Show HN: Pesky Adblock – Blocks site access to visitors without an adblocker | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Pesky Adblock – Blocks site access to visitors without an adblocker

gitgud.io

119 pointsflingo100 comments

This is overkill. If you are asuming adblockers will remove anything with the id "adTeaser" (as per the code), just use that to display the message! No need for the "setTimeout" or even Javascript:

    <div id="adTeaser" style="position: absolute; z-index: 10000; ...">
      Please turn on your <a href="https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#ublock-origin">ad blocker</a> to continue browsing this site
    </div>

This would still show the rest of the page though. The JavaScript solution hides everything else by setting document.body.innerHTML.

Sure, my mistake. Flip that "position:absolute" for "position:fixed". Note how I wrote "z-index:..." to imply an element covering the whole page.

Also note that activating your adblock does not disable the message in the OP, you'd also need to refresh the page since you are effectively removing the body.

Do any adblockers block content before the page is reloaded? I thought it'd be necessary to do network filtering.

You can make it a modal and blur everything else out.

Woooo, that's more work than either of the above solutions

It's like four HTML elements and like six CSS bits you can copy paste from the boatloads of other times you've done a modal.

Current options:

1) Allow ads.

2) Block ads. (ea. uBlock Origin)

3) Block ad blocking users. (Javascript)

4) Block the block for ad blocking users. (Userscripts)

5) Block users who don't block ads. (Pesky Adblock)

The only one missing is blocking the blockade for blocking users who don't block ads.

There's another one:

Block ads AND block sites who don't block users who block ads BUT don't block the block for ad blocking users. (about:blank)

So if I use a standards-compliant browser, I won't be able to see a site that uses this. So I guess I just won't. I also don't visit sites that run annoying ads. Congratulations on being annoying and not even getting money for it I guess.

> So if I use a standards-compliant browser, I won't be able to see a site that uses this.

Yes, that is the point.

It is designed specifically to exclude people not using an adblocker.

Maybe this is art, in which case, fair play. But otherwise it seems like a pointless purpose.

Made something similar a while ago. It probably needs some tuning: https://kyledrake.net/adblockbar/

Nice. Don't know how I feel about whether or not the script loads determining if you have adblock. Does mean you can't change the filename.

Isn't it hypocritical to annoy people into doing what you want them to do?

If someone decides against using an ad blocker, they can't mind being annoyed that much.

I don't use an adblocker because I don't like feeling like I'm taking something I'm not entitled to.

I don't like most of the ads I see, but I understand why they're there and that they're the reason why I don't have to get out my credit card to visit the sites I like.

Edit: Didn't realize that not being offended by ads was such a controversial opinion here.

that's interesting, i do use an adblocker because i don't like companies with business models oriented on surveillance and building profiles of my behavior across the internet that they're not entitled to

So it's OK to take the product of a business if you don't like their business model? Why not just avoid visiting the sites you find so distasteful?

What contract did I sign agreeing to let ad companies access my eyeballs, let alone surveil me, in exchange for looking at a webpage? If they want to block me, they’re welcome to (or at least welcome to try), but I will cry zero tears over their lost spying opportunities.

Yeah, I kinda feel it is all fair. I am just sending some request for data over the internet to you. You are free to return whatever you want to me, including ads and code to try and track me.

At the same time, I am allowed to block that code and not display those ads.

We aren't entering into any contract when I ask for some bits over a wire. We both can do what we want.

http://web.archive.org/web/20150106051404/http://www.ycombin...

  Terms of Use
  When you click on a link, our server will send you the corresponding page.

Unfortunately the terms have now changed.

When you order food at a restaurant, there's no contract either. Just an implicit understanding by the restaurant owner and society that you'll pay at the end.

No, it is a contract. There are prices on the menu, and you are agreeing to that price when you ask for the item. Not all contracts need to be signed, but they have to be somehow agreed to.

Every website you visit has TOS. Facebook in particular has extremely clear TOS, written in plain English, that everyone consents to. In Europe, most websites explicitly ask for consent now. Doesn't seem very different to me.

And all of those sites track you before you've even had a chance to see their terms.

Facebook infamously tracked people who'd never had Facebook accounts (and therefore had never agreed to Facebook's ToS), and now claims not to, but who knows?

They can take my use of ad and script blocking as implicit rejection of the terms of their contract, and they’re free to deny me service. If they don’t, I’m not obliged to do it for them.

As I understand it contracts fall under law, TOS fall under nothing except maybe getting kicked off the platform.

no need to accept those.

When somebody walks out of a restaurant without paying, the restaurant is free to call the cops. I therefore invite all website operators to call 911 when I use an adblocker!

So the only reason you pay at restaurants is to not break the law?

I also pay at restaurants because I want to. I don't watch ads because I don't want to. When I was a kid my family would flip through magazines and violently tear out the ads before bothering to sit down and read the articles. When watching television we would change the channel or mute the audio during commercial breaks on television (I don't even bother to download television shows with the advertisements edited out, because I've found product placement to be rampant.) Without calling for state violence to enforce your will on me, you will never stop me.

You seem to have a very dim view of me because I refuse to willingly subject myself to advertisements. Let me assure you, this feeling is mutual. I look down on people who choose to submit themselves to corporate propaganda. Sometimes when I'm visiting people I see them watch television and they stare at the commercials with rapt attention; it disgusts me.

Why else would you?

