AdBlock Plus Updates Acceptable Ads Policy 523
AmiMoJo writes: By default the popular AdBlock Plus plug-in allows some "acceptable" ads to be displayed. A blog post announcing updates to policy describes the goals of the update: easier to understand, more robust and more explicit about what is and isn't acceptable. The new criteria are listed on another page, and the option to disable acceptable ads remains.
Ads are not acceptable. (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't give a fuck what their justifications are. There are not any ads that are acceptable. That's it. End of story.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Speak for yourself. Ads are the reason why a lot of good content can stay afloat on the web without asking for money directly, I get that.
I wouldn't mind decent, simple text or image ads on the Internet. As long as they don't try to force feed me their ads down my throat, shove distracting, animated shit in my face or potentially harm my computer with uncontrolled Flash ads, I don't see why we couldn't all get along.
I hope the ad industry and site operators are finally starting to realize that annoying the
Re:Ads are not acceptable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ads are the reason why a lot of good content can stay afloat on the web
Where is this "good content"? I can't find it and, frankly speaking, would have no problem if all ad-sponsored business would disappear from the web tomorrow, including this site.
Re:Ads are not acceptable. (Score:4, Interesting)
Where is this "good content"?
With such constant disappointment on the web, I can't understand why you'd keep using it.
Re:Ads are not acceptable. (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you mean "disappointment"? I use the web for bad content, for entertainment and wasting time, like everybody else.
The fallacy of many web-sponsored startups is to believe that their "content" is good or even worth anything, just because people look at it for free. Mostly it's not. (There are exceptions, of course.) If Facebook would die tomorrow, nobody would give a shit about it, people would simply move on to another site. The same holds for most of the other adware sites. If you have a good product, people will buy it. Ad-supported "content" is just a soap bubble.
Besides, I'm not sure if your old enough to know that, but the Web was great before companies and ads came to it. Instead of /. you would waste your time on Usenet - without ads.
Re: (Score:3)
Cause it's apk hosts file spam, and he wants to advertise his own hosts file rather than being useful.
Re:Ublock = inferior & inefficient vs. hosts (Score:4, Interesting)
hosts can't block apk's ads. So there's a big flaw right there.
You convinced me (Score:3)
Your relentless spamming has convinced me- convinced me to never ever try or buy your product. Never.
Re: (Score:3)
I spent about three days trying to get APK Hosts to work. I downloaded the file, consulted the tutorials, read the not-so-fine manual, and came up bupkiss.
So I downloaded a hosts file from Someone Who Cares [someonewhocares.org] and did it myself.
Re: (Score:2)
Acceptable advertising varies by culture. Personally, I can't tolerate much of it. Other people might be able to spend every day in Times Square without batting an eye. It also seems to vary by medium within a culture. I am not sure how you can cater advertising to the user in terms of magnitude, but my gut feeling is that people that use Adblock should just be left alone by advertisers until they get a better sense of what the users find non-offensive.
That said, I do know there are advertisements that
Re: (Score:2)
I have every right to use my computer in any legal way I see fit. If I want to block ads I can do that. Nothing immoral or illegal about it in any way.
If sites that depend on ads to exist go away because too many people block their ads, that's life. We all make choices. If I block ads, I take on whatever risk (if you can call it that) is associated. I find the risk of "losing" a site much less than the real risk of being fed a stream of ads that may possibly be laden with malware, although I'm willing to vi
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, if a site says that they don't want me to access it with an ad blocking utility installed then I hit the back button. It's their property, it's their rules.
So what happens once eight of the top ten results from a typical query start blocking users of ad blocking utilities? You'd end up hitting the back button more often than actually reading anything. As I understand it, such behavior adopted by the majority of sites would make the Web less useful to you. Or what am I missing?
Re: (Score:2)
Where is this "good content"? I can't find it and, frankly speaking, would have no problem if all ad-sponsored business would disappear from the web tomorrow, including this site.
"Good content" in this case is content you enjoy, including things that you are too ashamed to admit you enjoy. Even "the top 10 fart jokes you already know" is good content if you enjoyed reading it.
Entertainment is seriously underrated.
