Show HN: FuckFuckAdblock

https://github.com/Mechazawa/FuckFuckAdblock

by mechazawa • 11 years ago

353 298 11 years ago

github.com

wldcordeiro• 11 years ago

Make it work with the beta as well to preempt its release. :)

mechazawa• 11 years ago

Done https://github.com/Mechazawa/FuckFuckAdblock/commit/a74307ca...

manigandham2• 11 years ago

But why?

bpicolo• 11 years ago

Seems like great advertising for fuckadblock

AndyKelley2• 11 years ago

It's the next step in the ad blocking arms race. Next is FuckFuckFuckAdBlock, and so on. May the best one win.

philangist• 11 years ago

I know you're joking but the latest season of south park covers the "arms race" between advertisers, ad blockers, and sponsored content in a very hilarious and relatively accurate way. The ultimate result of course being terminator style AI advertisements.

clsr• 11 years ago

Can do: https://gist.github.com/clsr/3f5ca796463a0e6fc8af

lagadu3• 11 years ago

(Fuck)^(n+1)Adblock

moftz• 11 years ago

Because some sites can be really annoying about a user using adblock software. They can force you to disable adblock by hiding everything until you do so. Nice sites will just simply ask that you enable it via panels below the intended adspace. In this case, this script is only fighting against FuckAdblock's adblock detection methods.

I don't mind seeing ads sometimes. I do realize this is where hosts and content producers get their funds. I would much rather have sites where you can pay subscriptions to allow access to not only ad-free content and additional premium content as long as the site actually has quality content that I will constantly come back for. Places like WolframAlpha and I'm told Chegg have quality content behind their fees. Also, another thing that is quite annoying is hearing the same ads over and over again. Streaming services have this issue all the time.

chrischen• 11 years ago

Simple solution: Don't go to that site.

going_to_800• 11 years ago

The reality is, money publishers get from ads are much more than they would get from content. You'll need insane amount of traffic to make it work with very low cost subscription costs that some will pay for.

FuckOffNeemo4• 11 years ago

Personally, I'd rather be asked for a small donation towards the sites running costs than running ad blocker. Unfortunately, this type of option isn't available in all websites or media providers.

Unless there's a method where I can directly pay them with cash or BitCoins. I'm blocking their ads and consuming their service for free. For reasons already mentioned by others.

I'll use Nexus mods as an example (http://www.nexusmods.com/games/). When accessing their site (which I do regularly), their web service tells you that they need ads to survive and offer you a life time ad-free subscription for 2.50GBP. Of course, it only shows when it can detect you're using Ad Blocker Plus. But this is the subscription model that more clients need to use.

YouTube Red (not RedTube... made the mistake of recommending this to a client yesterday) is another similar method. Though everyone knows Google is trolling my browsing habits anyway.

waynecochran• 11 years ago

The license is even more flexible than the MIT license.

morganvachon6• 11 years ago

The license is the best thing about this, hands down. It's even more offensive to GPL evangelists than public domain and closed source licenses put together. Hooray Anarchy!

(I still prefer BSD or MIT for myself though)

vezzy-fnord2• 11 years ago

It also fails to disclaim liability, though the WTFPL does have an optional warranty disclaimer variant.

And no, I don't know what planet you live in, but it's not offensive to GPL evangelists (especially not more than proprietary licenses).

In fact, the big irony is that the FSF both approves the WTFPL and considers it GPL-compatible, [1] but the OSI rejects it entirely! [2]

The GPL evangelists have the upper hand here.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#WTFPL

[2] http://opensource.org/minutes20090304

AndyKelley2• 11 years ago

If you're amused by the WTFPL, see also the Tumbolia Public License[1] and the Solipsistic Public License [2].

[1] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joshleaves/licenjs/4174e04...

[2] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matildah/SPL/fb35894f14be4...

giancarlostoro• 11 years ago

I prefer BSD or MIT any day, I can't take the license seriously, heck even the Beerware License sounds like a better alternative, and a quite shorter one at that. As long as the whole liability claim is shoved in somewhere all should be well.

TheDong2• 11 years ago

You appear to be operating under the assumption that the license is novel -- it is not. This is a well established license, though unfortunately not as accepted by lawyers as most open source licenses so it ends up doing more harm than good.

The license is obviously a bit tongue in cheek, but it's no different than a public domain license to GPL evangelists, other than being less legally rigorous.

I don't get your comment at all. For the life of me I can't understand why you use the word offensive or why you seem to delight in this license so much.

If you actually want to offend the GPL enthusiasts, may I recommend the "Anyone but Richard Stallman License" (https://github.com/landondyer/kasm/blob/04ef65a38f72636b9925...) as a much better alternative.

