Allowing acceptable ads in Adblock Plus

[librarianscott]

I've always thought you were one of the heroes of the internet. Please reverse your decision. Immediately.

[Matt5234]

I don't believe the reason given. This has nothing to do with trying to save adblocking from aggressive advertisers if too many people block ads. Ad blocking is a game of cat and mouse. The blockers are always one step ahead and always will be.

This is all about money for the devs.

What used to be a great plugin turned into a protection racket......."Nice ads you got there.....it'd be a shame if anything happened to them."

[lvdata]

Mail-ware distribution will increase as ads are a somewhat common distribution method. I made ABP a standard part of an installation for any computer I worked on. I have downloaded the XPI and I will manually install it, and prevent it from updating. ABP is part of my anti-virus/anti-mailware system. I don't like the ads but I know they pay for the websites I visit. The ONLY way I would use the updated version is a strict text only ads system. No jpgs, html, xml, pngs, gifs, swf, or any other potentially infectable file format. I just DO NOT trust the ad sellers to keep a clean feed.

[MonztA]

@melikamp
So you're saying his survey is complete bs?

[l1]

Wladimir -- please reconsider this. Going against your users is never a good idea.

I think that it is pretty reasonable expectation for an add-on called AdBlock Plus to block ads by default [I know that the change only applies for users that haven't subscribed to filters, but still..]

Even with the current implementation, people can allow "acceptable ads", this is what I do for sites that I support. However, someone else (you, your advertisers etc.) deciding what are "acceptable ads" is simply not acceptable (yes, that's pun intended). Your technically savvy users are smart, they can decide what are the acceptable adds. What you are trying to do is to force ads to the less technically savvy users (probably the majority of the users).

I understand that you need to make money, everyone does. However there should be other means of achieving this.

I really hope that you would reconsider this for the sake of millions of users that have been long satisfied and happy with your addon. Otherwise, as others mentioned, this is a good opportunity for someone to fork the addon and for most people to start using ABP++ or whatever it would be called.

[Wladimir Palant]

Dear "hate all ads" people, please just accept the fact that the world doesn't revolve around you. There are people who hate all ads (around 25% of our users according to the results of the user survey) and there are people who have concerns that they might destroy the very websites they like. Just because you belong to the former doesn't mean that everybody else does. I would give a link to the survey results and analysis but that's much text - and unfortunately, most commenters here didn't read past the headline, I don't want the same kind of comments there as well. Just use Google or your search engine of choice if you are willing to read.

As to people bringing up valid concerns (transparency, verification etc.) - I heard you and I know that we have much work ahead. What we are starting now is just a pilot phase. Feel free to stay around in this forum and contribute to a constructive discussion on what can be improved and how. But not in this topic please - with so much off-topic discussion it isn't good for anything useful.

[JonnyMohawk]

Did you ever pause to realize that people who download a plugin called "adblock" you know expect it to block ads?

I for one have already removed this addon and started using one that actually respects what it's user base says. I know, I know... you claim that a study reveals the majority are in favor of this change. You would expect this to correlate with the responses you received, but oddly enough it doesn't.

I think the talent people donate to ad-block plus would be better served elsewhere.

[Outcast]

You should quit the project and let others to pick it up. You have betrayed Adblock Plus users.

[Noyb]

Wladimir:- make this feature opt-in and you're ok.

Keep it opt-out and you cross an unacceptable line.

[Wladimir Palant]

Wladimir:- make this feature opt-in and you're ok.

Would love to do that. But that doesn't work, see https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#default and a bunch of explanations in the forum. It's either opt-out or useless. What I did was to make opt-out as simple as possible. In particular, the UI rework was a major condition for this feature and also the reason why it was delayed like this.

You should quit the project and let others to pick it up.

Aha... I've been working on Adblock Plus for more than five years after picking up an essentially abandoned project and during all these years I got something like three minor code contributions. Please come back when you find somebody who wants to actually do some work rather than talking about "others" who should do it. One reason why I kept working on Adblock Plus was - if I didn't then nobody else would and the project would become abandoned again,

[LorenzoC]

Ok, I am adding my two cents even if I do know my opinion doesn't matter.
Here we have an extension whose goal was to give the user control over what it is loaded/displayed in his/her browser, by filtering objects.

The first issue with this was the subscriptions, basically users delegating somebody else to decide what to filter and how.
But this is understandable due the technicalities involved.

Now comes the second issue, users are going to delegate not only the technical part of content filtering but also what is "acceptable" and what is not.
The issue is made bigger by this statement:
"We have agreements with some websites and advertisers that only advertising matching our criteria will be used, their ads will be unblocked then. We hope to grow our list significantly over time."
This means advertisers who want to slip through the filters must have an "agreement" in place with ABP. There isn't the user deciding of his/her browser, there isn't the user relying on "trusted" third party people, there is the "agreement" between advertisers and ABP. Sorry but, while I see the benefit for advertisers and ABP people (with some questionable ethics involved IMHO), I don't see anything good for me as user coming from this.

I appreciate the fact that there is STILL the chance to "opt-out" the "acceptable advertisement" setting. Really.
But at this point it would be good to see somebody forking ABP, if possible. Or it is time to look around for some alternative.

[melikamp]

@melikamp
So you're saying his survey is complete bs?

What survey?

[Till]

Ok, I am adding my two cents even if I do know my opinion doesn't matter.
Here we have an extension whose goal was to give the user control over what it is loaded/displayed in his/her browser, by filtering objects. The first issue with this was the subscriptions, basically users delegating somebody else to decide what to filter and how. But this is understandable due the technicalities involved.
Now comes the second issue, users are going to delegate not only the technical part of content filtering but also what is "acceptable" and what is not.

Yes, the average user wants to install ABP and have it configured automatically to block ads reliably based on filters created by people they can trust. Why shouldn't this apply to whitelisting a well? The majority of users want to support websites by accepting unobtrusive ads so we have to give them an automatic feature that does the job for them just like we do with the blocking rules. The same reasoning applies here due to the technicalities involved.

There isn't the user deciding of his/her browser, there isn't the user relying on "trusted" third party people

If a user doesn't trust the creators of the default blocking list for some reason the user also has to disable it and create own filters or choose another subscription. We have the same amount of choice with the whitelist.

This means advertisers who want to slip through the filters must have an "agreement" in place with ABP.

How else can we make sure that the exception rules will not be misused to sneak through ads that are not meeting the criteria for acceptabla ads?

[MonztA]

@melikamp
So you're saying his survey is complete bs?

What survey?

https://adblockplus.org/blog/adblock-pl ... lts-part-3
https://adblockplus.org/blog/adblock-pl ... lts-part-4

[Outcast]

It should be an opt-in, not an opt-out option.

It shouldn't be on by default!!!