Re: Ads are not acceptable. (Score:2)
Re: Ads are not acceptable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Essentially but refusing to pay, we are saying it is worth $0.
You may utter those words, but that is not what your actions are saying.
If you refuse to pay for a movie and never watch it, you are saying it is worth $0 to you.
If you refuse to pay for a movie and still watch it, you are saying it is worth whatever you consider your free time to be worth to you. You only have a limited number of hours of leisure time in your lifetime, and that has value. You just refuse to pay someone for content you obviously think has value. You can argue semantics on whether that is piracy, theft, etc. but it is certainly being an ass.
If you pay for a movie and watch it, you are saying it is worth the purchased price plus your free time.
Re: Ads are not acceptable. (Score:3, Funny)
Not watching ads on the internet is just as bad as muting the TV when ads are on. And don't get me started on people who have the nerve to leave the room for a bathroom break when ads are showing. For shame! If you want free TV shows than you should watch the ads.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Total bullshit. I've said it elsewhere as AC, but let me repeat it:
The fallacy of many web-sponsored startups is to believe that their "content" is good or even worth anything, just because people look at it for free. Mostly it's not. (There are exceptions, of course.) If Facebook would die tomorrow, nobody would give a shit about it, people would simply move on to another site. The same holds for most of the other adware sites. If you have a good product, people will buy it. Ad-supported "content" is just
Re: (Score:3)
If Facebook would die tomorrow, nobody would give a shit about it, people would simply move on to another site.
If not for ads, who would fund the operation of "another site"?
Re: (Score:3)
The only possible conclusion then is that you're very dim because you waste your time on something worthless.
To me, /. is not worthless because I enjoy posting here, I enjoy the stories and I like arguing with idiots in the comments. Enjoyment has value. If you enjoy it, then you're lying to yourself about lack of value. If you don't enjoy it, then you're a very silly person.
Re: (Score:2)
Dim? I don't know. It's more like smoking another cigarette even though you want to quit.
I stopped smoking years ago, though, so my general prospects to leave /. one day are overall good. ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
Ha! Found the perfect solution!
Bye Slashdot, go fuck yourself!!!
Re:Ads are not acceptable. (Score:5, Interesting)
You're the clueless idiot. I can display web pages in my browser as I like. It's my machine and I pay for the bandwidth. I have zero obligation, neither morally nor legally, to watch advertisements or even display them, just as I don't have any obligation to click on links in spam mails sent to me.
Moreover, I don't have to discover new products. When I want to buy something, I inform myself and then buy the product that best fits my needs. And I am seriously not interested in the flawed business models and whining of self-proclaimed entrepreneurs who have no genuine product to offer.
Re: (Score:2)
Then who funds the operation of the sites through which you 'inform yourself'?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Ads are not acceptable. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're just mentally devaluing it to say it wasn't good enough to be worth paying for, thus they didn't lose anything when you took it for free. It's a perfect rationalization of ad blocking and piracy for cheapskates and the poor, because you wouldn't/couldn't pay for anything it's okay if you download everything.
Actually, I think you're skipping a few ste" -- in particular, a site should agree to pay me damages if I get malware from one of theirps here. Ad blocking is actually slightly different from piracy.
I'm not applying for sainthood either, but if we want to have an intellectual discussion let's at least be honest about it.
Okay, let's be honest about it. There's a difference between selling a product like a movie or music or whatever and asking people to pay for it vs. putting something up on a publicly accessible website and demanding people also download annoying time-wasting ads from third-party sites that eat your bandwidth and your processor time.
Putting something on a publicly accessible internet page is like putting something on a public bulletin board in the middle of Times Square. If you want to claim "ownership" over it and don't want people to read it, don't post it in a publicly viewable space. There are plenty of sites that recognize common ad blockers and either display a message like "Please view our ads" or even refuse to show content unilaterally. I have no problem with that. I have no problem with paywalls, either, and I do subscribe to a few online services whose content I actually find valuable enough to pay for.
The problem with most sites and ads is that by viewing a site, I'm required to submit to a crapload of 3rd-party scripts and cookies loading on my machine. Many websites don't do their due diligence in checking out this stuff, so you're asking me to potentially infect my computer with malware in order to view the content? Sorry -- that price is too high.
