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.
I think they floated this idea but ended up nixing it after users weren't happy. I run ABP with "acceptable ads w/o 3rd party tracking" a subset of the acceptable ads list and have for the last couple years. I've never seen an ad they injected or I wasn't aware they injected it.
The ad-supported site I work on and who employs me was added to the acceptable ads list today. I'm not affiliated with eyeo in any other way. We did not have to pay them (yet?).
Then ad blocking is on (:
You might want to have something below the header and above the lede that says "hey just before we go any further, the solution is to use ublock origin instead of adblock." And even better, a big image of adblock with another, bigger red "no" symbol over it (in addition to the one that's already in the logo i guess) and then a check mark next to ublock origin. Like I said, I'm stupid. It's an interesting article but i already knew adblock plus was sketchy so I didn't finish.
If a site has parts with 3rd party tracking cookies then I just don't see it.
The downside of only using privacy badger is that you do see some ads. At the moment I find that level of ads acceptable.
"Acceptable ads" allowed by default (opt-out) are inherently and OBVIOUSLY the right idea, but the acceptable ad list should be maintained by a disinterested party, not an advertiser or ad agency.
Problem is that disinterested parties are just that-- nobody cares enough to do it. Who wants to go to that effort to _allow_ ads?
One solution would be for Google and other large advertisers to fund a not-for-profit company to build acceptable ad lists, and then convince adblock addon developers to enable the lists by default through sheer benevolence.
Enforcement is easy, if they play games like AdBlock and start allowing intrusive ads, Gorhill (uBlock Origin developer) and those like him will instantly disable the lists and their entire model falls apart.
I think you're overestimating how universal that opinion might be, and underestimating how many people don't want any ads.
I edited my original post to make that clear, I thought "allowed by default" was sufficient but several people had the same reaction.
Though I expect you'll find that the number of adblock users who check such an opt-in-to-ads box to be vanishingly small.
The goal is to make the web a markedly less hostile place to visit by eliminating intrusive ads while still allowing sites to support themselves through advertising.
That's not my goal. My goal is to eliminate unsolicited advertising.
I don't want it, and if websites have to find other, non-advertising-based business models to support themselves, so be it.
If I'm installing an ad-blocker I want it to block all ads.
this is why most people use ads, they are annoying and intrusive.
That doesn't mean it should be enabled by default.
What's obviously the right idea for me is making all unsolicited advertising illegal, and throwing any violators of that law in jail.
should flyers be illegal? posters? tv ads?
mozzila is now trying to introduce non tracking ads in their browser. how are non tracking ads different from posters on the street? (minus security concern, honestly i trust mozilla on that)
Yes, yes, and yes.
Who needs all this junk? No one.
When walking down a scenic street, you know who says to themselves, "What this street really needs to make it truly pleasing is more flyers and posters"? No one.
When watching TV, who yearns for more ads? No one.
This is all junk no one needs except the advertisers themselves. The rest of us don't want their garbage.
That's silly. If a person is installing an ad blocker, the "obvious" thing is for it to block advertisements. You may not like it, but everybody is fully capable of making up their own mind on whether they think certain advertisements are acceptable or not.
It was about being literally unable to use some sites, I don't care about still images at the bottom of a page.
For me it's about privacy and security too, but most of all, I just don't want to see any ads whatsoever. I don't watch ad-supported TV, no ad-supported radio, no ads to my mailbox, won't use apps that show ads, and no ads are allowed in my web browser either.
Perhaps I'll write a follow-up post later.
AdNauseam and similar programs certainly throw a monkey wrench into the discussion.
So it automatically clicks all ads your browser encounters hundreds of times to reduce the value of ad impressions.
Some examples other than subscriptions would be sponsored content and creating a product such as an ebook or selling products that are related to your content.
I run my own image host, my own irc bouncer service, and many many more for all the use cases where I'd have to rely on ad-infested services.
And no, I don’t mind consuming contents from hundreds of ad financed sites while simultaneously wanting the majority of them to simply disappear because they could likely never sustain a different business model than ads.
Personally, I would welcome similar extensions for social media, automated follows/likes/post/retweets, let facebook backup GBs of generated pictures per users for facial recognition or Gmail mine random emails. A more noble use case for lifefaker if you will.
I think it would be hard to deny that clicking every ad hundreds of times is straying into uncoordinated DDoS territory, considering the installed userbase. I don't see that as enlightened or forward thinking.
I agree with gorhill on this and would rather decrease connections to 3rd parties. After all, part of the reason the web is so slow is that browsers make so many 3rd party connections! With that in mind, my approach to ad blocking is to combine DNS blocks, MVPS /etc/hosts + my own entries, JS blocking, and uBlock Origin. This setup catches more junk and is more likely to work while transitioning or temporarily changing my setup.
I personally disagree with "forward thinking" description for what AdNauseam does, hence why I disagreed when the AdNauseam authors asked me to implement hooks in uBO[1].
To me the ideal for many reasons[2] is to reduce as much as possible the number of connections to 3rd parties on any given web page.
* * *
[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/issues/67
[2] Privacy exposure, page load time, bandwidth, CPU/memory.
I hate the tracky nature of the web nowadays, and feel that AdNauseam is fighting fire with fire. UBO is fighting fire with CO2, fine unless the fire has it's own oxygen supply, which I would argue the online ad industry has in the form of copious numbers of inattentive and uncaring users.
> The Better Ads Methodology has not yet tested video ads that appear before (“pre-roll”) or during (“mid-roll”) video content that is relevant to the content of the page itself.
So shitty news web sites that put one of those "we put a useless video here so we can show video ads" videos on their page can still continue using auto-playing video ads, with sound, and I'm pretty sure they'll find some way to define Youtube's pre-roll ads as "totally not a banned prestitial with countdown".
Also, just saw Taboola on their web site - their ads certainly meet the technical standards, but are one of the most obnoxious ones on the Internet, and the cause for many to disable the "acceptable ads" program/switch to uBlock.
They're just trying to take the worst edge off to reduce the necessity to install an adblocker, or, if you want to interpret it uncharitably, maximize the amount of people who get to see the bad-but-not-absolutely-horrifying ad formats.
It's way too little way too late.