
Please Stop Using Adblock (But Not Why You Think) - ndiscussion
https://medium.com/@trybravery/please-stop-using-adblock-but-not-why-you-think-13280e76c8e7
======
gorhill
> hardworking volunteers continually update and maintain the filter lists

This can't be said enough.

Large numbers of users still have no idea that their blocker works at all
because of these lists.

The collective amount of work which goes into these free-to-use lists on a
daily basis is impressive, especially considering it's done entirely on a
voluntary basis.

To get an idea just glance at the commit rate:

EasyList/EasyPrivacy:
[https://github.com/easylist/easylist/commits/master](https://github.com/easylist/easylist/commits/master)

uBlock Origin:
[https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/commits/master](https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/commits/master)

Add to this all the regional lists, specific-purpose lists, the hosts files
(Peter Lowe's, Dan Pollock, malware lists), etc.

~~~
matthberg
Thank you gorhill. Seriously, all the work you have done with uBlock Origin
has made the world (wide web) a better place. And first recognizing the oft
thankless blocklist maintainers here without a hint of name dropping yourself
is truly honorable.

~~~
sli
uBlock + uMatrix is such a powerful combo that I don't need any other ad- or
script-related extensions on top of them. No Ghostery, no NoScript, none of
that.

------
notriddle
This graphic from within the article

[https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/0*aXa0ZmMFzEgSxsOx....](https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/1000/0*aXa0ZmMFzEgSxsOx.png)

is what drove me over the edge on the Acceptable Ads program as well, and I
switched off of ABP and onto uBlock Origin for this same reason.

I get that it probably doesn't break the Acceptable Ads rules, since they are
probably stuff like: your ad isn't allowed to talk, or to pretend to be
someone like the FBI or the user's Operating System, or include a JS payload
that tries to break out of the browser sandbox, or to break the page layout,
or to move around or flash. Those "Around the Web" things break none of those
rules, and from a technical standpoint I don't know of anything objectionable
about them. Not to mention none of this stuff is any worse than the papers I
see in the grocery aisle, and Eyeo probably doesn't want to enter the business
of judging whether a headline is Truth or not.

But tabloids have done enough damage to our society without migrating them to
the Internet. So off to UBO I go, and I'm bringing everyone else with me that
I can. Also, you should delete your Facebook account and never go back,
because there's tabloid crap in there, too.

~~~
jiveturkey
why not just disable showing of acceptable ads? i have always done this, since
they introduced it.

~~~
fwn
The fundamental problem with defaults is that people do not change them, no
matter what they say.

There might be a fantastically tiny fraction of people actually following
through.

Eyeo even uses this behavioral insight to make a case that users like the
acceptable ads program (since users don't change defaults)

The speaker was asked by the audience whether there is a control group in
which the acceptable ad option is switched off and the speaker only grinned
about it.

It's a dark pattern and Eyeo is fully aware of it.

~~~
joosters
It's still a little surprising here. Not having an adblocker at all is the
default setting, users had to go out of their way to install it in the first
place. Given that, you'd think that people would manage to turn off the 'allow
acceptable ads' option too. (Perhaps it is well hidden?)

------
Jedd
> Basically, they ran a survey which found that 71% of their users would allow
> ads with “no annoyances”. That means no animations, no sounds, and no flashy
> colors.

This needs some context.

This survey ran in 2011 - older readers may remember with some nostalgia the
slightly less evil online advertising landscape back then -- pre-Facebook /
partner analytics scares, pre Spectre/Meltdown, pre javascript bitcoin miners
... and various increasingly nefarious activities that may fall under the
umbrella of 'online advertising'. Plus a significantly smaller ratio of
mobile:desktop browser users -- advertising on mobile is rarely thoughtfully
executed.

This survey question was answered by just over 1500 people. AdblockPlus on
Chrome alone today is showing up on the store as having an installed base of
10,000,000+ people. No idea what it was in 2011, but 1500 people -- some of
whom (70 people, 4.5% of responders) indicated that _" Blocking ads is wrong
and I disable Adblock Plus whenever possible"_ \-- is a tiny, skewed by self-
selection, horribly dated basis for current state.

------
jimmaswell
"eyeo does mention that smaller websites can be whitelisted for free. In fact,
they claim that around 90 percent of their partners are given this service
free of charge.

But that means diddly when we all know that nearly all global ad revenue goes
to just two companies: Google and Facebook."

So 90% of websites get it for free, and mainly Google and Facebook have to
pay. I think the author intends for me to be outraged, but I'm not.

I'm also not having any reaction to the "acceptable ads" the author thinks I'm
supposed to find unacceptable. They're clickbait, sure, but they fit the "no
animations, no sounds, and no flashy colors" criteria.

