

Dear Mozilla community: I screwed up. Big time. - robin_reala
http://hackademix.net/2009/05/04/dear-adblock-plus-and-noscript-users-dear-mozilla-community/

======
anigbrowl
Wow. That's a display of humility and responsibility you just don't see very
often. Though the original conflict was avoidable and unnecessary, an apology
like this - for anything - shows real character. Kudos.

~~~
nick007
would he have apologized thought if he hadn't gotten caught? doesn't sound
like it.

~~~
rufo
I really don't know all of the details on this situation, so perhaps this
doesn't apply... but it does occur to me that often people don't realize
they've crossed the line until somebody (maybe many somebodies, if they're
stubborn) points it out to them.

~~~
nick007
i think that's true, but in this case i think he knew that he wasn't being
honest the whole time... which is partly why he apologizes so profusely.

~~~
umbrae
I don't agree, from the blog it makes it sound like it really became an arms
race - he was more interested in 'winning' than in serving his users.

Once he was outed, he realized what he'd done and came to his senses.

------
iamcalledrob
I have respect for this developer.

I would have been really pissed off too, in his situation. Especially as that
AdBlock Plus list deliberately broke the functionality of his site (not just
ads).

He did something understandable, realised it was a mistake, and admitted it
openly within hours, with a genuine apology (Sony, I'm talking about you
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-
apology_apology#The_Sony_.2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-
apology_apology#The_Sony_.22Rootkit.22) )

------
tybris
I have no idea what this is about, but I have never seen so many people
overreacting so vigorously.

~~~
icey
I guess you didn't see much of the GoGaRuCo sewage flow last week, eh?

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cturner
I wish all apologies were so engaging. Great post.

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jonknee
Man that guy pushes a lot of releases. And all these require a restart of
FireFox right?

~~~
josefresco
For that reason (frequent restarts from updating plugins) and my desire not to
be strapped to Firefox because of 'essential' plugins I try to keep my add-on
number low.

~~~
mattyb
You can restart at your leisure.

~~~
Zev
If you don't restart to update the plugin, theres no point in updating in the
first place. So its still forcing you to restart.

~~~
access_denied
He could have restarted in his spare time.

------
jonursenbach
If I were in the same situation as he was in, being bullied by EasyList and
ABP, I probably would have done the same thing.

~~~
cracki
see my post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=592788>

------
dmaclay
This is bullshit, he admits he realised that in addition to installing
AdBlock, users had to deliberately get EasyList, then he goes on to
conveniently assume that said users (who had to make 2 very deliberate
decisions to get there) didn't really want the full effect of EasyList,
basically because it doesn't suit his business model. It was never a
misunderstanding, and it didn't escalate unreasonably, NoScript was abusive
from the outset, they were just subtle about it.

~~~
ErrantX
I choose to use ABP and (prior to this) Easylist.

I didnt choose them to inhibit my web experience - and the filters they
employed broke noscript for me. It rendered some aspects of the site unusable.
That is serious hijacking IMO.

Removing the adverts from Noscript would have been easy to do: fix the ABP
flaw. Instead he decided to insert content into the ABP plugin via Easylist
that targetted and destroyed the site. That was both a deliberate attack and a
breaking of the trust I put in ABP.

Sure Giorgio also made the same mistake: but he apologised and retracted the
updates and, in the heat of anger, I can forgive him. If the ABP team write a
similar apology I will forgive them too. But it seems they dont plan too:
which is disgusting.

~~~
murrayh
No one likes to break a website, but... given the options of breaking the
website's Javascript features, or letting NoScript perpetually undermine the
Easylist2 filter, there wasn't much choice for Easylist2.

Easylist2 has nothing to apologise for. If anything, staunchly defending the
integrity of their list was a good thing.

~~~
Kadin
Except EasyList wasn't doing anything wrong to begin with. It contained
entries that _should_ have blocked the ads, without resorting to domain-
specific (obviously individually targeted) rules. It was only due to a flaw in
ABP that these rules didn't apply.

When asked by the ABP author to implement domain-specific rules against
NoScript's site, the correct response from EasyList ought to have been to
point out that it wasn't their problem to fix.

Had ABP just fixed the bug, NoScript's ads would have disappeared but the rest
of the site wouldn't have broken, and although the NoScript developer might
have been pissed at his loss of revenue stream, the problem wouldn't have
necessarily escalated -- there wouldn't have been the clear gloves-off
challenge that implementing a specific rule targeting NoScript's ads
represented.

There's a lot of overreacting and general stupidity in the whole chain of
events (and good reasons why maybe you shouldn't push 'emergency' releases
except after a few hours of calm consideration), the core of the problem was
someone looking for a lazy way to avoid fixing a software bug.

------
axod
Would have been much simpler to just serve ads from your own domain, or
through a proxy etc to thwart adblock, without the need for any client side
shenanigans.

