A Campaign to Block Firefox Users?

rarwes writes "A website is aiming at blocking Firefox users. This because a fraction of the Firefox users installed an Ad Blocker and are therefor 'stealing money' from website owners that use ads. They recommend using IE, Opera or IE tab. From the site: 'Demographics have shown that not only are FireFox users a somewhat small percentage of the internet, they actually are even smaller in terms of online spending, therefore blocking FireFox seems to have only minimal financial drawbacks, whereas ending resource theft has tremendous financial rewards for honest, hard-working website owners and developers.' Be interesting to see where they are getting their numbers from.

Then screw them....

....don't need their stinking website!

And I question their claims.

From the site: 'Demographics have shown that not only are FireFox users a somewhat small percentage of the internet, they actually are even smaller in terms of online spending, therefore blocking FireFox seems to have only minimal financial drawbacks, whereas ending resource theft has tremendous financial rewards for honest, hard-working website owners and developers.'

I do almost all of my holiday and gift shopping on-line.

On the other hand, I seldom ever click on ads on sites. I shop at on-line stores. I find those stores by searching Google for the items I want.

So, yeah, it probably isn't in your best interest to have me use up your bandwidth to read your opinions on X in the hope that I might click on an ad for Y or Z.

My time is valuable. What are you offering me as incentive to read your ads? Specifically.

Re:And I question their claims.

And I question their other dubious claim:

Like free television broadcast content supported financially by advertising, much of the content on the Internet today is distributed free to end-users for an indirect exchange of advertisement revenue. When a user loads an ad-driven copyrighted website, he produces a copy of the work due to the inherent architecture of the Internet. If this user is using Adblock to screen out annoying advertisements, he is creating an unauthorized derivative work analogous to skipping television commercials. By the letter of copyright law, this practice would most likely be seen as an infringing use.

Except that I'm not redistributing this supposed derivative work, now am I? (This bit was copied for the purposes of critique under the fair use doctrine.)

Re:And I question their claims.

(This bit was copied for the purposes of critique under the fair use doctrine.)

Thief! Hiding behind legal mumbo-jumbo doesn't change that you thievingly stole their article text!

I'd even question his ... what the ... ?

Except that I'm not redistributing this supposed derivative work, now am I?

No, you're not.

And his ... point? ... whatever ... is kind of like saying that the ads are PART of the "work" that he created.

But the ads change. This is NOT like "product placement" in a movie. I cannot "fuzz out" a can of Mountain Dew (tm) in a movie. But whether I have to walk past an ad for Mountain Dew ON THE WAY INTO THE MOVIE or an ad for Coca Cola (tm) does NOT alter the "work" that is the movie.

The frame is not the painting.

Re:I'd even question his ... what the ... ?

Anyone considered how a browser actually works? When you break it down, a web browser is not much more than and ftp client which a fancy presentation layer. It fetches files, parses them, and performs an action based on the data contained within a file. So what is a web site? Basically an anonymous ftp server. Now when I ftp to a server and download a file, I'm not required to download all of the other files in the same directory am I? A web site just is offering a collection of files. I get to choose which of those I want to retrieve and/or view.

Now this owner suggests that viewing a page without viewing the ads is stealing. How? He offered to the public a file free of charge (the web page). If I decided to download it I may as I've been given authorization by the web site owner to do such. There is no stipulation that I also must download any other file and there was never any stipulation that I must view any file just because I've downloaded it.

Now just because firefox (like most browsers) downloads most inclusive content (images, links, flash, etc file) and displays it as a default behavior does not mean that I'm not allowed to change the behavior of the browser running on MY system.


Now why would firefox useers generate less revenue from clicking on ad banners and such? Is it ABP? No. Who uses Firefox? I'm willing to believe that most FF users consider themselves fairly computer literate (power users or better). Mostly because you are running a *nux OS and/or manually downloaded and installed it themselves. These people aren't likely to fall for whatever ridiculous claim the ad is making (make your member larger, a hot naked woman will fall instantly in love with you, make money without doing a damn thing, etc) and click on the banner.

"Remember: there are lies, damn lies, and statistics."

Re:I'd even question his ... what the ... ?

Aside from the obvious differences between HTTP and FTP which complicate your case....

I would make the case differently as follows:

Web severs provide content in a number of formats including HTML, various image formats, and more. While image files, PDF's and other files specify in close detail the final appearance of content, HTML does not. It merely states general intents. The HTML browser is under no legal obligation to present the work using any specific method. For example, consuming the work and presenting it to the user could be done with or without graphics, printed on paged media or displayed in pageless media, or "performed" through a text-to-speech engine found on web browsers for those who either choose not to or cannot view the contents through a standard visual interface. All of these uses are accepted, standards-compliant uses of the content conforming with the content as it is distributed.

It is therefore difficult to see how changing the presentation of structured information in an HTML document amounts to creating an unauthorized derivative work. Unlike skipping ads on a television show, an HTML document does *not* specify a medium of presentation nor would one be required to present it in a medium supporting the required advertisements (images in pop-ads would be skipped by screen readers anyway-- does this mean that screen readers are contributory infringers and such sites should start suing blind visitors?).

I would however note that the content purveyors have the right to distribute the content how they see fit. It may be stupid and counterproductive to ban Firefox, but so is the Microsoft Free Fridays Apache module and nobody suggests that this cannot be installed on web servers. If figure that the trend away from requireing IE on sites offered to the public is a response to customer demand, and that fighting this demand is generally foolish anyway.

If the aim is to block technologies which skip the ads, I wonder if they choose to block lynx, audio-based web browsers, etc. and whether the sites are Section 508 complaint. Picking on Firefox will do nothing but get the sites a bad reputation.

Re:And I question their claims.

By the letter of copyright law, this practice would most likely be seen as an infringing use.

Seems like a lot of speculation to me. As for the small fraction of the internet being firefox users, I can vouch for the fact that everyone I know that use firfox do a considerable amount of shopping online, as for the IE people...most of them stick to Ebay. But that is just my personal groups.

However on a different note seen here (old article 2004 sorry) http://news.com.com/Firefox+users+ignore+online+ad s,+report+says/2100-1024_3-5479800.html [com.com]

Yes Firefox users click on ads less...it isnt because they use firefox or ad blocker, it is because in my experience firefox users arent click happy, how many of you out there have spent hours removing viruses and spyware and malware because of a click happy IE user.

Many many many projects out there make plenty of cash without advertisements what is the big deal with this site?

I am fine with the site blocking firefox, they simply wont get my business or the business of any of the corporations purchase for, this amounts to a couple hundred grand a year, but what do I know, I am only one lowly firefox user.

Re:And I question their claims.

For what it's worth, I thought that your post was somewhat on the insightful (or at least interesting) side. Whoever modded you as flamebait is a himself an idiot.

Anyways, the average user of Firefox is a lot less likely to "punch the monkey." That does not mean that they spend less money. They just spend less money on herbal viagra.

Re:And I question their claims.

Personally I research my purchases and tend to be a bit less of an impulse buyer (except for my cat...close to the check out counter).

Most stores usually have candy bars and chips near the check out counter. What kind of store has a pile of cats instead?

Re:And I question their claims.

What kind of store has a pile of cats instead?

Only the good stores :)

Re:And I question their claims.

We have another of the RIAA-class advertising madman here. There is nowhere that I signed any contract to watch adds on TV, listen to adds on radio, or pay attention to adds on my browser. The broadcaster or web site made an agreement to display the adds with the advertiser, for which they were paid, in the expectation that some faction of the viewers would watch the adds and that some (much) smaller fraction of those watchers would have their shopping behavior influenced by the add. And contrary to what that fool thinks, IE is quite capable of blocking much of the advertising issues -- I run IE7 in enhanced security configuration - no Java, Javascript, Flash, etc. If I need to go to a website and use Javascript, I use FireFox with the no-script plugin -- and I do not grant running permission to add servers. And if I think that I am going to hostile site, I use opera with everything disabled, including images - in essence I am using Opera to render plaintext HTML on the grounds that it is probably kept more current than Lynx.

I do expect that they will try to force advertising by integrating content with the advertising in active snap-ins, such as Flash. To the extent they do that, they drop off my radar -- I will never see them nor their associated products.

Re:And I question their claims.

I'm a Firefox user. I use adblock. I use adblock because I never click on ads anyway. This would be true whether or not I used adblock, or whether or not I used Firefox. I still wouldn't click on an ad. The only ads I would click on are, say, Google ads that come up in response to a search, in which case the ad might be what I was searching for in the first place.

Re:And I question their claims.

You are still costing the website money by using their bandwidth without giving anything back to pay for it.

No, they are using my bandwidth to display their unwanted junk on my computer screen. I pay for my internet connection, not the advertiser. If they want to display their content on my screen then they may do so for a price. Please let me know where to send the bill, I'm looking forward to seeing the money roll in.

When I visit a website, it is usually to view whatever they are offering, but not necessarily to view whatever their advertisers are offering. If they cannot afford to run the website without support from my funding for their advertisments then they can go bust. If the product that they are offering (be it something for sale, the answer to a query, or even pron) does not make them enough money then they should not be in business. But by visiting their site I have not agreed to be subjected to all of the extraneous crap that adorns their site.

Re:And I question their claims.

Just playing devil's advocate here, but what about sites that don't directly sell anything...only distribute/display content? I would think that slashdot would be an example. CowboyNeil's gotta feed his childin's, right?

That said, there are two problems with internet ads/advertising. First, most advertisements are annoying and distracting to what I am wanting to look at. Those are why *I* use Ad-Block. Second, I am not one of the privacy freaks (I mean that in the nicest way possible), but in order for ads to truly be targeted to me, they will have to profile me. If I could be guaranteed that the information was truly anonymous, then I would willingly let them harvest much more information about me so they could more accurately provide me with potential advertisements that are of interest to me. All that to say, when you combine annoying with useless it equals something that provides *me* with little benefit.

Re:And I question their claims.

Just playing devil's advocate here, but what about sites that don't directly sell anything...only distribute/display content? I would think that slashdot would be an example. CowboyNeil's gotta feed his childin's, right?

I have no idea what CowboyNeal / et al actually *would* do if the advertising-supported model collapsed, but they already have a subscription system. It's quite cheap, actually. I tend to read Slashdot a lot, and I have them whitelisted in Adblock Plus and then have the adblocking turned on via my subscription (which seems like a silly thing to do, but that's how I tell when my subscription runs out), and a $5 donation lasts a while.

I don't think it would be a huge stretch to go to a subscribers-only format if the ad model collapsed. It would definitely change the character (and perhaps quality) of Slashdot as a community, and it might not work -- I don't know whether people would pay enough to pay for the bandwidth and maintenance and opportunity cost of the editors time -- but if people value it, they'll pay. If they don't, it will disappear.