~~~
Finnucane
It seems that the problem is people have different reactions to ads. Some want
no ads at all, some don't mind ads as such, but are wary of ads with heavy js
and video payloads that cause slowdowns and are potentially malign. There
doesn't seem to be a good solution that allows the user to easily modulate
what they'll accept.

~~~
qplex
Don't forget all the tracking and the profiling.

They hardly ask your consent for that.

I really wouldn't feel bad about any adblocking.

And for anyone that wants to _run ads_ : just serve them locally in a
sufficient format and you'll slip through blocks.

~~~
davidfischer
> And for anyone that wants to run ads : just serve them locally in a
> sufficient format and you'll slip through blocks.

I thought so too. Once you reach a certain size, even 1st party ads get
blocked.

~~~
davvolun
Yeah, but...

> Once you reach a certain size

Top 5 annoying ads of all time for me are autoplaying Youtube ads -- which I
would think would be self-hosted.

------
dschuetz
I don't understand. Generally I don't mind ads if a website is giving me
content I want and what I need. But, what I _do_ mind is when whole sections
of a website get their content and scripts from multiple different other
domains! Most of times it's easy to block such references altogether, but
often it breaks the websites which rely entirely on them. Not the _ads_ are
the problem. The websites are the problem.

Why don't they embed their ads entirely inside the webpages? They could do an
elaborate _internal_ dynamic ads system without needing to load a whole stream
of third party content and software from other domains! What's the problem? I
don't get it. So, I continue to block ads per default, and I don't care about
the constant whining about how "morally wrong blocking ads is".

EDIT: Having a process integrating ads internally will also give the operators
of websites the opportunity to vet the ads for potentially malicious
advertising campaigns, aka fake ads, etc. Just an idea.

~~~
underwater
Facebook serve their own ads inline. Adblock engaged in a cat and mouse game
trying to block their ads whilst simultaneously attempting to get them to sign
up to the acceptable ads program.

Adblock does nothing to incentivise publishers to behave (rewarding relevant,
low bandwidth, visually appealing ads). They only care about using their user
base as a weapon so they can extort 30% of profits.

~~~
jk2323
"Facebook serve their own ads inline. "

It is never too early to say goodbye to ads

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/socialfixer/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/socialfixer/)

------
ndiscussion
Full disclosure: I wrote this post.

I'm sure a lot of us here have already embraced uBlock Origin. It seems to be
universally acclaimed on most tech forums.

Before I wrote this post, I wasn't aware that eyeo served ads directly, which
is what prompted me to write it.

~~~
mey
EFF Privacy Badger combined with uBlock Origin is my current combination.

~~~
gruez
what does privacy badger do that can't be accomplished with a custom ublock
list?

~~~
zenhack
Mostly automation -- you don't have to actually craft the list. It will just
spot stuff it thinks it should be blocking and do so. And if you need to
correct it (uncommon in my experience) the UI for doing so is right there next
to the address bar. Also, it's capable of just blocking cookies for some
sites, which is nice when they're hosting common J's libs/fonts or something,
and blocking them outright would break the page.

------
fencepost
Not mentioned: on Android, Firefox can use extensions including ublock origin.

And on that topic, "Dark Background and Light Text" currently at 0.6.8 is also
mighty handy, though there are some items that end up invisible like voting
arrows on HN.

~~~
thomasahle
If I switch to Firefox mobile, is there a way to transfer all my stored
passwords from Chrome?

~~~
xxs
Firefox for desktop can import settings from Chrome and desktop can sync.
passwords to mobile

------
crankylinuxuser
> Let me get this out of the way: I have nothing against businesses making
> money. Businesses which find a market need and fill that need deserve to
> make a profit. That’s the only way many services would exist.

Let ME get this straight. I _DO_ have issue with businesses making money by
being slimy, rule breaking, ethic-breaking or otherwise deceitful so they can
make a buck.

A good purpose for companies is to better society by either make a product, or
provide a service. I nary think that people (not other companies, mind you!)
would think that some inapp pay-to-play lootbox chumfest would be bettering
society. But hey, we offer them LLCs so they can engage in horrendous
behaviors and then protect everyone in charge.

And lets discuss ads... No, I'm not paying the bandwidth to download them. I'm
not paying the CPU time or ram to display them. No, they are bastions of
computer disease and poison. I will block each and every one of them as soon
as I find them. I will ignore every domain that attempts to host them. I don't
care if "your company relies on them" \- well, too bad. Die then. My personal
network/computer well being is worth more than your bad actions.

~~~
kiriakasis
woah. I understand you would like to see the ads economy burn to the ground.
but do you plan to build a viable alternative from the ashes? I am not
criticizing your hate for ads, but as a fact they empower a sizable sector of
our economy (directly or indirectly, like how amazon sell discounted devices
with lock screen ads).

I agree that ads-driven websites tends to turn into tabloid full of clickbaits
but newspapers had always had ads, why not on the internet?

~~~
crankylinuxuser
Let me give you an alternate hypothesis.

