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Pale Moon Blocks AdNauseum Extension [Updated]

posted by Fnord666 on Monday August 28 2017, @04:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the your-browser-my-way dept.

tonyPick writes:

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]

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  • (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Monday August 28 2017, @06:20PM

    by FakeBeldin (3360) on Monday August 28 2017, @06:20PM (#560372) Journal

    That's a silly argument. You could argue exactly the same for the stance of Palemoon. Let me spell that out for you:

    If there's doubt, the sensible thing to do is to make a "soft" block, that is, blocked by default but user configurable.
    This lets the users make the choice about using the extension for themselves. If they want to use it, then they can use it. If they don't want to use it, then they don't have to use it.

    I highly doubt anyone on SN exists that has never entered about:config.
    Hell, most of us would be able to take an open source project, change the code to remove a block, recompile, and run that browser.
    And if there's enough people who care, fork that stuff!
    If not, just shut up and enjoy your unpaid software.

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