BinaryIdiot2• 11 years ago

This is my favorite license (I use it in my starter-web-app repo https://github.com/KrisSiegel/starter-web-app (woefully out of date)).

I wish more people used it.

dpe825• 11 years ago

Please don't; by using it you aren't actually granting a license to your code at all but rather only to the license file itself. Read it carefully.

lwf2• 11 years ago

and written by a former Debian Project Leader: http://www.wtfpl.net/about/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Hocevar

jeo1234• 11 years ago

I think this comic sums it up pretty well. http://www.wtfpl.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/wtfpl-strip....

Exuma• 11 years ago

Rofl!

indexerror• 11 years ago

I couldn't stop myself from reading the GNU GPL section in Richard Stillman's slow paced voice.

FuckOffNeemo4• 11 years ago

I registered just so I could say, THANK YOU.

Never could I ever explain open source licensing better than this comic.

dpe825• 11 years ago

Actually it isn't at all: WTFPL only gives you license to the license, not to the actual code. Read it carefully.

TheDong2• 11 years ago

Unless you are a lawyer or have heard it from a lawyer, you should not claim (unqualified) what a license does or does not cover.

The last clause, I think, sounds like it is meant to cover the work in question (the code). I am not asserting this is true, but lawyers have accepted this as being true. For example, the free software foundation (which has lawyers more skilled in copyright law than most places) accepts this as a free license.

im2w1l• 11 years ago

I have heard that some corporations stay away from WTFPL due to some legal uncertainties that I can't claim to understand. If you use WTFPL consider dual licensing for maximum availability.

codezero• 11 years ago

I'm very pleased they include the link to the Trace Buster Buster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw3G80bplTg

anonfunction• 11 years ago

I was also happy to see the reference to one of my favorite all-time movies, The Big Hit.

1. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120609/

balls187• 11 years ago

Straight Jackin'.

crystalclaw• 11 years ago

I went to the linked http://fuckadblock.sitexw.fr/ and their publicity example didn't load. Looks like my adblock rules are doing their job!

zouhair2• 11 years ago

Having ublock, Privacy Badger, Noscript and Disconnect makes it hard for ads to show up.

radlad2• 11 years ago

You can get Privacy Badger and Disconnect lists in uBlock Origin. No reason to have all three.

atom_enger• 11 years ago

At some point I really think we'll resort to blocking ads at the network level. There's no way to detect a block at that level and we'll truly be able to control the content that way. I've seen a few http/dns ad blockers here on HN already so we know it's possible and being thought about. These browser based detections are just a game of cat and mouse at this point.

radlad2• 11 years ago

This is already how it's generally done on Android (via hosts file.) Still detectable though: You can detect broken images on the page for example, which would tell you that the hosts have been blocked.

Spivak• 11 years ago

I would imagine that the cost of a false positive if something goes wrong with the ad network would be pretty damaging.

I don't know if it's still the case but Comedy Central's video player was atrocious, the video wouldn't play unless it successfully played an ad but ads just straight up failed to load 30/40% of the time so you had to refresh, watch an ad to get to the video controls, scan back to your place, watch another ad because you crossed a 'commercial break' point, have that fail 10 minutes later, and repeat. The whole experience was awful and lead to me just scraping the site for the direct steam link and eventually just deciding that Jon Stewart wasn't worth it.

drdeca10• 11 years ago

I guess you could have something that makes it still successfully retrieve a working image, just not the actual ad maybe? I guess then an ad-versary could check if the images are signed or w/e?

logicallee5• 11 years ago

you're not entitled to have some server serve you whatever content you want it to, it doesn't have to answer your http requests - so logically, by whatever means we get there, the end-game is for servers to monitor and exclude you. but the status quo is a lot better now, than for what it would take for that to happen.

Do you want servers to figure out that you're blocking ads at the network level, and tell each other not to serve to your IP? Because it is a lot less wrong for them to do it - they have a lot more right to do it, if it's in their TOS - than for you to recraft their content so that you're only making http requests to contents, but not their ads. It's like going grocery shopping for milk and sugar at restaurants and coffee places, i.e. because they have it out 'for free'. you might say, hey, they're making it available for free, it's not your fault if they have a broken business model. But it's their right whether they want you there.