If you had a site that guaranteed no 3rd-party trackers and only served ads from its own server that it had done due diligence in checking for malware, etc., THEN I might consider viewing the ads. But 99.9% of sites don't do anything like that, and thus I can't take the risk.
You can't run your business another way? That's not my problem. You don't want people to "take your stuff for free"? Put it behind a paywall, or at least set up a rudimentary screening thing for people browsing with common ad blockers that says, "We see you're using an ad blocker. You need to accept ads to view the rest of our site. Sorry." And then I'll make a decision about whether it's worth it to view your site.
But if you deliberately post your content on a publicly viewable website, I have no moral obligation to pay to download, render, and then waste my time sitting through your potentially malware-ridden ads from 3rd parties. Those are my "terms and conditions of use" for my computer. You don't like it? Don't put publicly viewable stuff on your website.
All of this is VERY different from piracy, which involves taking something which is generally sold for a price and sharing/downloading for free against the creator's wishes. The creator on a public website is implicitly allowing me to download content AND use an ad blocker, unless they tell not to.
If you go down the road to your logic, the next thing you'll be telling me is that it's immoral to get up and make a sandwich which muting my TV during a commercial. No, sorry -- that's not stealing content, and nor is viewing content on a public website.
(And by the way, I'm fully behind AdBlock trying to make standards for more reasonable ad practices, but it would have to go a lot further for me to find them "acceptable.")
Re: (Score:2)
The main reason I block (some) ads is that they are a potential vector for malware. I refuse to trust ANY ad broker, because too often you read of them getting compromised and infecting visitors "accidentally". I'll be damned if I let any ad source run scripts in my browser.
Re:Ads are not acceptable. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ads are the reason why a lot of good content can stay afloat on the web without asking for money directly,
You might be surprised to learn that there was an internet for several decades before the advertisers showed up, and that it had a dramatically higher signal to noise ratio then. I know, because I was there.
I'll take that internet over the one we have now, any day. If the advertisers go away again, that will be a good thing. The actual useful content will remain: things like wikipedia that I and others will voluntarily contribute to support. But your average click-bait idiot trap pages, they can die and the world will be better off for it.
Re: (Score:2)
You might be surprised to learn that there was an internet for several decades before the advertisers showed up, and that it had a dramatically higher signal to noise ratio then.
True that. I used to read the Baseline magazine (http://www.baselinemag.com/), it was full of interesting articles, and I was even looking at the few ads because they were relevant.
Now it's just empty click-baiting content filled with blinking banners, fake pop ups and lousy ad-injected slideshows. Not sure who's benefits from that, but it's not the reader.
Re: Ads are not acceptable. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And as soon as it was offered to the general public we started getting banner ads > flashing banner ads > popups > popunders > popups / unders that opened more popups / unders when closed > shit like bonzai buddy that didn't even need the browser open to splatter shitware all over your monitor > scripted ad pages that won't let you close them.... ETC. ETC. ETC.
Rose tinted glasses much?
Yeah, the "internet" was a shit-ton better before the general public was allowed on it, but it had drastic
Re: (Score:2)
You might be surprised to learn that there was an internet for several decades before the advertisers showed up
Was it possible to get Internet access at home back then? I was under the impression that before advertisers showed up, the Internet was available on university campuses, and that was about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Define internet? We've been able to dial into a computer or a networked computer for a very long time - even using acoustic coupler cradle modems. If you had access then you could, perhaps, dial in to a university network from remote but a lot of the internet was dialing into some guy's computer across town and he had a BBS running. Long distance charges may apply. So, what you'd do is connect to one system that would enable you to connect to another system and then, with propagation, you could even do stuf
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, it had a higher signal to noise ratio.
But in absolute terms, it also had much less signal. And the lower SNR of today is compensated by better search technology. For me, it's a win.
And now that you are talking about Wikipedia, it certainly has great content. However, I don't like the direction it is taking with its donation campaigns as they look a lot like ads. They use overlays, interstitials, large banners. If you read the details, they clearly try to get as much money from you as possible using ma
Re:Ads are not acceptable. (Score:5, Insightful)
force feed me their ads down my throat
You mean, like the awful "Slashdot Top Deals" ad that comes up a second after the page is loaded, bringing down the menu on the right and getting me to mistakenly click on it?
