Ad Blockers

[Generali]

I was reading a few posts on here about ad blockers.

Adverts have been a way for people to consume media and other products without direct payment yet many consumers now seem to think it's reasonable to consume without the 'payment' of viewing adverts.

I was wondering whether anyone knows whether that cuts both ways? Do users of ad blockers think it to be reasonable that their customers don't pay them for their services and what, if anything, is special about media websites if it's reasonable to withhold payment from media websites while taking payment for their own product or service?

I am neither a user of ad blockers nor own a website.

[UncleEbenezer]

I use adblock. My purpose is not to block ads as such, but to block things that move on my screen or play sounds. Ads that do none of those obnoxious things are welcome.

Yes it does cut both ways. I run a free website, including tools people find useful. I've written free software used by many millions[1] with no adverts. I've contributed to both commercial and non-commercial websites. I could go on ...

[1] Including lemonfool

[Slarti]

I was reading a few posts on here about ad blockers.

Adverts have been a way for people to consume media and other products without direct payment yet many consumers now seem to think it's reasonable to consume without the 'payment' of viewing adverts.

I was wondering whether anyone knows whether that cuts both ways? Do users of ad blockers think it to be reasonable that their customers don't pay them for their services and what, if anything, is special about media websites if it's reasonable to withhold payment from media websites while taking payment for their own product or service?

I am neither a user of ad blockers nor own a website.

My problem with ads on websites is that they are served from 3rd party sites that have a less than stellar reputation for security leading to "malvertising" some of which has been of the drive by variety, where you only have to visit the page with the advert to get infected.

Also, many ads are so big, both in screen acreage terms and data volume, that they make the website in question almost unusable.

Not to mention pop-over ads and animated and/or audio ones.

Once the advertising industry cleans up its act, I'll allow advertising, which will probably be on the 6th Sunday in June.

Cheers
Slarti

[Meatyfool]

I use adblockers on some but not all of my devices as they usually aim to sell tat that I am not interested in buying. But the key aim is to speed up my browsing.

However, I actively choose to view adverts on tablet games because I receive a "virtual" monetary benefit by doing so. I could always buy the ad free equivalent of the game, but I'm a tight *rse.

So, either I'm Jekyll and Hyde or more likely, I can't see the point of viewing adverts without reward.

Meatyfool..

[saechunu]

Moral arguments against adblockers seems weak to me. As Slarti points out, the ads are being served up by 3rd parties attempting to track everything you do across the web while adding a dose of malware every so often. It's a pretty seedy setup.

A hardline perspective is that it's my internet connection, my electricity, my device, and therefore I wish to decide what gets displayed on it.

With regards content, we're in an age of absolute abundance, and consequently most content has negligible or zero monetary value. That being the case, if you want me to spend my time consuming your content and considering your ideas, maybe you should be paying me to compensate me for the sacrifice of my limited time?

Amidst this vast ocean of content there will be occasional nuggets that have some scarcity and thus some monetary value; its creators may understandably look for ways to monetise or else withhold access, which can be tricky for one-off never to be repeated gems but easier for a producer of consistently scarce, valuable content.

One option is via curation services, such as newspapers for example, where they seek to combine content produced by multiple house writers into a service with some perceived value. As elsewhere though, the content's scarcity value can often be less than the producers believe and hence few consumers are generally prepared to pay long term.

Another method of monetising comes with mass aggregation services such as we see for music streaming. Here, most content has no, negligible or little monetary value, again due to the sheer abundance of alternatives, but the convenience of a service that makes it all easily accessible plus clever content discovery means it can be worth paying a modest amount for, which is what I do and increasing numbers of others are doing.

The 'age of abundance' point above regarding oceans of digital content whose mentary value is negligible has broader implications for the post-scarcity economy we're moving towards generally.

[Breelander]

A hardline perspective is that it's my internet connection, my electricity, my device, and therefore I wish to decide what gets displayed on it

I first used a HOSTS file to block ads/malware when I was using a 3G dongle for my internet connection. It had a fairly draconian download cap. Installing a HOSTS file more than halved my monthly data usage. All those fancy Flash graphics for ads I wasn't interested in were eating up the precious download data (that I'd paid for) faster than all my browsing put together.

[Slarti]

A hardline perspective is that it's my internet connection, my electricity, my device, and therefore I wish to decide what gets displayed on it

I first used a HOSTS file to block ads/malware when I was using a 3G dongle for my internet connection. It had a fairly draconian download cap. Installing a HOSTS file more than halved my monthly data usage. All those fancy Flash graphics for ads I wasn't interested in were eating up the precious download data (that I'd paid for) faster than all my browsing put together.