The analogy isn't perfect, it's quite leaky, so let's get back to the technical facts here. The cat and mouse game is between a server wanting to serve content as well as ads, and some consumers wanting to recraft the requests so their clients/browsers do not load ads. Since ultimately the server has what the users want, for example articles, and the business model is some limited part of the attention of the user, I don't see this ending well for users who want to consumer the content but do not share any part of their attention with ads. It's just not going to work out.

rpgmaker• 11 years ago

Interesting point. I will say that, if in the end the user will have to accept the ads anyway because all the content providers will refuse them otherwise then I better enjoy ad blocking while I can :-)

chris_wot2• 11 years ago

I think we'd all accept the odd ad. But that's not what is happening. We are being systematically tracked as we browse content, and the amount of advertising and tracking we don't even see if mind-blowing.

I'm not at all surprised that most people want to opt-out of being stalked :-)

tbabb3• 11 years ago

They can try to serve me spam/ad content along with the rest of content they provide, but I am not obligated to read it, nor is my browser obligated to display it, any more than I am obligated to read the contents of my spambox (even if some of that spam is coming from companies whose services I use), in the same way that I am not obligated to read every billboard on my way to work.

Companies post ads because because they believe that some people will read them, and that promise is enough to generate money. That valuation is between them and the clients to whom they are selling ad space, and places no obligation on me. If at some point that business model becomes unprofitable, they can pick a different one.

drdeca10• 11 years ago

re the milk analogy: They can just make a rule that you can only get the milk and sugar if you purchase the coffee? Which, seems like is basically the case?

They can include a contract thingy before showing the content for the first time if they want. If I intentionally agree to not block ads, I don't think I'm going to violate that agreement.

But I haven't made an agreement like that, so my choice to allow ads to run is not due to any obligation.

I choose not to block ads, indeed, partially so that the websites receive payment. (perhaps partially also due to laziness though) But I also "defend" (insofar as my comments on the internet can do so) the right to block ads if one so chooses, and has not explicitly made an agreement not to.

In the same way that a person who views a donation funded website is not obligated to donate, hoping instead that it will be funded by other people who donate, a person who views a website which is ad supported is not obligated to view the ads, hoping instead that other people (such as myself) will view the ads.

Ads are* a donation, not a purchase.

*in the absence of a contract

edit: also I disable 3rd party cookies

lehmannro• 11 years ago

This is exactly what the website of BILD, a major German tabloid, is doing. They will not serve you content if they detect an ad blocker.

malka3• 11 years ago

Do you want servers to figure out that you're blocking ads at the network level, and tell each other not to serve to your IP?

Gonna be fun when such servers lock corporate IP.

ominous• 11 years ago

"Do you want servers to figure out that you're blocking ads at the network level,"

I don't want anything. The server has content, I GET content.

Scenario I: I don't block any content;

Scenario II: Same as Scenario I, but I don't click ads;

Scenario III: Same as Scenario II, but I don't look at the ads;

Scenario IV: Same as Scenario III, but an opaque overlay is placed above the ads;

Scenario V: Same as Scenario IV, but the ad content is furthermore moved outside of the viewport;

... My scenario: I don't GET ad content. Or any content I decide not to GET.

"they have a lot more right to do it, if it's in their TOS" I am in a cybercafe in Matakana. What is this TOS you speak of?

The internet is an open medium. You want to trade our (edit: both mine and the server's) bandwidth (ads I would GET, but not pay attention to) for your content? Fine. I'll pipe it to /dev/null. Or save us both the effort, and not GET it at all.

gradschool• 11 years ago

The longer term end game might be more like a world in which access to information is so efficient that advertising ceases to exist as an industry, because anyone offering a product or service is discoverable by whoever needs it. A future generation with a shorter attention span considers advertising morally equivalent to slavery because it deprives people of their time without compensation. Since nobody's livelihood depends on advertising any more, it's easy for everyone to hold the view that it's bad. A future fantasy writer envisions a Daenerys Targaryen character who goes around banishing advertising by force, opposed only by the occasional sick and twisted adversary with whom the audience is at a total loss to identify. Future historians look for shreds of evidence that some esteemed political figure was morally offended by advertising in a personal way but refrained from speaking out against it for pragmatic reasons. Whenever I follow discussions of this topic, I try to imagine what that future society would make of them.

orionblastar2• 11 years ago

I used to have a program that blocked IP addresses of advertising sites and replaced all pictures with any picture I wanted to use.

I used a skull and crossbones instead so in place of any ad I had a pirate flag instead.

I forgot the name of the program that did that, it was like some sort of firewall that redirected to 127.0.0.1 and ran a web server that served up any image I wanted for the picture.

I used to add IP addresses to my hosts file to block advertising sites as well.

Now I just use uBlock but they can detect that.

I don't mind advertising as much as long as it doesn't get annoying with pop-ups and other crap. It should not, for example, open up another browser window for me to display an ad.

escap• 11 years ago

Was it http://www.privoxy.org/ ? e.g. http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/quickstart.html

mistaken• 11 years ago

Perhaps he was using ettercap: http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/ettercapfilter

chris_wot2• 11 years ago

That's not going to work if everything runs via https.

How exactly do most ad-blockers work? Are they searching the DOM and blocking elements from showing? Or can they see that there are asychronous requests being made from JavaScript to known ad networks?

I'm musing out loud here, but take for instance the Sydney Morning Herald - the sheer number of trackers is extraordinary. The full load of just the main page, and images are reasonably light, is about 8MB... and there are literally dozens of trackers.

How do ad-blockers prevent these from appearing?

uxp• 11 years ago

They usually bind to events the browser triggers before a network request is made. This lets them literally block the browser from downloading any content from a source that may register your IP just from the connection (pixel tracking, etc). Searching the DOM and removing elements would still require a network request to obtain the content before realizing that it's a tracked element.

By blocking the request from happening, we can truly say that an Content Blocker on iOS (for instance) speeds up the browsing experience because the request isn't even initiated.

zuron7• 11 years ago

It is possible. Not sure how, but my school used to block all ads because of the limited bandwidth available. 50Mbps divided among ~1500 people with atleast 100 using it any given point.

silverwind• 11 years ago

A pretty good way to do this is to put something like http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/zero/ in your router's host file and enable DNS intercepting. It won't catch sneaky same-domain ads but it's great in that it consumes no extra resources on the end device and also works on iOS devices.

spookyuser• 11 years ago

would this be more effective than something like adblock.sh https://github.com/teffalump/adblock

pgl• 11 years ago

Or: http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?hostformat=bind...

joenathan• 11 years ago

I'm running Tomato firmware on my router(ASUS RT-AC68P) using an adblocking script. It will resolve known ad servers IP's to itself and serve a 1x1 transparent png instead of the ad. It's a combination of a DNS blacklist and pixelserv. All the devices on my network are ad free.

atmosx• 11 years ago

I run a modified version of PiHole which does the same. Doesn't block 100% of ads, but it blocks enough to keep me happy.

I implemented DNSSEC + DNSCrypt just for sake of it too.

Buge• 11 years ago

What about https ads?

Luyt• 11 years ago

I'd like an ad blocker which retrieves the ads as an unprotected browser would, but doesn't display them on the screen. That will stop some sites nagging me that I must turn off my ad blocker to see the content.

cm21873• 11 years ago

As we are moving away from open computing platforms into closed, non customizable computers (iOS, Android, even Windows is heading this way), I wonder if it won't be the only solution. Apple, Google or Microsoft want to protect us from third party tracking but how else can we protect ourselves from Apple, Google and Microsoft tracking us?

But it is just another game of cat and mouse. Malware already register new domains on the fly. Advertisers will simply do the same. Keeping these host files updated won't be easy.

startling• 11 years ago

There are plenty of ways to detect ad-blocking at the network level. e.g. if your ad is an image you can just use `onerror`.

Drakim2• 11 years ago

Such detection will also trigger when your ad-network is down, so if you say something rude to the user or block the website's content you are gonna have some angry feedback from a lot of people.

hannob• 11 years ago

Actually doing this at the network level is already done by some ad blockers. And it likely is going to cause more problems than it solves in light of https usage. The only thing you can do there is Man-in-the-Middle connections - with all the bad implications this has: https://blog.hboeck.de/archives/874-More-TLS-Man-in-the-Midd...

iSnow• 11 years ago

There's no way to detect a block at that level

Huh, how hard would it be to check via JS if a layer ad really was shown?

freddref• 11 years ago

You can redirect dns names to localhost in your hosts file. Super simple.

chadzawistowski• 11 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_detector_detector

gpvos• 11 years ago

I knew about these, but not about the radar-detector-detector-detectors!

bubalus• 11 years ago

I still can't believe there are some jurisdictions where you are legally required to let the cops sneak up on you.

recroad• 11 years ago

As a content creator who runs two websites and relies on ads to pay bills because my actual job doesn't cover the costs, I say fuck anything that's trying to block ads.

drdeca10• 11 years ago

I mean, if you get users to specifically and intentionally agree to not block your ads, then I would say they are obligated to not block your ads. (say, for example, a cookie-based "do you agree to not block ads on this website" thing for first time users)

But at any point before that, as far as ads go, I think users have the right to run what software they will. Though I choose not to block ads.

executesorder667• 11 years ago

How would you like to be continually forced to perceive everything you hate, while others profit off of your pain?

Edited: to conform to site rules.

dang• 11 years ago

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

TheLogothete14• 11 years ago

Why do you feel forced? Stop using websites which rely on advertising. Simple enough.

jlarocco2• 11 years ago

If the content you've created is so awesome, charge money for it.