There's the story about the kid who broke a window, and all the resulting
economic activity somehow 'bolstered' the economy. In truth, when all is added
up, the community lost by the cost of a window. This is called the "Parable of
the Broken Window" (broken window hypothesis relates to a Reagan-era policy of
broken windows = crime. not related).

Advertising is the same way. Their primary mode of communication is to jam up
legitimate communication and crowd out others. Their best efforts is to enact
in a combination of the parable of the broken window alongside the tragedy of
the commons to see their wares.

You ask for a viable alternative? There isn't one. The very basis of
advertising is parasitic. It cannot live on its own. It has nothing of value
to offer. But it can crowd out legitimate discourse and sell our attention and
thoughts back to us after weakening us slightly. We wouldn't fight for a
tapeworm, tick, or mosquito, would we?

You also argue that they "empower a sizable sector of our economy". Again,
that does look to be the case on a first look, but I say look deeper. They're
costing even more, and we as a society only recoup the sizable sector as its
outcome. Again, the parable of the broken window rears its ugly head.

(edit: because I got the name of the thing wrong)

------
sytelus
I have wondered many times how those bad ads keep showing up on many pages
despite of AdBlock Plus and now I understand. It's eye opening that these evil
people charges 30% of ad revenue to let you through their plugin called
AdBlock Plus! For what? Just "reviewing" the ad? There can be one time review
fee but not the recurring fee. That is pure conflict of interest and immediate
give away to this whole evil money making scheme called AdBlock Plus. They are
ad mafia in its very sense.

Thanks for writing this article. AdBlock uninstalled. uBlock Origin installed.

------
pbhjpbhj
Classic clickbait title:

"Use uBlock because Adblock's parent company eyeo GmbH runs 'Acceptable Ads'"

That's very old news, surely.

~~~
progx
And? It seems many people still use Adblock, so it is a good reminder to use
something else.

~~~
Sylos
Could've at least tried to not be misleading and spelt out "Adblock Plus".

------
tgsovlerkhgsel
While on one hand, the acceptable ads program does border on extortion, and
them allowing Taboola is bullshit (and the reason why I no longer allow those
ads), I think "acceptable ads" is a sane approach.

I'm willing to tolerate ads to a certain extent. I'm not going to pay (in
money, time, or looking at ads that I consider unacceptable) to sort the good
from bad. Ad companies have consistently failed at avoiding bad ads. So some
third party will have to do it, and either advertisers or publishers or
platforms are going to have to pay for it. That's what Acceptable Ads is
doing. Are they abusing their leading position with ABP to charge obscene
amounts of money? Definitely.

Could the ad industry have avoided it by introducing strict, technically
enforced ads quality rules earlier? Maybe. (Depends on whether they could have
convinced the early adblockers to not block those ads, which they might have
been able if they enforced really strict rules instead of just banning the
worst of the worst.)

ABP allowed Taboola (fun fact: The Taboola ads you got with ABP are/were
different, less obnoxious versions than the ones served to people without
adblockers). I don't like that, so I no longer use ABP, so ABP gets less
revenue. Maybe someone else will make a different "acceptable ads" system that
I'll be willing to opt into - and I'm perfectly OK if they squeeze money from
publishers/advertisers/platform to make it profitable to maintain such a list.

------
Groxx
Somewhat related:

Anyone know of a clickbait "not why you think" blocker? I bet 71% or more of
users find it an annoying pattern. And a clickbait blocker would be
_wonderful_ in general.

~~~
PmMeYourDevJob
I was interested in the article because of the 'not why you think'
clickbait.... turns out that was exactly why I don't user eyeo blockers...

So not only clickbait but misleading in my case.

~~~
zupa-hu
isn't that the definition of clickbait?

------
firmgently
In conversations about ad-blocking a common idea that comes up is that "you
look at the sites -> so there's value in them -> so you should be paying for
them". I don't follow this chain of logic. Firstly, it presumes that humans
are perfectly rational machines and that we only do things that we want to do,
or that are valuable to us. This does not match my experience of reality.
Often the main reason we choose to visit a site is because a link to it has
been put in front of us. A lot of the time this is largely due to the site's
PR/marketing budget. So we've only ended up at the site in the first place
because the site wanted us there... then they act put out by our presence and
consumption of their hallowed content and demand we allow marketeers'
manipulations into our psyches in return.

Most websites (say as a completely unsubstantiated, overgenerous guess: 99% of
them) don't need to exist. internetlivestats says that there are 1.8B
websites, 200M active. So even if as few as 1% managed to stay alive without
ad support, that's between 2M and 18M websites still left to look at. I'd find
something to read in there.

Choosing to visit a website is generally extremely passive. We look at the
front page of HN (for example), make a few micromovements of our fingers and
now we have dozens of tabs full of stuff to read. We didn't wake up that
morning desperate to read any of those things, our existence wouldn't be
negatively affected if went to bed that night not having read them.

