Ahh, stupidity. The most resistant of communicable diseases. One hundred and eleven thousand people who couldn't remove a check mark from a box.
One hundred and eleven thousand people who wouldn't remove a check mark from a box. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/reviews/
Either way, my comment still stands as you'd have to be a complete tool to pitch a fit over it. If ABP had enabled the feature with a "too bad so sad" attitude and not allowed it to be turned off, then there would be something to debate over or get upset about.
Funny... if Melih had done something like this in one of his products he'd have been tarred and feathered for it. Or heaven forbid CCleaner tries to bundle a Chrome browser/toolbar with their product, and a "slim" version is in order. The merits of opt-in vs. opt-out have been hashed, and then re-hashed a thousand times over in here, with the consensus being quite obvious in a place such as this. Yet here a product commits a blatant violation of what is basically one of the security ten commandments, and everyone is A-okay with it. Why is that?... Obviously, because it is a beloved product, and dev. And most of you wear your personal bias/favorites on your sleeves in here and are completely incapable of being objective when discussing such matters. It should have been opt-in, not opt-out... period. It was just plain wrong. At the very least, there should have been an in-your-face warning in a release note... a tab page like NoScript gives during updates. I was oblivious to the thing for probably a good month because when I open ABP it defaults to my personal filter rules. I simply had no reason to click on the tab for my subs... but thankfully, one day I did on a whim. Try being objective for a change. If this was another product/dev. you'd all be screaming bloody murder over this.
Good point. What bothers me most is Mr Palant's presumptuous claim to defining what we should consider 'not annoying'. And there's more to come - he's a dot com now: http://eyeo.com/
Sweet Jesus..it's a check mark. Come on guys, some of you are absolutely anal about things at this forum. And quit throwing around the word "objective" please if you're not willing to do the same. I have news for you, if you downloaded ABP and used it in Firefox or Chrome, there is an "in your face" warning about it and an "in your face" check box that you can un-check. Heaven forbid anyone come up with an alternative way to handle the pervasive ad problem besides kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out approach. Mr. Palant can define whatever we darn well pleases with his product, and you can darn well not use it if you don't like it. Lord in Heaven I'm tired of listening to "force" this and "force" that. Give it a rest, really. I hate to bring you bad news, but advertisements have become important as a revenue stream for the internet ecosystem. You might not like that, but that's where we are and where we'll stay for the foreseeable future...unless you enjoy paying out of your own pocket to host these websites and use their services. I'd be careful if you do wish for that, because with the "infringing wars" going on with news websites claiming they're being infringed upon because Google shows their stories in its search..you very well may be having to pay for it. Most of us are being objective, which is why we un-check the stupid mark in the box and move on. You know what would happen if many here found Sandboxie bundled with Chrome? We wouldn't try to hang Tzuk or rant for three days on an internet forum. We'd un-check the darn box and install Sandboxie, or we'd leave it checked and install Sandboxie and Chrome. But by all means, go ahead and rant..or simply don't use the product? It's a lot easier and saves air. Edit: Listen, if this were an OpenCandy issue or some other form of what I and many others consider as close to malware as you can get, I'd be on your side so quick your head would spin. But it isn't, and I don't see Palant ever making that mistake. If he did, he could forget my business until he came back around and, even then, I'd forgive but not forget.
Once again, all PR spin/justification. I am being completely objective about this... a feat you're obviously incapable of. So I'm confused now... is opt-out okay, or isn't it? You can't just apply the logic when it suits your stance, and disregard it when it doesn't. So we're all okay with opt-out vs. opt-in now? I just want to know where we stand here. Because it's certainly not okay when Google does it, or Youtube, or Facebook, or... (insert anyone besides ABP, apparently) Your attempt to negate the entire argument by saying "it's just a check box" is completely side-stepping the issue here, and you know it full well. And then portray those who dare to point out obvious discrepancies as zealots. Well... your responses contain all the skill and tact of a politician, I'll give you that.
I have no emotion about it, actually. It's software, and I really don't care either way. I just find it rather amusing that out of all battles that can be picked and felt strongly about, including the abomination that is tracking advertisers, a check box to allow the least annoying and intrusive advertising can cause these kinds of feelings. In this case, it is about a check box. I am not saying the issue isn't larger than said box in other areas, but in the case of ABP it most certainly is about a check box. Once again, if this were an issue about bundled things like OpenCandy, RK or any other potentially intrusive or perhaps harmful software or we were not given an option at all but rather told to "deal with it". then I'm more than willing to get behind the complaints and completely understand the argument. In this situation however, it's more like that cranky old guy down the street shaking his fist at the kids on his lawn and spouting off "In his day" stories. I'm sorry, but that's just how I feel. Feel free to disagree and keep complaining though. Most of us live in free countries and it sure isn't messing up my day. I can say that any changes anyone may want won't be solved by posting on a security forum that the developer likely doesn't even look at.