Is there an equivalent to a hosts file for an Android phone?

AdBlock browser helps a bit, but not much.

Slarti

[swill453]

Is there an equivalent to a hosts file for an Android phone?

Since Android is based on Linux, it's highly likely that it has an /etc/hosts file. But you're unlikely to be able to access it without rooting.

Scott.

[Slarti]

Is there an equivalent to a hosts file for an Android phone?

Since Android is based on Linux, it's highly likely that it has an /etc/hosts file. But you're unlikely to be able to access it without rooting.

Scott.

Bugger!

Slarti

[UncleEbenezer]

Moral arguments against adblockers seems weak to me. As Slarti points out, the ads are being served up by 3rd parties attempting to track everything you do across the web while adding a dose of malware every so often. It's a pretty seedy setup.

The fact that some ads do dodgy things is a rather shaky reason to tar them all with the same brush.

Some people commit violent crime. Let's lock 'em all up.

[Slarti]

Moral arguments against adblockers seems weak to me. As Slarti points out, the ads are being served up by 3rd parties attempting to track everything you do across the web while adding a dose of malware every so often. It's a pretty seedy setup.

The fact that some ads do dodgy things is a rather shaky reason to tar them all with the same brush.

Some people commit violent crime. Let's lock 'em all up.

Almost all ads try the tracking thing. The malware serving ones drop some very nasty stuff, rootkits, keyloggers, ransomware.
The level of threat is bad enough to take precautions.
Similar to not going to Syria for your holidays this year.

Slarti

[saechunu]

I wrote that moral arguments against adblockers seemed weak to me, citing tracking and malvertising as some valid reasons. If others feel differently that's fine. We can all be happy.

As a broader point I don't generally consider anyone is under any obligation: moral, contractual, or otherwise, to view adverts. Back in the day I could have had my butler take a pair of scissors to the newspaper before presenting it to me shorn of ads; all perfectly fine. Today, when content publishers avail themselves of internet technologies to reach vastly greater potential audiences I can also make use of technology to automate the butler's job if I choose to. With recorded TV content I skip past adverts if present. These are all valid choices.

The prevalence of malvertising and consequent risk of exposure to hostile drive-by payloads means that in my view everyone, even those who unlike me are interested in seeing adverts, should consider taking precautions by blocking them. I would but it's their choice.

[casapinos]

An article in the FT online tonight is reporting that the EU is going to make it legal for "media companies" to ban users who use ad-blockers.
Headline"EU proposal on ad-blockers welcomed by publishers" for those who have access and want to read.
My view has always been that advertising just doesn't work, I am convinced it's a negative return for company spend - I never buy anything on the strength of an ad. and generally seek to avoid companies whose advertising is excessive , assuming that if the product/service is good enough its reputation will grow by recommendation/ word of mouth.In reading newspapers I turn over the pages of advertising unread and have posted here recently about my concerns at the blurring of lines between advertising and editorial , a matter I regard as misrepresentation and probably illegal.Where possible (with the exception of this site, whose value to me exceeds the frustration of ads) I block ads as a useless and unnecessary intrusion , more obvious on the internet with videos, mindless music and dubious integrity/security. I recognise that "free" services need revenue and accept say, Spotify with ads as a reasonable trade off,because I want the service BUT it's a trade off I can choose to make , just as I will choose not to use sites, eg CityAM which refuse to serve me unless I accept the ads.It's no surprise to me that the EU is willing to intervene, nor that they are minded to favour business over the individuaI.I won't stray any further into EU bashing(though it's one of my favourite sports) but will watch, wait and adjust my behaviour accordingly.

[Slarti]

An article in the FT online tonight is reporting that the EU is going to make it legal for "media companies" to ban users who use ad-blockers.
Headline"EU proposal on ad-blockers welcomed by publishers" for those who have access and want to read.
My view has always been that advertising just doesn't work, I am convinced it's a negative return for company spend - I never buy anything on the strength of an ad. and generally seek to avoid companies whose advertising is excessive , assuming that if the product/service is good enough its reputation will grow by recommendation/ word of mouth.In reading newspapers I turn over the pages of advertising unread and have posted here recently about my concerns at the blurring of lines between advertising and editorial , a matter I regard as misrepresentation and probably illegal.Where possible (with the exception of this site, whose value to me exceeds the frustration of ads) I block ads as a useless and unnecessary intrusion , more obvious on the internet with videos, mindless music and dubious integrity/security. I recognise that "free" services need revenue and accept say, Spotify with ads as a reasonable trade off,because I want the service BUT it's a trade off I can choose to make , just as I will choose not to use sites, eg CityAM which refuse to serve me unless I accept the ads.It's no surprise to me that the EU is willing to intervene, nor that they are minded to favour business over the individuaI.I won't stray any further into EU bashing(though it's one of my favourite sports) but will watch, wait and adjust my behaviour accordingly.