Some people (especially those who currently make money from ads on sites) seem
to think we're desperate for them to exist and that's why we put up with their
ads. It even materialises into weird threats sometimes "wait and see what
happens when we stop operating because you wouldn't watch our adverts"). Bring
that world on, I say. There was plenty of content on the early internet before
everybody saw it as a way to make money.

People who create content online for business reasons (either to directly make
money or to keep their business relevant and known) then act as if they are
obliged to make them for the good of society. If it's that difficult and
expensive, and you don't want to do it for the joy of it, just stop. Don't
pretend you're doing it for altruistic reasons.

~~~
greenyoda
> _It even materialises into weird threats sometimes "wait and see what
> happens when we stop operating because you wouldn't watch our adverts")._

Note that the threat is _not_ "if we can't make money from our ads, we'll need
to start charging a subscription fee for our content."

Because they know that hardly anyone would actually find the content they
provide to be useful or entertaining enough to justify paying real money for.

If I woke up tomorrow to find that all commercially produced content on the
web cost money, there's only a handful of sites that I'd consider subscribing
to (maybe a couple of high-quality news organizations). The sites I find the
most valuable are blogs where people freely share their own interests (which
cost almost nothing to host).

------
03-
> On mobile, Firefox Focus

I can't speak for other platforms, but Firefox for Android does support "add-
ons", including uBlock Origin.

~~~
fwn
Firefox for Android (other then Focus/Klar) has the added benefit of also
providing cosmetic content blocking.

This allows blocking ads on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, etc.. For
many this might be the greater part of their mobile internet experience.

------
akshayB
The industry got greedy over Ads money which transformed into a revenue
generation model and destroyed the user experience in so many cases. Go to NFL
or MLB and I find it extremely ridiculous that you have watch 30 seconds of
video ads before watching a short 30 second game play.

Some of the Ads are annoying in page popups and sometime some just hover
around as you scroll.

~~~
dexterdog
I get the idea behind video ads, but nothing makes me hate a product more that
when I want to watch 5 different clips and each one has the same ad before it.

------
ficklepickle
For those who haven't heard of it, I just deployed pi-hole on my home network
and it has been great. It is a DNS server that blocks ads, running on a
raspberry pi.

Just point your router at it, and all clients get ad blocking. Works for
mobile apps, like YouTube, too.

~~~
goombastic
Doesnt work for youtube for me though. The ads come through.

~~~
Lev1a
I have that issue as well and read somewhere online that it's due to youtube
serving both their ads and normal videos from the same domain name, which can
be distinguished by content-based blockers like uBlock but not by pihole which
only looks at the domain names.

------
zeevo
The internet is a pull medium. An "adblock" is nothing more than saying I do
not wish to receive your files.

~~~
alkonaut
Which is also why publishers will soon realize they can’t serve stuff in
chunks where the reader can opt out of downloading or rendering certain parts.

I thinking canvas+wasm and similar tech will soon be used in a second coming
of flash - where a full site will be downloaded as a blob and rendered by site
code.

~~~
patrickaljord
The code used by ads would still need to be hosted on third parties servers,
because ad servers can't trust sites owners to host the ad code because of
cheating. So blocking advertisers hosts could still work even if ads use
canvas and wasm.

~~~
alkonaut
I think the idea of downloading ads (code) directly from third parties will
die sooner than this “Flash 2” becomes an issue. That just isn’t sustainable
regardless of the trust issue (a person described his ad network that doesn’t
rely on third party served code in another comment).

But if blocking advertisers’ hosts is working, it’s trivial for publishers to
simply present nothing if the ad isn’t successfully downloaded. When the
rendering is controlled by the third party, it’s an all or nothing affair.

------
AdmiralAsshat
I'd throw Brave browser into the mix, which blocks native ads and replace them
with _its own_ ads.

~~~
mpwoz
Really? I haven't noticed this, admittedly I don't use it much.

What's the best alternative on android?

~~~
craftyguy
Firefox

------
lisper
I use Safari. Whenever I go to Medium, I get this error: "Safari Web Content
quite unexpectedly." I can eventually get this to go away by reloading the
page several times. The number of reloads necessary to get it to work seems to
be more or less random, ranging from 2-6 or so. Once the problem is gone it
stays gone on subsequent reloads, but if I close the browser window and re-
open it, the problem recurs. Medium is the only site on which I see this
problem.

I can't think of anything non-shady that a blog hosting site could possibly be
doing that would cause this.

~~~
ndiscussion
Sorry about this. I haven't heard anything bad about Medium, but you can read
the original post on my blog instead: [https://sricks.com/please-stop-using-
adblock/](https://sricks.com/please-stop-using-adblock/)

~~~
dexterdog
You've never heard anybody talk about the design nightmare that their comment
section is?

