This is probably not an arms race ad companies want to play. Someone who has an adblocker installed is unlikely to be respective to ads, and by installing an adblocker they currently are opting out of from the ad vendors metrics. which is better than adblock vendors trying to feign ads loading or "interest" in the ads, such as addons like https://adnauseam.io
So its debatable even they would win the ad arms race, but they would also lose credibility in their own metrics as the easiest solution will be to start fooling ad companies that their ads are loading.
One of the Penny Arcade guys once related an anecdote about when he worked in a telemarketing call center. In this case, all the phone numbers he had were from people who had signed up for an anti-telemarketing service, which had then sold their list to telemarketers. He said that the people he called, understandably, usually responded with snarling rage unusual even by the standards of people getting telemarketing calls. The moral is, when people specifically take determined action to avoid you, and you go out of your way to circumvent them and reach them anyway, they're not going to be especially receptive or warm.
I think publishers deploying anti-adblock technology are making a similar mistake. When someone takes action not to see ads, do you really think they're going to respond well when you deploy trickery to show them ads anyway? Are they going to be especially well-disposed to your brand, or are they going to be filled with determined hatred for you? This is a losing proposition.
if it weren't for CDNs, simply blocking all 3rd party domains is the fastest, most reliable and secure way to block ads and greatly reduce bandwidth.
i highly recommend running both uMatrix and uBlock Origin. then whitelist cdns on a per-domain basis.
with the amount of tech and data available these days, google still chooses to show me an ad for chevy on an ice cream site. the fact that the ads are so obviously out of context is truly baffling - does this seriously work for the general consumer? even if i've searched for chevy before, why would i suddenly exit my ice cream experience?
if ads were contextually better, less distracting and less bandwidth/perf impactful, i may actually be convinced to view them. unfortunately none of these things are true.
> with the amount of tech and data available these days, google still chooses to show me an ad for chevy on an ice cream site. the fact that the ads are so obviously out of context is truly baffling - does this seriously work for the general consumer? even if i've searched for chevy before, why would i suddenly exit my ice cream experience?
The point of that particular ad is likely less to get you to click and more to remind you that Chevy exists and is important. So when you go buy that new or used car, Chevy goes through your mind at least once, and you subconsciously have some trust in the brand because you are reminded of its existence through various outlets on a daily basis, which is naturally comforting when done correctly.
It’s not really any different from seeing a Tide laundry detergeny commercial while watching South Park. What’s tide got to do with a cartoon, and are you going to run out immediately and buy some Tide during the break? No, but next time you go to the store to buy detergent you’ll see Tide and while you might not buy it you’ll at least be familiar with it in a relatively positive manner, which for most will make the chances of them buying it higher.
This blows my mind. The ad industry has basically taken three steps backwards in a time with incredible analytics. Google, Facebook etc have drunkenly ruined and inundated their targets to the point people outright mentally adblock
You are overthinking it so much. It's all about just shoving that brand name or product reminder in front of you as often as possible, wherever they can. Eventually you might click the ad and give them .002 cents of revenue, or you might even click through and buy that new car for $30,000! Before I installed AdBlock, I myself constantly saw ads for eBay items I've looked at, and I see them on all sorts of websites. I've also found that certain T-shirt websites are particularly persistent. And even when I unblock ads on certain sites, as I've done on about 40, I'll see the eBay ads again.
Blocking 3rd party domains isn't enough. Especially when there is tons of advice to link to Google fonts, and 3rd party libraries instead of your own. Also when a bunch of websites are using AWS/Cloudfront URLs for things like loading images and in some cases ads may hide behind those as well.
This is a very cool approach for detecting anti-adblocking.
However, I don't quite get the point for disruption. That is, it seems necessary to load pages at least twice, and then do some computation. How does that help users who are concerned about privacy, throughput or CPU load?
This is a technique for automatically generating anti-anti-adblocking rules. They'll be added to the block lists, so you won't have to generate them each time, only when the anti-adblocking script changes enough to break them.
According to the paper, they seem to have modified Chromium's JavaScript engine in order to record execution paths of JavaScript code. Does anyone know exactly how they modified Chromium (or preferably the exact patch they applied to Chromium)?
No, stopping ad blockers would be trivial today if the ad distributors let their JavaScript and ads be distributed from the same domain as page content. As long as the ads come from clearly identifiable domains, there is a good chance at stopping them.
Assembly never stopped anti-virus suites. Where there's a will, there will always be a way.
Without adblock, the majority of web users would be FURIOUS with websites and they'd demand legislative action. Advertisers should shut up and pray they don't poke the hornets nest.
