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Free news sites step up pleas for consumers to disable adblocking software:
If your web browser has recently updated, or you've loaded some new browser extensions, you may be seeing a message when you visit certain free content sites.If your web browser has recently updated, or you've loaded some new browser extensions, you may be seeing a message when you visit certain free content sites.
"Please support journalism by allowing ads," one of the pop-up messages reads.
In the message, there is a large link that will disable the adblocker extension in your browser. There is a smaller link that will allow you to proceed to the site while continuing to block ads.
Dominic Chorafakis, with the cybersecurity consulting firm Akouto, says adblocking extensions aren't exactly new, but it's possible browsers have strengthened them in recent updates.
"Sites that rely on ad revenue, of course, don't like this at all, and there is quite a bit of effort being put in from their side to detect when a visitor has adblocking in place and either ask them politely to disable adblocking or outright prevent them from viewing their content unless they disable it," Chorafakis told ConsumerAffairs.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Username on Wednesday December 23 2020, @12:58AM (10 children)
I think the biggest problem with those annoying ads is that "content creators" just rely on an ad company to run the ads for them. They do not screen and run the ads themselves. If they don't care enough to do that, I have a suspicion that they don't care enough to make decent content.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 23 2020, @03:00AM (6 children)
Nobody cares enough to make decent content anymore, let alone vet advertisers as appropriate for their site.
My ad blocker is my way of "voting" for what kind of internet I want to be produced. Low effort ads are nothing I want to see flourish.
If you take the time to write your own copy and editorialize in an ad for your carefully selected sponsor, there's no ad blocker in the world (yet) that can stop that, and I'm fine with that.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 23 2020, @04:06AM (3 children)
There was a time when advertisements were hosted on the the site of the "content creator". Most ad blockers rely on blocking third party ad servers, to a large extent. If $randomsite.com hosted it's own non-intrusive ads, those ads would get past most adblockers. Serve the ad up as plain html, without any hinky javascript, and it would almost certainly get past the filters. And, to be honest, I wouldn't mind a few pixels dedicated to praising Tide laundry detergent. Wouldn't even mind an animated gif. I draw the line at some stupid banner, or a video.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Freeman on Wednesday December 23 2020, @04:21PM (2 children)
A trend I've seen is that big YouTube content creators are actually doing the advertisements as part of their show. So, you can't block the advertisement, because it's just part of the video. Whereas the YouTube advertisements you can block, because they're third party ads.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday December 23 2020, @04:24PM (1 child)
I'm also a lot less annoyed by the occasional advertisement, if the content creator is the one that's doing the advertisement. One big thing that circumvents is the very real possibility of third-party advertisements serving you malware. I trust YouTube and especially the content creator to not be distributing malware. Whereas third-party advertisements are ripe for the pickings.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday December 23 2020, @11:24PM
I think Veritasium is an excellent example of ads done right.
https://m.youtube.com/user/1veritasium [youtube.com]
I am very impressed with this guy...
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday December 23 2020, @05:11AM (1 child)
This is so true. The handful of times I have jumped through someones hoops to see some of their precious "content", I have always been vastly disappointed. Usually just a few paragraphs of useless watered down nothingness.
The very fact that a site insists everyone keep their pants down usually tells me that they already are desperate, and not likely to be paying skilled employees to produce anything worthwhile.
I'd also say they should be forced to show their sites to their mothers. But, they probably already rape their mothers. The scummy content alone is enough reason to block ads. There is a time and place for porn, but a mobile video game ad (probably malware anyway) with some underdressed video game character shaking her oversized boobs doesn't belong on most web sites. All it takes is a push of a button and advertisers would happily serve you a wide spread hairy ass or even CP.
If only they had just stuck to advertising toothpaste.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday December 23 2020, @11:41PM
Remember Dick Stark pushing Remington-Rand computers, shavers, and typewriters on 1950's TV game shows.
The commercials were as good as the program.
To me, he was so authentic... Trustable. Even as a kid, he had me looking forward to when I would be old enough to use Remington Rand business products.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday December 23 2020, @04:50AM (1 child)
THIS!
They refuse to take even the slightest bit of responsibility for the ads they present, but want me to open my computer to whatever they throw at me. That includes such shenanigans as presenting a complete fake desktop animation showing a "virus scanner" finding all manner of horrors on "my computer" (quite amusing since it showed a windows desktop on my Linux system), and on weather apps, an ad with "TORNADO WARNING" in flashing red letters.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday December 23 2020, @10:09AM
Yep. If viewing an ad requires running code from some random third-party site it's no safer than if the site were to ask the viewer to download and run an unknown, possibly (likely) malicious binary. Even assuming you trust the site you're visiting enough to do that, that doesn't mean that trust extends to the websites of every advertiser on the planet. Which is what the "please disable adblock" shit is asking you to do: give code execution rights for your PC to anybody willing to toss a few bucks to an advertising platform.
You want me to view your ads? I will if you can provide them in a safe, sane way. Which means images and text, or fuck off. But nobody does that at all, so I just block everything now, fuck 'em all.
The only reasonably sane ad services I can remember ever seeing were those old text-only ones from Google and a now-defunct advertising service called "Project Wonderful". They worked even when I had JS fully disabled and were largely text or static images, no obnoxious shit. So it's no wonder PW died, it wasn't sleazy enough to live; meanwhile Google lived because it evolved to become the sleaziest of them all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 24 2020, @02:37PM
Because if there's really such an ad company I wouldn't mind whitelisting their ad site (while having javascript off for their site). I don't even care if they track me (even better if they are really good at showing ads that are interesting to me). My concern is avoiding malware and other malicious ads.