Adblock Plus Will Soon Block Fewer Ads

Passing along what I've have read elsewhere:
Adblock Plus Will Soon Block Fewer Ads

Regards,

 

It was matter of time before this proposed turn of events. There was talk of it a year if not more back. So not surprised and I'm sure there will be solution (and there is an opt out feature anyway) to this somewhat unwelcome development

 

Adblock Plus will soon block fewer ads, but what about Adblock, which is a different developer?
I've been getting along fine with Adblock Chrome extension, and never had the need to go to Adblock Plus.
Maybe I'll try asking the dev what his plans are along these lines, if any.

 

I'm fine with this. Non-Intrusive ads are essential for the web.

Also, the new ADB+ whitelist will be ON by default, but users will be able to easily disable it - if they ever want.

 

A good time to buy Ad Muncher, or get it free with Emsisoft's current offer.

 

Agreed. I don't mind ads when they don't get in my way, somebody has to pay for the stuff. It's when they forcibly get in the way I have a problem with them. That isn't what is going to get me to buy stuff.

 

Exactly. I allow a few blogs that I visit to display ads. I visit them because I like them, and if everyone blocks the ads, sooner or later (probably sooner) they will no longer exist.

And, regarding ADB+, there's an opt-out option. Which I'll be using, and will keep using my own white list.

-edit-

There's an interesting comment at Adblock Plus -https://adblockplus.org/development-builds/allowing-acceptable-ads-in-adblock-plus

While a relevant question (IMHO), we can still opt-out of the acceptable ads thing, anyway. lol

 

Blocking all ads is indeed not very healthy for the 'ecosystem' of the internet, users can still block them all if they want to but that will probably be a small percentage, so it doesn't hurt websites' revenue. Plus, it will hopefully lead to less sites trying to evade adblocking or blocking users who block ads. I'm still curious if this whitelist will only be enabled for new installations or if a new update will be released which also affect current users.

 

This was always the plan.

Ads have this stigma because for so long they've been bulky and insecure. If ads were all simple and text based I wouldn't bother blocking them - blocking would probably slow things down more than just letting them load.

As long as this is opt out I think it's a great idea. I won't be opting out.

 

This is a great move by Wladimir, I'll definatelly use it.

 

Really.

I use Ad Muncher, it does all the work.

 

This has been incubating for a while and we had started discussing it here.

I'm just glad I know how to make my own blocking rules.

 

You need to travel widely

Go to areas where superfast broadband doesn't exist. Make friends with someone who has a dial-up modem. Then comment about "blocking would probably slow things down more than just letting them load."

The improvement in page-loading speeds brought about by blocking certain traffic is evident even with a 384 kbps connection.

 

Form the link:

I wonder if this is some sort of emotional argument. It's not about the "size" of the website. It's about the nature of the ad content.

 

It sure is evident on 128 kbps...

 

Right, because current ads are heavy. Blocking ads has a performance hit but usually it's negligible compared to downloading the huge Flash-based Ad that's simultaneously running exploit kits.

If ads were light there would be very little difference in performance hits.

 

I didn't make it clear enough. On a slow connection, a small ad which has to be loaded from a third-party site can take a noticeable time to download not because of its size but because of the travel involved.

 

Quite frankly, I don't understand the agitation here. The article in post#1 said it and this ABP site confirms that it's easy to go back to the old behavior:

There is really no need to switch to other adblockers.

 

+1
Too much trouble for nothing...

 

I quite agree.
For me,as long as ads don't obscure/impede my viewing of a site in any way;that is perfectly acceptable.

 

When I installed Adblock Plus is was never about gaining more speed or quicker loading times. I was tired of all the hacked ad-servers which lead to my machines becoming infected. Personally I see this as a way of a "trusted ad server" becoming hacked which is why I block all ads and will most likely continue to do so. If someone could find a way to make hacked ad's appear less but show safe ads maybe then I will start showing ads again.

 

@Ibrad,

That would be the case if more people used adblocking. As it stands they can continue to hack ads as they always do and still effect the vast majority of users.

 

This is true, but it makes me smile because on the one hand they're saying we're going to stop blocking unintrusive ads by default, but then in the same breath they say you can disable that and do so anyway as before. Just imagine if more people end up disabling the new feature, it'll make the original intention moot. With so much publicity here, and on their pages, it negates what they want to try and do if those that don't agree decide to disable. Dare I say maybe the option to disable shouldn't have been added or at least not announced?

 

There are at least two interesting claims: One is that the number of people using adblockers is negligible. This was made by known by our very own HM a few months ago and he maybe able to provide the link. If that's true, then the latest move is not necessary.
The other one involves keeping the white-list on by default and making the feature opt-out rather than opt-in because most users aren't really savvy and don't change the defaults other than choosing a blocking"list". This claim approximately is made by Palant's team.
There's a bit of an Orwellian feeling about this whole thing but I'm not going to forget how helpful ABP and EHH have been to me.

 

As I noted two days ago, I decided to contact Michael Gundlach, the developer of AdBlock, to ask him if he plans to do anything similar to what Wladimir Palant will be doing with AdBlock Plus.

FWIW, here is Michael's response: