Wasn't there a fork already done when this acceptable ad business first came about? It must have withered away when people finally got it through their head that you can turn that function off. I did when I first used AdBlock, and I've never enabled it again and it has never forced me to do so.
Since I can easily turn this feature off in Adblock Plus, I do not see any compelling reason to switch.
Opting out is stated in black and white : I do. https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads Wladimir Palant is not the developer of Adblock Edge.
Neither do I. This new extension is solely based on the paranoia of many users who are unwilling/unable to read.
Ditto! The first thing I do when I install Ad-Block Plus FTW is to uncheck the box which says "allow some bla bla bla advertising" Takes a sec to do so
'Hilarious' is Wladimir Palant's strange idea that he is to decide what constitutes 'advertising that is considered not annoying': It's as if a car manufacturer would introduce an eco-friendly car with an extra-polluting default setting. His claim to personally making the web 'a better place for everybody' is downright ridiculous; he deserved this wake-up call.
For me it's all about choice, so if the original AdBlock Plus extension allows me to turn off "acceptable ads" feature (and it does), then I see no real problem with that and no reason to switch to Edge.
What wake-up call? The one where everyone is throwing a fit over it and installing copy-cat AdBlocks that don't have opt-in ad allowances?...Oh wait, no one is. While I do not want to allow ads, I understand why he does it. I understand that if even more people used ad-blocking techniques, you'd start seeing even more websites forcing you to turn it off or go elsewhere. Look at No-Script default-allow entries, I'd consider that a worse situation than AdBlock Plus.
As already mentioned, it's easy to uncheck that option if you don't want it. And that Wladimir's idea is "downright ridiculous" is a very questionable statement (and has been discussed in other threads here) as generally blocking all ads could ultimately lead to the end of the free web, indeed. This approach is, at least, worth discussing and not being ridiculed.
I block all I can for very few, but to me important reasons. For one thing, security. There have been malicious ads aplenty during the growth of online advertising. Another reason is the shift from annoying but basic ads that blinked and scrolled as you went down pages, to full on Flash mini-movies. Even with AdBlock I run into these, and they are a pain to block because often you have to block the entire server or else it'll renew itself and become unblocked. The worst offenders are the ones you go to block and the entire page becomes blank. Last but not least, 3rd party tracking has become what I consider to be a plague and I don't particularly care to expose myself to it when I don't absolutely have to. All that being said, it's very much true I believe that we wouldn't like a truly ad-free web.
I doubt it would result in the end of the free web, as you put it. What would happen is that most (all?) crappy websites would cease to exist. I wouldn't mind that, to be honest... at all. All the other great services would survive, because if you do want it to exist, then you'll support it. And, I really doubt that the "acceptable ads" would do any good/bad here. There's no reason to exist. I allow the ads I want to allow for the services that I want to use, not the ads others want me to allow. And, I only allow them, as long as they're first party ads, because ads networks are constantly being hijacked by hackers to serve nice exploits. Anyway, if we all do this, allow ads for the services we use, then how will they cease to exist? That said, I don't really care about the "acceptable ads". By the way, this feature comes disabled by default in Chrome's extension version.
If it were limited to "crappy" websites, I would agree. I'm afraid, though, that also many fine websites run by private persons would cease to exist as they would no longer be willing/able to pay for them for all eternity. That would be a great loss. Are you sure that you're willing to pay for every great blog you're reading? I doubt that many of us will do that. m00n, I'm not sure, either, that "acceptable ads" will change something for the good. But it's a legitimate attempt, IMHO, considering that probably most Adblock users not even think about allowing ads for specific sites. BTW: AFAIK, "acceptable ads" are only first party ads and no ads networks.
I think I wasn't clear enough. What I mean by supporting the services, is to allow ads (if anyone wants to donate, it's up to them). That's how I support the services I use - by allowing their ads. And, I only allow those I consider to be acceptable. I'm the one to decide it, not somebody else. If anyone visiting their favourite services allow the ads, then all is good, right? To be honest, I don't think it will change anything (good/bad). But, that's just me. I can very well be 100% wrong. But, let's think for a moment: How will the "acceptable ads" help the services that you actually happen to visit*? Most likely the "acceptable ads" would help other services that you don't visit, at all. So, it's up to you, the visitor of said service, to allow the ads you want to allow. Which is why I'm not sure how useful the "acceptable ads" actually is. -edit- * The reasoning being that they aren't even in the whitelist. It's actually a rather small whitelist. Do users have any saying in what can be added to the whitelist?
Nobody has the right to decide for another individual what is 'acceptable', let alone for the entire internet. I for one am offended by such thinking.
Look around you and forget about AdBlock, you're losing the ability to decide what's acceptable more every day. I personally think you're slightly making a mountain out of a molehill here. Palant is far from deciding what is acceptable for the entire internet, simply because a small portion of internet users use his program. He's deciding what is acceptable for his program, which he has every right to do. He isn't holding a gun to the head of his users, and, again, there is this option to opt out of the feature. If you want to be upset about a feature you can opt out of, that's well within your rights. But saying a developer doesn't have a right to decide what to do with his own program is rather silly.
http://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads Non-intrusive ads: getting the community involved A person may be against the idea behind 'acceptable ads' feature and the motivation in the creation/use of a fork is to indicate this strong opposal/rejection. That said however, seeing that the original project (and author/developer) itself respectfully allows the end-user to disable the said feature, the existence/use of a fork in this context is unnecessary. If and when users are no longer presented with the ability to do as such (which I do not believe to be the case, and hopefully not), then the existence of a fork may present itself as useful.
October 27: 111.000 installations in just seven weeks https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/
Wow, you're ridiculously sensible. He has the right, he is the owner of the product, he makes it. And, those who use lists like EasyList, also admit the right of the lists' maintainers to decide what is unaceptable. What's important is if the user has the right to make his own decisions as well. The "acceptable ads" feature is optional and customizable, just like you can add, remove and customize what lists like EasyList block. They are not forcing anything, the final decision is with the users. That's more than enough freedom.
