Adblock sold, joins acceptable ads directive.

Discussion in 'privacy general' started by TS4H, Oct 2, 2015.

  1. TS4H

    TS4H Registered Member

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  2. TheWindBringeth

    TheWindBringeth Registered Member

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    From that article:
    From an article shared in another thread:
     
  3. Rolo42

    Rolo42 Registered Member

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    He got an offer he couldn't refuse. I can't say I blame him. Who wouldn't want to create a free utility and then get it offloaded for lots of money? (*sneenapstereeze*)
     
  4. gorhill

    gorhill Guest

    Recent observations regarding AdBlock:

    AdBlock abandoned it's trademark application not too long after it was bought: https://trademarks.justia.com/865/37/adblock-86537340.html

    The current summary description for AdBlock and Adblock Plus in the Chrome store are exactly the same, word for word:
    a.png

    As of version 3.0, AdBlock now uses Adblock Plus filtering engine (source):
    Note that this is not explicitly stated in the official v3.0 announcement.

    So essentially AdBlock is Adblock Plus, with a different skin for its settings UI.
     
  5. WildByDesign

    WildByDesign Registered Member

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  6. The Red Moon

    The Red Moon Registered Member

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    As time marches on and more ad companies "pay" for their ads to appear then it seems we have gone in a circle in terms of adblocking and the user will sooner or later have no choice but to have ads in their websites.
     
  7. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Given demand, there will be new adblockers, I think.
     
  8. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    Not needed. I don't think that gorhill will ever give in :thumb:. Acceptable ads are not supported in uBlock0 unless you manually add that filterlist.
     
  9. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Yes. I meant that, if they all compromised, there would be new ones.
     
  10. gorhill

    gorhill Guest

    Even if one add the "acceptable ads" list[1] manually, it won't work very well, since I chose to not support the document option for exception filters, which main purpose I gather was mostly for "acceptable ads" sake. In uBO, it's not possible for a filter to disable uBO, this must be explicitly accomplished by the user.

    1. https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.txt
     
  11. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    Thanks - good to know :thumb:
     
  12. guest

    guest Guest

    Why don't you support it and let us choose?
     
  13. gorhill

    gorhill Guest

    The "acceptable ads" list is a vendor-specific resource: it's a product marketed by for-profit Eyeo GmbH for revenue purpose.

    The purpose of uBO is not to specifically prop-up revenues of any entity. You are free to whitelist yourself any site you wish by clicking the power button, no need for yet another paid 3rd-party between you and a site content.

    Just to be sure there is no further misunderstanding given how people often feels the need to arguing this design choice ad vitam æternam, understand it's case closed for uBO. Whoever buys into Eyeo GmbH's "acceptable ads" marketing campaign, just use a blocker which supports it, uBO is not for you.
     
  14. guest

    guest Guest

    I'm not trying to argue but going from an extreme position (a whitelist filter list owned by a company) to another (don't support any kind of whitelist) it doesn't make any sense.

    Is there any "open" list for acceptable ads?
    I was using Adguard list https://adguard.com/en/filter-rules.html?id=10
    but now you say it doesn't work.

    I wouldn't mind to help the sites I visit if the ads are not intrusive and I think a lot of people share this idea.
     
  15. rethink

    rethink Registered Member

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    Then why you do not change to an adblocker that supports this functionality?
     
  16. gorhill

    gorhill Guest

    That is completely false -- you can whitelist very easily, see "How to whitelist a web site".
     
  17. guest

    guest Guest

    We are talking about whitelisting ads not websites
     
  18. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    Just to add another aspect: I can remember that years ago Wladimir Palant - when he was still the sole ABP developer in his free time (and an employee for some other company) - made clear in his blog that he was aware that adblocking is a double-edged sword which makes it difficult for many (particularly small personal) websites to survive. And he was reflecting about ideas how to solve this problem. I think that was the origin of the "acceptable ads" idea although I can't remember if he called it that way.

    So today this might seem to be an Eyeo marketing campaign. But originally it wasn't.
     
  19. TheWindBringeth

    TheWindBringeth Registered Member

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    The business of ad blocking: A Q&A with Adblock Plus lead investor Tim Schumacher
    http://www.computerworld.com/articl...dblock-plus-lead-investor-tim-schumacher.html

    FWIW, I recall several comments from Palant... before the arrival of the then mysterious investor and major changes... that hinted that he might not hold the line so to speak. I didn't expect anything as radical as what happened, but the tone was there in his comments. Perhaps other comments were clearer. I didn't try to follow everything he was saying.

    FWIW2, I'm aware of there being a number of startups or at least startup hopefuls, back in the mid/late 1999s, that wanted to create a solution for consumer friendly/respectful online advertising. Those I came to know of were shooting for much higher standards than the "acceptable ads" of today. Serious priority given to opt-in, privacy, security, etc. Like good people trying to convince the hordes flooding into the wild west to behave, they were trampled.
     
  20. driekus

    driekus Registered Member

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    My opinion is that this was a doomed endeavour.
    Websites are under pressure that if they put one more add in they will get that little bit more revenue. It is very difficult to avoid creep here. As for privacy, the pressure to sell and market goods trumps privacy. Governments have not gotten involved because the same companies are big donors to political parties. Intelligence and law enforcement love it because they get an endless trove of data. They get to act like the Stassi but without the general population realizing it.
     
  21. TheWindBringeth

    TheWindBringeth Registered Member

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    Savvy people felt that way back then too. However, at least several savvy and genuinely pro-consumer, pro-privacy, advertising-industry-is-and-shall-forever-be-a-menace types thought they could/should create niche solutions for those few entities who were willing to advertise responsibly and respectfully. Arguably, even that was doomed to fail but some wanted to try. I wasn't involved btw.
     
  22. gorhill

    gorhill Guest

    Another funny tidbit regarding AdBlock and ABP. Someone on reddit noticed that when one disable AdBlock, Adblock Plus' icon shows up instead of AdBlock's icon.
     

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  23. Stefan Froberg

    Stefan Froberg Registered Member

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    There will always be other ways for people to block ads, even if some browser extension makers have gone to the dark side.

    For example, I use on my raspberry pi router the privoxy proxy software combined with the following "little" (400 000+ entries at the moment) blocklist that is automatically updated by little script I made some time ago:

    http://185.82.200.39/blocklist.txt

    The script just fetches various freely available blocklist, merges them, sort them and removes any duplicates and does some little sed magic cleanup.

    And my raspi router fetch the new list about once a month.

    Works nicely and with a few tweaks to privoxy config settings I can even bypass forbes.com paywall. That is, if there would be any worthwhile reading ;)

    Big advantage that all software (not just browser) are cleaned from ads and other junk

    Only problem left is that it does not block https delivered ads but I think unbound could be used for that. I already use DNSSEC enabled unbound on that router that contacts internet root DNS servers to bypass my countrys lame Internet censorhip.
     
  24. ArchiveX

    ArchiveX Registered Member

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  25. Stefan Froberg

    Stefan Froberg Registered Member

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    Thanks! :)

    Oh, and here's the script that generates the blocklist.txt if you want to merge more list to it or need to fix/change/update something in it. Should work with pretty much any Linux/Unix box/server/VM or VPS.

    http://185.82.200.39/get_baddomain
     
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