I would vote for a third option along the lines of "I allow ads but block flash or don't have it installed." I used to have an adblocker installed, but switched to blocking Flash as soon as I discovered the ability for Chrome to disable flash components until I click on them. This lets the good sites with unobtrusive ads still get their impressions and hides all of the really bad things like ads with video or sound. It also doesn't hurt the browsing experience as badly as completely uninstalling flash.
This is definitely the best of both worlds. I want to support sites I visit, even obnoxious ones, but sites don't get to play sound/video without my permission. Flash is crap anyway, so it has the added benefit of smoothing out browsing somewhat.
I have been doing this, but mostly because my laptop is pretty underpowered and modern adblock software seems to be even more of a heavyweight than the ads. Blocking flash then becomes the best solution for speed, as unlike other ads flash is trivial to block.
I just tried it on the weather.com homepage, and it was actually pretty good (though I have no sound... if they have autoplay sound on then I would block them). Looks like 3 ads on the right-hand side which honestly merge on the background, but you can distinctly tell that it's an ad
Loading ads and not clicking or accidentally clicking on ads you have no intention of pursuing would also be parasitic behavior by that logic. The hurt party is just the advertisers instead of the webmasters.
You seem to have it backwards. The ecosystem's parasites are the parties that corrupt useful information with distracting crap. Everyone who cares about the health of the web should run adblockers and install them for friends/family.
It all depends on your definition of health. I would probably not be here if it wasn't because of the free information on the information. If I had to pay for all of it, all of my youth wouldn't have been spend learning programming skills. For me an healthy web is one that is easy to access and cheap. You can't get this if everything is blocked by pay wall.
I'm certainly not arguing for locking information behind paywalls. I too am where I am today because of free information on the web. But those sites did not have ads - they were published by people driven by having something to say, when the distraction of monetized shallow sites hadn't quite arrived.
It's harder today, but you can still manage to sift through the noise and find the rare gem of basic html, no ads, and very thorough independently-organized information. I would love if some search engine were to make an option to only return results from sites without ads - I believe the quality would be much higher.
Even cheap content isn't an option, the simple action of doing a transaction wasn't possible for me (and still today I wouldn't wan't to pay for every website...).
The percent of people blocking increase everyday, it's no longer the simple tech-savvy consumer, it's much more.
I haven't talk about business that went out of business because of that. If you remove their only revenue... how can they stay in business without creating paid content? Reddit is a good example, they now have subreddit restricted to people with gold. Multiple news website switched to paywall. Surely they haven't gone out of business, they changed for an internet where you not only have to pay for access but also for content. I'm not saying it's bad to have to pay for content, content creator also need to get paid, I'm saying it's an restriction that's against what I would call an healthy internet.
An healthy internet would be one that have both, sadly ad block doesn't allow that, it force them to ask for money even though they don't wan't to or it doesn't make sense for them to. If there was a business in selling that information or service, then someone would do it, why don't you?
I would really love to see ads provider offer a way to pay to get no ads. You see 1000 ads a month which cost usually $5 cpm? Then you pay 5$ a month and you get no ads. I would gladly pay for that on Youtube, in fact I would probably pay more than what's they get from ads because of the quality of content.
Yes. Even if I didn't it's pretty easy to spot which things are ads and would never click on them.
People say it's bad to use ad blockers because the site isn't making money off of you, but you could also say now the advertiser isn't losing money on you.
I used to have Flash on click-to-play, but then YouTube feeds me flash videos, so now I've had Flash turned off for a while. I don't really miss it. The reason is that Flash drains my battery and HTML videos can be watched in a resource-saving way with VLC (or just in-browser).
I use ABP because it blocks other animated content that drains my battery. I wouldn't mind text ads. In addition, most news sites I visit regularly are unblocked because I want to support them. Interestingly, without flash there are hardly any ads left.
I block all 3rd-party cookies (have for 15 years), on my Desktop and Android Firefox, because I can, because I've never encountered anything that didn't work, and because where I surf is no 3rd party site's business. If you want statistics on me visiting YOUR SITE, just use your web server, why not?
I use Ghostery because it further blocks attempts to track me.
Voted 'yes,' but much less so than your average ad-blocker. I blacklist rather than whitelist, which is probably the opposite behavior of most people with blockers.
I want to support sites that I consume content from, so by default I only block tracking beacons, not ads. I turn on content-blocking (or disable plug-ins/javascript) for specific sites when their ads make the site unusable. For example, nfl.com text articles used to not load for ages while video content loaded (it got better), and currently having the SF Chronicle open in one tab will make youtube stutter in other tabs.
What blocker do you use that has decent blacklisting support? I tried a few some months back and went back to Ad Block Plus with whitelisting.
I'd rather blacklist though. I want to support sites that use unobtrusive advertising, but block ads on sites that use autoplaying videos, distracting animations, disgusting pictures of yellow teeth, etc.
