As an ABP user myself, many of us say that we use ad blockers because of annoying, intrusive ads. I'm curious what it would take for us to get off of ad blockers.
Let me lay out the hypothetical:
You're reading a review of the latest Apple Watch. At the end of the post, you see a static, non-intrusive ad from Best Buy with a discount code for an Apple Watch.
What do you do next?
A) Click on the image and use the promo code to buy the product.
B) Find a way to block the ad element anyway
C) Try and find the ad again before you decide to buy it in the future
What would get you to stop using ABP?
Re: What would get you to stop using ABP?
If you mean this extension specifically, it would be finding one that works more efficiently (see Block Origin).
If you mean ABP-style extensions, nothing, because of their secondary use in blocking known and likely sources of drive-by-downloaded malware (actually the reason I started in the first place, like I'm fine with ads per se).
If you mean ABP-style extensions, nothing, because of their secondary use in blocking known and likely sources of drive-by-downloaded malware (actually the reason I started in the first place, like I'm fine with ads per se).
There's a buzzin' in my brain I really can't explain; I think about it before they make me go to bed.
Re: What would get you to stop using ABP?
But if the ad was just a .jpg with a link, it couldn't really transfer any viruses right? (or no?)
Re: What would get you to stop using ABP?
That's right, but we can't presume that all third-party content will be that nice; maybe in that brief moment between the adoption of the img tag and the existence of JS, plugin content, and iframes, we could presume that.sahilc wrote:But if the ad was just a .jpg with a link, it couldn't really transfer any viruses right? (or no?)
Basically, "that brief moment" lasted from the release of NCSA Mosaic (first browser to support inline images) in late 1993 to the release of Netscape 2 (first browser to support JS and plugins) in late 1995, or about 2 years.
To be more specific, if the page owner does something weird with the load or error handlers for the image ad, then it could be used to spread malware, but that's not something that the ad provider or broker could do with a simple image: All they do is serve the static image.
There's a buzzin' in my brain I really can't explain; I think about it before they make me go to bed.
Re: What would get you to stop using ABP?
I struggle to forsee a situation in which I'd disable all adblocking. The only advertising I'd feel comfortable with would be text or static images served from the domain I was visiting, and even then I'd need to be sure that the website wasn't sending my IP and other details on to the ad company/business.
I simply don't trust advertisers thanks in large part to their obsession with profiling and tracking users across the web. I wonder how long it will be before an ad company is hacked and the web browsing histories of millions of identifiable users are pasted all over the internet.
Although it may not apply to your example I'm also concerned about the security implications of allowing ads as was mentioned by Lewisje. I run NoScript and RequestPolicy (among other addons) for security and tracking protection so even without adblock I don't see much in the way of adverts.
Interesting question though, I'd like to see others thoughts on this.
I simply don't trust advertisers thanks in large part to their obsession with profiling and tracking users across the web. I wonder how long it will be before an ad company is hacked and the web browsing histories of millions of identifiable users are pasted all over the internet.
Although it may not apply to your example I'm also concerned about the security implications of allowing ads as was mentioned by Lewisje. I run NoScript and RequestPolicy (among other addons) for security and tracking protection so even without adblock I don't see much in the way of adverts.
Interesting question though, I'd like to see others thoughts on this.