Sites that block adblockers seem to be suffering

As long as advertisers keep pushing ads on my face, I'm not disabling uBlock.

I remember a time where ads, then presented on TV, were something I loved seeing, and sometimes I even sang with them. Nowadays ads are just an annoyance that get in the way of good content and revenue to content creators. They're dependent on something that is falling.

 

Advertising needs to be at least not annoying, even better if it were somehow entertaining. When I get to a site that says turn off ad blocker or go away, I go away. Now if they let me in anyway, I may consider whitelisting them, if the ads aren't terrible. If they are I remove them from the whitelist and don't go back. I don't owe these people a living. If they want to put out something compelling and not make it feel like punishment to visit their site, great. If not, there is no site on the internet that I can't live without.

 

LOL, I'm loving this, I hope people will continue to avoid these sites. They are really getting on my nerves, this will teach them.

 

It's all about providing value to users. If the content/ads are useless, then users won't come back.
Mrk

 

Yes, I remember that too.
Something is fundamentally different in this world of ours and it's not for the better.

 

That's really offensive. Facebook wants it's cake (traffic) and wants to be able to eat it too (ad revenue by compromising adblockers). But I guess one should expect nothing less from Facebook.

I just refuse to visit sites that deny me content if my adblocker is in use.

I believe that bloomberg.com has a polite solution: a five second delay to content if an adblocker is in use. Others politely remind you they depend on ad revenue and ask you to disable your adblocker and may suggest that you make a contribution to their website to eliminate any sense of guilt on the viewer's part.

I understand the content provider's dillema, but responsibility for a solution should be on them: Guarantee to the maximum extent possible that ads displayed will be
non-invasive, non-malicious and non-disruptive. If they they believe that their content is so valuable, let them put up a paywall and eliminate ads.

Is there a vulnerability in Adblock and other adblockers? I do not know enough about the technical details of how an adblocker can be defeated, or Facebook's planned technique to circumvent adblockers, or what the Facebook's TOS says about what Facebook Users agree to, BUT I do know they should tread lightly because, Facebook's proposed action could violate Sections (a)(5)(A) and (a)(5)(C) of the Federal Computer Abuse and Fraud Act 18 U.S. Code § 1030, particulalrly if a PC was infected by an ad displayed on Facebook.* (violations of The Act are Federal Crimes.

18 U.S. Code § 1030

(a) Whoever...

(5)(A) knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer

(5)(C) intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage and loss.

18 U.S. Code § 1030 (d)cool:[umm that yellow smiley is typed as an "eight"] defines the term "damage" as "any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information;"

Virtually any computer connected to the internet is a "protected computer:"

18 U.S. Code § 1030(e)(2)(B) the term “protected computer” means a computer which is used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication, including a computer located outside the United States that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the United States;

* "loss" is defined in 18 U.S. Code § 1030 (d)(11): "the term “loss" means any reasonable cost to any victim, including the cost of responding to an offense, conducting a damage assessment, and restoring the data, program, system, or information to its condition prior to the offense, and any revenue lost, cost incurred, or other consequential damages incurred because of interruption of service;"

NB: "loss of use" (e.g.,of a paid for adblocker) is a legally recognized "loss" in most contexts

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030

I suppose the Facebook TOS will just be changed to allow this. Selfies and stuff are just too important to a lot of peeps.

I also suppose that Facebook is so interwined with various parts and agencies of the Federal Government that they have no fear of 18 U.S. Code § 1030. But the point is that even if they were never prosecuted, there is a reason such intrusions are crimes -- the are blatantly offensive.

 

Facebook has done this by putting all the ads under its own domains so the adblocking lists won't work. It also makes them hard to distinguish from ordinary posts. As I remember, there are laws and regulations that require all advertising to be clearly labeled as such and it has to be differentiated from ordinary content. In some of the posts, there is a small button that says "sponsered". In others, users are tricked into liking an ad which is then shared with all the users friends. These are deceptive practices. I started to look at what looked like shares from friends and they were ads. None of the ad and script blockers I'm using--uBlock and uMatrix--are stopping this right now but I don't see this as impossible. It will require an extension that will look deeper into the web page for certain signs like the "sponsered" button.

 

I just love surfing the web and not seeing garbage pushed in my face. My adblocker blocks harmful content and speeds up browsing.

No one wants to see ads, period.