------
roryisok
Is it just me, or have medium article gotten very clickbaity lately?

~~~
coatmatter
It's always looked that way to me. That along with Hacker Noon and
Kickstarter. Everything looks like a promotion and I'm less inclined to find
any good articles even if they are. It still seems to be trending with a lot
of people here though.

------
Ice_cream_suit
Does anyone still use Adblock ? Thought that most people jumped ship to Ublock
Origin years ago.

------
exabrial
Can we just write articles without click bait headlines? Like "Please stop
using adblock whitelists because the companies behind them have ethics issues"

------
alphabettsy
So actually they title should be “Stop using AdBlock Plus” for reasons that
are old news.

------
dawnerd
I go a step further and use pihole and ublock origin. pihole can't catch
everything so thats what ublock is for - mostly cosmetic filters really.

------
Multicomp
On Android, DNS66 via f Droid has been my go-to and works great. Blocks in app
ads, and even makes my Google play music skip the audio ads.

~~~
ttsda
Same here, super under-rated app

------
mschwaig
I remember reading about some project where as a user you would automatically
take part in the bidding process for ad placement on the websites you yourself
visited.

The idea was to outbid real ad networks and serve yourself bogus no-op ads
while paying the websites you visited through their usual channels.

Does anyone remember reading about this as as well? What happened to that
project?

~~~
herbst
Not sure what exactly you mean but there are several sites that offer self
service ads and also some third parties.

There is a popular one in the Bitcoin world (forgot the name) that definitly
paid more per click than Adsense for good sites.

~~~
mschwaig
Maybe you mean Brave. That's a browser that blocks ads, bit pays out bitcoin
to site owners. I found this one today while researching.

------
fencepost
There's one place I still will consider using Adblock Plus - I support some
users who still use IE on Windows 7 boxes, and I've kind of looked at it as
"good enough" for those situations.

There may be better options, but I haven't really felt the need to go digging
through reviews and comparisons of software targeted at IE users.

------
standardcitizen
Beyond all points, I found it interesting how people think they get to control
their ads, but at the same time don’t want to pay publishers for content.

I often find it funny when people complain about ads on torrent sites.

I think this speaks of a culture that thinks they should get everything for
free.

50 years ago, if you wanted to read the news,you paid for it.

Today , we complain about want ads can the free content providers give us.
Yet, we wonder why publishers provide such crap content, because their Main
focus is pleasing free users with what ad they will like.

I’m not surprised by how many people speak of micropayment for articles, but
no one does it.

The more we block legitment ads, the more crap we’ll see.

The cost to behave nicely becomes too much.

Hacker News has been an amazing place, but more and more things like “evil”
for people pushing ads is insane. Evil is hilter, but now you’re comparing
you’re as provider in the same way?

Ps not in ads, just a realist.

~~~
thefounder
The issue is that the ads/commercials are not relevant...and there are too
many...many of them of very low quality and even misleading. I don't mind the
ads from stackexchange for example or various Pro-audio forums that I use. But
compare that with a file sharing website that you mentioned where you have
multiple "download" links masking various ads. Micropayments don't work
because nobody got them right...

------
intrasight
I'd never heard of eyeo and was only vaguely familiar with adblock plus before
reading this. But I have ublock origin installed on all my browsers, and can't
imagine browsing without it. For Facebook I use FBP and like wise can't
imagine using Facebook without it.

------
m000z0rz
Am I reading this right, that Adblock considers chum boxes acceptable ads? I
never really considered it; I have AdBlock Plus installed and have seen way
too many of those. Does uBlock Origin block them?

~~~
lorenzhs
Yes it does. I would recommend ublock origin over Adblock Plus any day. That
said, you could also disable “acceptable ads” to get rid of these with Adblock
Plus.

------
happybuy
For iOS and Mac users, may I also suggest people consider using an adblock
product we develop – Magic Lasso
([https://www.magiclasso.co/](https://www.magiclasso.co/)).

We agree with the sentiment of the post and are working to create a great
alternative to misleading adblockers like Adblock Plus.

Magic Lasso is an efficient and high performance ad blocker with native Safari
integration and we don't take kick-backs from advertisers or follow any
'acceptable ads' policies.

------
siulanilom
You should try Brave browser. They are trying to align the incentives the righ
way imho

[https://brave.com/](https://brave.com/)

------
Nala_Alan
I got clickbaited. I thought it's about ad blocking in general, but it's
actually an ad of great piece of tool which is uBlock Origin that I already
use.

------
callesgg
"Users say that they need full control over their technology and that
advertising often leads to security risks."

Never heard that.

At least personally I just don't want to see ads.

~~~
pmoriarty
It's been widely reported that malware has been served up through ads. They
are a security risk.

------
sklivvz1971
Yep, use
[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock)

------
kexx
Stupid title, good title 'Please stop using adblock PLUS'. I just gave $10 for
the creators of adblock (not plus) and ublock origin

------
thadjo
I'd be pretty OK with this if they have me, as the viewer, 30% of the revenue
they generate from ads served. Seems fair.

------
atomicnumber1
I don't mind ads. What I do mind is intrusive behaviour of ads on a webpage.
Some of the sites even crash my browser. I fear that, more we block ads, the
more they'll find a way to show ads to users. And I fear that adblocker's
might lose in this cat and mouse game.

------
gerardnll
Yes, we all want unobtrusive ads, but the problem with unobtrusive ads is that
they not call your attention, so there are less chances of seeing them... For
me the best solution is to pay for the service you want, that's the best way
to asure quality and independence.