(Alternately, there are pay-to-register schemes like MetaFilter's that only charge new users, rather than requiring a continuing membership; this works as long as you have a certain number of new people joining all the time.)

It's easy to look at the advertising business model and assume that's the only way things could work. It's not. However, it seems to be the easiest thing at the moment, so that's what people do. But if it stops working, people will do something else; if there is a demand for content then it will still exist, for those who want to pay for it.

Also, to speak of advertising as the only way to operate the Internet (not that you were saying that, specifically, but it's an attitude that I've encountered a lot) ignores the very long time during which the Internet existed without any advertising on it. There was a lot of content that was developed and put up by people, for free, just because they wanted to do that. Even now, there's probably more ad-free content -- in absolute terms -- than there ever was before (just look at Wikipedia, for instance). Certain parts of the internet probably wouldn't survive, and I suspect a lot of "premium content" (news, stocks, etc.) that take money to publish would retreat into pay-to-access zones, but it wouldn't be the end of the 'net.

Necessity is the mother of invention; as long as people put up with ads, that will be the dominant business model. When people get sick of them and decide to block them in large numbers, a new model will develop for the content that people care about enough to pay for. The only content that will ever disappear is the stuff that nobody wanted anyway (as evidenced by the fact that they're not willing to pay for it).

Re:And I question their claims.

Attention advertisers! Here is a list of banner ads that I have intentionally clicked on.

{}

If I need something, I'm actively seeking it. Once or twice, I may have clicked on a sponsored site at the top of a Google search because it was precisely the product or company I was looking for. That's the closest I've ever gotten to clicking into an ad and buying something. Even then, I usually end up price comparing at half a dozen sites (though at least once or twice, I have ended up back at the original site buying it). Quite frankly, I seldom see ads for anything I'm even remotely interested in, as anything that doesn't fill the obvious and immediate need that caused me to search for a product, it isn't interesting at that time.

Want me to take an interest in your product? Wait for me to figure out that I need something that does X, then build something that does X. That's all you have to do. Anything else is just wasting bandwidth from my perspective, and I doubt I"m alone in that. If you want to make your product be the one I choose over the N other products that do X, send out some freebies to people on bulletin boards that talk about X and get them to write honest reviews. If your product gets a lot of good reviews, it is more interesting than a product that only got a few, as almost no professional reviewer ever writes bad reviews, and thus the quantity of reviews tends to be a good indicator of product quality. On the flip side, if it looks like you're astroturfing one of those store sites' comment pages, I'm going to ignore your company for life, so don't even think about that.

Marketing for geeks is simple: don't try to market any product to geeks. If something looks like advertising in any way, it leaves a bad impression automatically, as most geeks prefer to go and search for what they need rather than have a list of things shoved at them that they probably don't need. People who turn on ad blockers are mostly geeks, and thus, their advertising would be counterproductive anyway. Unfortunately, this means that supporting geek sites with advertising revenue could bring in less revenue than a non-geek website, but such is the life of a geek website webmaster.

Re:And I question their claims.

It would help to use proper citation methods, such as author and source. :)

When websites use simple banners or in-content ads, I never have any real problem with it. The exception to that is when the ad itself is far slower than the website calling it - then it chaps my hide.

However, popups drive me nuts. It's annoying, it's extraordinarily rude to their users, and it only serves to amplify the ruthlessness of advertisers - who are starting to demand popups in order to gain advertising revenue. When site advertisements begin to reach that point, it approaches the level of spam.

Regardless, it's the option of the person creating the website. If they want to block users who block popups, that's their right - though there is always a cost, in this case the loss of a stimulating audience that more often than not is either too young to have money to spend, or tend to have quite a bit of expendable cash (since it's usually the intelligent and resourceful who have both the good jobs and the popup blockers). If the goal of the site is to make money (something only cyberhippies seem to dislike), then by all means protect your profits. But if the population violating those ads is truly statistically insignificant, then why care (unless they're eating significant bandwidth)?

If I were in his position, I'd base my assertion purely on popup blockers hiding themselves - which becomes a bit more of a hostile act, no matter how many people (like me) love it. It's purely a circumvention tool, and not one that falls under fair-use since they haven't paid for squat.

Then again, I'd love to be part of any (non-radical) campaign to apply public pressure to some of the more... exuberant... advertisers - not to end web advertising (I enthusiastically embrace capitalism), but to keep it under some sort of realistic control.

Re:And I question their claims.

You evil, evil person. Do you have any idea the effect you're having on the american economy by not viewing the '510,000$ mortgage for $1491' ads? Or what about the 'Punch the Monkey and get a PS3' Not embracing these ideals that we can get something for almost nothing is completely un-American.

Bottom line? Be patriotic! Use IE 6! Punch the monkey! Take out a loan you can't afford!

"Their" claims

Actually its not "their" claims, but "his" claims, the whole thing is just one crazy person. Bear in mind that the, um, individual, behind this is a complete loony toon of the extreme right wing religious nut variety. Seriously, check out his other stuff at jacklewis.net, unfortunately you can't read his insane ratings with Firefox, which is a shame because they're quite amusing.

Given his nuthood I'd assume that he *thinks* that Firefox users are less likely to buy things online, and that somehow in the broken fragments of his mind that becomes transmuted into "demographs show that...." Pleanty of other nutbags do the same thing, why shouldn't he?

Yawn.

I guess nobody's showed them AdBlock for Opera [mtsix.com] (or even Opera's built-in "content blocker" [mtsix.com], admittedly not quite as good as the real thing since it lacks regexps, though), or Ad Muncher [admuncher.com] for IE.

