
Ask HN: Blacklist Forbes? - willwhitney
Would it be possible to blacklist forbes.com links? They now block viewers who are using ad blockers, and have recently been serving advertising malware to visitors [1].<p>They also have awful interstitial ads [2] and, while they masquerade as a news organization, are actually a blog farm [3].<p>Blocking Forbes would be no great loss in terms of content, and would avoid a surprising amount of advertising- (and malware-) generated pain.<p>[1]: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.extremetech.com&#x2F;internet&#x2F;220696-forbes-forces-readers-to-turn-off-ad-blockers-promptly-serves-malware<p>[2]: &lt;any Forbes article, e.g. http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;kathleenchaykowski&#x2F;2016&#x2F;01&#x2F;08&#x2F;meet-the-queen-of-imgur-the-image-sharing-site-thats-half-the-size-of-twitter&#x2F; &gt;<p>[3]: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;np.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;technology&#x2F;comments&#x2F;3zs6qk&#x2F;gq_and_forbes_go_after_ad_blocker_users_rather&#x2F;cyp2uls?context=3#cyowy51
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StevePerkins
This seems to be becoming a lot more common.

Whenever I search for answers to Go-related questions, a website called
"socketloop.com" is always the top search result. Although they have
extraordinary SEO when it comes to serving content to Google or Bing crawlers,
they don't serve traffic AT ALL to browsers with AdBlock installed.

Really frustrating... that blog site is turning into the "expertsexchange.com"
of Go. I would rather just have its links excluded from my search results
altogether. The crazy thing is that it's a one-man WordPress-like niche blog,
for which I'd be shocked if it drew more than a few hundred bucks A YEAR in ad
revenue anyway.

~~~
shpx
> I would rather just have its links excluded from my search results
> altogether

You can. Google offers a personal block list extension. For chrome at least.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-
blocklist...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-
goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef?hl=en-US)

------
nhebb
There's already a built in solution for this on HN:

\- Upvote posts you like.

\- Do not upvote posts you don't like.

\- Use 'Flag' judiciously for content that you feel is not appropriate to HN.

\- Let the HN ranking algorithm do its work.

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codegeek
I agree. Had a really shocking experience when I tried to visit a link and
they kept telling me to "turn off ad blockers" to provide a better experience.

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tptacek
I don't like Forbes and can't remember a single Forbes submission on HN that
I've gotten any value from, but this is just one in a long list of sites
people believe should be banned from HN for reasons other than the content
that they publish.

I don't think this is a can of worms anyone really wants to open.

If you don't want to unwittingly visit Forbes, edit your /etc/hosts file.

------
eli
I'd prefer to decide for myself whether I want to click a link, thanks.

I'm sure you can find a suitable plugin or HOSTS file modification that will
prevent you from accessing forbes.com even accidentally.

------
kriegslustig
Is it possible? Of course it is! From their current site I gathered these
domains (these are the ones _uBlock_ doesn't block by default):

forbes.com

forbesimg.com

forbes_video.edgesuite.net

app-ab13.marketo.com

If you're using _uBlock Origin_ you can simply click on the _uBlock_ -icon on
the top left in your browser, click on the grey bar on top of the box that
opened, go to _" My Filters"_ and insert the above snippet into the text box.

Edit: formatting

~~~
kiiski
I'm pretty sure he was talking about blacklisting forbes.com links on HN.

~~~
kriegslustig
Oh, now that makes more sense. Sorry! Anyway blacklisting their content in the
browser might be nice too.

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alexivanovs
Seems like a VERY bold move, and something tells me that a lot of other sites
are going to follow this idea, in many ways because it validates what others
have been feeling already for so long; the loss of potential revenue.

I encountered this for the first time earlier today, and had to come back to
the screen that tells you to turn it off at least 3 times, one can hope that
it was just a 'temporary' hold to lure people in the idea, but no -- it's the
real deal!

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paulus_magnus2
To lawyers here: if my PC gets infected on Forbes, who is liable? Forbes or
the AD provider or ???

~~~
junto
Probably should be a chain, so you sue Forbes, Forbes sues the ad network and
the network sues the advertiser.