~~~
JohnStrangeII
I don't want unobtrosive ads, I want no ads at all, which is why I block them
all.

And there is nothing wrong that. Companies that rely on ad-views aren't
entitled to anything and its perfectly fine for me if they go the way of the
Dodo (including e.g. Google).

It's perfectly normal and reasonable to choose for yourself what you want to
watch and listen to.

~~~
hungryfoolish
I on the other hand am fine with some ads, as long as they are not annoying or
don't track me.

I am willing to deal with ads which don't do that in exchange for consuming
more content and supporting the sites I visit often. Which is why I actually
am ok with the acceptable ads setting, which allows me do block most ads
except the annoying ones without any major tinkering or extra effort on my
part.

------
HurrdurrHodor
Seriously? You want people to switch from software A to software B and you
write an article that for the first half of the page sounds like you want them
to stop using either of those softwares?

~~~
bartread
And that title is pure clickbait.

Summary: don't use AdBlock, use uBlock Origin instead. (I may have got the
wrong as I only skimmed the article to get the gist.)

~~~
calgoo
If you are going to complain about the article, please read it at least.

~~~
bartread
Well, you know, if it was less verbose and got to the point a bit quicker I
might not have lost interest and skimmed everything after paragraph two.

I may as well say, "If you want me to read the whole article, please write
cogently and engagingly at least".

------
4ad
Somewhat related: can anyone recommend an ad blocker for Safari (on macOS)
that uses the Safari Content Block API (instead of JavaScript injection? Right
now I am using AdGuard, but I am looking for alternatives.

------
lars_francke
I've been looking for years for an adblocker that's disabled by default.

I only want to enable it on certain sites. On those however I'd like them to
behave like all the other blockers with all the lists etc.

Any recommendations?

~~~
notanote
Ublock Origin can work this way with a couple of clicks. Use the advanced user
option. Allow all content globally, and then use local override on sites where
you want ad blocking.

~~~
lars_francke
Thanks. Unfortunately it doesn't seem as straightforward (or I'm missing
something)

The advanced options documented here
([https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Advanced-
settings](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Advanced-settings)) don't
seem to fit the description.

~~~
notanote
What advanced settings allows is to edit the blocking rules with something
like the uMatrix gui. Once advanced is set, open the uBlock dropdown, then
click on "requests blocked".

You will see a table with three columns. The second column edits the global
rules, the third one is for local rules. Each of the rows in them shows three
bars once you hover over one. Green = allow, grey = noop, red = deny. (Noop is
the setting to not overrule the adblocker lists.)

In the "all" row at the top, click on green in the global column, to allow
everything everywhere. Click the lock icon. Now uBlock won't interfere at all.

On a site where you want to block according to the lists, open the dropdown,
and in the row with the site's domain name, click the grey bar in the local
column. Click the lock icon to save the setting across sessions. uBlock will
apply the lists' rules to that site.

If this is unclear, I can make a guide with images.

------
gaia
Why does your blog post ([https://sricks.com/best-ad-
blockers/](https://sricks.com/best-ad-blockers/)) suggest avoiding the Brave
browser?

------
chrischen
Is it possible to release the filter lists under a noncommercial license?

~~~
hendersoon
Easylist and Easyprivacy, the most common community-maintained lists, are
licensed under creative commons. Pretty much everybody uses them.