This is pretty immoral. Companies that create or provide content should at the very least be able to decide if they want to serve you content if you don't agree to see ads with it (or pay for it). How is it moral to effectively force someone to allow you to see the content you want to see without compensating them for it.
This is like saying that it's immoral to change the channel whenever ads come on the TV or radio, or to use the mute button on your TV. It is in no way immoral. The way HTML works is your browser sends a request for resources it wants, then renders them for you. IF you don't send the request for resources you don't want, that's not immoral. If it affects the web sites' businesses, then the onus is on them to come up with a model that works. There are other reasonable free models, such as those used by public TV and public radio.
What is immoral is for companies to try to manipulate my computer into doing something that I don't want it to do. If they want to keep total control of their content then they should keep it exclusively on their computers, by sending it to my computer they are surrendering control of it.
[+] [-] gottam|8 years ago|reply
So its debatable even they would win the ad arms race, but they would also lose credibility in their own metrics as the easiest solution will be to start fooling ad companies that their ads are loading.
[+] [-] Analemma_|8 years ago|reply
I think publishers deploying anti-adblock technology are making a similar mistake. When someone takes action not to see ads, do you really think they're going to respond well when you deploy trickery to show them ads anyway? Are they going to be especially well-disposed to your brand, or are they going to be filled with determined hatred for you? This is a losing proposition.
[+] [-] mehrdadn|8 years ago|reply
Any statistics to believe this is true? I know for a fact it's false for myself because I do sometimes click on ads when I don't block them.
[+] [-] jamiequint|8 years ago|reply
This is false.
[+] [-] leeoniya|8 years ago|reply
i highly recommend running both uMatrix and uBlock Origin. then whitelist cdns on a per-domain basis.
with the amount of tech and data available these days, google still chooses to show me an ad for chevy on an ice cream site. the fact that the ads are so obviously out of context is truly baffling - does this seriously work for the general consumer? even if i've searched for chevy before, why would i suddenly exit my ice cream experience?
if ads were contextually better, less distracting and less bandwidth/perf impactful, i may actually be convinced to view them. unfortunately none of these things are true.
[+] [-] coolso|8 years ago|reply
The point of that particular ad is likely less to get you to click and more to remind you that Chevy exists and is important. So when you go buy that new or used car, Chevy goes through your mind at least once, and you subconsciously have some trust in the brand because you are reminded of its existence through various outlets on a daily basis, which is naturally comforting when done correctly.
It’s not really any different from seeing a Tide laundry detergeny commercial while watching South Park. What’s tide got to do with a cartoon, and are you going to run out immediately and buy some Tide during the break? No, but next time you go to the store to buy detergent you’ll see Tide and while you might not buy it you’ll at least be familiar with it in a relatively positive manner, which for most will make the chances of them buying it higher.
[+] [-] paulie_a|8 years ago|reply
This blows my mind. The ad industry has basically taken three steps backwards in a time with incredible analytics. Google, Facebook etc have drunkenly ruined and inundated their targets to the point people outright mentally adblock
[+] [-] InternetUser|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lithos|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulie_a|8 years ago|reply
This morning I decided to count the ads on a news article, there were 14 between sponsored bs and banner ads. Every single one was complete garbage.
Click here to find out how the tech and ad industry are lowering the bar at a "shocking" rate
[+] [-] InternetUser|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirimir|8 years ago|reply
However, I don't quite get the point for disruption. That is, it seems necessary to load pages at least twice, and then do some computation. How does that help users who are concerned about privacy, throughput or CPU load?
[+] [-] mrob|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taxreform|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notaboutdave|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrob|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CJefferson|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] okket|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yipopov|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] realusername|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] katastic|8 years ago|reply
Without adblock, the majority of web users would be FURIOUS with websites and they'd demand legislative action. Advertisers should shut up and pray they don't poke the hornets nest.
[+] [-] jamiequint|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mnthaeo98htnn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheCoelacanth|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sigotirandolas|8 years ago|reply
* Avoiding the privacy implications of ads without restricting access to content
* Avoiding browser fingerprinting through checking which ad-blocking lists are enabled
* (More arguable) Enforcing 'Acceptable ads' policies
* (More arguable) Enabling ad replacement programs such as Brave.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Feniks|8 years ago|reply
I can't comment on.morality because it is inherently subjective but there is no legal problem here.
[+] [-] djinnandtonic|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tanilama|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] votepaunchy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lainon|8 years ago|reply
http://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/~mshafiq/files/adblock-imc20...
http://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/~mshafiq/files/adblock-pets2...
[+] [-] gpderetta|8 years ago|reply