Adblock sold to "unknown buyer"

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I just ran across this article. The part that concerns me is that they have inserted a provision that states they will be using an "Acceptable ads program".

I want all ads blocked - not all but those who pay adblock not to block. For me this means goodbye adblock.

Lisa

edit: I think I will give ublock a try.
 
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vansmith

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lclev
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Still what is with the "Acceptable ads program"?? I want all ads blocked.

Lisa
 

Slydude

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Ditto. I'd rather be the one to decide which ads are "acceptable".
 

chscag

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Still what is with the "Acceptable ads program"?? I want all ads blocked.

Lisa

Someone has to pay the bills Lisa. Just like TV... if you want no ads, watch PBS all day (Big Bird). :p
 
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lclev
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Someone has to pay the bills Lisa. Just like TV... if you want no ads, watch PBS all day (Big Bird). :p

chscag, I realize they want to make money and I am willing to kick in to help out a developer. I just don't like when I get ads saying "hey, you looked at this item at this site now here are the same thing at this site" or "you left this in your shopping cart at this site." And I am quite sure adblock's owner would have not made the change well known but, would have just stuck it far down with all the other legal language that no one really reads.

Oh, and cradom, I already installed ublock - right after I uninstalled adblock.

Lisa
 

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Apparently uBlock Origin is much better - uBlock is a fork of the original after the developer abandoned it. The fork ultimately went south in quality which is why uBlock Origin came to be as the original developer came back and continued development.
 
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Thanks for the post and comments.

I got the message window earlier today and took a screen shot with the intention of checking into what it was all about:

I thought Adblock was developed and run just by the husband and wife team. Hummm…???

Screen Shot 2015-10-03 at 9.22.51 AM.png
 
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chas_m

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Lisa: you do realise that without ads, this site -- and every site you like -- will go dark, right?

"Acceptable ads" is generally taken to mean non-flashing, non-animated, non-sound and generally non-annoying ads ... the thing ad lockers were originally built to stop. Without ads, the Internet as we know it would LITERALLY COLLAPSE. I don't know specifically what Ad Blocker meant, but the makers of ad blockers have started to realise the VERY REAL damage they are doing, so a number of them are now allowing non-annoying ads.

Until recently, universal ad blockers were used by so small a percentage of users -- the really savvy people -- that it was barely tolerated. Now ad blockers are mainstream, and it is VERY literally killing websites.

There's a number of gaming, Mac and general tech sites I used to read that have gone under in just the last year -- the one I work for nearly did, and it's not that they weren't profitable, it was that ad revenue was shrinking so quickly with nothing viable to replace it (count the number of "premium members" here for a reality check on THAT option) that they had to shut down before they either went broke or had to reduce their staff to a level that would kill the quality.

If you have a VIABLE idea on how to replace that lost revenue, please share it. Otherwise, you're part of the problem, demanding in effect that website operators run their sites at a huge loss, and when this site goes under your universal ad blocker will have less ... And less, and less as we go on ... to block.
 
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Hmmm…??? I wondered when the sermons would start or appear and I guess some don't realize that at least some of us are a bit more savvy and also have and use white listing where appropriate.
 
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Autosport site in the UK now comes up with a banner saying that " We notice you may be using an ad-blocker. Did you know that we remove ads for AUTOSPORT+ members to offer an ad-free experience". They have also limited free viewing to 16 in a month. Should I subscribe without ads or continue viewing occasionally with ad-block, I know what I want to do.
 

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The Adblock page gives you the option to opt out of the "Acceptable Ads" program if you wish.
 

Rod


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Hmmm…??? I wondered when the sermons would start or appear and I guess some don't realize that at least some of us are a bit more savvy and also have and use white listing where appropriate.

I whitelist quite a number of sites because I genuinely want to see the ads and the content on some simply does not display correctly if ads are blocked. Other sites have so many pop ups it interferes with the use of the page. Like all tools it must be used with discretion. You can't tighten a screw with a hammer.
 

vansmith

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Other sites have so many pop ups it interferes with the use of the page.
You might benefit from a ruthless popup blocker. Used in conjunction with an ad blocker that is properly whitelisted, a popup blocker can mitigate quite a bit of crap. Something like Privacy Badger or Ghostery is a nice addition as well. That said, a combination of these things can be troublesome. For example, I noticed that the OneNote Clipper refused to load and it took searching through the preferences for my popup blocker, ad blocker and Privacy Badger to find the part blocking OC from loading (it was Privacy Badger by the way in case someone runs into a similar issue).
 
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I whitelist quite a number of sites because I genuinely want to see the ads and the content on some simply does not display correctly if ads are blocked. Other sites have so many pop ups it interferes with the use of the page. Like all tools it must be used with discretion. You can't tighten a screw with a hammer.


Wanna bet…??? ;) I've got a very nice manual impact driver that can tighten a screwhead right off its shaft if one isn't careful.

But I know what you mean. :Smirk:
 
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chas_m, I am aware sites make money with ads and I understand your points. I have issues when an extension says they will block all ads and then change to what they deem "acceptable" - which I interpret as profitable. Give me an option to opt out and I am good with that - but let me know, which looks like adblock is supposedly going to do.