As far as I'm concerned, web advertising is on the same level as spam, and it's preying on the same group of end users. In fact, web advertising might even be sleazier than spam, because spam doesn't track people around the internet.

zepolen• 11 years ago

You can't charge money on each and every site, it makes no sense for eg. a blog and even if it did - transaction fees would make it infeasible. A blog still costs money to run/host, it has to get paid somehow.

Ads are basically a bad implementation of micropayments that the internet seriously needs.

First company to solve the problem of charging 0.000x per request will become the next Big Thing.

I think only the ISPs would be able to do this though, metered and bandwidth cost sharing, internet as a utility like gas/elecricity.

FuckOffNeemo4• 11 years ago

Give me an option where I can pay you directly for your web service, whether it's a monthly offering or a life time subscription. See my earlier post regarding Nexus Mods.

If I like your site and I continually visit it. I'll shed out cash to consume your service. But not your providers shitty ads.

_ph_• 11 years ago

I understand your situation and there are a lot of good small websites which depend on ads to survive. However, in case you are using the larger ad networks to generate revenue, you are doing so at the expense of your site visitor. They pay for your site with their privacy (trackers) and their network bandwidth, which can be expensive in the case of mobile. On top of that, these ad networks also sometimes serve malware. So, everyone who wants to finance a web site through ad revenue needs to consider using add providers like the deck, which serve less bandwidth-using and more trustworthy ads or even self-host reviewed ads and then ask the visitors to not block them. Currently, I am running adblockers except a few trusted sites. If a site does not allow me using an adblocker, I rather tend to leave the site than to add exception.

belorn• 11 years ago

Ads on TV, news papers, radio, buses, and so on has to follow the same advertisement laws in Sweden. Publishers can not publish advertisement for tobacco or alcohol products, and may not have advertisement that is intended for minors. Sweden also has very strict privacy law regarding private information, and a company may only record and store information that is relevant for billing purposes.

Additionally a company that distribute malware is fully liable for any damages caused and can be charged under criminal law if done knowingly. Publishers need to either curate the advertisement or be very careful if they subcontract the work to someone else.

The wild west of web based advertisement is going the same route as email based advertisement. It has lost the customers trust, and from there blocking is the primary tool available to protect against abuse.

alkonaut• 11 years ago

If you serve proper ads and not scripted tracking borderline malware ads through ad-networks, no one would block you. No I can't opt out of viewing your site because I disagree to some kinds of ads, because I don't know what kind of ads you serve. So I block all tracking ads.

Either find a way to charge people for your content (with money, not their data/privacy), or even better: ask companies if they would be willing to advertise on your site directly without tracking.

What's that? You can't find any companies who would do that? Can't find the time to both create site content and chase advertising money? Can't make content that people would pay for with money? Here is an idea: just shut down your site until you can find a business model that doesn't involve selling your visitors data.

lagadu3• 11 years ago

Very simple: put a paywall up.

I mean, I know you wont because you're afraid you'll find exactly how little your content is worth and you want to continue making those sweet advertising €€€ but perhaps you should consider moving to a business that doesn't rely on selling the people who are interested in your content to the highest bidder.

mukundmr• 11 years ago

How about this instead? Plugs into U-Block Origin: https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer#instruction

aorth• 11 years ago

I also thought the same. I have it enabled in my Chrome's uBlock Origin, but this test—linked from the FuckFuckAdblock repo—still detects it:

http://fuckadblock.sitexw.fr/

gorhill2• 11 years ago

Version 1.4.0 of uBlock Origin adds the ability to redirect a blocked resource to a local, neutered version of the resource. FuckAdblock is part of the available neutered resources:

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/db74ea310b966def35e84...

So a filter like the following one work with uBO 1.4.0 to neuter FuckAdblock on the site:

    ||fuckadblock.sitexw.fr/fuckadblock.js$script,redirect=fuckadblock.js-3.2.0

simfoo• 11 years ago

I have Ghostery and ublock origin installed, after adding this to my custom blockers it still tags me as "adblock enabled"

archibaldJ• 11 years ago

Or functionally: https://github.com/0a-/FuckFuckAdblockFunctionally

  var _ = function(){};
  var fuck = function(fn,fns){
  fns.push(fn); //side effect here since this is OO. Otherwise could have written: fns = fns.concat(fn)
  var partiallyFuck = function(fn){ return fuck(fn,fns)};
  var thunk = function(){ fns.map(function(a){a();
      window.fuckAdBlock = fuck(_,[]); //forced to do side effect here due to OO
      window.blockAdBlock = fuck(_,[]); //forced to do side effect here due to OO
    }); return true};
  return {
    onDetected: partiallyFuck,
    onNotDetected: partiallyFuck,
    check: thunk,
    emitEvent: thunk
  }
  window.fuckAdBlock = fuck(_,[]);
  window.blockAdBlock = fuck(_,[]);

