In other words the primary adblccker on the net just became a supplier of ads. Oh sure, the tucked-away opt out button will still be there for those who want no ads at all but any bets how long that will stay there now they’re moving into the adware business?
Well, fuck them. Fortunately there are many adblockers out there that still believe an adblocker should block ads, all ads. I’ve used Adblock Plus for years and I admit it has served me well. But an adblocker that serves up ads? That’s a step too far for me. I’ve uninstalled Adblock Plus and moved to uBlock Origin.
If that’s the case, then Adblock (not plus) will also be affected. Yesterday I told my colleague to switch to uBlock Origin, a pure ad-blocking, privacy protecting, all in one filtering extension (the author calls it a general blocker) that is in active development and will (hopefully) never bow to marketers and agencies for money. As the author said it:
[QUOTE=Raymond Hill]
Free. Open source. For users by users. No donations sought.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve been using it since Adblock started accepting ads, and my colleague thanked me for suggesting the extension (eons ago I also told another colleague about the extension, he’s still using it). Also got rid of Ghostery because of the blocker, improving performance.
Regarding the news article, I find it more disgusting, but unimpressed. Once they (both ABP and AB) caved into advertisers that will redirect you from content, intrude your privacy and forget to prevent ads from infecting your computers with malware, they’re pretty much a step away from ruining the planet with their ads.
[QUOTE=Sephiroth]
But they…Those worthless creatures are stealing the planet from Mother- but now I’m here with you- so don’t worry…
[/QUOTE]
Ahem, sorry about that, got off track for a bit. If you didn’t read most of my post, here’s a New York edition for you:
Fuck ABP, get uBlock Origin, say bye to ads, done.
What changed is that instead of charging advertisers to whitelist their ads (a process which was just ruled illegal by a German court) the company will now serve up suitable ads themselves for those advertisers that sign up, thus making more big bucks and getting round the German law. One could indeed argue that nothing has changed for the user, who can still check the box to opt out and receive no ads at all, but for me an adblocking software that serves up adware is not to be trusted. That’s what is new; previously Adblock Plus would unblock certain ads in return for a fee, now it supplies the ads itself.
Mine averages between 17 and 18 with uBlock Origin. (It also keeps a tally). That’s because of more filters enabled in the extension- as I mentioned before, it’s a general blocker, making both ABP/AB & Ghostery unneeded.
I can’t wait until the old dinosaurs with their archaic, 20th century thinking gets replaced by people who grew up with the internet. The way to make money online isn’t to stick to the old style TV commercial, forced-watch ads and billboards, its to deliver better content that the consumer wants. Netflix made a lot of pirating unnecessary because people could watch what they want at any time for a low price. In this day and age, I can’t believe you still have companies who insist on selling you DVDs where you’d have to go online to redeem a code for content that you paid for. And a pox on those networks that only allow you to watch their shows online after you sign up with them and only a week after the episode has aired. If they can’t make the transition from TV commercials to online streaming content that shows at the same time as TV, then they don’t deserve to exist
If you use Firefox, a little while ago Duckster recommended a single setting change that would do basically the same thing as Adblock. It may not work with all versions (I know it doesn’t work with really old versions of Firefox because the relevant parameter doesn’t even exist) but I made this change and turned off Adblock and it seems to work.