Maybe when they find out about those, they'll do the world a favor and just block everybody from their site?

Also ... does anyone think this may just be a troll / hoax? I've learned never to question the stupidity of people, particularly people on the Internet, but this seems like it's just a bit of a stretch. It kind of reminds me of an Adequacy.org post.

The blocking that they seem to be advocating that others use is pretty standard "HTTP_USER_AGENT" querying using a PHP script, so it's not like it would be hard to get around. (Incidentally, I've always felt that the USER_AGENT header was something of a bad idea; maybe it's time to kill it, or at least disable replying to it by default?)

What I'm slightly more interested in is how they're blocking the main page. It's not the same as the script that they're pushing; the page actually loads (you can view the source in FF), but it seems to take advantage of some rendering quirk in IE to produce a blank screen when rendered on Firefox. That actually strikes me as a little more subtle, although it's still dumb.

Re:Then screw them....

This firefox user does a lot of online shopping.

Maybe they should deal with the soruce rather than the symptom.

In my case, I don't block ads unless they hit one of four criteria:

1) The play sound
2) They show images that I consider NSFW - i.e. naked people, etc.
3) The drain the resource of my system, with 1GB of memory and over 2Ghz of CPU
4) They have offensive text (suggesting I'm an idiot for not using/buying from them, etc)

So, if I'm blocking your advertisers, you need to find competant advertisers, rather than block me.

Need a "stinking website" blocker

One of the comments on the "block Firefox" page was:

If Internet Explorer came with a feature such as Adblock, you would effectively wipe out thousands of websites, maybe more.

To which I'd reply:

* Ad blockers are widely available for IE and many proxy servers as well (which block ads to ALL browsers--our corporate proxy blocks all sorts of content, including nearly all adservers). Yet all these adservers and crappy ad-laden websites continue to exist...unfortunately.

* There are "Thousands of websites" (I'd say MILLIONS actually) that SHOULD be wiped out because their net contribution to the 'net is negative. If ad-blockers give consumers the ability to decide which sites those are then they perform an important public service.

I'd also offer this argument: pushing excessive ads to my computer is theft of my processor time and bandwidth. I pay for my computer and for the monthly internet access so I can use them for what I wish. I am a reasonable person and expect that a lot of content is ad-supported and would find a reasonable amount of advertising to be acceptable. I am used to commercials consuming about 30 percent of TV programming time, and TV has survived on that for a long time. However, in recent times I have found that many sites literally devote MORE THAN HALF of their real-estate to advertising.

The advertising is getting far too distracting as well: I regularly encounter pages with multiple flash and/or video-clip ads, and ads that play sound without asking or warning. Advertisers go out of their way to create workarounds to pop-up blockers and use AJAX, Java and Flash technology to make ads that dance all over your screen, obscure the real content and generally annoy the user as much as possible.

The rights of corporate advertisers must be balanced with the rights of individual consumers, and, sorry to say Mr. Ad Exec, individual rights trump those of corporations. If you wound back a bit and limited your ads to 1/3 screen real-estate or relied on more considerate techniques like interstitial ads that played their message and politely got out of the way so the real content can be enjoyed, then the popularity of ad-blocking would be reduced substantially.

By the way, would you like to know why your precious ad servers are blocked at our corporate proxy, listed right alongside things like myspace and horse porn? It is because they started generating so much traffic on our corporate WAN that the ads actually had a noticeable impact on overall intranet performance. That's right...big, responsible corporations are committing "mass theft" because they are tired of their bandwidth being stolen by aggressive advertisers!

Same old, same old

Political solutions to technical problems... as pathetic and ineffectual as ever :-) What a complete non-starter.

If this "grassroots" Firefox-blocking effort takes off, we'll soon have a Firefox extension to spoof the IE UserAgent on any of the sites that blocks Firefox. Oh wait!!! It already exists [mozilla.org], and I'll bet with a little work it could be automated to spoof based on a database of anti-Firefox sites. Of course, all the savvy Firefox users will use this to avoid the block, and only our hapless grandmothers--who don't use Adblock anyway--will be stuck wondering why the Internet doesn't work. And absolutely NOTHING will have been accomplished.

Our interconnected world is increasingly resistant to petty, arbitrary restrictions. Just witness the rise of region-free DVD players, modchips, and third-party ink cartridges... and the ridiculous, heavy-handed responses of the **AA, the game companies, and the printer manufacturers.

Re:Then screw them....

"and it's much more effective than Firefox's Adblock extension."

Please elaborate in what way is it "much more effective"? Is it better at blocking ads? I have been using adblock and have not seen an ad in so long that when i go to another computer who doesn't have it installed i am always surprised by page layouts that i frequently visit.

I like opera too and use it but from your statement i'm wondering if there is something that i could benefit from that you know about opera over firefox, or if it was one of those blanket statements that has no real validity to back it up (if that's the case that's not necessarily a bad thing, after all this is the internet and /. and we all do it from time to time.)

Re:Then screw them....

Right now the slashdot effect is more effective than any adblock extension :-)

Re:Then screw them....

Actually, it does show in Firefox... normally. Ironically, Adblock Plus blocks the entire page. It registers as a blocked filter under whyfirefoxisblocked.com#body, which is the entire page, making a nice white blankness.

Re:Then screw them....