SCAQTony3• 11 years ago

I would not mind ads at all but ads are not really ads: they are trackers, beacons, analytics, and privacy busting cookies with none of the above asking for permission. I am blocking about 2,000 different versions of all of the above according to Ghostery. EFF's Privacy Badger is blocking a bunch to. We are being digitally assaulted. We need this stuff!

derefr2• 11 years ago

Does this mean that you support Apple's iAd platform? It's basically what you want: Apple serves the ads themselves to the devices they already know about, and the third parties don't get to know a thing about those devices. (They just have to trust Apple to e.g. actually be matching their inventory to the demographics they request.)

cm21873• 11 years ago

Isn't it in-app advertising? If so then it's even worse. My understanding is that cookies are not shared across apps, so the advertiser on app1 cannot correlate your identity with the one on app2, defeating cross-app tracking (the app equivalent of cross-website tracking). If you make it a central, Appled owned (i.e. access to much more information) then you re-enable cross-apps tracking.

makomk• 11 years ago

This is how most advertising platforms work. Google and Facebook, for example, serve the ads themselves and don't give your information to the advertisers because that'd help the advertisers target you better without the help of Google. It still means they all collect and store a whole bunch of incredibly intrusive tracking information; for example, if I recall correctly iAd tracks and stores your GPS location to target you with ads.

malka3• 11 years ago

I don't wont any single actor to have that much data about me. I block as much as possible. including stuff like Disqus or Gravatar.

lucideer• 11 years ago

This is the opposite of what he wants as it furthers the effect of the tracking by centralising it to a single omnipotent vendor (as ads by Google currently are)

newscracker• 11 years ago

How is iAd different from say, Facebook or Google, except for the vast amount of data collected across sites, platforms and services by these companies? Don't Facebook and Google also match the user profiles that they create/manage with their ad inventory and display targeted ads? They're not really selling your personally identifiable information to advertisers, but instead provide only aggregate data about the reach. The advertisers have to trust Facebook or Google too for the matching.

[I'm talking purely about what these companies do, and not about malicious sites and other ad networks or about how safe the personal profile information really is.]

wutbrodo3• 11 years ago

It sounds from your comment like you think that other ad networks (Google, Facebook, etc) _don't_ work this way? Sigh, I knew this would happen eventually as long as people kept cynically saying that ad networks "sell" your info to advertisers, knowing that those not familiar with the context would assume that meant that advertisers actually had access to the raw profile info.

SCAQTony3• 11 years ago

I am leaning towards it. An analogy would be, "How much blood do you want to give; an ounce or a pint?" you still are losing blood but a heck of a lot less.

bad_user6• 11 years ago

Most deep tracking done these days are not by means of ads being served, as the advertisers themselves lack the means of doing any meaningful analysis and don't have the reach, but rather tracking is done much more efficiently by very common utilities, like by Google Analytics, or the Facebook Like, Twitter's Tweet, or Google's +1 buttons. Heck, any third-party service can be a very good tracker. Are you also blocking Gravatar and Disqus? Because you should.

And nowadays you've got an "advertising ID" being exposed by the operating systems themselves, an ID that all apps can use to track your behavior across the net. I know of at least Windows 10, iOS and Android that do this. And this is actually a step up, as before the "advertising ID" apps were using much more persistent forms of identification.

And I'm all for being privacy conscious, personally I'm downright paranoid. But lets be honest, ad-blocking isn't about being privacy conscious.

cm21873• 11 years ago

I am sure that he meant these tools too, most if not all of which are on the adblocking lists.

adam_ellsworth• 11 years ago

... as the advertisers themselves lack the means of doing any meaningful analysis ...

What information/data do you have do back this claim in regard to the 'meaningful' analytics?

scintill76• 11 years ago

Heck, any third-party service can be a very good tracker. Are you also blocking Gravatar and Disqus?

GP mentioned Ghostery. AFAIK it does block these and many other non-ad third-party requests in its default configuration.

m0nty• 11 years ago

ad-blocking isn't about being privacy conscious

There are two kinds of readers in this world: those who can read with a bunch of gyrating monkeys, dancing squirrels or flashing crap in the sidebar, and those who can't. I'm one who can't. If the ads behaved themselves better, I might be able to tolerate them. As it is, I block all of them. It's quite jarring to use the web on a browser which doesn't block ads - I find it unusable, for page load-speed and composition reasons (ads constantly muscling in on the body text as they get dragged in).

oselhn• 11 years ago

But adds are reason for the spying. There is no reason to collect all the data if they cannot monetize them. Currently there is no other way than adds.

cronjobber• 11 years ago

But lets be honest, ad-blocking isn't about being privacy conscious.

