but the ads served from _the same ad network_ will be largely the same ads
except when a placement ad wins the bid. That is how ad networks work.
Especially Google. [0] [1]

The Ad Network tracks you and knows which ads to show you. It doesn't give a
damn if you visit Site A or Site B it is going to show you the ads it thinks
it should be showing you because it knows who you are. If Site A is about cars
and Site B is about cleaning supplies, you may see more ads for cars/cleaning
supplies on the respective sites - but any "irrelevant" ads will be shared
between the two sites based on your user profile. I'm not bringing up the
tracking aspect as a reason for blocking because some people don't care about
that, as you mentioned you don't yourself. I'm bringing it up because it is
what determines what advertisements you see - and no matter what site you
visit, as long as they are using the same Ad Network, you will receive
advertisements based on your personal profile with that Ad Network.

The company I work for exists to get people like you to click ads. Every large
Ad Network works like this.

 _> That is your opinion; I do not share it._

I hope you have absolutely nothing important on your computer, are never the
target of ransomware, never have any of your personal accounts compromised,
etc. You're probably the first person I've ever met who doesn't care about
personal security. For many people it is even a concern of financial security
(identity theft) with the rise of online banking, but I'll assume you don't do
any of that and you never make any purchases online.

[0]
[https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/113771?visit_id=1-...](https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/113771?visit_id=1-636095711720734984-1013085954&ref_topic=23402&rd=2)

[1]
[https://support.google.com/adsense/troubleshooter/1631343](https://support.google.com/adsense/troubleshooter/1631343)

[2]
[https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/32856](https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/32856)

~~~
blakeyrat
Except Site A could be consuming only text ads, and Site B could be consuming
mostly rich media ads.

Even though I'd prefer Site A, because it doesn't have those nasty takeovers
or anything, if I blocked the ad exchange I'd be fucking over both Site A and
Site B. Site A would become collateral damage, in effect.

Believe me, I worked for Atlas for 5 years. I know how ad networks work.

> I hope you have absolutely nothing important on your computer, are never the
> target of ransomware, never have any of your personal accounts compromised,
> etc.

So do I.

> You're probably the first person I've ever met who doesn't care about
> personal security.

I do care about personal security. I don't see what blocking ads has anything
to do with that.

> For many people it is even a concern of financial security (identity theft)
> with the rise of online banking, but I'll assume you don't do any of that
> and you never make any purchases online.

I've never seen or heard of anybody who's ever lost any money due to an ad
load. It's just irrational paranoia.

~~~
Nadya
_> I do care about personal security. I don't see what blocking ads has
anything to do with that._

Do you have absolutely zero personal information tied to or stored on your
computer? A compromised computer would be compromised security in such a case.

 _> I've never seen or heard of anybody who's ever lost any money due to an ad
load. It's just irrational paranoia._

Look into malvertising and especially ransomware. Just because it hasn't
happened to you or someone you know doesn't mean it hasn't happened. It's also
happened on big name and high trafficked sites like The New York Times,
Yahoo!, the Huffington Post, and more. We're talking _hundreds of thousands of
people_ who have been financially impacted due to malicious ads on otherwise
"trusted" sites. Even sites that specifically requested they disable their ad
blocker, like Forbes.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising)

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/03/big-name-sites-
hit-b...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/03/big-name-sites-hit-by-rash-
of-malicious-ads-spreading-crypto-ransomware/)

------
buckbova
You can always edit the hosts file.

[http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/hosts](http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/hosts)

------
tempodox
That's how it goes. I bet the ads they get payed for are the least annoying to
AdBlock. The “Plus” now stands for “More Ads”.

------
ptero
I hope their ads are small unobtrusive and easy to _detect_ , so that another
ad blocker can easily remove them :)

~~~
Ninn
I'm not sure that I understand how exactly you imagine 2 AdBlockers being a
good idea? Just use a proper one.

~~~
barbs
I think his comment was intentionally tongue-in-cheek

------
pavel_lishin
What's their plan to prevent malware from coming through their ad network?

------
matthewowen
you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain

------
runn1ng
AdBlock has:

* AdBlock

* AdBlock Plus

* AdBlock Ultimate, now AdBlocker Ultimate

uBlock has:

* uBlock

* uBlock Origin

...and I can never tell the difference.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
Just use uBlock Origin. These details don't really matter to most people.

------
robert_foss
At this point Adblock Plus is little more than a cheap money grab.

------
JustSomeNobody
Why don't more people use hosts files and apps like gas mask to switch them?

~~~
Nursie
Element hiding, selective re-enablement and the like.

Not that the hosts file thing is wrong, it's a bit of a sledgehammer approach
though.

~~~
majewsky
Agreed. But I'm still using domain-based blocking on my router as an
additional line of defense for clients that cannot malware-block.

------
cyborgx7
No such thing as an acceptable ad.

~~~
pc86
Then pay for content.

Ads are how people who provide free content make money. Yes, they are often
offensive (visually, not necessarily the content), slow to load, and contain
or utilize some of tracker or retargeting mechanism. But if you can remove
those and you basically just have a PNG telling you about a product or
service, that is the very definition of acceptable.

But to freely consume content from someone (whether a single blogger or a
massive company) then bitch about unobtrusive, nontracking, inoffensive
advertisements is a pretty good example of entitlement.

~~~
stincity
I blanket block every ad (or whatever the list currently has). If a site has
ads, I'll manually block those too. I'll go into their code and find their ad
service url and add it into my list. I'll do whatever it takes to remove them,
regardless if its simple or not. I do not want to see them and I will continue
to visit those sites. I just wish a good adblocker would come to mobile
because I'd use it there as well.

~~~
Grishnakh
>I just wish a good adblocker would come to mobile because I'd use it there as
well.

That's been done for a long time: uBlock Origin for Firefox has been around
for ages, and Firefox has had an Android version for quite some time.

~~~
stincity
I only ever used chrome, never thought about using a different browser on
android.

------
myf01d
I would like to see some examples of these new ads. I've seen some text based
ads, which I think, are much better and cleaner than the early 2000s obtrusive
style.

------
draw_down
I feel like there's a baseline assumption here that the people who make ad
blockers would somehow be more ethical or "nicer" than the people who make
websites that serve shitty ads that got us all to download ad blockers in the
first place. But I don't see why that should be true.

------
jkot
Opera is surprisingly nice browser.. with adblocker

~~~
favadi
The builtin adblocker is slower than uBlock last time I try. And we can't add
custom list.

~~~
angry-hacker
Every company wants to build their own racket e.g. Acceptable Ads manifestó.