In reality, Forbes lawyers would beat you with a big stick and demonstrate
that their public terms and conditions that nobody reads, absolve themselves
from any responsibility!

~~~
rubyfan
I'm not sure I buy that having a terms page and me viewing some other page on
their site constitutes an agreement that absolves Forbes.com from liability or
protects them from you suing them.

~~~
junto
I agree with you, but their $1000 per hour lawyer probably doesn't care what
we think.

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recursive
I don't use an ad-blocker to avoid problems like this. Why should ad blockers
be considered the default state?

~~~
gpvos
Things like this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10870892](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10870892)

~~~
recursive
Serving malware seems like a much more serious problem. That sounds like a
good reason for banning by itself, regardless of what they do to ad blockers.

~~~
gpvos
My point is more that adblockers are a good defence against malware, so much
that they can be seen as a necessity, and can therefore be treated as a
reasonable default.

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greggarious
Many websites serve malvertising, blocking Forbes would just give readers a
false sense of security.

------
gue5t
Agreed. Forbes is a mainstream news source and doesn't belong on HN anyway.
They don't have articles of technical substance about computer hacking.

Edit: It'd be nice if the folks downvoting would take the time to explain how
they feel about this topic. Are there Forbes articles that actually pertain to
the act of computer hacking, and not just modern (computerized) business?

~~~
danbower
I didn't downvote you but I'll give my thoughts.

Firstly there's been quite a few articles posted to HN that aren't even
technology related, let alone being of proper substance, yet are still of
interest to HN readers. For example I have fond memories reading through a bee
keeping article posted here and the discussion that followed. Due to the
popularity of that article and others like it, I think it's fair to say the
readership isn't fixed on the idea that all articles must even be strictly
technology related. Secondly you'll notice that BBC articles get posted here
quite often and that's absolutely a mainstream news source.

------
funkyy
I concur - as of late you can easily buy articles on Forbes decreasing its
quality and neutrality.

------
deusu
I agree.

But I would go even farther. Block every site where you won't be able to read
the content without having Javascript enabled. I have experienced several
blogs where you won't see anything without Javascript.

~~~
ashwinb10
Isn't this a bit extreme? Many websites use client-side rendering via
frameworks like Angular, React, etc.

~~~
currysausage
I find it _extreme_ if a site requires JavaScript + hundreds of kilobytes of
frameworks in order to display some text. But you're right, such a measure
would probably hide useful content from HN users, thus making HN itself less
useful.

------
pan69
The New York Times is another one I can think of. I'm not against pay walls or
ad blocking, but if, as a content provider, you choose to implement these
sorts of "devices" than you can at least expect your content not to be shared
around any more on link sites such as HN, i.e. you're not serving the
community on those websites any more, your serving your customers. Which is
fine, but I'm not your customer.

When ever I see a pay wall on HN these days, I "flag" it.

~~~
blacksmythe
I believe if you flag too many articles, HN takes away your flagging
privilege.

~~~
relkor
You have to speak up, although it is a chorus of voices that is the will of
the community, each voice is necessary. Do not be afraid of speaking your
opinion for fear of loosing a button on the internet that you can press.

~~~
krapp
The mods have already made it perfectly clear[0] that paywalled articles are
acceptable, though. This isn't a subject which is apparently up for debate -
flagging paywalled articles is an abuse of flagging, abuse of flagging will
lead to loss of flagging rights, and complaining about paywalled articles is
off topic, and off topic discussion gets pruned and voted down.

If you don't like that an article is paywalled, provide a workaround link
(which many such sites have, so they can still get SEO from the article) or
just don't comment on that article.

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

~~~
relkor
You are missing the point about advocating for change. Of course I am aware
that mods allow pay-walled articles, I believe I saw the discussion was on the
front page a month or so back. What I am talking about is civil disobedience,
Rosa Parks did not move to the back of the bus even though it was the law at
the time. Just because something is the rules does not mean one should not
act. As I directly addressed in my comment, if you have a personal belief that
certain rules are incorrect, then you should act, and not wait for someone
else to go first.