[https://easylist.to/pages/about.html](https://easylist.to/pages/about.html)

~~~
mmirate
According to that page, Easylist uses specifically the CC-BY-SA, which doesn't
include the Non-Commercial features.

------
FrozenVoid
The web advertisers have a twisted vision of ad effectiveness:

1.I don't want to see ads and i will block them as much as possible.

2.If i see ads i would not click them

3.if i accidentally click them i wouldn't buy anything advertised, even if i
have the need for advertised product class: instead of trusting ads i research
stuff to decide on my own and then buy it.

4.If i see a product on any site that was advertised to me,i will have a lower
opinion of it because it associated with web advertising(which i consider
obnoxious and avoid).

So in effect, advertising will ruin your reputation in my eyes and will not
get you any financial benefits. More and more users are going this way and
consider all ads as visual spam that designed to steal their time.

The ad industry attempts to recover user attention with "Product placement"
and "organic insertion" of ads into real content have the effect of increasing
distrust in content and will not work long term(wordfilters and content
filtering).

The whole model has no future: the problem with the concept of advertising is
that it using old media "mass broadcast" techniques and isn't relevant to the
content: an example is advertising in search results;

Instead of search algorithm delivering "best match for query X" we get ""Best
match+Artificially boosted SEO sites+Ads";i.e. the concept of advertising is
essentially "pushing our stuff in front of user regardless of our
quality",which reduces relevance of content itself, reduces the quality of
data channel and user trust.

To further understand the "anti-quality" inherent in advertising, imagine ads
as biased news designed to influence people and content as neutral news: with
less content(neutral news) and more ads(biased news) the site becomes less
neutral and loses quality(despite still having real content).

The advertising industry "broadcast" isn't accepted, so what they decided is
that to tailor their broadcast to the user, creating targeting criteria and
increase effectiveness of the the ad. Why would this work at all?

Only if the user private information is disclosed: That reasoning is that
"targeted ads require target personal data to be effective" and in effect
condemn advertising to seek for this private data from all sources. Note that
doesn't increase the quality of their product, its finding a cheaper way to
advertise that filters out users not interested in their product.

But of course advertising industry is overly-optimistic as what constitutes
'interest' and is eager to "broadcast" its message at anyone showing a minimum
interest in "targeted concept".

Why this doesn't create interest, is that people being targeted know that
"related ads" are just accompanying noise to their content and that they are
specifically targeted because they see it in action(e.g. show interest in
topic X, get ads for X-related products for weeks).

This fundamental break with basic psychology, being hostile to user and
stealing his time is the fatal flaw. "Unobtrusive ads" are just less obnoxious
way to steal our attention, they're still ads and they still degrade quality
of sites.

But what about ad-supported sites struggling to pay the bills? If you can't
afford the minimal hosting fees associated with a website there is a problem
with your finances: solving it with ads is just masking the problem. A large
site with heavy traffic should depend on products and services it provides,
not ads. Ads will eventually get blocked and ignored.

Users don't come for the ads, they avoid them. Ads are only effective when
they are centralized on one place where users come to expect them, such as
e.g. craiglist categories, ebay,marketplace-type sites,etc.

Classifieds outside such 'centralized marketplaces' are perceived as biased
and out-of-place, becoming normal ads and losing their relevance without being
embedded in a marketplace. Psychologically:ads turn sites into mini-
marketplaces and are perceived as corruption of a site.

------
tux1968
Blocking ads will become nearly impossible once WebAssembly becomes
ubiquitous. Sites will simply have their own custom render engine and
transport protocol; it will be game over.

~~~
firmgently
I don't see that as game over at all, just a change in the game.

Maybe ad-blockers will become site-blockers, or when you hover over a link it
will go turn [[bad-colour]] to show you it leads to a site which forces
advertising. Or on touchscreens (no hover) maybe those links open into a
different, purgatory window. I do something similar manually at the moment,
for example when I see Bloomberg/Techcrunch/Medium stuff on here I read the HN
comments but very rarely go to the original article as I expect them to force
autoplaying videos on me (I'm on a limited data plan) or use horrible UI such
as scrolljacking or dickbars that I don't want to spend slices of my finite
life experiencing.

Or maybe adblockers will use AI to detect certain images, salesy phrases,
moving images etc and employ their own custom render engine to remove them.

------
nkkollaw
I have AdGuard, a paid adblocker that blocks ads in apps as well.

Whenever I use my girlfriend's phone I wonder how people can actually enjoy
the internet in the state it is.

------
swoorup
These days you also need a crypto miner blocker.

------
DrJaws
I would say that even better than ublock origin is nano adblock with nano
defender that it is an anti anti-adblock

------
sandov
I thought this was common knowledge among tech people, though it can't be
stressed enough to non-techies.

------
rocqua
ABP allows me to whitelist Youtube channels. Last time I checked, other
blockers did not. Has that changed?

------
standardcitizen
Sorry for the two post,

I want to pose a question for the community.

60 years ago you paid for news paper. It was direct. Plus they had ads.
Business model was clear.

Here my question,

Would everyone be ok with adblocker to have an option for you to pay the
owners of the websites you visit?

Instead of them replying on ads, you just pay a fee for each visit. Then there
a weekly payment sent to publishers.

I’m not speaking of the likeliness, or the technical issues.

Just the concept.

Interested in hearing you responses.

Ps I’m not a publisher or in ads.

~~~
isostatic
Yup Someone put head said they had something like $100 off 60k views. That's
about .1p per view.

I'd like to visit a page and before it loads, it would tell me the price. If
that's 1/10p then I'd probably just allow it automatically. If it's 1p then
I'd probably manually approve it. If it's 10p I might think "nah". I'd rather
pay directly than pay through increased prices at shops that advertise. Same
principle with videos on youtube - at least those one that someone actually
makes.

However if I choose to pay - whether that's 0.1p to read a blog post, or £15 a
month for Spotify, I expect no adverts or begging or product placement of any
kind. Amazon prime gives videos, and when I watch on A smart TV or on laptop
it's fine. On the old fire tv box we have it prepended clips with adverts for
other shows. That's not on.

Currnently I pay for a couple of sites, but it's a heavyweight way to crack a
nut.

Some sites have this sort of model, but want far more per page than they get
from adverts, and then there's a massive hassle of different accounts and
managing payments. I might read a blog with a donate button, however it's u
likely I've judged the page to be worth more than a penny or two, and the
donate options tend to start at $1.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
This, and it would also need to be 100% frictionless.

I'm giving money to The Guardian to support their good journalism, but I still
get the nag popups to give them money because I'm not signed in (and I'm
certainly not going to enable persistent cookies for the site and then sign in
across all the devices I use).

------
nimbius
now that net neutrality is effectively a distant memory, you may also wish to
consider null-routing known advertisers using pihole or your own DNS resolver
null zone

[http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/](http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/)

------
lbj
So, they've created a product and they're making a bit of money of it. Whats
the problem?