At the moment, any company EU that blocks adblock users is breaking EU law, as to do that they have to do stuff client side that they do not have permission to do. First story on issue http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/23/anti_ad_blockers_face_legal_challenges/

Comment in an IT security thread on Twitter yesterday to the lines that when a company blocked advertising network traffic decreased by 47% and anti virus activity by 85%

https://www.warc.com/LatestNews/News/New_EU_privacy_rules_proposed.news?ID=38012 I suspect that this will go to the EU courts and will take some time to change, if at all as German publishers have already lost cases relating to this.

Slarti

[Slarti]

An interesting response to the FT article https://www.privacy-news.net/news_article/5875ffec41bf7b060aebfeee

Slarti

[casapinos]

The plot thickens!! My limited tech knowledge suggests that there is a minefield here,as the article you reference suggests , how do I know that ads are going to be present on a site and is it reasonable to prevent access if I don' t want to see them?The answer as identified by some publishers is the subscription model , and I for one would rather be able to choose whether to subscribe to a source, (as i currently do)rather than suffer intrusive ads.I note also todays BBC online suggesting that the EU have proposals for a generic Cookie acceptance facility , though again I may wish to accept cookies from some sites and not others. As ever, technology develops faster than societies and particularly lawmakers and regulators ability to respond. In addition appointing some ill equipped apparatchik with less than adequate understanding of the issues to oversee them is the usual EU path to chaos.

[Slarti]

The plot thickens!! My limited tech knowledge suggests that there is a minefield here,as the article you reference suggests , how do I know that ads are going to be present on a site and is it reasonable to prevent access if I don' t want to see them?The answer as identified by some publishers is the subscription model , and I for one would rather be able to choose whether to subscribe to a source, (as i currently do)rather than suffer intrusive ads.I note also todays BBC online suggesting that the EU have proposals for a generic Cookie acceptance facility , though again I may wish to accept cookies from some sites and not others. As ever, technology develops faster than societies and particularly lawmakers and regulators ability to respond. In addition appointing some ill equipped apparatchik with less than adequate understanding of the issues to oversee them is the usual EU path to chaos.

It wouldn't be that difficult to interrupt loading of a site with a "We use advertising, do you accept?" screen. If you accept you get adds, if you don't, you either go elsewhere or get re-directed to a paywalled site that doesn't try and track you.

I already remove 95% of cookies I get during a computing session by use of Cclean and so wouldn't mind doing similar for adds.

<Edit>Forgot to say, the people arguing hardest against adblockers are not the sites we go to, but the ad providers who pay for the space.</Edit>

Slarti

[XFool]

I don't use an Ad Blocker programme, I use Opera! At least on my laptop the latest versions of Opera have an Ad Blocker incorporated in the browser.

I cannot in all honesty feel sorrow for the companies concerned. Well, some of them.

The days of simple static ads are over. The problem is practical - firstly, as has been said, these adverts are served up by many third party ad companies plus all the tracking cookies etc. The presence of these on a site adds considerably to the data downloaded, the loading time for web pages etc. Where the ad and tracker servers are down or overloaded they cause hesitation and stalls loading the page of interest. They have become a major negative to use of the WWW.

Recently this had become so bad on some sites I visit that they were becoming difficult to even use. With my laptop I was finding I had to abandon the 'mouse' pad and use the arrow keys to navigate around the page, it otherwise being almost impossible to avoid accidentally 'clicking' on some ad and being diverted elsewhere every few minutes. The newest Opera solves this problem for me and I can once again browse web pages in a normal manner.

It is the companies' own fault - many have now put so many of these nuisances all over their sites that it should come as no surprise people have had to resort to simply blocking everything.

[saechunu]

As this El Reg article suggests, the ads aren't even much use to the companies paying for them:

Those online ads driving you bonkers are virtually 'worthless for brands'
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/03/online_ads_nearly_worthless_for_brand_advertising/

The only parties they are much good for is the ad network industry, Facebook and Google most of all, foisting the garbage upon us.

[stooz]

An interesting topic.
Where would your arguments stand on the use of ads on lemon fool?
Should this service be provided to people that block ads?
Should LF be therefore paid for by someone else?
Should LF have a subscription only access?
I'm not complaining, just interested in how an add block blanket approach works when dealing with a community site such as this? Is there one rule fits all?