And regardless of what I run I know I will still get ads. Some sites I have to disable adblock, ghostery and privacy badger just to use the site. And I accept that if I want to use the site I have to do that.

Keep in mind, I also live in a very rural, very slow internet service area - 1.7Mbps/768Kbps. You can only imagine how slow pages load when they are full of ads. Give me better internet speeds and maybe I will feel more inclined to feel more charitable toward "acceptable ads".

Lisa
 

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I talked about this a bit last week during the Sunday chat. In the says after IOS 9 was released Ad/popup blockers were among the top ranked downloads. One developer pulled his and blocker from the App Store when he realized that he was not comfortable with something that blocked all pop ups/ads. In the discussion that I linked to Kirk the iTunes guide discusses the extent to which we all go to avoid advertisements be they on television or on the Internet. Like you Lisa, Kirk has a slow connection and some sites take an inordinate amount of time to load. You can find his comments in the article linked to below.

Kirk McLaren has more to say about the concept of ad blocking. Although one user that he read as compared and blocking to robbing an Apple Store, points out that most of us go to great lengths to avoid advertisements. How many of us, for example, ignore television commercials, turn down the volume, install ad blockers and tracker blockers in our web browsers etc. There are number of other instances that he gives for ways in which we go to avoid advertising and if you want an example of why this needs to be done because his numbers for the webpage she references in the article. The load time and amount of data loaded is cut in half with the ad blockers he has installed.
 
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chas_m

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I appreciate that a handful of people actually whitelist sites they want to support, and another handful of people do what Lisa and I have done and paid our favourite sites so that we can support it without ads, but as I mentioned in my post, this is a tiny, tiny percentage of conscientious users versus the masses, who will just adblock everything and howl if any ads of any sort get through, without understanding or caring why there are ads in the first place.

I'm also aware that ads having to be loaded means the site in full will be slower loading, but unless there is a technical fault we are talking perhaps a second or two in time savings. I'm a big fan of blocking animated ads, pop-up ads, auto-playing ads (and auto-playing videos that are part of site content) and trackers that I haven't explicitly approved of (that would be "all of them"). But instead of creating a discussion about acceptable approaches that work for both site owners (who deserve to get compensated for their expenses AND make a profit for bringing me content I appreciate) and users, we're having a war in which each side tries to "go nuclear." The users will eventually "win" this war by destroying nearly every interesting site on the web by refusing to allow ANY advertising whatsoever, killing all incentive for putting up a worthwhile website in the first place.

There are some agencies, like The Deck, which serve ads to sites without offering any animated ads. Tiny sites run by one or two people who don't intend to make their living off the sites can probably get by with referral links (though there comes a point when they are inevitably compromising their honesty to "endorse" products that they know will generate income). There are, perhaps, solutions to this problem using conventional advertising formats (if you use the site for an hour, you have to watch or listen to an ad or two, that sort of thing) as well. But if you're demanding that all ads, of any kind, be blocked continuously -- and that's precisely what 98 percent of adblocker users are demanding -- you are killing the very websites you claim to like/need/love/rely on. Sure, you might find a substitute forum still running after this one goes out of business ... there's a lot of choice out there ... but that range of choice will get slimmer and slimmer, and the quality of the offerings will get worse and worse, unless there is some reason to expend the time and effort to make a quality site.

I encourage anyone reading this to think more about (or perhaps for the first time) about how sites you enjoy, like this one, sustain themselves or come to exist. We here at Mac-Forums are quite lucky, we can pay an EXTREMELY modest yearly fee to drop the ads and yet still support the site, or we can whitelist this site in our adblockers, or buy products with referral links from the sites, to help support it. Lots of options, but the truth of the matter is that if you're reading this site with adblockers on and not otherwise support it ... it will close up at some point. As will most other sites that depend on ad income to be able to even afford the hosting. Simple as that.
 

vansmith

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There's a different dimension to this ethical debate that has largely been glossed over: the means by which ads are generated and served to users. The quantity and presence of ads aside, what is equally distressing is the means through which the content of the ads themselves are generated. Given that more and more ads are generated through context and/or through tracking, I think an argument in favour of the end user can and should be made about blocking this type of content. In this regard, I think the ethics of letting ads survive user efforts to block them fails to adequately critique the means through which those very ads are generated. Do I care that ads exist? No - I get the economic argument for their existence. Do I care how they are determined and delivered? Absolutely.

Think of it this way - I was with someone the other day who was looking at shoes online. Moments later, an ad was visible on her Facebook account for the very store and product that she was just looking at. This, in my eyes, is deserving of thoroughly ruthless blocking. This type of advertising is not only invasive but increasingly pervasive. While this might not justify ad blockers themselves, it does validate (in my eyes at least) other tools which serve to block the means through which ads learn what to show the end user. Until I can be assured that ads are delivered "neutrally" (in that they are no longer generated based on guesses themselves generated through observations of my browsing), I will continue to take the "nuclear option."
 

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