General > General Technical Chat
Why has nobody made a browser which adblocks without the website detecting it?
NiHaoMike:
--- Quote from: SparkyFX on May 08, 2021, 03:13:51 pm ---You overlook the point of the advertisement: that people look at it, click on it or come back later and buy/use something.
An adblocker can be made very sophisticated, but it certainly does not buy stuff in your name... so guess what it means if ads are not displayed to a substantial amount of viewers. Imho it will change the approach to the problem in new ways, but certainly won't make advertisement go away.
This might lead to ads and content not being distinguishable anymore or the browser market being dominated by a marketing agency or subscription only services. Such developments may even make adblocking itself obsolete.
In other words, you are not really saving or preventing anything by "better" adblocking, it will just come in a different form. As long as the ads are relevant (and not intrusive) i don't see a big problem with them as they are for a webhoster making money to run the site.
--- End quote ---
Adblock Plus has had the option of "acceptable ads" with the idea that if ads weren't so annoying (by creating an incentive to make them "acceptable"), there wouldn't be much need to block ads in the first place.
Next step is an AI based adblocker that "paints over" ads, making it very hard to detect.
https://www.engadget.com/2017-04-16-potentially-undefeatable-ad-blocker-looks-at-content-not-code.html
peter-h:
That's what I had in mind, yes. Unfortunately the link there is dead.
NiHaoMike:
Here's a direct link to the code: https://github.com/citp/ad-blocking
I think Google's attempt to suppress it should be seen as a clue that it's effective - if it wasn't, wouldn't they want to keep it out there to fool users with the false impression that it works?
peter-h:
That project is 4 years old. Is that the right one?
And I can't see where the actual plug-in is :) No idea how to compile this stuff.
Zero999:
--- Quote from: dunkemhigh on May 07, 2021, 10:31:32 pm ---
--- Quote ---The Internet used to be very crappy
--- End quote ---
If you'd said it used to be less aesthetic I'd agree, but the quality of the internet resource (ignoring AOL and Compulink) was as high, if not higher, than today. What has changed is what's being made available - pretty much any business now has an online presence which wasn't previously the case. Any datasheet you care to name is probably available from somewhere, etc. But these things don't define 'the Internet' any more than Youtube defines video production.
--- Quote ---Most sites didn't comply with web standards and would only display properly on either Netscape, or Internet Explorer.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, one to take up with Microsoft - they are the primary reason for standards not being adhered to, or 'enhanced'.
--- Quote ---Insecure Macromedia Flash was widespread and it got worse when IE won the browser war
--- End quote ---
Yeah, another one to blame on the Internet! Actually, why not just blame to developers of the application instead. But, even better, why not stop with the victim blaming? Think for a moment: once upon a time no-one communications protocols had to think about data that might be corrupted accidentally, or a standard not quite being met. Things worked fine, and if there was a problem, well, shit happens. What made it a big problem and the nightmare we have today was (and are) the fuckwits who think breaking stuff for lulz is fun, or scamming millions of dollars a fair way to make a living, or viciously SWATing a game opponent fair play. They are the ones that made ActiveX a bad move, not the functionality of it per se.
--- End quote ---
The Internet is the sum of technologies: the browser, ActiveX/Flash/Javascript/HTML5 etc. and the hardware. Companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, Apple etc. have a big influance on making the Internet what it is.
Back in the bad old days, it was easier for your computer to get owned, than it is today. What platform you were using i.e Windows, Mac, Linux mattered. Many sites only worked with Internet Explorer, which made it difficult to use any other operating system than Windows. I accept that there were advantages back then. There wasn't the same amount of annoying advertising, whitespace, gross GUIs and a lot more useful content by those who did it as a hobby, but the Internet as a whole, is much better now.
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