 

Thanks for that most illuminating, but disturbing, info MisterB

 

Lets see how untouchable FB is out of this lot. I hope Gorhill chimes in soon. uBlock and uMatrix are the go to extensions AFAIC. I will NEVER join the HORRID FB site and what I'm worried about is what other parts of the web is this going to effect?

I hate ads, they just turn me off. PERIOD. Force ads on me. I'll go away.

 

Facebook? You couldn't pay me to go anywhere near it.

 

That's what I figured they were doing. First party ads are hard to block. Fortunately I never visit Facebook and with things like this going on I never will. I figured this would be a trend as most any site you visit these days (not this one) but most others have the popup "Sign up for blah blah blah, enter your email address!!!" as if I would. Then i can start getting spam email! All of these are first party, and I have to use NoScript to stop that nonsense. I guess advertisers are never going to get it. I don't mind that they exist, if only they would just get it.

 

So exactly how do you stop these with NoScript? I have NoScript installed, but can't figure out just how to do this. And you're right, they drive me crazy, too.

 

I seem to be getting less ads today with uMatrix. Last update of the app was August 6th but the lists are updated automatically so this might not have been a big challenge after all. It might have been as easy as adding a few directories to the block list. I've done this manually with Adblock Plus to block a few in house ads under eBay's domain.

I don't agree with Facebook's statement.

Facebook's new ads are more annoying because they look like ordinary posts and there is an element of deception and trickery to the way they are presented.

 

It doesn't always work. Once you whitelist a site and the javascript is on that site's domain you still see it. But most sites will be readable without javascript and the ones that aren't I usually ignore and find something else to do. It's not a perfect solution but overall it is much better than nothing.

 

Unsolicited online ads are tantamount to harassment. Good job I will never be interested going to FB. What a waste of time.

 

"...Facebook’s biggest complaint with the Adblock Plus workaround is that it includes content from friends and Pages. However, there are other existing third-party tools that let people manipulate content from Facebook users including the Wall Street Journal’s “Blue Feed, Red Feed” tool.

Although Adblock Plus’s latest workaround has been quashed, the hacking war still rages on. When the initial workaround was released, Adblock Plus acknowledged that Facebook would likely respond in a swift manner....

The social media giant believes that by providing opt-out settings on its targeted ads, it is fulfilling the same role as ad blockers. Whether that’s actually the case should probably be up to the user to decide."

http://gizmodo.com/facebook-and-adblock-plus-are-stuck-in-a-hacking-war-1785202506

"...Facebook might “re-circumvent” at any time. As we wrote in the previous post, this sort of back-and-forth battle between the open source ad-blocking community and circumventers has been going on since ad blocking was invented; so it’s very possible that Facebook will write some code that will render the filter useless — at any time. If that happens, the ad-blocking community will likely find another workaround, then Facebook might circumvent again, etc."

https://adblockplus.org/blog/fb-reblock-ad-blocking-community-finds-workaround-to-facebook

"Would you like to play a game of chess?"

"Wargames"
1983

 

I ran a test after reading this. I loaded facbook onto two browsers, Opera(Blink) and Vivaldi. uBlock origin on Vivaldi and Adblock Plus on Opera. No ads on either. I will post again if the ads return but after thinking about it a bit, I've come to the conclusion that the odds favor the adblockers. As I posted before, there are regulations that require ads to be clearly distinguishable from content which means there are always going to be indicators that something is an ad. Facebook is treading a fine line already and I don't think they can go much further without crossing it. They can randomize where the ads are located and use other forms of obfuscation but there is no way to seamlessly blend ads with content. All that was required to defeat the first attempt was a new filter which was automatically loaded into both adblockers with no intervention on my part. Give the developers time to come up with new code for the extensions themselves that detects obfuscated advertising and the war will be over. It's not going to be that difficult. The code will be something like HIPS is to AVs. Instead of looking for specific servers and domains, adblockers will start to look at tags and scripts in a website's code for tell tale signs of ads.

 

"A nasty Android malware is spreading using Google's online ad network"

http://www.businessinsider.com/andr...ertising-network-kaspersky-researchers-2016-8

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/15/android_trojan_abuses_google_adsense/

 

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/technology/facebook-adblock-plus-spar-over-ad-blocking/158812

 

There is an updated version of uBlock, It's called uBlock Origin.

uBlock Origin for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
uBlock Origin for uBlock Origin for Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en