It's been years since I've been first offered that "Disable advertising" checkbox (since I'm an amazing contributor) and I have never used it, but with this new Slashdot Deals ad I might do it soon.
Re: (Score:2)
I've disabled the adblocker here and yes that top banner shows up but it doesn't resize/ reposition the page in any bothersome way.
Besides, what menu on the right, that little invitation to turn off advertising and your karma score??
Re: (Score:2)
What happens is that the page loads, with "Disable Advertising" at the top and the message inbox just below that. But as I'm reaching up to follow a link to the message in the inbox, two more boxes appear right above it: "Slashdot Top Deals / Pay What You Want: White Hat Hacker Bundle" and "Get the Slashdot Newsletters / Sign Up!" Only the first of these two boxes has an X to make it go away.
Re:Ads are not acceptable. (Score:5, Informative)
Deals aren't blocked by the checkbox...
Re: (Score:3)
Deals aren't blocked by the checkbox...
Yes. I was so happy when I figured out blocking the StackSocial API with ABP took care of it all.
Re:Ads are not acceptable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Speak for yourself. Ads are the reason why a lot of good content can stay afloat on the web without asking for money directly, I get that.
I get it too, when I think about it rationally. The trouble is, I've been so bombarded with ads since I was born (and I'm not that young), be it on newspapers, roadside signs, television, the internet when it started to become commercially attractive... that I have a visceral hate of it, whatever product it plugs and whomever forces it onto me. I find any and all adverts vulgar, disgusting and a gross intrusion on my right to choose what I want to stuff my brain with.
As a result, I too block all ads on the internet. Yes, I know many sites couldn't live without it, but... well, if they can't, I'd rather they disappeared than have to look at ads.
Also, when I can't block, skip or hide ads, I *remember* what product was advertised, and by whom, and I make a mental note never to buy that product, and if possible, any other product from that company. That's what decades of wanton advertising has done to me. Talk about well poisoning...
Boycotting your power company (Score:2)
Also, when I can't block, skip or hide ads, I *remember* what product was advertised, and by whom, and I make a mental note never to buy that product, and if possible, any other product from that company.
In my area, the local electric power company runs public service announcements related to safety around its power lines and other facilities. Have fun joining the Amish.
Re: (Score:2)
Ads are the reason why a lot of good content can stay afloat on the web without asking for money directly, I get that. I wouldn't mind decent, simple text or image ads on the Internet. As long as they don't try to force feed me their ads down my throat, shove distracting, animated shit in my face or potentially harm my computer with uncontrolled Flash ads, I don't see why we couldn't all get along.
You comment doesn't make sense. First you say "ads are needed!" but then you go and say "unless" and list all the reasons why people install the adblockers in the first place.
That thing people call "acceptable ads" is as old as the internet advertisement itself. It didn't work 20 years ago - I do not see reasons why it would work today. Greed always wins and all "acceptable ad" networks, however good their intentions initially are, turn to shit sooner or later. Or die, because the toxic competition always
Re:Ads are not acceptable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but ads should not take up more than 10% of the page. As it is most places ( if someone is unfortunate enough to not have adblock ) the CONTENT takes up 10% of the page with 90% being ads.
Same with youtube, first time in years I tried it without adblock was recently. Every. Single. Video. Was prefaced by a 15+ second ad that was un-skippable. Nope, back to adblock plus / ublock origin, not going to put up with that shit.
Would you prefer that videos be removed? (Score:2)
In my experience, a lot of YouTube videos with unskippable preroll ads are videos containing non-free music. Would you prefer that videos whose uploader or copyright claimant demands unskippable ads be removed from YouTube entirely?
boat has sailed past (Score:2)
Subscribing to a whole site just for one page (Score:4, Insightful)
That just means more sites should be asking for money directly. I don't mind paying for content at all and I do donate/support/subscribe the few sites I care about.