Now they've gone and done it... They went and got /.'s attention. Now there's tens of thousands of /. users who (if they didn't already) are running out and adding adblock to their install of firefox. In another screen I'm composing an email to every single family member in the clan (except 2 which I know are also /. readers) and letting them know they need this extension, how to get it, and how to install it... Get all of us to do this, and in a few days, there will be a million firefox users with adblock installed blocking all manner of sites! The attention from the advertisers being aware of this will cause them to lower advertising pay outs across the board, having a net effect on revenue for ad supported sites many times more than if they kept their mouthes shut! :D I love /.!

Re:Then screw them....

What's really ironic is that their own claims indicate that people who use firefox are more "net savvy", and that, conversely, people who don't are suckerbait for advertisers.

Re:Then screw them....

You can hide those inline ads with some CSS tricks in Firefox. I made a journal post when an awful Intel sponsorship thing appeared on slashdot with details of how to hide that. Here's what I currently have in my userContent.css file, and this will also hide the services crud on the left, and the related links cruft on the right:

@-moz-document domain(slashdot.org) {
#links-services-title { display: none; }
#links-services-content { display: none; }
#related-title { display: none; }
#related-content { display: none; }
#sponsorlinks { display: none; }
#links-opcenter { display: none; }
#links-opcenter-content { display: none; }
#links-opcenter-title { display: none; }
#block6 { display: none; }
}

Take this to a similar but different conclusion

Does it kill you *that* much to have to view an ad now and again.

Technically, yes. I have a lot better things to do with my time than wait for slow ads to load. The beauty of the internet is that you are free to watch them if you wish. So, go for it there big guy.

Now, the text of the message on that site equates ad-blocking with theft. Assume this is true, what about other similar situations? Look at Microsoft Window preinstalls on computers. We are being told that the cost of the system is being offset by 3rd party apps affectionately called "crapplets" here and that is why bare metal or Linux installs cost more than equivalent Microsoft Windows-based systems. The crapplet guys are paying for the privilege of being on your desktop. Does that not then make it theft to wipe the machine and do a clean install? Also, shouldn't you feel compelled to actually use them, after all someone paid money for them to be there. They have to recoup their investment, don't they?

I don't see any fundamental difference in the two cases. If it is theft to block ads, it must also be theft to remove programs from your computer that a vendor has paid to have put there.

With that in mind, let me fix the wording of your statement:

Does it kill you *that* much to have to use the stuff that came preinstalled on your computer? Like it or not, the retail computer market is largely driven by 3rd party app support, and a lot of retail computer vendors would either disappear or be less comprehensive if they didn't have the incentive in place to keep providing low-cost computers.

Be careful what you are asking for, you might get it.

Re:AdBlock Block... Blocks The Page!

User-Agent switcher should have no problem with this one either. It's "How to block Firefox" page just tells you to put simple code in your page to detect if "firefox" is in the HTTP_USER_AGENT string.

However, I hadn't noticed that this was was blocked in ABP until you mentioned it. I clicked the link, and it failed to load, but I thought it was because these people hadn't tested it in Firefox and it just didn't render. The fact that it didn't appear because ABP blocked it is troubling. I use ABP to get rid of ads, not to get rid of "slander". Why does ABP block a site just because it is critical of ABP? If I'm using ABP, it's because I find it incredibly useful (which I do), and reading some site tell me I'm stealing money from website owners isn't going to make me uninstall it. Learning that ABP is blocking not only ads but also sites that badmouth ABP, though, might.

Re:AdBlock Block... Blocks The Page!

I use ABP to get rid of ads, not to get rid of "slander". Why does ABP block a site just because it is critical of ABP?

Because the guy who wrote the site coded it that way. http://dannycarlton.com/AD_Tools/ABPfence.php [dannycarlton.com]. He offers tools to block anyone running ABP from any site.

He's had a long-running feud with the Adblock team https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/discussio ns/comments.php?DiscussionID=3060&page=3 [mozilla.org].

"So now, it's war. As they attempt to create "work arounds" for my blocks, I work on more comprehensive blocks that will defeat their work arounds. I also am informing other how to block people using the plug-in. The people who wrote the plug-in aren't terribly clever; thieves rarely are. But now they've inspired me, via their arrogance, to make sure a method for defeating their plug-in can be developed and distributed." --> Danny Carlton (http://jacklewis.net/weblog/, posted July 27, 2007)

Wow, that's not cool.

Whoa.

I didn't even think to check for that. I was giving these guys a lot more credit than they deserve (see my comment above). I thought that they were using some difference in the rendering engine between IE and FF to produce a page that rendered (correctly) to white in FF but because of an IE quirk, showed content when viewed with IE.

It never occurred to me to check AdBlock and see if it was actually being *blocked*...

That's actually rather troubling. I use EasyList USA, like most AdBlock users, and I'm not particularly sure I like the idea of them slipping a "Firefox/ABP Slander" filter into the ad-blocking list. That doesn't seem quite kosher, as obnoxious as I find the "Why Firefox is Blocked" fools.

But lo and behold, when I disabled that line on the ABP list, the page shows up.

I still think that the "Why Firefox is Blocked" people are a bunch of assholes, but that's not a particularly good showing from the ABP/EasyList people either.

The other advantages of using Firefox

Anyone savvy enough to block ads is probably savvy enough to have their browser present its user-agent as Internet Explorer if necessary.

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

Any website that thinks running Ad Blocker is "stealing" and "resource theft" is probably not worth visiting in the first place. Sounds to me like their only purpose is ad revenue.