I use uBlock mainly for performance reasons and not that I don't like ads, I will usually whitelist sites that are not crazy with ads and that I want to support.
It seems more configurable and makes it easier to allow stuff like Google Analytics while still removing most of the obnoxious ads that 1) Plague my vision and 2) cause websites to load slow on my sub-par connection.
I installed NoScript several years ago, due to security concerns. I noticed most ads went away by accident. It makes Firefox much faster than stock Chrome.
For technical users, NoScript is a godsend. Pages load so quickly, and the pages are uncluttered with garbage "functionality". I wish there was some way to give it to non-technical users, but there really isn't, it's just too complex.
Ad blockers are easily fingerprintable, which is why I block ad trackers from my /etc/hosts file, using this wonderful list: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
You can also set up a cron job to periodically fetch and overwrite with an updated copy, such as once a week or so.
I always see this recommendation and write it off as people who probably don't know any better. But I noticed that you had also commented about Slackware, so I have to ask..
Doesn't using /etc/hosts in this way strike you as a bit "wrong" and terribly hacky with respect to blocking granularity? If I ever wanted to run a service on port 80, it seems like it would be annoying to configure it to avoid the dummy address. And I use /etc/hosts for my actual hosts, and while these uses aren't exclusive, it does set the tone for me.
I personally run Adblock Plus and Ghostery in Iceweasel because it's the easiest way. There are certainly disadvantages to this, but it seems the proper setup would be to run something like privoxy, no?
Well, yes, if you're on a server then polluting your hosts like that probably isn't good. I'm just a regular home user and more of a system programmer than a web developer, so for me it's fine.
It's also a rat race of sorts, as is inherent with blacklisting over whitelisting. But I don't exclusively use this approach either, I spoof user agents, referers, X-Forwarded-For headers and have Privacy Badger running on Firefox, as well. I just use hosts as an alternative to ABP in particular, due to the lower baggage.
I use hosts for ad blocking and for testing locally. I guess I get a bit of junk in my logs but I've never really seen it as a problem.
I keep meaning to see if I can serve up transparent swfs and html snippets automagically but I've never got around to it.
You list two utilities for a single browser. If you use other browsers do you need other apps?
The interesting thing about my hosts table is that I never bother carrying it across to a new computer and I only add domains to it when they actively irritate me. Even so, even companies like Google who are supposed to do non-intrusive "targeted" ads end up in there.
Yes, you need to install each extension on each browser / user account. It's basically just a one time setup hit, although one of the few I haven't automated away.
I currently use chromium but without any ad blocker, for viewing documentation and the like (and the occasional incognito window, especially for Amazon which loves to spam you based on searches)
I'm liking the idea of a per-machine setup, but I'd look into rewriting proxies (like privoxy) for that. I personally want every known ad/tracker/etc blocked without interaction - one person cannot hope to easily keep up with the machines are doing, but so far via crowdsourcing it seems like we can.
Some ads are creative and I enjoy them, but majority are very annoying.
I use Chrome/Firefox and Safari, each for specific purposes. I use ad-blockers on Chrome. So I still get to see some ads but not all the time.
I use adblock on every site which doesn't require me not to, like on the pages where you create google ads and things like that, github also. In those cases I allow ads. Why make life complicated?
Ghostery, AdBlock and ClickToPlugin. If ads were static and sites didn't have 10-15 social widgets, etc, I wouldn't bother. Animated ads and the slow load times of the many social widgets drive me over the edge.
And this is on desktop. Many sites today are so heavy I avoid them entirely on my first gen iPad mini as they crash Safari about half the time.
Once upon a time, you could just disable javascript as a workaround, but that almost completely cripples the web these days.
I block as much as possible. I run with Ghostery, RequestPolicy, and Adblock Plus (with "unintrusive ads" disabled). I also don't have Flash installed, and most other plugins are "click to run" in Firefox. It's occasionally annoying but I've really gotten used to it. I see a lot fewer pictures on the web, and enabling a CDN domain is just a right-click away when I really want to see something on a site I haven't white-listed yet.
Is there any good solution for blocking ads on iOS? Many sites are flat out unusable on my iPhone thanks to the obnoxious ads that take more screen real estate than the content
It's not an ad blocker per se, but the "Reader" feature is awesome. It still downloads the ads, but will display the important content from most sites without them, and in a legible font. It's the icon in the address bar that looks like greeked text. Click it, and it will go into "Reader" mode.
Absolutely, but I do regularly whitelist sites that I would like to support. I browsed without an ad-blocker because I always figured I would stand ads in exchange for free content, but the obnoxiousness has increased over the years: autoplay audio/video, HUGE flash banners (I remember my PC choking on the Yahoo! homepage on the first day I decided it was time to install an ad-blocker: it was an oversized flash ad for a car). I think I was less annoyed by popups than I was by these.
I don't know what I do right but I never see any annoying ads. The only automatic video I get are the one from Facebook and they are from people on my friends list.