Appreciation of food service workers in particular, and/or a desire to see local businesses thrive. (Neither of which would ever motivate me to subject myself to advertisements.)

Sure, sensible. In the case of the ad industry, I don't appreciate the people who work there in particular, and I have a desire to see those businesses driven from the face of the Earth.

You and I are on the same page here.

There’s probably an implied contract there.

Because businesses conform to customer wants/needs, not vice-versa.

Customer: "I want a hamburger for free. Give it to me for free or I'll just take it and walk away without paying anyway."

Business: "No. It's $2. Please pay for the burger"

Customer: "Why aren't you conforming to my needs?!"

Well, at least it's not a car comparison.

I prefer a classic slashdot car comparison. They don't make me hungry.

There's a difference here - the transaction of physical goods. There's also a big difference between, "You offered me a burger, you have signs saying I could get burgers here, and there are large groups that index you as the best burger." "That was last week. Now you don't get to know about the burger until you pay $2."

On a developer forum devoted to software companies, the main argument is that physical products are by nature more valuable than non-physical products. (As opposed to the argument that non-physical products are easier to take and use without permission, regardless of effort put into it or value extracted).

Yes, that is a primary argument. Information exists and is meant to be free. None of the "software companies" would exist without free access to data. I support public libraries over media retailers 100% of the time, as well.

On top of that, I own my computer. I am responsible for the data which is transferred to my computer. I should have a fully-accessible offline copy of any and all data which is transferred to my computer, and not one bit of data should ever be transferred from my computer without my express consent.

Adblocking comes to be a multifaceted statement. It is anticorporatism, it is privacy advocacy, and it is a declaration of data ownership & responsibility. And for some people, it's accessibility layered on top of one or more of those.

"I hate McDonald's business model. That's why I go to eat there and try to sneak away with their burgers without paying."

You hate the business model of selling goods in exchange for money?

I want to jump in and have your back on this one.

I don't think it's a big deal to block ads but I support your sentiment: Not blocking ads is a respectful nod to the site owners who put them there. Sure, some sites I visit may feel undeserving but there is plenty of content I do respect (web comics, youtube channels, HN, etc.).

I don't think anyone should feel super obligated but I get why you and others do.

Edit: When I posted this the parent was downvoted to grey.

But the adblock-blockers requesting/requiring you to unblock are trying to annoy people into doing what they want as well :)

The difference, of course, being that an ad-blocker can block those :)

Ah, but ad-blockers will block this as well :)

This feels like a house of mirrors.

The adblocker I use is not visiting websites with annoying ads (much). High quality websites tend to not have them.

what websites of the highest quality do you visit that are light on ads?

Wikipedia, Hacker News, Stack Overflow and maybe The Economist come to my mind.

(Been planning for a while to set up my work laptop to access only a whitelisted set of domains to avoid 1. Procastrination and 2. ads & tracking.)

github.com, godoc.org, gmail.com, golang.org, etc.

This is a good weapon against the "overfluxing" Internet advertisement. Appreciate it.

Why am I not using custom AdBlock filters to block pesky social media users? I need to go write a bunch of Mastodon filters now.

I don't know if linking to ublock origin specifically, is the right call. I just did it because I prefer it, and I had to link to something. (otherwise it kind of screws non-technical people)

Hopefully ublock lasts longer than this script does.

I'll admit this is funny, but....

I'm always curious what people are against ads would like the web to be. Paywalls everywhere? Micropayments?

The cat who left the bag is probably dead by now, but i'd like most of the commercial aspect of the web to simply go away with the exception of paid services that i actually seek myself (e.g. i'm fine with the web allowing me to go to an eshop or egrocery to buy stuff, to a hosting provider to rent a server, to a game developer/publisher to buy games, etc). I'd also be fine with buying "magazines" in the form of ebooks (no annoying DRM though), be it per-issue or a subscription, assuming of course the content quality is better than what people would put out for free on their own time (but TBH i expect people would put out quality content for free anyway). I know some would say that this has been tried and it doesn't work, but this isn't really the case because it hasn't been tried in an Internet without alternatives so we don't really know how it'd pan out.

I do not expect any of this to ever happen.

Yeah well I guess I'm not too excited about ideas which expect elimination of alternatives.

No, the Web I want is a free and open sharing of ideas and passion projects without all the added nonsense. It's fine if corporations have a limited presence, but frankly speaking, I believe we need to go back to Web 1.0. I'd have no problem with allowing non-Web walled-garden commercial services like Prodigy or AOL used to be. If you want to pay to be part of that (social) ecosystem, that's fine and you do you. For me, I want to be part of a free society of mutual benefit.

I run an ad blocker as a matter of security.

Ad networks are routinely compromised and used to distribute malware, or else just don't bother filtering what "ads" they accept and end up distributing malware.

I'm curious why you think I should accept that as a cost of browsing the web.

Fairly similar to what the web was before commercial interests injected megabytes of crap into every website: Mostly collections of personal websites run by private people talking about stuff they're interested in without expecting anything in return.

This is the hero the web deserves. A web free of advertising and advertisers is a web free of for-profit privacy violations as a service.

Now it becomes a cat/mouse game of for-profit privacy violations as a service, where individuals (like OP) are pitted against super rich companies. A more robust solution is probably required here.

I wonder if one could mess with programmatic-ad auctions by introducing infinite loops. Not from user space browsers, of course.

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