Had to switch over to AB edge (at least temporarily). Adblock plus has been very glitchy the last few days, couldn't even get V2.2 to work. AB site and forum has been down as well.
What a ridiculous idea - it's easily opted out of. And the model of allowing "good" ads is brilliant. People have this (sorry) stupid attitude towards ads that they are inherently bad when the real reason ads got a bad rep is because: 1) They were really annoying/ flash ads 2) They would slow things down 3) They would constantly be used to spread malware If you only allow ads that don't do these things you end up with little snippets on pages that fuel the internet. The internet runs on advertising. I understand opting out if you don't like tracking or some such thing. But the ABP model is absolutely justified. The developer recognizes that his product is negatively impacting millions of websites that can't run without advertising. And he's not selling ads or some such thing, he's forcing advertisers to work within acceptable means or risk losing a sizable market share. The internet is spoiled with idealism. TLU is corrent - ads fuel the free internet. @m00nbl00d If you ran a website and had to pay for hosting you'd disagree that your site is "crappy". There are millions of sites that rely on ads - otherwise the hosts would have to pay out of pocket. The internet would shrink overnight without ads and quite a number of gems would be lost. Hosting isn't that cheap. Forking over an opt-out feature is disingenuous to say the least. It's nonsensical and I seriously question the developers motives.
Well, after 167.000 downloads I guess it is safe to say that a growing number of people don't want their internet 'fuelled' by corporate greed.
Arguing for more capitalism on the internet because it is 'spoiled with idealism' is too sick for words.
If I ran a website, just because I wouldn't consider it a total crap, that wouldn't mean it wasn't a crap. What one thinks and reality are two entirely different things. On the other hand, if my visitors want to keep the website alive, because they like it, then why wouldn't they allow the ads? That's what I do - I allow ads for the websites I visit. I make the choice to allow/disallow what I want. But, wouldn't that also mean that their visitors weren't that interested in keeping the services alive? Let's face it, website visitors always had the power in their side - they could always whitelist/blacklist ABC website ads. So, the user always had the chance to support their favorite website, which is why I really never understood the acceptable ads thing. But, that's just me. That you'll have to discuss with the developer. I'm actually not even using Firefox at the moment. Went back to using Chromium 100%. (Might return one of these days to Firefox as well.) Anyway, that said, when I used Firefox, I used ABP. Even though I don't understand the reason of the acceptable ads (due to what I mentioned above), I can easily turn it off. But, something that really pissed me off was that, at first the acceptable ads came disabled for Chromium/Chrome version. Then, a few weeks after, I came to realize it was enabled by default, because an upgrade occurred to ABP. On a side note, it took quite a few years for the guy to realize that ads were killing/going to kill the web? He took ABP over like 5/6 years ago from another developer, and only now he realized something was wrong? Didn't he know back then that the majority of websites require ads to survive? lol
@Pinga, 1) I don't think capitalism is sick. That's irrelevant because... 2) This isn't "capitalism" - it's the distribution of goods ie: the internet, and it's only possible because of advertising. I'd call it Marxism if it were self hosted, but then this conversation would get idiotically political because it's neither. Stop being hyperbolic. How is this so different from an ad whitelist? No, it wouldn't mean that. As we've seen people have very little idea how ads and the internet are related - they block ALL ads on ALL sites, because "i just don't like ads" etc. The user has always had the chance to support their site. Now it's automated for them, which I think is better because it encourages advertisers to make their ads suitable. Users don't think to disable ads for a site, partly because it's easier not to, partly because you dno't think to enable ads and reload on a page that you might only visit once, and partly because the vast majority of users don't know why ads even exist let alone their impact. It came enabled by default but when it first upgraded there was a whole tab explaining the update with a big bold warning about the whitelist, explaining how to opt-out. Not sure if you somehow missed that due to a bug or what. The internet was pretty different 5-6 years ago. In my lifetime I've seen the internet change immensely, it used to be a tiny thing without search engines or major websites redirecting traffic, 90% of what I visited would be from the AOL homepage and I think many were the same. It's booming now, it's widespread and massive. The infrastructure has changed to an ad-supported one, because hosting websites has become too costly for the massive demand - it has to be subsidized somehow. So yes, maybe it did take a while for him to realize the impact adblock software has, because for a long time it didn't have much impact, and now more and more users are installing it and more and more websites are self hosted/ rely on ads. And maybe you would think your site is great while others say it's crap. But that's the great thing - you can put your voice out onto the web, regardless of your class or fiscal means, and that's only possible due to advertising. It's unrestricted free speech but due to the nature of the internet it's taken to an extreme, you're not just free to say it in public, you can say it in by and far teh most public way possible.