Say sites suddenly switch from taking ads to "asking for money directly." Then you go to your favorite search engine and you see a credit card number field instead of a query field. OK, so you put in your credit card number, pay $20 for a year's subscription, and then do your search. Then every site in the results wants a separate $20 per year subscription because it costs the merchant 35 cents plus 3.5% for a credit card transaction. Micropayments still haven't been figured out.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Alright, calm down Captain Righteous. Is anyone forcing you to use Adblock over something else?
There are not any ads that are acceptable. That's it. End of story.
Oh, so you're the arbiter of universal objective truth? Because I have some questions...
Re: Ads are not acceptable. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're not paying a site for the service or contributing content, and are not allowing any ads, you're freeloading on their dollar.
And if they don't like it they can detect that, and they can fade into obscurity when people stop going there. It's a viable model for some sites though, if they have what people want and are willing to pay for. Most sites don't actually have any content which is that compelling, so they can quit their whining. 95% of the sites on the web could go away tomorrow and it would be a better place.
Re: (Score:2)
And if they don't like it they can detect that, and they can fade into obscurity when people stop going there. It's a viable model for some sites though, if they have what people want and are willing to pay for.
What about sites that get a lot of occasional visitors? Blogs are typical here - thousands bump into the best of them once a month or so through a Google search, but they'd be hard pressed to log into PayPal to pay a fraction of a cent to see the content, let alone buy a subscription. Just imagine that every show on your TV / radio was pay-per-view and imagine how you'd like that.
Most sites don't actually have any content which is that compelling, so they can quit their whining. 95% of the sites on the web could go away tomorrow and it would be a better place.
What does this have to do with visitors who actually visit the site seeing ads? You may not like the content, someone else does a
Re: (Score:2)
What about sites that get a lot of occasional visitors?
I pay $12/year for hosting and around that much for domain registration. If that is an undue burden, then perhaps they should develop content for someone else's website.
Your recommendation for a $1/mo host (Score:2)
I pay $12/year for hosting
From which hosting provider? Does it allow Python, or is it just for static files? Does it offer HTTPS, either through Let's Encrypt or through bringing my own certificate? And how do you pay your writers?
Re: (Score:2)
Uhhh ... no.
I'm not under any obligation to let any particular content onto my network. Content providers are perfectly free to paywall their site.
Watch search engines become useless (Score:2)
Content providers are perfectly free to paywall their site.
Which means you won't be able to find anything useful from a web search engine anymore once it becomes common practice for sites to put up a $20 per site per year paywall. Or if not ads and not paywalls, how is a site supposed to pay its writers?
This is a good policy (Score:5, Interesting)
I really like this policy. Sites deserve to be able to show ads and make revenue on their content. That is how you get content to stay around and be good. The issue is the terribly intrusive and deceptive ads that suck up bandwidth and annoy everyone. I switched to uBlock Origins a while ago because of the memory AdBlock sucks up, but if they can get that under control I may switch back just for this feature.
Re:This is a good policy (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that it says nothing about deceptive. An add that says "your computer is infected with a virus, click here to remove" could still be classified as acceptable. Even malware is not explicitly forbidden. So I think there is some work to be done.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Sites deserve to be able to show ads and make revenue on their content.
They do deserve "to be able", and they are "able". What they don't deserve is the ability to force a person's computer to display an ad. ,It is misleading to sponsors to show ads to people who don't want to see ads, and who refuse to ever click on ads. This would be no more than wasting bandwidth and (where an amount is charged per impression rather than per click) is a dishonest collection of revenue.
I make a point to never click on ads, my brain tunes out ads, and where any ad gets through an ad blocker I
Re: (Score:2)
My issue with this is that it's still an arms race. Creativity will be poured into putting more onoxious crap in regardless of the guidelines. On top of that, how do we know one of the advertising providers won't bring a wheelbarrow full of money to AdBlock and purchase their loophole?
Although I do agree with the sentiment that some ads are okay to keep sites alive, I definitely love the idea of consumers world-wide sending the message that they need us more than we need them. I fear this approach will
Already maxed at 2-4 GB (Score:4, Insightful)
Or just buy some freakin ram you derp. What, are you on 4gb in 2015?
