Adblock Plus betraying its users with so-called Acceptable Ads

[DaemonFC]

Heads up.

https://hg.adblockplus.org/adblockplus/rev/ceca5deac82d
https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads

I've already made my positions clear on this in several places, including my blog.

(Just quoting myself from several spots here so I don't have to rewrite all of it.)

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Short story: Adblock Plus 2.0 development branch has added a new “feature” they call “acceptable advertising” and flipped it on by default without asking the user. The default whitelist is so far only including advertising from networks like Google with suspiciously deep pockets, leading me to believe that money has probably changed hands somewhere along the way. You can opt out of this through a rather unwieldy process, but most people won’t. I find “acceptable ads” to be unacceptable because even Google Adwords is well known for profiling the user even if they only use non-Google sites and they’ll let anyone with enough money take out an ad, even if it leads to phishing sites or Windows malware. Most definitely NOT acceptable. (But hey, it’s your computer and if you like XP AntiVirus Super Duper 2012 Edition, I think you’re beyond my help.)

This “acceptable ads” nonsense is no different than if your anti-virus software started allowing “acceptable malware” and claimed that it was because honest hard working Russian malware writers who make non-binding promises to screw you over ever so gently deserve to make money even if most people find what they do dirty and disgusting. Of course what this anti-virus vendor does not say is that the “acceptable malware” vendors are paying them to be delisted from the pattern file rules.

I never buy anything from ads. I do not want to see ads. If I wanted to see ads, then I wouldn’t have block rules that I put there to get rid of them, would I? I don’t want something that claims to block ads opting me into ads that frequently lead to phishing scams and malware, like Google adwords. Adblock Plus has just done this.

Google is probably paying to unblock itself. It’s the only possible explanation for this clearly anti-user malicious “feature”.

This is just as bad as when NoScript attacked Adblock Plus users and started whitelisting sites that the user had blocked, only this time, Adblock Plus is doing it to the user themselves.

It’s a shame to see that Google’s money can corrupt free software into serving them. (Even at the expense of competitors that don’t have Google’s money to give to Wladimir Palant).
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On the other hand, if Michael Larabel manages to pony up the dough for a sufficient bribe to Wladimir Palant, I'm sure Phoronix can once again be overflowing with skyscraper Microsoft ads written in Flash.

[crazycheese]

Thanks for info!

On the other hand, if Michael Larabel manages to pony up the dough for a sufficient bribe to Wladimir Palant, I'm sure Phoronix can once again be overflowing with skyscraper Microsoft ads written in Flash.

Michael already uses some anti-adblock protection in form of non-scaling information bars describing the system specs prior to tests. Its SVG graph I think.
It appears only on pages with his tests on Openbenchmarking.

How I discovered it? Although I disable Adblock explicitly on phoronix.com, at work the machines are reseted to generic state, so I have to insert noscript and adblock every morning. Once, I forgot to disable adblock after installed and was browsing phoronix...

As I once mentioned, simple small "Please disable Adblock or consider joining Premium to support this site" text message, non-flashing, small and slick at header would be miles better than vile anti-anti-anti-scripts. My honest opinion..

[d2kx]

What a bunch of crap this thread is.

I'll be allowing acceptable ads when it goes stable.

[DaemonFC]

Thanks for info!



Michael already uses some anti-adblock protection in form of non-scaling information bars describing the system specs prior to tests. Its SVG graph I think.
It appears only on pages with his tests on Openbenchmarking.

How I discovered it? Although I disable Adblock explicitly on phoronix.com, at work the machines are reseted to generic state, so I have to insert noscript and adblock every morning. Once, I forgot to disable adblock after installed and was browsing phoronix...

As I once mentioned, simple small "Please disable Adblock or consider joining Premium to support this site" text message, non-flashing, small and slick at header would be miles better than vile anti-anti-anti-scripts. My honest opinion..

Yeah, I wrote a rule for Privoxy that widens them back to normal size and told it to apply that rule to *phoronix*.

I really need to release my privoxy rules, the only thing stopping me is that they're not all that friendly to apply.

[Michael]

Thanks for info!



Michael already uses some anti-adblock protection in form of non-scaling information bars describing the system specs prior to tests. Its SVG graph I think.
It appears only on pages with his tests on Openbenchmarking.

How I discovered it? Although I disable Adblock explicitly on phoronix.com, at work the machines are reseted to generic state, so I have to insert noscript and adblock every morning. Once, I forgot to disable adblock after installed and was browsing phoronix...

As I once mentioned, simple small "Please disable Adblock or consider joining Premium to support this site" text message, non-flashing, small and slick at header would be miles better than vile anti-anti-anti-scripts. My honest opinion..

Hmmm? Right now with OpenBenchmarking.org graphs there isn't any check for AdBlock at all... But come 2012, with PTS4-generated graphs, there will be really rich and interactive graphs and some other nifty features.... For those you will either need to have AdBlock not installed OR be a registered member of OpenBenchmarking.org, otherwise you're served the current style SVG graphs.

[not.sure]

Sure, setting the default that way is probably not the right thing to do. But classifying ads on an "annoyance-meter" is an interesting new feature, as long as it's done on technical grounds (animations, colors, XSS...) and not on bribes.

[archibald]

For those you will either need to have AdBlock not installed OR be a registered member of OpenBenchmarking.org.

I have adblock installed but disabled on your sites: which graphs would I see?

[Michael]

I have adblock installed but disabled on your sites: which graphs would I see?

I would hope the proper rich, interactive graphs... I haven't checked out the AdBlock detection scripts yet to see how they work yet (to know whether it would block you even though you have *phoronix* well ultimately *openbenchmarking* whitelisted) or examined AdBlock myself to write a script, but this is just part of the future road-map.

[DaemonFC]

I would hope the proper rich, interactive graphs... I haven't checked out the AdBlock detection scripts yet to see how they work yet (to know whether it would block you even though you have *phoronix* well ultimately *openbenchmarking* whitelisted) or examined AdBlock myself to write a script, but this is just part of the future road-map.

I've seen those before. They're lame. Stupid site owner ads dumb script. Site user adds that script to their ad blocking list. Hit reload. Site works without some bitch-whine-moan screen that was coming up before.

Why can't you simply solve the Microsoft skyscraper ads in Flash problem? That Kontera crap is almost as bad.

Oh wait, I have a better idea. Make them Microsoft skyscraper ads in Silverlight and then direct people to install Mono to view your site. See. You can abuse your users more if you try hard enough.

[Michael]

I've seen those before. They're lame. Stupid site owner ads dumb script. Site user adds that script to their ad blocking list. Hit reload. Site works without some bitch-whine-moan screen that was coming up before.

Why can't you simply solve the Microsoft skyscraper ads in Flash problem? That Kontera crap is almost as bad.

Kontera ads are not even displayed as long as you've been logged into the forums recently... It's automatically turned off if you have the Phoronix Forums user cookie set.

What's the problem with seeing Microsoft ads? No one is forcing you to click it and I don't believe I have ever seen an intrusive Microsoft ad, yet they pay a fair amount of money compared to some of the other companies.