
Ad Blocking Irony - driverdan
http://www.subtraction.com/2015/09/19/ad-blocking-irony/
======
jrs235
I helped a friend try to figure out why he couldn't click a tab (team) on a
fantasy football management site. Everything worked fine for me. I asked him
if he had an ad blocking plug in and if so try disabling it. He said he didn't
have one. Finally we setup a remote session so i could see his actual screen.
Turns out he was using an older computer and monitor, his resolution was lower
than I would ever care for but it turned out that a banner ad just above the
tabs was causing the problem. I discovered it was that because after I
installed uBlock and ads were blocked everything worked as it should. The Ad
broke the site usability.

~~~
sarnowski
And now, it gets worse. My phone screen is so small compared to desktop - a
lot of ads render sites unusable (blocking full screen without possibility to
close). Thats why I love my Firefox on Android. Having the possibility of
running uBlock on my phone makes surfing so fast and painless. Even if chrome
performs and renders better in general, having an adblocker makes that void.

~~~
emir_
uBlock works on Firefox for Android?

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
It does quite well, actually. It's the single biggest reason I opt for Firefox
on my Android devices instead of Chrome.

------
roymurdock
Can someone explain to me why this whole ad blocking fiasco has blown up in
the past 3 days?

Why was iOS's inclusion of ad blocking capabilities the turning point in what
seemed to be an already-unstoppable movement towards a return to sanity for
the web?

Why is everyone so scared of ad shops/website owners having to change their
business models? I don't understand the hype.

~~~
TillE
The quick answer: American tech journalists. Their audiences are the most
likely to run iOS and know how to use an ad blocker.

They're terrified, they write a bunch of articles, and it spreads around a
little. I'd be really interested to see some data over the next few weeks, so
we can determine whether their fears were justified.

~~~
benihana
After reading your response it occurs to me that they're streisand effecting
themselves. If they'd have just shut up, most people wouldn't even be aware of
the adblocking capabilities in iOS 9. Each article they write brings more
attention to the thing they're afraid is going to bury them.

~~~
user_666
Very much so, yes.

------
Kenji
It is not just ironic, it's silly. The entire discussion about ad blocking is
silly. Why should it be immoral to render a horrible way of monetization
useless? Ad blockers are doing the world a favour by sending a strong signal
"this far and no further". There are many ways to cleanly embed plain images
into websites in a non-obstructive way. Appropriate images. The ad industry
has to learn or die, this is evolution and its result is improvement.

~~~
lee
The only problem with this is that ad blocking is kind of indiscriminate.
There are obviously obnoxious ads out there, those that use popups, use audio,
video, or dialog boxes that block out the main content.

But on the other hand, there are non-intrusive ads that are text or simple
image based ones. Those ads get hit in the cross-fire of ad-blocking.

Most of the sites that are producing content charge nothing from the user
except for in the form of advertising. That's not a big ask most of the time.

It's like Google providing this amazing service, of cataloging and indexing
THE ENTIRE INTERNET and providing relevant and fast search results to
everyone, and all they ask is that users are displayed simple text ads. It's
not a big ask for the service they provide.

I realize you can whitelist sites with ad-block. BUT, if you are going to a
webpage to read and ingest content, I would argue that morally the transaction
is to disable ad-block to view the content.

------
downandout
So far the ad blocking experience on iOS has been a little rocky.

1) Several of them that I have tested break basic functionality - videos not
playing etc.

2) Adblock Plus, the leader in this space, decided to get greedy and not
launch a blocker, but rather an entire browser, which I suspect most people
will not embrace. I certainly won't, but I'd love ABP on my iOS Safari.

3) Peace, the most popular of the ad blockers, was removed after the author
had an attack of conscience [1].

4) The ABP folks have decided to offer to pay those rolling out iOS adblockers
for using their "acceptable ads" list. Sort of like a reverse adsense -
basically extortion revenue sharing [2] .

[1] [http://www.wired.com/2015/09/popular-ad-blocker-pulled-
ios-a...](http://www.wired.com/2015/09/popular-ad-blocker-pulled-ios-app-
store/)

[2] [http://bgr.com/2015/09/17/ios-9-ad-blocking-scandal-
adblock-...](http://bgr.com/2015/09/17/ios-9-ad-blocking-scandal-adblock-
plus/)

------
mpgarate
This kind of problem is what led me to create
[http://justread.mpgarate.com/](http://justread.mpgarate.com/)

Paste a link to an article, get a minimal version to read.

Source code:
[https://github.com/mpgarate/justread/](https://github.com/mpgarate/justread/)
Show HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8319903](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8319903)

~~~
vezycash
Thanks man. I use it all the time. It's been a lifesaver.

I use it for sites with so tiny fonts, it's impossible to read without zooming
the page.

And content sites / articles that take forever to load on my slow bandwidth.

It even helps for sites that start playing videos automatically - wasting my
precious bandwidth.

~~~
emir_
There is a "read mode" on Firefox for desktop and Android that does this? You
can set the font face and size and then every time you open an article, just
click the "read mode" button and it will display the article all nice and
clean. Safari does this too on desktop and iPhone.

------
putlake
The author makes an assumption that the cause of the bad scroll was the ad at
the top of the page. I have seen many pages on mobile and tablet that have
broken scrolling like this, and many have nothing to do with ads. I have also
seen reflow and scroll problems related to how custom web fonts are loaded, or
to social sharing widgets.

~~~
FanaHOVA
If the problem was related to something else it'd surely replicate on other
NYT pages though.

~~~
g1n016399
That's true, but the video and related article doesn't confirm this. All we
know is that the guy couldn't scroll down on the page. There's no indication
right now that the ad is actually at fault.

~~~
minikites
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, I think he does know:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoi_Vinh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoi_Vinh)

> Khoi Vinh is a graphic designer, blogger, and former Design Director for The
> New York Times, where he worked from January 2006 until July 2010.

~~~
reagency
With that technical and journalistic pedigree, I expect him to be able to
explain the issue and investigative details

------
cpeterso
Instead of blocking ads, what if browsers "tamed" ads by making only
displaying the first frame of animated GIF ads? I don't think people mind ads
as much as the crazy annoying ads (which seem to have gotten a _lot_ worse in
the last couple months).

~~~
digi_owl
While i have noscript installed for general streamlining of my browsing
experience, I long since dug up a gif control extension for Firefox because i
got tired of the "joke" gifs that was floating around.

[https://github.com/simonlindholm/toggle-
gifs](https://github.com/simonlindholm/toggle-gifs)

Sadly since then many sites etc has moved to gifv, basically a webm with a
different name.

------
revelation
No idea why this is always portrayed as "ad-blocking". I just see it as an API
for blocking all kinds of crazy, annoying stuff websites now do. _Frontend
rockstars_ have no one but themselves to blame for requiring people to
strictly regulate content on websites to make them show actual content in an
agreeable fashion.

Recently, I had a website pop up a fullscreen "Rotate your device" banner.
There are no words to express the anger and hatred that consumed me in an
instant.

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
I've forgotten much of the early part of the 2000s, were people getting all
upset about pop-up blocking back then?

~~~
EarthLaunch
Not this much, because journalists were still stuck on paper, techies weren't
attention-seeking altruists, popup windows were more annoying, and extensions
were more niche (IE was still big).

------
Mister_Snuggles
I read the linked article, watched the video, then followed the link to the
New York Times article. For some reason, the CSS and/or JavaScript didn't
load, so not only did I not get any ads, I got completely unstyled content.
That was somewhat ironic too.

------
bernardlunn
How many people on this thread make their living (directly or indirectly) and
feel the cognitive dissonance to their experience as users/consumers of free
content?

------
snarfy
There is an assumption that any advertisement is good. Where are the studies
that show ad backlash?

------
manigandham
Always interesting reading these ad (blocking) threads. As someone who's
worked in the industry for a while and now working on change, some thoughts:

1) Content costs money to produce. No way around that. Only option is pay
directly or indirectly (via ads). What we need is better facilitators of both.

2) Ads are not going anywhere. The industry is not "in trouble" or imploding.
There are dozens of ways around adblock and much of adtech is actually run
behind the scenes server-to-server. It's not impossible to bring it 100%
server-side and serve the final page as a mix of content + ads. This is
effectively what happens with native apps already and there's an increasing
amount of sponsored content. Content consumption is way up with billions of ad
clicks, video plays and articles read everyday. The ad industry is stronger
than ever.

3) Blame for the current situation is shared by all. Publishers should have
better standards. Ad networks should use better formats and engineering.
Advertisers should buy better stuff and know where/what is actually running.
Just follow the money - buyers > networks > pubs with about a dozen layers in
the middle, everyone trying to make the people who pay them happy. Users are
not in this chain unfortunately.