I suppose you didn't read the part where I mentioned Imake the choice of what I want/do not want to allow? That's where the difference lies. So, if people simply don't like the ads, then what effect would the acceptable ads have? Wouldn't they just disable it altogether, as well? After all, you're the one saying they just want to block ads because they don't like them. It won't matter if ads are what others deem to be acceptable or not, they just don't like ads, period. Actually, it came disabled by default. It became enabled in a newer upgrade. Now, if it was a bug in the previous ABP version, it beats me. What? Didn't it cause damage a year ago? Two years ago? Didn't websites rely on ads back then? I don't know about you, but pretty much all the websites I've been visiting for the last two/three years survive because of the ads. And, websites I happen to visit for whatever reason, they all relied on ads as well. From my perspective, things didn't change much. What changed is that there are more websites now, but they still have one thing in common with the past - rely on ads.
I guess I just see this as an issue whereas you see it as a good thing. Making users make more decisions is typically a bad thing, and expecting them to is generally an even worse thing. People don't know what they want. I think many will just disable altogether, which is a bad thing. I think some won't, thankfully. It did do damage then, yes. I don't think that him implementing this now as opposed to then means anything. But I do think that ABP likely does a lot more damage now than it did back then, as there are so many more websites and likely many more ABP installations than there have ever been. Him installing it now or a year ago or a year from now doesn't change anything whatsoever - the internet does run on ads. Whitelisting websites you support individually is one method, but it's unrealistic to think that your average user is going to do this for multiple reasons. The developer is responsible for these ads being blocked, and he's recognizing that his extension is having a negative impact on the web. I can't say whether he's just realizing this or has always realized this or something has triggered this - it's entirely irrelevant, it doesn't change that a website can either pay out of pocket or can be funded through ads.
Agreed ABP serves as a great tool for web visitors to gain control over ads they are served. However, web owners are/were generally against the idea (or they resorted to reminding users to disable ABP on their sites) seeing that they find a need to run ads to survive and possibly make a profit. Here's the problem: ABP is growing in popularity but most web visitors can't or won't be bothered over whitelisting sites despite web owners trying to improve the quality of ads on their pages (and reminding users to 'please whitelist my site') It's not difficult to figure out why this is the case: why would users bother doing so when installing ABP and choosing a list blocks most ads and the web still works for the most part? In order to balance the needs of the 2 parties, the 'acceptable ads' idea was born. This 'acceptable ads' feature basically tries to serve as a medium of compromise for both the web visitors and web owners. Compromises often involves terms in which both parties can mutually accept. Trying to achieve this state of 'fairness' or 'equlibrium' is a difficult and never-ending task; more so when everyone has different sets of criteria and agenda. In an ideal world (esp. for the userbase), the defaults would be to set this feature as 'opt-in' and hope that most users would choose or bother to opt-in. However, ask yourself: would this be the case? To avoid going back to square 1, thereby defeating the entire purpose, the default option was set to 'opt-out' instead. Admittedly, the implementation isn't perfect but the project is a work-in-progress (I believe it's still in it's early prime stages currently) and people are invited to contribute to the discussion of what's considered 'acceptable'. Of course, you can't please everyone. It will never be the case. Whether or not this will work in practical terms is yet to be seen. At this point, all remains as a conjecture. Now, I might seem like a proponent of 'acceptable ads'. Don't get me wrong. I do understand and respect the concerns over the 'privacy' impact resulting from this decision; the needs of those who wish to block 'all' ads; and the principles of those who disagree with the entire notion behind the project. All I'm saying is that you can always 'opt-out' from this feature if you wish to. Take note also that if you choose EasyPrivacy as your list, the 'acceptable ads' feature is automatically unchecked. Taking this into account, is there really a need for a fork of ABP, at this moment? From what I observed, most of those who are installing AdBlock Edge are either: a) unaware that they can disable 'acceptable ads' b) unaware of the reasoning behind 'acceptable ads' c) blowing things out of proportion
There is a lot of academic work out there on how advertising is increasingly polluting the public sphere. Even Wikipedia has a page on it. Claiming that the only way to cope with expensive hosting is by cluttering the web with even more expensive advertising is nonsensical. As Rowan Gibson put it: Of course there are alternatives to advertising. How about some true innovation instead? The momentum is there, this is just the beginning. In the meantime we, not corporate entities, decide what we do and do not want to see. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_advertising http://www.business-strategy-innovation.com/2010/03/escaping-internet-commodity-trap.html
One more reason to switch: The new Adblock Plus corruption, er, correction feature: http://adblockplus.org/blog/typo-correction-feature-in-adblock-plus
Is your issue literally that he wants to make money? God forbid. And ABP goes against this how? The controls are still there. There are alternative business models for virtually every field. Advertising is the most widespread for the internet for a reason - a very good reason, it's simple. Any other business model would be just as capitalistic. Your political ideals are clouding what's right in front of you - money is not evil, him making money is not evil, website owners making money is now evil, advertisers making money is not evil, and most of the time HOW they make their money isn't evil either. It seems silly to deny the effect advertising has had on the internet. The ability to subsidize websites is what has allowed everyone to have a voice on the web.