That may be true of desktops. But good luck fitting 8 GB into a compact laptop or a convertible laptop/tablet. A lot of such devices can use only the RAM soldered onto the board, and even those that do take SODIMMs likely have a chipset that limits the maximum module capacity.
Re: (Score:3)
Let me see if I understand this correctly: You're saying that I have an *obligation* to spend my hard-earned money on hardware in order to provide extra capacity on the device that I also paid for with my hard-earned money to some random advertiser running $_DEITY_-knows what on it?
I've given this considerable thought, and my thoughtfully considered response is as follows: Fuck that notion and the quadruped it rode in on.
Re: (Score:2)
"Recent versions of Firefox have come with shitty built in ads, in the form of "sponsored" tiles on its new tab page.
Do these ad blockers remove those ads, too?"
Irrelevant, because I've removed the New Tab page. There's nothing there of value.
Tab Mix Plus->Events->New Tabs->Load on New Tab: Blank Page.
Acceptable Ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Complete list:
End of list.
Sorry, dear advertisers. You poisoned the well. Now please get lost.
Re: Acceptable Ads (Score:2, Insightful)
So you're paying every site you visit for the service provided to you, which causes operating costs? Since not every site even has an option to pay, you're likely mooching from a high horse.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh how did this "Internet" thing only work before corporations found out about it?
Re: Acceptable Ads (Score:2)
Hobbyists spent their own money or mooched their university maintaining (home)pages that got a *lot* less traffic than now, and the content was rather crappy.
And this isn't about corporate greed - suppose you start a webcomic, or writing jokes. People like it, and you want more free time to dedicate to it rather than work 9 to 5 or designing commercial posters (a very typical case). Not everyone is willing to fork over for a t-shirt or a book (I don't buy books often). Some can't/won't fork over on Patreon.
Re: (Score:2)
The sites with ads seldom have a company behind it. Consider non-corporate sites that you bump into once every month at best, but get lots of visits from a lot people because they're damn useful? Blogs with tech tips (e.g. Use the index, Luke [use-the-index-luke.com]) are typical of this pattern, and their visitors would be hard-pressed to buy a subscription.
Re: Acceptable Ads (Score:4, Informative)
There was no problem getting such technical information before the Web was commercialized. In fact, Usenet, FAQs, personal home pages and swapping a few emails with other enthusiasts are usually better for this purpose today than any ad-driven sites you can come up with. Most technical information sites base their "content" on the free work of their users anyway, which is exactly what Usenet was and is intended for, plus its decentralized by design.
Re: (Score:2)
You broke the first rule of usenet. That's bad enough, but you also broke the second.
P.S. did you have an older account and lose the password?
Re: (Score:2)
personal home pages
That was for the most part geocities, and there was a wealth of technical information there. Oh, and it was ad supported.
and swapping a few emails with other enthusiasts
Which for many people even back then was something like hotmail.
Which was ad supported.
In 1996 I had a geocities page and a hotmail account, and did indeed swap information with enthusiasts. I distinctly remember spending many, many hours browsing the BBC Micro webrings.
That was a whole 3 years after the web emerged in a
Re: (Score:2)
personal home pages
That was for the most part geocities, and there was a wealth of technical information there. Oh, and it was ad supported.
Sure, I've never claimed that people don't use free stuff if they can get it and I'm also not saying that people should not display ads if they like them. I just happen to dislike them.
But I've also never heard of any ISP then and now who didn't offer some space for your web pages. In my opinion, Geocities was not popular primarily because they offered web space but because the neighborhood metaphor that gave them some special flair (plus, something like an integrated webring). It was fun browsing around an
Re: (Score:2)
Bluntly? What would have been the big loss?
Re: (Score:2)
At least with a music service like Spotify you don't get ads with a paid account. Of course they'll use your bandwidth to stream music to other paying and freeloading customers (even when you're not listening).
Re: (Score:2)
If you rely on an ad blocker to protect you from web-driven attacks, I've got bad news from you: websites can be malicious without them.
Re: (Score:2)
Look at F2P games. They have a lot of free users and a small number that actually pay lots of money. Games compete for the user's time and disposable income with each other and bring new content all the time while still making a profit and actually growing.