Let's be honest, advertising is what pays for the whole menagerie of creepy snoops, therefore ad-blocking hurts even those creeps who track without ads of their own.

iopq• 11 years ago

tracking is done much more efficiently by very common utilities, like by Google Analytics, or the Facebook Like, Twitter's Tweet, or Google's +1 buttons

That's why Ghostery is blocking those for me.

SCAQTony3• 11 years ago

WOW! Very insightful - I never knew I had an Advertising ID

wtallis• 11 years ago

It looks to me like this is just a special case of what NoScript's surrogate scripts feature has been providing for years. It allows substituting your own no-op scripts for whatever scripts you'd rather not run, but want to fool other scripts into thinking have been loaded.

jayzalowitz• 11 years ago

A part of me really wants a system that asks the browser for a "hey, you wanna give money instead" token that lists a payment system and a unique id. I don't wanna really hurt content creators.

yegle• 11 years ago

Seems like you are looking for contributor.google.com

malka3• 11 years ago

It still allows Google to track you. It's not a solution.

jmnicolas• 11 years ago

Can you really afford all the content you consume daily ? I sure couldn't.

Riesling• 11 years ago

I would also prefer this for social networks like facebook. They should have an additional option where they store none of your data and guarantee not to track you.

As a compensation the user would need to pay money for using the service.

This would also put a price tag on privacy and show people what they actually give away when they use the service in the traditional way.

ainiriand2• 11 years ago

Hi guys. I guess I'm one of the bad guys. I developed the foxplay, natgeoplay adblocker detectors. I used a very simple approach because we know that anyone that wants the content and not the ads is going to have it anyway. The ads in the pages are something that is needed. What is not needed are, as other commenters said, 3rd party cookies, trackers and analytics beacons. Keep up the good fight.

self_awareness• 11 years ago

Are your employers interested in developing adblocker-blocker-blockers?

josteink2• 11 years ago

When the arms-race really gets going, we will need better names than these :)

jbb555• 11 years ago

As far as I'm concerned advertisers had their chance but they totally abused their chance turning the internet into an ad-laden hellhole and now I just block everything I possible can. If a site decides it doesn't like this then it's literally no use to me.

They had their chance, they abused it beyond all possible tolerance. I hate advertising on the internet now so much that if anything does manage to get past my blocks I make a conscious attempt to avoid buying anything from the scumbag organisation that thinks forcing their crap on my is anyway acceptable.

basicplus2• 11 years ago

My thoughts exactly!

owenwil2• 11 years ago

Enjoy your future of pay walls!

pdkl9515• 11 years ago

I will.

I will also enjoy watching a large amount of "content" find out exactly how much they were actually worth.

louhike2• 11 years ago

I consider paywalls to be a good solution. I'd rather pay with my money than having to see ads. I even think it is more sane for websites as they are not reliants on the companies provding the ads, avoiding some corruption.

anonymfus• 11 years ago

The good way to avoid the future of pay walls is to share content. Users must bankrupt major copyright holders and media monopolies to stop them influencing laws and technology.

anc84• 11 years ago

I think that would also imply a reduction in clickbait so I will!

x1024• 11 years ago

That's only a scary threat to people who are afraid of spending money.

mahranch10• 11 years ago

Enjoy your future of pay walls!

I love how people say "I will!"

For starters, most won't. These are people who tend to be ideological and naive kids who probably still have their parents paying their bills. Or they don't really fully understand what the implications are. Also, subscription models have proven to be poor solutions and don't work very well at best, and at worst, completely fail taking the website with it.

Another thing, what about poor people? We talk about how people "are happy to pay for content they like!" Only, there are going to be a massive amount of people who simply can't afford to use the internet that way. If the entire internet turned into "pay as you go", the poor & working class are screwed. They're the ones who are going to be the hardest hit. Not just poor people in the U.S but what about all that traffic from other countries? And there is a lot of it... That's a lot of people who used to be able to keep up with current events, study science, math, history (educate themselves), chat on forums, make new friends, play games who now can't, because they can't afford it. To me, that's a shame. A travesty even if you take into account the educational aspect.