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

So what. I walk away from the TV when a commercial comes on (I don't have a DVR). If I don't watch commercials on TV, why would I treat web browsing differently?

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

It's pretty obvious that ad-blocking web sites IS akin to resource theft...

Oh, it's obvious, is it? Is it theft if I visit the site but never click on the ads? What if I click on all the ads but have no intention of buying anything? Tell me, what else is obviously theft when I am reading a page on the web?

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

Every time you walk into a physical store and leave without buying anything is obviously theft as well. I mean, if everyone did that how would the store stay in business?

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

If you don't like a site's ads, don't visit the site

If the site did not have burdensome* ads, I wouldn't block them.
I'm building a site based on ad supported revenue. Since it is going to be targeted towards a largely technical audience I expect most (if not all) of the ads to be blocked. I myself use ABP. My solution is two-fold. I point out to my guests that the site is supported by advertising revenue, and provide a "donation ware" link that allows those who would rather not see ads, but still want to support my site to donate towards my hosting and bandwidth bill. I realize that this may not be viable for others, but for me at least, it is fine.

-nB

* Any ad that tends to blink, scroll, move, clash, interrupt the content, etc. is burdensome. Google text ads are the answer to this.
-nB

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

If it became popular for copyright-based businesses not to send large amounts of money to me for sitting around on a beach taking it easy, it would undermine my business model.

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

I think everyone realizes the difference between "useful and popular" and "ad-spamming sons of bitches". Slashdot's ads I have no problem with. But show me annoying blinky ads, flash ads, ads in my way, anything with audio, and you go into the bit-bucket.

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

I notice, by the way that you are posting on a free ad-funded Web site.

Funny example, that - Slashdot probably has one of the highest ratios of users capable of ad-blocking of any site on the entire web, yet manages to pay the bills. Curious...

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

Funny example, that - Slashdot probably has one of the highest ratios of users capable of ad-blocking of any site on the entire web, yet manages to pay the bills. Curious...

Slashdot has a few advantages over other sites:

1) It had a large presence before ad-blocking became easy enough for the average user to do.
2) It's extremely targeted, so its advertising space is more valuable.
3) It's part of a large network of other, similarly-targeted, sites which gives it more clout when negotiating sales of ad space.

For a site without those advantages, say one just starting out, people costing bandwidth without contributing ad hits might make the difference between being in the black and being in the red.

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

So Slashdot has an effective business model (due to those three factors and others), where manystart-ups have poor business models. This is someone else's problem why?

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

It's run by some guy named Danny Carlton who seems to have long list of thrown together websites that he's hoping to make money from. You can see the list at dannycarlton.net. Looks like somebody bought a book on how to get rich blogging from home.

I clicked on a few of them, they're apparently on the same box (all slashdotted at the moment), but when they load you can see how crappy and devoid of content they are.

Anyway, no "useful and popular free-to-use Web resource" here.

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

Or they are people who, Oh don't know - run a useful and popular free-to-use Web resource and need to raise some income to maintain the service.

Which means, of course, that they're legally guaranteed to make an income and anyone who doesn't pay them is breaking the law.

I notice, by the way that you are posting on a free ad-funded Web site.

I must have missed the part where slashdot was blocking firefox.

Running a free website and trying to use ad revenue to help fund it is fine. That's not what we're talking about here. The idea that such a site is legally entitled to that ad revenue is absurd. If you can only exist based on ad revenue, and enough people don't want to view your ads that would put your existence in jeopardy... maybe you shouldn't exist. To claim that a user is stealing from you by choosing to not view your ads is delusional.

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

Any website that thinks running Ad Blocker is "stealing" and "resource theft" is probably not worth visiting in the first place.

Actually, by not visiting the site, you're not visiting the ads either, and therefore still stealing. I suggest you turn yourself in now.

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

If Firefox users are a small part of the browser population (according to them) and only some of them block ads, then doesn't it stand to reason that they would be a small burden to a website? I don't see how blocking them has any sort of "tremendous financial rewards".

Since the website seems to be slashdotted I'd say they'd be better off blocking people coming from Slashdot.

Re:The other advantages of using Firefox

And for that matter, why is the argument for ads always one-way: "I need to fund my bandwidth! Look at my ads!"

I have bandwidth to fund too, pal: the bandwidth coming into my house. Or office. Or corporation. Your ads take up my resources too.

If I can free up significant resources on my own network by blocking your ads ... well, it's just smart business isn't it?

Don't do that, it validates stupidity.

This is almost always a mistake:

Anyone savvy enough to block ads is probably savvy enough to have their browser present its user-agent as Internet Explorer if necessary.

Necessary is the keyword, and no site dumb enough to do this is necessary. The site authors are misinformed if they think Firefox users are not affluent decision makers with significant if not majority of on line purchasing power. They might get more click through from the IE crowd, but advertising is mostly about brand awareness and click through is a misleading metric. A business that would exclude one in twenty of it's customers for having the wrong brand of anything is insane, and Firefox has way more than that kind of market share. Only a few M$ partners are going to do this and they will be punished with lower market share and revenue. Their advertisers will have their brands further besmirched by association with the lowest of the low and dishonest business practices.

It's better to punish the offending site by going elsewhere. When you change your user agent, you tell the world that it's OK to do dumb stuff like this.

Firefox porn-spendings

As the owner of a large european Porn network/site we cannot confirm these numbers. Actually according to our sales, it's the other way around, FF users are more likely to buy (porn) as they're often more experienced users with faster machines and used to buy stuff online.