Websites for some reason can't? Maybe it's because they hardly offer any interesting/new content?
If they don't offer compelling content, they don't get enough hits and the fixed costs drive them out of business. But what about sites that do get traffic but a lot of them doesn't deliver revenue? Those play a numbers game, much like free-to-play games, and the numbers may or may not add up.
And lets not start on those crap "news" these days. I'm not interested in a novella length article about the damaging effects some stupid diet or some political game in some far forgotten town nobody finds on purpose without Google.
If they offer REAL content, people will: donate, click on ads/disable adblocker, or buy a subscription. Until then, they're the parasites bloating the search engines pointlessly.
Oh, but I was replying to someone arguing that there are no acceptable ads. As in “I want my Web free of ads - you figure out how to run it”.
Re: (Score:2)
Hits are not generated by content, hits are generated by a PROMISE of content.
What matters is that people come to your page. Not that they find there what they're looking for.
Re:Acceptable Ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I guess they should be pissed at their counterparts that are not decent, not honest, that abuse their customers and drove them to the point of "fuck off".
The problem is not the "I don't watch ads on principle" people. Those were few and far between. That handful of people never mattered. What broke the camel's back was that those asshole advertisers drove the Joe Randomsurfers to install ad-blockers.
You know that type of guy, yes? That guy that doesn't mind a billion browser-bars that clutter his interface. The kind of guy that dutifully clicks away 50 error messages every time he starts his computer because some of those browser-bars malfunctioned eventually.
Can you imagine just how much you have to piss someone like that off to get off his ass to install an ad blocker?
So if you want to tell someone to "fuck off", please direct it at the assholes who ruined it for all of you by driving these people to blocking ads.
If 90% of users use Lynx, risk is harder to manage (Score:2)
By basing the business on ad revenue, the business owner has already accepted the manageable risk of some ads not being delivered.
But as the fraction of visitors using an ad blocker increases, this risk becomes less manageable.
Next, please sue the Lynx users for DMCA violation
Let's propose a hypothetical situation in which user agent and resource download analytics showed that 90 percent of your visitors were on Lynx, w3m, or Links. How would you fund a site with that kind of statistics? If through a paywall, then how would you offer access to first-time visitors who found your site through a search engine or a shared link without excessive payment processing fees?
Re: (Score:2)
Not my problem. You want to sell something, find a solution.
The internet was here before commercial interest came. It will be here long after we got rid of them.
Re: (Score:2)
Not my problem.
Slashdot's continued existence is a problem for your continued access to the Opportunist (166417) account.
The internet was here before commercial interest came.
Before the Internet was commercialized, it was available only in universities. Only students and faculty had access. Once the advertisement-driven Internet dries up, are you willing to go back for your master's or Ph.D. in order to continue using the Internet?
uBlock Origin (Score:5, Informative)
Oh my, how times have changed.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then:
Users: hey can you give us less intrusive and annoying ads
Advertisers: screw you here is your ad
Now:
Advertisers: hey please don't block our ads thanks
Users: screw you
Adblock disclosures? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does the adblock team disclose how much money they get from advertisers to allow them through their filters?
...third party sites... (Score:2)
Does it include blocking third party sites? It's the main reason I block ads - and I'm not using adblocker, but third party site blockers like RequestPolicy and DNS blocking.
I don't mind seeing non-intrusive ads, but I don't like being tracked by third parties.
I run a site that uses ads, let me tell you TRUTH! (Score:5, Insightful)
I run a website that uses ads. It's called The Geek Pub. I make things and I create videos and articles so that others can do it themselves too.
I also sell detailed plan files on the site for anywhere between $1 and $10 depending on how complicated the project is. This is how I would LIKE to make my revenue. But it doesn't work. I have no choice but to show ads. Why? Because I almost daily find a copy of every plan my site sells on bittorrent or file sharing sites. I've even had people post links to them in the comment section of my own site!
The TRUTH: People want everything for free and they have zero desire to actually support the content creators. They steal our content and post it for the world and then complain about the ads we use to make money. We can't win as content creators.