~~~
techsin101
Problem is that they promised no ads and got free labor toward that mission.
Now that people have marketed them into almost every browser that matters..
they're getting in bed with advertisers.

And amount is going to be 100s of millions, not just a bit of money. money
earned by deciving and free labor

------
johnchristopher
The ads shown in the article aren't blinking gifs so I'd say it covers enough
ground.

------
cdancette
This was what I thought, in fact it's the exactly why I stopped using adblock.

------
exabrial
Can anyone do a shakedown on Ghostery? I'd love to know their ethical stance.

------
ddtaylor
ABP has been known to be garbage for many years now, at least since 2014.

------
keir-rex
Is the date 2002 correct? Which browser was that released for?

------
imglorp
TL;DR: Adblock sold out. Use uBlock Origin instead.

~~~
astrodust
AdBlock sold _you_ out if you use it. They're monetizing _you_.

That's the part that's ridiculous.

The downright offensive part is the companies they've chosen to whitelist
serve up the absolutely stupidest ads.

------
SeriousM
I don't need a adblocker, the ads don't load at all because of my pi-hole box.
The only adblocking thing I need is for YouTube against the in video ads.

------
fenwick67
Ads? In my ad blocker?

It's more likely than you think.

------
sharpercoder
Please just let me pay for not seeing ads.

~~~
snarfy
Donate to ublock?

------
dm319
uMatrix is very nice. Gives you fine granular control over scripts like
noscript does.

~~~
maoistinquisitr
I don't really see any ads just by running NoScript. I don't see the need for
an ad blocker.

If a site won't render with javascript disabled, then I just close the tab.

~~~
dm319
I moved to uMatrix because of this[1]. That doesn't seem very practical to me.
Don't you need javascript to view, say, youtube videos? Also to make almost
any sort of purchase transaction too. I do think it's a shame that that's the
kind of internet we have to deal with now.

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12624000](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12624000)

------
smittywerben
As the ad lists grow, chrome continues to slow.

------
HurrdurrHodor
Whatever the reasoning:

HAHAHAHAHA! No.

~~~
DanBC
The article says you should stop using one particular ad blocker, and has good
reasons for doing so. It's not telling you to stop using all ad blockers, and
it gives a name for an ad blocker that people should use.

------
fulyscentedking
TL;DR, use uBlock Origin.

------
jk2323
It is also good to have several lines of defense

* Host File

[http://www.hosts-flash.com/](http://www.hosts-flash.com/)

[https://oldj.github.io/SwitchHosts/](https://oldj.github.io/SwitchHosts/)

* Browser:

uBlock

uMatrix

* Facebook:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/socialfixer/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/socialfixer/)

~~~
nyolfen
there is no reason to run both ublock origin and umatrix, they run the same
engine with different frontends

~~~
jk2323
[https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/enhancing-ublock-
ori...](https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/enhancing-ublock-origin-with-
umatrix.388704/)

------
gwbas1c
Hahahaha. I browsed without any adblocking for years, and the ads just got
worse and worse.

I'm still running Adblock.

------
abpavel
Yet another rant by an ad proponent. Forgets to mention that there is
"Acceptable ads" checkbox that can turn off all ads, and whitelisting only
affects users with default settings. There is no doubting the power of ads,
but personally I want many publishers to go out of business because their
content is crap and clickbates.

Websites serve near viruses all the time, both content- and cookie-wise, and
AdBlock is a good firewall for both visual and javascript exploits

~~~
Pica_soO
Those checkboxes are no longer a argument.

Companys have turned keeping those settings you want into a chore, constantly
updating away the users work, pushing in a war of attrition their preferred
settings - and sometimes even just outright ignoring the done settings
altogether.

So having a checkbox to turn it off- is by now nothing more then a pr-
stuntstrawmen - just as the constant updates, which are used to wriggle out of
responsibilities for errors and bugs.

~~~
hungryfoolish
>Companys have turned keeping those settings you want into a chore, constantly
updating away the users work, pushing in a war of attrition their preferred
settings - and sometimes even just outright ignoring the done settings
altogether.

Is it a chore though in ABP? It's front and center in the settings.