I feel like the people who push for the paywall & a la carte type solutions don't really consider the full implications of their suggestions. I mean, I thought about it myself the last time it came up on hackernews for weeks, no, months and I still have no clue how the internet would evolve as a result. And what little I did conclude wasn't good. Yet these people seem to be so certain...

lumberjack• 11 years ago

Content optimized to generate revenue through direct payments will be of higher quality than content optimized to generate ad revenue. For example a paid search engine would display the most accurate results instead of those results that are quasi accurate but most likely to generate ad revenue.

Also.on such an internet it would be easier to get users to pay for content because there would be infrastructure in.place and it would be the norm.

DavideNL• 11 years ago

That's exactly the point, i rather see nothing at all (if i don't have the budget to pay for something) rather than getting drained by all the advertising distractions, and i suspect many people feel the same.

NumberCruncher• 11 years ago

It´s not about pay walls. For example:

I want to rent a flat and I´m ready to spend 30% of my mothly net salary so I go online and what do I see? 6 different irrelevant ads. And this is a site, where the the landlords have to pay for placing their adverts.

I want to go to the cinema and check out online the program. What do I see? 2 irrelevant ads on the site, one more before the trailer and if I buy a ticket I get in the cinema 30-40 mins of bullshit ads before the movie begins.

This is really distracting.

SixSigma• 11 years ago

I paid for my TV channel and it still shows me ads!

gglitch2• 11 years ago

For me, precise and binding terms of service are what's at issue. When people start forking over dollars, they will be more sensitized to precisely what's being exchanged. They way the deal is structured now, they're implicitly agreeing, usually without knowing about it in the first place, to give over an unspecified amount and type of information to an unspecified set of businesses who will be licensed to use it in unspecified ways for an unspecified period of time. That's just stupid. I'd be all for an advertising-based model if there were precise terms of service that would be binding for both parties. Until then, I cannot prove that I'm not being screwed now or later by someone completely unrelated to the content I'm trying to read.

mandor• 11 years ago

A while ago, Internet was about people sharing things, freely. And it was an interesting place!

Not all the content has to be written by professional writers and a lot of code is actually written for free by volunteers...

jamespo• 11 years ago

When exactly did you "give ads a chance"?

JupiterMoon• 11 years ago

Probably from the late 90s to the mid to late 2000s? And probably whenever she sits at a computer for the first time and hasn't get installed the blocker of her choice?

m_t• 11 years ago

For me it was approximately until the never ending popup era. You know, when you closed that popup, and another one came one, And then another one. And then another.

Then I got some popup blocker, then some other stuff, then AdBlock, then AdBlock plus, and I started white listing site that didn't abuse their users.

rvschuilenburg• 11 years ago

Back when there were some default 'banner sizes' sites used to exchange ads. I remember 468 x 60 being one of the more prominent ones. It was just a static image or an animated gif.

lagadu3• 11 years ago

Plenty of people mentioned "a while ago" so I'll refrain from that but I'll add something: I give them a chance whenever I accidentally open Edge/IE or find myself using a computer that doesn't have ublock installed (I love you mom!). It's amazing how much shit they ad to most websites that gets blocked. Every single time it's a cringe moment of rushing to close the window or installing an adblocker.

ionised• 11 years ago

In the years of internet use before I started to use ad blockers.

scriptproof• 11 years ago

The humanity has its chance. And then came Hitler. I am now travelling to Centauris Alpha.

m1sta_2• 11 years ago

Advertisers did not make the web like this. Web developers did and consumers did.

antimagic• 11 years ago

The thing is, that's not really true. Developers made it possible for advertisers to insert their adverts into web resources. Advertisers decided to use that power to track users through cookies, tracking pixels, localStorage and various Javascript tricks. Yes, there were no doubt a few developers working for the ad companies, but they are far outweighed by the mass of developers that work for content sites.

ghrifter• 11 years ago

Web _advertisement_ developers did.

Also, to get money back for hosting content, ads was pretty much the only way, as a lot of people rather not pay a sub fee.

Patreon or similar options are the best I think.

zer0gravity• 11 years ago

Internet ads are the equivalent of someone pointing a gun at your face and saying "Hey stupid.. give me all your attention if you want to browse this site".

If you play along then, occasionally it just slaps you in the face with an add popup. Meanwhile it's just dancing around the edges of the content you're browsing or odiously slips between the lines of texte whil scrolling.

What's the best response to this type of behaviour ? Obliterate the fucker !! AdBlocks does this on my behalf. Thank you AdBlock, protector of my most valuable resource!

Orangeair• 11 years ago

https://xkcd.com/952/

dantetheinferno• 11 years ago

I hate to ask this, but could someone explain where this stops the FuckAdBlock? I can't see it in the code.

EDIT: Oh nevermind; it calls a FuckAdBlock instance and then overrides it. Ha.

Show HN: FuckFuckAdblock

Related Stories