If anything, they should block users with dialup connections and Windows 9x, as they purchase less than average.

Thats our experience in the porn-business.

Don't use intrusive ads, then

Particularly, don't use ads that jitter about by a couple of pixels, or flash bright contrasting colours. Not only do they not make me want to buy from you, they make me want to avoid *ever* buying from you.

Pulled them out of...

Be interesting to see where they are getting their numbers from.

I'm not actually that interested in looking up their arses.

Some nerve

You can send me the ad; I don't understand why I'm under an obligation to look at it or why you have the right to demand that my computer display it.

Re:Some nerve

It's like how the newspaper companies force you to read the classifieds.

Re:justified

Its not my fault your business model doesnt work.

Re:Some nerve

I don't understand the big deal with ad blocking. Just block sites that abuse their right to advertise by running 'spaz-ads' or other intrusive campaigns, allow other people to provide the services you came there to use.

That's exactly what I do. I don't run an ad blocker, but I do have a custom stylesheet. If someone is using irritating advertising techniques (my pet peeve is the ones that turn random words in an article into ads), then the advertising domain is permanently blocked, and any link that points to the site that was showing the ads gets a red warning after it. Unless I really want to see the content on the page, I will avoid clicking on those links, and so not even see the site's nonintrusive adverts.

Has anybody ever actually seen this site?

I hit a lot of websites and I've never been redirected to this page. Does anybody actually use it, or is it something someone tossed up just to generate flames (AKA a troll)?

can't view

I tried to look at the website but I can't. Any ideas?
Oh, wait...

Re:can't view

Finally, a reason why I didn't RTFA!

Hm...

So is this the point where we starting hearing that blocking ads is just like running out of the store with a pair of blue jeans? I mean really...

At what point do businesses start realize they they are providers of information and not the gate keepers for information...

WTF

Ok... let's break this down...

1. If I use Adblock, this implies that I specifically installed it because I do not want to look at ads, so I block them.
2. It follows that if Adblock was not available, I would ignore ads and not click on them. If they are particularly irritating, I would complain to the webmaster, so Adblock actually does them a favor.
3. Also, since I know enough to find and install Adblock, I can also find and install ad blockers for other browsers.
4. It also follows that since I can install Adblock, I also may know about other extensions such as User Agent Switcher, which can be used to easily bypass most browser checks. The rest can be bypassed by using Adblock to block whatever JavaScript file is checking for browser-specific behavior. Yay for irony!
5. Furthermore, if I see a website which discriminates against me based on browser use, I am likely to go elsewhere where I can be treated more fairly.

Text of page

You've reached this page because the site you were trying to visit now blocks the FireFox browser.

The Mozilla Foundation and its Commercial arm, the Mozilla Corporation, has allowed and endorsed Ad Block Plus, a plug-in that blocks advertisement on web sites and also prevents site owners from blocking people using it. Software that blocks all advertisement is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers. Numerous web sites exist in order to provide quality content in exchange for displaying ads. Accessing the content while blocking the ads, therefore would be no less than stealing. Millions of hard working people are being robbed of their time and effort by this type of software. Many site owners therefore install scripts that prevent people using ad blocking software from accessing their site. That is their right as the site owner to insist that the use of their resources accompanies the presence of the ads.

While blanket ad blocking in general is still theft, the real problem is Ad Block Plus's unwillingness to allow individual site owners the freedom to block people using their plug-in. Blocking FireFox is the only alternative. Demographics have shown that not only are FireFox users a somewhat small percentage of the internet, they actually are even smaller in terms of online spending, therefore blocking FireFox seems to have only minimal financial drawbacks, whereas ending resource theft has tremendous financial rewards for honest, hard-working website owners and developers..

Since the makers of Ad Block Plus as well as the filter subscriptions that accompany it refuse to allow website owners control over their own intellectual property, and since FireFox actively endorses Ad Block Plus, the sites linking to this page are now blocking FireFox until the resource theft is stopped.

Netscape users can simply set their browser to IE mode to continue to enjoy the site that sent you here. FireFox users can use Internet Explorer, Opera or Netscape (in IE mode) to access it. FireFox users also have the option of using the IE Tab plug-in which uses the IE rendering engine to display pages, but also disables the Ad Block Plus plug-in.

If you are offended by the Mozilla Corporation's endorsement of dishonesty please contact the Mozilla Foundation and ask them to stop empowering internet theft.

Other comments on ad blocking...

PopularTechnology.net--Why Adblock is bad for the "free" Internet

        Adblock effectively robs these free sites of their revenue. If Internet Explorer came with a feature such as Adblock, you would effectively wipe out thousands of websites, maybe more. These are the same free sites users of Adblock frequently visit. The irony is how this is self-defeating.

Information Technology and the Law--Firefox Adblock a Contributory Infringer?

        Judge Posner, elucidating the holdings of WGN v. United Video (1982) among others, reasoned in Aimster that:

                "[Commercial-skipping] amounted to creating an unauthorized derivative work, namely a commercial-free copy that would reduce the copyright owner's income from his original program, since "free" television programs are financed by the purchase of commercials by advertisers."

        Like free television broadcast content supported financially by advertising, much of the content on the Internet today is distributed free to end-users for an indirect exchange of advertisement revenue. When a user loads an ad-driven copyrighted website, he produces a copy of the work due to the inherent architecture of the Internet. If this user is using Adblock to screen out annoying advertisements, he is creating an unauthorized derivative work analogous to skipping television commercials. By the letter of copyright law, this practice would most likely be seen as an infringing use.