Re:I run a site that uses ads, let me tell you TRU (Score:5, Interesting)
You produce material that does not generate enough sufficient interest from paying consumers to support its production and distribution. You have therefore accepted remuneration from third-parties in return for providing them access to perform psychological manipulation and subliminal coercion upon anyone who finds your material interesting enough to consume at a market value of zero (as in, free).
Your material has negligible market value. That has no reflection upon you; most art has the same market value but significant social value. That you let those few who appreciate your work be influenced does. Advertising is exceedingly rarely to the benefit of the advertised-to.
I offer this not as criticism of your choice, but food for thought. The starving artist scenario is an age old quandry.
Re: (Score:3)
"I mean this in the most respectful manner possible. Your material has negligible market value."
I'm sorry. Respectfully, I call bullshit. If my content is worth someone's time to put it on a file sharing site, it is worth 99 cents.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Try offering it for a penny, as an experiment. I think you'll still find that people will refuse to pay a penny, and it won't be because it's too much for them and it won't be because they don't think your product is worth a penny -- it's just that paying is complicated, dangerous, non-anonymous, and not even available to some (eg children). In fact, odds are less people will buy your file for a penny than for a dollar.
Re:I run a site that uses ads, let me tell you TRU (Score:5, Informative)
Patreon might be a better fit for you. Matters less if people pirate your work, as they are paying to encourage more of it rather than for something.
Let the User Decide (Score:3)
Very disappointed only 6 posts by APK (Score:2)
So today I thought for shits and giggles I'll browse at -1.
Only 6 incomprehensible psychobable posts by APK.
Only 1 mention of the size of someone's penis.
Very disappointed in Slashdot, this is a poor effort by shitposters everywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Earlier in your list of 16 things [slashdot.org], you said hosts files protect against botnets using DNS-level load balancing, also called fast flux or round robin. That sounds reasonable.
But you also said it protects against botnets using a domain generation algorithm (DGA) [wikipedia.org] and stop their communication with command and control. How does this happen efficiently, especially if command and control can generate one of several million domains?
You also said a hosts file protects against spam. How does that happen? Most of the
From the same domain (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Even if you don't like the ad it's a lot harder to block, so you may as well just live with it.
Popups (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We'll need clever CSS to block the new stupid clever CSS bullshit. I don't know when we'll get that. The existing things are usually served from the same host, making them more static (they usually beg you for an email address or something). You can often get the data with a view source, and the technique I use is to use Remove It Permanently or some other addon to remove element by element. You can also just block the elements with uBlock Origin, which works great for dealing with the mewling on wikip
Javascript (Score:3)
Acceptable ads policy in 5 words (Score:2)
the reason for advertising (Score:2)
Advertising exists primarily for one and only one reason. Commodities.
When a vendor offers a product or service indistinguishable from that of other vendors, he must find a way to make it *seem* special and to justify your purchasing it from him.
Apple, Tesla, Prada, Google, Rolex, Nordstrom, Nike, Facebook, and the Red Cross / Red Crescent offer relatively unique products / services and are themselves respected for that. The burden is on competitors to identify some way that their product is superior. Thus
Re: (Score:2)
I'm using uBlock Origin and think it's better than ABP, because you can easily pick elements of any page for cosmetic blocking. For example, I've created my own rules on the fly to block sneaky ads at Arstechnica and unwanted youtube "recommendations".
However, it seems to me that its easier to detect by anti-adblock services, but perhaps that's also just because the advertisers have improved their techniques. Hard to tell, as I haven't used ABP in a while.
I block absolutely everything that even remotely res
Ten things hosts can't do... dey (Score:2)
use the MVP Hosts file.
Does a hosts file protect from any of these?
1. Randomly chosen hostnames with wildcard DNS (e.g. 88ebaef2.adnetwork.example)
2. Ads hosted on same origin as the rest of the site
3. Slowdowns when hitting a blacklisted site as the connection to 0.0.0.0 times out rather than a NXDOMAIN
4. Slowdowns when hitting a site that isn't on the whitelist at the top of the hosts file nor the blacklist that follows it, while the kernel-mode hosts file parser laboriously re-parses the entire multi-million-line file for ever