~~~
ErrantX
The blocks, I believe, basically disabled most of his site period.

I know I visited it late in the afternoon when I heard there was a load of
issues and had trobule navigating - and certainly could not install NoScript
from the site (oh, obv this is with ABP and Easylist2 installed)

~~~
murrayh
That was most likely the end result of the Easy List update war. Had the
NoScript author not entered into such a battle, only the Ads would have been
blocked.

~~~
ErrantX
I dont know: you see he _does_ have a point about choosing what to block.
Given a choice I would allow ads to be displayed on noscript sites because:

a) I trust the site owner not to show me crap b) It is his revenue stream and
I am willing to support causes I like

The best solution was for ABP to fix the flaws that allowed the ads on
noscript to slip through the filters. Instead the maintainer chose to rope
Ares2 into updating Easylist2 to deliberately target the site.

Whatever the motives or the arguments for each side that smacks of the "wrong
way to do it" to me :)

~~~
murrayh
Yes, I agree that fixing ABP would have been a much better solution to the
problem. At the same time though, NoScript specifically targeted ABP, so it
shouldn't be that much of a surprise that ABP specifically targeted NoScript
(through EasyList2).

The whole "choose" business is just word play that can be slanted either way.
And it's misleading, because the conflict was over NoScript's obtrusive
default setting, not the ability to choose what you wanted to block or unblock
after the fact.

------
antirez
Ok from all this what emerges is: ADs blocking extensions may destroy one of
the few viable business models not only for web services, blogs, ..., but for
this kind of software too. This is not very smart.

When you see a web page is a mix, in different ratios, of content and ads: too
much ads for you? Switch to another, more balanced resource. The web is full
of content after all. If the content of a specific web site is particularly
good either accept the ads or accept to pay for an ads-free site (if it is
possible) or go away.

~~~
sayrer
This is a smart response. Some addons have millions of users. That's a lot of
users, and there should be a better way to get some compensation.