4) Payments are not a magical solution. Most people do not want to pay, even
if you might and the web is too granular for site-specific subscriptions which
requires a scalable 3rd party. This is VERY hard to do considering the
mechanics of the internet but there are things in the works like Google's
Contributor program. Sadly results have NOT been great because any amount of
money adds friction and most editorial/news content does not provide replay
value like a music track would, but there is promise with network scale,
bundling and the option to choose the level of ads/payment involved as your
browse.

5) Browsing via ads is far more anonymous than payments, which involve credit
cards which means name, address, birthdays, purchase history, credit history,
etc. Contrary to lot of FUD, ad networks usually rely on 3rd party companies
for data and they mostly focus on wide demographics and interests. If you're
worried about privacy, then look at Google and Facebook who are both the de
facto leaders in adtech primarily because of all the data users willing give
them. Those are the companies that know who you really are on every device.

6) Finally I just want to say that the industry is not stupid or clueless,
it's just massive (150B+) with lots of politics and back-room deals. Any
industry this size usually takes years or decades to adapt and there's still a
lot to figure out so change will be slow but ultimately the old guard will be
retired and better stuff will come along. It's accelerating now so that's a
good sign. I know everyone thinks they can do better with some brilliant idea
and flip things around instantly but it's just not that simple. Please
remember there are plenty of smart, talented, hard-working people (just like
you!) that are working on this. I promise we will figure it out.

~~~
lee
This comment is slightly grayed, meaning it has some number of downvotes to
it. But it doesn't violate any of the HN rules.

It feels like this was down-voted by those who disagree with the content. Such
a sad state for hacker news.

~~~
manigandham
Appreciate the comment. I always try to give an honest state of the ad
industry and its machinations but any comment that doesn't align with
"advertising is evil" seems to get downvoted.

------
erickhill
I'm guessing this post only renders if I go disable Peace. Whoops!

------
curiousjorge
I think we are witnessing an industry being phased out. Ads to power your free
mobile app or websites? Ads that slowly overtime have become more aggressive,
in your face because advertisers 'dont know why ppl wont click on my poker
site ad'.

uBlock is such a sweet sweet slap in the face of such advertisers. I'd love to
see small text ads that are relevant to my search or content. Giant banner
with flash and won't disappear? Forget about it.

~~~
manigandham
Ad industry is definitely not getting "phased out".

~~~
curiousjorge
I take it that you aren't in the industry.

~~~
manigandham
I am. I've built 2 ad platforms from scratch and now on my 3rd building both
the tech and company this time.

There's a lot of complexity to this industry and it certainly isn't anywhere
close to dying.

------
bad_user
Dear community, please stop up-voting junk like this. I would really
appreciate it.

Thanks,

~~~
vortico
Watching the video demonstration was entertaining and funny, regardless of how
useful or vital the statement is to things that matter today.

------
bigtunacan
I think the real irony is Apple blocking ads in the web browser when most apps
in the App Store are a non stop barrage do ads Apple profits from. I use ad
blockers, but something about Apple building this in strikes me as unethical
and anti competitive.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
nitpick: Apple is not blocking ads, nor did they build an ad blocker into the
browser. They gave users the ability to add them (which brings iOS Safari
closer to feature parity with desktop browsers, incidentally).

I have no idea what this "non stop barrage of ads in the App Store" is you
referred to.

~~~
pgeorgi
They don't give users the ability to also filter iAd.

~~~
rdsnsca
iAds are in app ads only, and AFAIK the new blockers don't block any in app
ads.

~~~
pgeorgi
Which is my point.

What would you think about Chrome providing a filter-capability to enable
blocking all ads except for Google's assets?

------
kevin_thibedeau
The further irony is that Vimeo is still stuck in the 20th century and doesn't
serve HTML5 video.

~~~
AceJohnny2
Yes, they do.

[http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/07/vimeo-new-video-
player/](http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/07/vimeo-new-video-player/)

------
dingo_bat
I think Apple deliberately cripples the browser on ipad. It really has the
worst browsing experience. My android phone displays pages better. I think
they want to drive people towards making an app for every website.

For eg, how many of you use an app to browse hn? Even though the website is so
lean and fast, it is horrible to use on an ipad.

~~~
reagency
HN is horroble on Android too, because the HN powers refuse to create a mobile
layout.

~~~
jarnix
Yes a responsive version seems too much to ask in 2015 :) I use hn.premii.com
to read the news on HN, it's using the API and it's... responsive.