You have reached this page because ...

... you are a intelligent and not the sort of obvious retard we can fool into becoming a customer.

Ah, what the hell, we'll ask anyway, are you SURE you don't want to enlarge your penis?

Weird that they single out Firefox

They must not know that Opera has an ad blocking feature built-in, and like Firefox, IE has ad blocking add-ons also. Will they also block text browsers such as Links since I can't see there image/flash crap ads also? Why single out Firefox/adblock? I guess any site that only depends on ads to earn revenue and is willing engage in blocking a certain segment of web users, must be devoid of any interesting content and not worth my time anyways.

It's not about the adblock

Look at the header of that page:

<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">

I guess they just can't make decent HTML that work on every browser, and blame firefox for their stupidity, after all, things that work good and nice in IE display crappy in Firefox. Instead of learning to do proper HTML, they just want to block firefox so everyone will see their crappy html right.

why block ads anyway

Who needs adblockers anyway? My brain quite successfully filters out all banner ads. I just skip right past them, at most I recall there was a rectangular area on the page I ignored. The ads that pop-up over the content, requiring you to manually close them to continue reading are a bit more annoying, but I find I'm getting pretty good at clicking the close buttons without even seeing what the ad is for.

You see ads if you want to see ads. On the internet, anyway. On TV (not that I watch nowadays), radio (not that I listen to it nowadays) and outdoors (although I try to avoid the centrum nowadays) I find them more annoying.

Adblock will bring a revolution to the commercials

The annoying things will be washed away while the really useful things will flourish. Welcome to the web Ad 2.0.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

whois whyfirefoxisblocked.com...
Registrant:
      Danny Carlton
      19724 E Pine St
      Suite #149
      Catoosa, Oklahoma 75015
      United States

See also, dannycarlton.com/net/org.

Living in Cantoosa must leave you with lot of time to ponder the big questions and it seems like Danny has plenty of opinions. His blog (which does not, by the way, block FireFox) includes his opinions on everything from homeshooling to "Jesus Camp" to pet food names like "baby-poop mustard" (to distinguish the fancy kind from plain yellow) and "booger bread" (9-grain style).

All we have here is an insignificant Internet rant. Nothing original there.

Wearing a gas mask around me is forbidden!

I consider my smells copyrighted and wearing a gas mask while being in my proximity is an infringement of my rights, as the smells are blocked. Please understand that this extreme measure is necessary, since the unique cacophony of smells usually causes nearby people to give me money to leave their vicinity - but those who would wear a gas mask aren't forced to do so. It's bad for business.

What a non-sequitur spewing moron....

"...they actually are even smaller in terms of online spending, therefore blocking FireFox seems to have only minimal financial drawbacks..."

"...whereas ending resource theft has tremendous financial rewards..."

Maybe we just don't like pop-ups

I manage to fund a website without intrusive ads. A colo'd server is not really that expensive. If you want to pull in revenue you could try selling a useful product or service. For example if you run a free forum website, sell "premium" membership.

Ads that are poorly targeted to my demographic COSTS YOU MONEY. You waste bandwidth trying to send me information about things I won't buy. I would argue well targeted advertising is what is important to the well being of the internet, not all ads. Ad blockers stop the throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks sort of advertisements.

I'm sorry if it's so much work to get customers, but the key to having customers that spend money is establishing a relationship with customers and with potential customers. Just pasting fliers all around town or shoving 4 or 5 pop-unders under my browse window is not going to establish a relationship.

TV and Radio have advertisements and commercial skipping is protected mostly because running a broadcast station is quite expensive. Putting a server on the net is only as expensive as the number of hits you get (bandwidth/load), it scales very linearly. If you can't figure out how to turn hits into revenue, stopping ad blocker is only going to keep you from wasting bandwidth on those minority of users. It won't actually fix your broken business model.

The Internet is a very competitive free market, you must adapt to survive!

um no

Why would I want to block perfectly good paying customers who don't have ad block installed, just because they're using the same browser as some who do?

I don't know what you're selling, but you must not be selling much of it if the bandwidth costs for not serving blocked ads (er... yeah, how's that work, exactly?) outweighs your sales revenue, or those of your ad customers.

Never mind the ludicrousness of this from the user perspective; this doesn't even make sense from a business perspective.

Are there any ad blockers for MSIE? Maybe he can block that too - on this site. We won't miss you, and yes, we'll keep making money, unlike you.

Sheesh, learn to do business.

Is he a hypocrite

Ten to one says he fast forwards his Tivo through commercial.

Product Placement

It occurred to me that instead of discriminating against Firefox users, webpage developers should work on incorporating product placements into their content. It's an old tactic but it still works. In fact that thought occurred to me just as I was about to light up and enjoy the smooth, mellow taste, of a Chesterfield cigarette. As I watched the smoke curl about I realized that relaxing with a Chesterfield is just the sort of break that a webpage developer needs to manage the day-to-day challenge of coming up with the content that sells those adds.

USER-AGENT SWITCHER

Just use the user-agent switcher to pretend to be a different browser. Or don't and let sites who block firefox block you, and ignore them forever. Checkmate, bitches.

user agent switcher addon

What do you mean "firefox" I'm running IE 7.0 using windows 3.0 on a dual chip Pentium and only 64k of RAM!

Boy does it run great!

Good mozilla / firefox addon

User Agent Switcher 0.6.10 Homepage
by Chris Pederick

Adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of the browser.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59 [mozilla.org]

hth

DP