I remember seeing theses oversize flash ads but that was a long time ago.
I use AdBlock. In addition, I use Safari's "Reader" feature which shows the article without ads (but still downloads the ads and thus gives credit to the site creator for eyeballs on ads). This seems reasonable to me since I have literally never in 20 years of browsing the web intentionally clicked on any ad ever.
101 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 199 ms ] threadPrimarily I use ad/script blockers as an extra layer of security.
I do not use an adblocker at work (web dev), I need to see the real-deal all the time.
Try using weather.com with and without an ad blocker.
Just one example, but there's plenty of stock in the hypothesis that online ads really don't do anything to begin with.
It's harder today, but you can still manage to sift through the noise and find the rare gem of basic html, no ads, and very thorough independently-organized information. I would love if some search engine were to make an option to only return results from sites without ads - I believe the quality would be much higher.
The percent of people blocking increase everyday, it's no longer the simple tech-savvy consumer, it's much more.
An healthy internet would be one that have both, sadly ad block doesn't allow that, it force them to ask for money even though they don't wan't to or it doesn't make sense for them to. If there was a business in selling that information or service, then someone would do it, why don't you?
I would really love to see ads provider offer a way to pay to get no ads. You see 1000 ads a month which cost usually $5 cpm? Then you pay 5$ a month and you get no ads. I would gladly pay for that on Youtube, in fact I would probably pay more than what's they get from ads because of the quality of content.
People say it's bad to use ad blockers because the site isn't making money off of you, but you could also say now the advertiser isn't losing money on you.
I used to have Flash on click-to-play, but then YouTube feeds me flash videos, so now I've had Flash turned off for a while. I don't really miss it. The reason is that Flash drains my battery and HTML videos can be watched in a resource-saving way with VLC (or just in-browser).
I use ABP because it blocks other animated content that drains my battery. I wouldn't mind text ads. In addition, most news sites I visit regularly are unblocked because I want to support them. Interestingly, without flash there are hardly any ads left.
I block all 3rd-party cookies (have for 15 years), on my Desktop and Android Firefox, because I can, because I've never encountered anything that didn't work, and because where I surf is no 3rd party site's business. If you want statistics on me visiting YOUR SITE, just use your web server, why not?
I use Ghostery because it further blocks attempts to track me.
I want to support sites that I consume content from, so by default I only block tracking beacons, not ads. I turn on content-blocking (or disable plug-ins/javascript) for specific sites when their ads make the site unusable. For example, nfl.com text articles used to not load for ages while video content loaded (it got better), and currently having the SF Chronicle open in one tab will make youtube stutter in other tabs.
I'd rather blacklist though. I want to support sites that use unobtrusive advertising, but block ads on sites that use autoplaying videos, distracting animations, disgusting pictures of yellow teeth, etc.
It seems more configurable and makes it easier to allow stuff like Google Analytics while still removing most of the obnoxious ads that 1) Plague my vision and 2) cause websites to load slow on my sub-par connection.
You can also set up a cron job to periodically fetch and overwrite with an updated copy, such as once a week or so.
Doesn't using /etc/hosts in this way strike you as a bit "wrong" and terribly hacky with respect to blocking granularity? If I ever wanted to run a service on port 80, it seems like it would be annoying to configure it to avoid the dummy address. And I use /etc/hosts for my actual hosts, and while these uses aren't exclusive, it does set the tone for me.
I personally run Adblock Plus and Ghostery in Iceweasel because it's the easiest way. There are certainly disadvantages to this, but it seems the proper setup would be to run something like privoxy, no?
It's also a rat race of sorts, as is inherent with blacklisting over whitelisting. But I don't exclusively use this approach either, I spoof user agents, referers, X-Forwarded-For headers and have Privacy Badger running on Firefox, as well. I just use hosts as an alternative to ABP in particular, due to the lower baggage.
I keep meaning to see if I can serve up transparent swfs and html snippets automagically but I've never got around to it.
You list two utilities for a single browser. If you use other browsers do you need other apps?
The interesting thing about my hosts table is that I never bother carrying it across to a new computer and I only add domains to it when they actively irritate me. Even so, even companies like Google who are supposed to do non-intrusive "targeted" ads end up in there.
I currently use chromium but without any ad blocker, for viewing documentation and the like (and the occasional incognito window, especially for Amazon which loves to spam you based on searches)
I'm liking the idea of a per-machine setup, but I'd look into rewriting proxies (like privoxy) for that. I personally want every known ad/tracker/etc blocked without interaction - one person cannot hope to easily keep up with the machines are doing, but so far via crowdsourcing it seems like we can.
And this is on desktop. Many sites today are so heavy I avoid them entirely on my first gen iPad mini as they crash Safari about half the time.
Once upon a time, you could just disable javascript as a workaround, but that almost completely cripples the web these days.
Javascript wankers.
[0] chrome://settings/content
http://www.privoxy.org/
I remember seeing theses oversize flash ads but that was a long time ago.