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It's being reported on HackerNews that the Pale Moon Browser is blocking the AdNauseum extension, an ad blocking extension designed to obfuscate browsing data and protect users from tracking by advertising networks.
The main story link is to the Pale Moon Forum which summarises the issue as follows:
After investigating the AdNauseam extension's behavior and the results for web publishers, the extension has been added to the Pale Moon blocklist with a severity level of 2 (meaning you won't be able to enable it unless you increase the blocking level in about:config to 3). For those unfamiliar with this extension: it generates false ad "clicks" to ad servers in an attempt to generate "noise" for the ad networks in a protest against the advertising network system as a whole.
While the premise behind this is similar to poisoning trackers with false fingerprints (which we are proponents of, ourselves), and we normally let users decide for themselves what they want to do with their browser, we are strictly against allowing extensions that cause direct damage (including damage to third parties). There is a subtle but important difference between blocking content and generating fake user interaction.
[...] Because this extension causes direct and indirect economic damage to website owners, it is classified as malware, and as such blocked.
From the forum threads this decision has been slightly controversial with some users.
If you're not familiar with Pale Moon, it is an Open Source web browser, forked from a mature Mozilla code release, and has been covered on SN before.
[Update: Added text re: blocking level; bolded text that was bold in the original posting. --martyb]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Monday August 28 2017, @05:05PM (6 children)
Seriously?
What law criminalizes clicking on an advertising link but refusing to look as the advertising?
The problem with the plug in is that it DOSes the users own machine, chewing up bandwidth and exposing the user's to ip address allows unwanted tracking.
It would be objectionable simply because it works counter to the user's own interests,
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by FatPhil on Monday August 28 2017, @05:56PM (4 children)
The reason it's considered bad is in the original post to the forum, and they are resonable arguments. There seem to be no actual valid responses to those arguments in the top couple of pages. Most who oppose the block seem to be pretty damn stupid. Some can be summarised as "it's disgusting that I have to do something to get this extension installed" not realising that they had to do something (namely install it) in order to get it installed anyway. Idiots such as that can be safely ignored. They add nothing of value.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday August 28 2017, @09:24PM
While they may add nothing of value, they do seem capable of causing a great deal of damage.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Monday August 28 2017, @11:07PM (2 children)
Check your facts:
See https://adnauseam.io/ [adnauseam.io]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday August 28 2017, @11:20PM (1 child)
It doesn't click anything, it can't. It submits http requests, as if the user has clicked, that's all, that doesn't mean there was anything to click on, or anything clicking on these nonexistent things. We can see inside the chinese room, stop pretending we can't.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @11:35AM
Phil, give it up. You were wrong. Just admit it.
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Tuesday August 29 2017, @06:53AM
Possibly covered by Intent to Defraud. Possibly...
"So long and thanks for all the fish."