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braindead_in
Is anyone else getting a Google Ad in the left sidebar? I'm running Firefox
with AdBlock and I am wondering why am I getting it.

~~~
cracki
i can replicate that.

he's using obfuscated URLs from his site to dynamically add the google
banners. ABP apparently doesn't catch that.

this is just wrong. there is no other way of putting ig.

there are the URLs that ABP shows:

[http://hackademix.net/EGBxd3Vx;dCI,d39/;d3x1Y2l,;dHlzcWR5;f3...](http://hackademix.net/EGBxd3Vx;dCI,d39/;d3x1Y2l,;dHlzcWR5;f34,c399;P2Bxd3Vx;dD9jeH9n;T3F0Yz56;Yw==);
[http://hackademix.net/HHR9f3d9;eHlxdWQy;cnloM0tP;dyhMdmso;J0...](http://hackademix.net/HHR9f3d9;eHlxdWQy;cnloM0tP;dyhMdmso;J0xLaC9M;dkUuJ0x2;SSRXdV0v;J0xIXSpT;XyxrJ1J2;eC9TdkUs;J3h1dyhM;dmsoJ0xE;RW1RSEVp;J152eyVX;cn9mJ1d7;ISEn);
[http://hackademix.net/RCwlJy8l;ICEpLTxq;KiEwayEj;KyYMFnwm;fw...](http://hackademix.net/RCwlJy8l;ICEpLTxq;KiEwayEj;KyYMFnwm;fwwvLBEM;FhESfwwW;HSIHFQkR;fwwsCR4D;M3AQfwIW;FhEDFhEc;fxIVKyYM;Fnwmfwwo;EQ4BLBEK;fw4WNyEH;EhUVfwcV;eXl/);
[http://hackademix.net/UDc/Pzc8;NTE0I343;fjQ/JTI8;NTM8OTM7;fj...](http://hackademix.net/UDc/Pzc8;NTE0I343;fjQ/JTI8;NTM8OTM7;fj41JH8g;MTc1MTR/;JDUjJA80;Pz0xOT5,;OiM=);
[http://hackademix.net/WSk4Pjw4;PWt3PjY2;PjU8KiA3;PTA6OC0w;Nj...](http://hackademix.net/WSk4Pjw4;PWt3PjY2;PjU8KiA3;PTA6OC0w;Njd3OjY0;dik4Pjw4;PXYqMTYu;Bjg9Kncz;Kg==);
[http://hackademix.net/egobHR8b;HkhUHRUV;HRYfCQMU;HhMZGw4T;FR...](http://hackademix.net/egobHR8b;HkhUHRUV;HRYfCQMU;HhMZGw4T;FRRUGRUX;VQobHR8b;HlUJEhUN;JRseCVQQ;CQ==);
[http://hackademix.net/ewsaHB4a;H0lVHBQU;HBceCAIV;HxIYGg8S;FB...](http://hackademix.net/ewsaHB4a;H0lVHBQU;HBceCAIV;HxIYGg8S;FBVVGBQW;VAsaHB4a;H1QaHwhE;GBcSHhUP;RhgaVgsO;GVZKTk1I;SEpOSkxM;S0lITkpD;XR8PRkpJ;T0pPTUpL;QkpKSU9d;FxYPRkpJ;T0pPTUtL;Q0hdHRQJ;FhoPRkpJ;SwNNS0sk;GghdFA4P;Cw4PRhMP;FhddGBQJ;CR4XGg8U;CUZKSU9K;T01KS0JK;SklPXR8Z;FxBGSl0Y;ExoVFR4X;Rk5CQ0lD;TExKTUhd;DgkXRhMP;DwteSDpe;ST1eST0T;GhgQGh8e;FhIDVRUe;D15JPUlL;S0JeST1L;Tl5JPUtP;Xkk9Hx4a;CVYaHxkX;FBgQVgsX;DghWGhUf;VhUUCBgJ;EgsPVg4I;HgkIVh8e;GglWFhQB;EhcXGlYY;FBYWDhUS;DwJeST1d;GBQXFAkk;GRxGS0tL;S0tLXRgU;FxQJJA8e;Aw9GODg4;ODg4XRgU;FxQJJBcS;FRBGPT09;PT09XRgU;FxQJJA4J;F0ZCQkJC;QkJdGBQX;FAkkGRQJ;Hx4JRkhI;S0tLS10a;HyQPAgse;Rg8eAw8k;EhYaHB5d;HQkWRktd;HBokDRIf;RkNLQ0JJ;QkJJSlVK;SU9KT01K;S0JKXRwa;JAgSH0ZK;SU9KT01K;S0JKXRwa;JBMSH0ZK;Q01NSUJL;SUNJXR0X;GggTRkpL;VUtVSUld;DEZKSUtd;E0ZNS0td;DiQTRkpL;TktdDiQM;RkpPS0td;DiQaE0ZC;QkxdDiQa;DEZKT0tL;XQ4kGB9G;SEldDiQP;AUZKSUtd;DiQTEghG;Sl0OJBUL;Fw4cRklL;XQ4kFRYS;Fh5GQ0hd;Hw8fRk5C;XQxGSklL;XRNGTUtL;XQMLGEYX;LgEaNxcs;AU4xXQtG;Ew8PC15I;OlRUExoY;EBofHhYS;A1UVHg8=;.html)

~~~
Jem
> this is just wrong. there is no other way of putting ig.

What a load of crap. I don't really like ads, I don't want to see ads, and I
never click ads, but there's no law that says "you must make it easy for
firefox addon developers to block parts of your website".

Get a grip.

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jobeirne
Holy cow! That web page is wider than my Macbook.

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amix
He removes ads from other sites (ads that are used to generate revenue) and
yet he uses ads to generate his own revenue. Hypocrisy at its finest.

~~~
graemep
NoScript's purpose is not to block ads. It blocks javascript, which happens to
block some ads if they are not whitelisted (Google ads are whitelitsted by
default).

