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Comment by alblue | Hacker News Reader

The nub of the thread is: these sites have put up ad blocker blockers, so you can't see the content without disabling your ad blocker. And yet when you do you are either exposed to full screen or video auto play ads, or in some cases, malware: http://www.extremetech.com/internet/220696-forbes-forces-rea...

Given that Reddit is a large source of incoming referrals this stance (if implemented) might be a sufficient lever to send a signal to get those sites to improve their environment.

In any case since the sites are still able to use curated self hosted ads (ie not JavaScript redirects to externally hosted providers) they are able to sell static ad space to make money even with adblockers enabled.

It might be worth seeing what the outcome for the experiment is (if it goes ahead) and then seeing if the same logic would work for HN.

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"In any case since the sites are still able to use curated self hosted ads (ie not JavaScript redirects to externally hosted providers) they are able to sell static ad space to make money even with adblockers enabled."

Ad blockers don't just block external ads, they use CSS rules to block internal ads as well. So the only way to avoid ad blockers is to make advertisement completely indistinguishable from content.

Imagine if Google did that, if they made sponsored results competent indistinguishable from organic results. The uproar would be loud.

This thread and the Reddit thread amaze me with the level of ignorance, but complete confidence in that ignorance, displayed in relation to how ads and ad blockers work.

Bryanlarson is correct. The adblock plus extension also will block any image file with "advertisement" in the filename for example.

In what ways do ad blockers block internally served ads? I'm perfectly happy with static ads served from the same site as the content. If seems adblockers should have an option to block only the "bad" ads, I.e anything referencing one of a list of known ad nets.

Go to the reddit homepage. Look at the very top link (that's highlighed with an outline). That's an ad, but it's hosted by reddit and contains no scripts or iframes, in fact doesn't even contain offsite images. Its div has the CSS class promotedlink. If you look in the default list used by Adblock Plus https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easylist.txt you will see that it blocks this because it contains the line

    reddit.com##.promotedlink

But Adblock Plus actually contains a second list of "Non-intrusive advertising" that actually allows ads on reddit. Many people are very angry about this list because many companies pay to get their ads put on it and allowed.

Using an adblocker that takes money to whitelist seems like a bad idea.

In any case: I'll make sure that my ad blocker allows non intrusive ads. That said, "non intrusive" must not be deceptive either. It should be clear that it is an advert.

Yea it was after Adblock Plus was sold to an unknown 3rd party who refused to reveal themselves, obviously after the anger everyone switched over to uBlock Origin including me.

> because many companies pay to get their ads put on it and allowed

Is this 100% verified, or just speculation? AB+ has always stated that they whitelist suitable ads, not ones that are paid. In my experience, this is true; only static text and image ads ever get through, and it's pretty rare. I think this is desirable as it incentivises the use of better ads.

Small companies get on the list for free. Big companies have to pay. But they all get vetted by their "non-intrusive" guidelines.

https://adblockplus.org/about#monetization

In response to ads, people install ad blockers.

In response to ad blockers, sites install ad blocker blockers.

In response to ad blocker blockers, Reddit adds ad blocker blocker blocker.

Personally, I place my bets that if enough content providers start deploying ad blocker blocking, then clients should be able to respond.

I think in a war between ad's trying to assert a user has seen an ad, and clients trying to view content, so long as the client owns the computer, the client will win. That's why I hate walled gardens so much. I'm convinced it was a preemptive shot in this war.

> so long as the client owns the computer

Is Moore law against this?

A possible future scenario could be one were technology becomes so cheap that Apple/Google/Facebook .et all, starts "lending" their own hardware for free so people can access their _open_ walled-garden flavored internet.

Projects like of RPi/Arduino bring me hope that this wont ever happen, at least to us.

The first response should have been people install link removers to sites with invasive ads and paywalls. Ill-behaved sites would change a lot quicker if they knew lots of people weren't even seeing/posting links to them. Something like that would effectively remove junk from a users entire internet experience. A natural search result to wsj.com wouldn't appear, a link in a web based email reader wouldn't appear, a link in a web based RSS reader wouldn't appear. They would hate that.

This would never work in practice though. Ad blocker users want the content, they just don't want the junk. They don't want to have to go out of their way to find content elsewhere. The point is to just get it done. I'm barely willing to exert extra effort to find content in a format I'd prefer and my less technical parents for example certainly aren't at all. If we didn't have ad blocking, they'd just be dealing with ads and I'd be dealing with a lot more malware infections. I'm not going to suggest someone use something that breaks so many common interactions.

It's already at a point where I have to add Anti-Adblock Killer to prevent them from turning off ad blockers. Please don't ask to make it worse.

sites will probably install ad blocker blocker blocker blocker blocker, i.e., prevent referrals from reddit.

it's an arms race!

3 should be:

In response to add blocker blockers, ad blockers install ad blocker blocker blockers.

then onto your number 3

At step 2 the site gets their JS disabled. :)

The problem is that sites with advertisement are shooting themselves in the foot. They produce valuable and high quality content attracting readers and increase revenues by providing more advertisement. The amount of advertisement drops the efficiency of advertisement, so price drops and you put more advertisement. None of these people really considered the user experience on their site, except google on the google search result page.

This is like thinking that you would increase a crop yield by increasing the amount of fertilizer you put on it. There is an optimal balance beyond which you burn the crop with too much fertilizer.

I would suggest to significantly reduce the amount of advertisement on the site. Sell the add space with auction. Less advertisement increase the add efficiency. Increase the quality of content to increase the number of readers. Select high quality none intrusive adds that don't disrupt people's experience on the site.

In short take back the control of your site advertisement. Prohibit tricks your readers don't like (e.g. tracking), etc.

This is not much different from companies and hallmarks selling unhealthy food. The difference with adblocks is that people have a tool filtering out unhealthy food from their view. Who is the bad guy ? The client with its filter or the companies providing unhealthy food ?

Regulation doesn't work. We should know it by now. We have to take things in our own hand because the system is not able to keep a sane course by itself (cf. liberalism).

Nice shot at liberalism at the end there. I almost took you seriously, appreciate the heads up.

Sorry. I was referring to food and health regulation services. The link with advertisement is that it could be tempting to imagine a regulation system, but this is known to be easily subverted and corrupted. In fact letting users freely control the amount of advertisement they get and letting the market adapt itself is liberalism. But that is a totally different subject. Sorry for the digression.

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