Show HN: FuckFuckAdblock (opens in new tab)

I run a modified version of PiHole which does the same. Doesn't block 100% of ads, but it blocks enough to keep me happy.

I implemented DNSSEC + DNSCrypt just for sake of it too.

I'd like an ad blocker which retrieves the ads as an unprotected browser would, but doesn't display them on the screen. That will stop some sites nagging me that I must turn off my ad blocker to see the content.

What about https ads?

I would imagine that the cost of a false positive if something goes wrong with the ad network would be pretty damaging.

I don't know if it's still the case but Comedy Central's video player was atrocious, the video wouldn't play unless it successfully played an ad but ads just straight up failed to load 30/40% of the time so you had to refresh, watch an ad to get to the video controls, scan back to your place, watch another ad because you crossed a 'commercial break' point, have that fail 10 minutes later, and repeat. The whole experience was awful and lead to me just scraping the site for the direct steam link and eventually just deciding that Jon Stewart wasn't worth it.

I guess you could have something that makes it still successfully retrieve a working image, just not the actual ad maybe? I guess then an ad-versary could check if the images are signed or w/e?

They usually bind to events the browser triggers before a network request is made. This lets them literally block the browser from downloading any content from a source that may register your IP just from the connection (pixel tracking, etc). Searching the DOM and removing elements would still require a network request to obtain the content before realizing that it's a tracked element.

By blocking the request from happening, we can truly say that an Content Blocker on iOS (for instance) speeds up the browsing experience because the request isn't even initiated.

Or: http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?hostformat=bind...

would this be more effective than something like adblock.sh https://github.com/teffalump/adblock

Was it http://www.privoxy.org/ ? e.g. http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/quickstart.html

Perhaps he was using ettercap: http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/ettercapfilter

Such detection will also trigger when your ad-network is down, so if you say something rude to the user or block the website's content you are gonna have some angry feedback from a lot of people.

They can try to serve me spam/ad content along with the rest of content they provide, but I am not obligated to read it, nor is my browser obligated to display it, any more than I am obligated to read the contents of my spambox (even if some of that spam is coming from companies whose services I use), in the same way that I am not obligated to read every billboard on my way to work.

Companies post ads because because they believe that some people will read them, and that promise is enough to generate money. That valuation is between them and the clients to whom they are selling ad space, and places no obligation on me. If at some point that business model becomes unprofitable, they can pick a different one.

"Do you want servers to figure out that you're blocking ads at the network level,"

I don't want anything. The server has content, I GET content.

Scenario I: I don't block any content;

Scenario II: Same as Scenario I, but I don't click ads;

Scenario III: Same as Scenario II, but I don't look at the ads;

Scenario IV: Same as Scenario III, but an opaque overlay is placed above the ads;

Scenario V: Same as Scenario IV, but the ad content is furthermore moved outside of the viewport;

... My scenario: I don't GET ad content. Or any content I decide not to GET.

"they have a lot more right to do it, if it's in their TOS" I am in a cybercafe in Matakana. What is this TOS you speak of?

The internet is an open medium. You want to trade our (edit: both mine and the server's) bandwidth (ads I would GET, but not pay attention to) for your content? Fine. I'll pipe it to /dev/null. Or save us both the effort, and not GET it at all.

re the milk analogy: They can just make a rule that you can only get the milk and sugar if you purchase the coffee? Which, seems like is basically the case?

They can include a contract thingy before showing the content for the first time if they want. If I intentionally agree to not block ads, I don't think I'm going to violate that agreement.

But I haven't made an agreement like that, so my choice to allow ads to run is not due to any obligation.

I choose not to block ads, indeed, partially so that the websites receive payment. (perhaps partially also due to laziness though) But I also "defend" (insofar as my comments on the internet can do so) the right to block ads if one so chooses, and has not explicitly made an agreement not to.

In the same way that a person who views a donation funded website is not obligated to donate, hoping instead that it will be funded by other people who donate, a person who views a website which is ad supported is not obligated to view the ads, hoping instead that other people (such as myself) will view the ads.

Ads are* a donation, not a purchase.

*in the absence of a contract

edit: also I disable 3rd party cookies

I think we'd all accept the odd ad. But that's not what is happening. We are being systematically tracked as we browse content, and the amount of advertising and tracking we don't even see if mind-blowing.

I'm not at all surprised that most people want to opt-out of being stalked :-)

This is exactly what the website of BILD, a major German tabloid, is doing. They will not serve you content if they detect an ad blocker.

The longer term end game might be more like a world in which access to information is so efficient that advertising ceases to exist as an industry, because anyone offering a product or service is discoverable by whoever needs it. A future generation with a shorter attention span considers advertising morally equivalent to slavery because it deprives people of their time without compensation. Since nobody's livelihood depends on advertising any more, it's easy for everyone to hold the view that it's bad. A future fantasy writer envisions a Daenerys Targaryen character who goes around banishing advertising by force, opposed only by the occasional sick and twisted adversary with whom the audience is at a total loss to identify. Future historians look for shreds of evidence that some esteemed political figure was morally offended by advertising in a personal way but refrained from speaking out against it for pragmatic reasons. Whenever I follow discussions of this topic, I try to imagine what that future society would make of them.

Interesting point. I will say that, if in the end the user will have to accept the ads anyway because all the content providers will refuse them otherwise then I better enjoy ad blocking while I can :-)

> Do you want servers to figure out that you're blocking ads at the network level, and tell each other not to serve to your IP?

Gonna be fun when such servers lock corporate IP.

For me it was approximately until the never ending popup era. You know, when you closed that popup, and another one came one, And then another one. And then another.

Then I got some popup blocker, then some other stuff, then AdBlock, then AdBlock plus, and I started white listing site that didn't abuse their users.

Plenty of people mentioned "a while ago" so I'll refrain from that but I'll add something: I give them a chance whenever I accidentally open Edge/IE or find myself using a computer that doesn't have ublock installed (I love you mom!). It's amazing how much shit they ad to most websites that gets blocked. Every single time it's a cringe moment of rushing to close the window or installing an adblocker.

Back when there were some default 'banner sizes' sites used to exchange ads. I remember 468 x 60 being one of the more prominent ones. It was just a static image or an animated gif.

Probably from the late 90s to the mid to late 2000s? And probably whenever she sits at a computer for the first time and hasn't get installed the blocker of her choice?

In the years of internet use before I started to use ad blockers.

I will.

I will also enjoy watching a large amount of "content" find out exactly how much they were actually worth.

I consider paywalls to be a good solution. I'd rather pay with my money than having to see ads. I even think it is more sane for websites as they are not reliants on the companies provding the ads, avoiding some corruption.

> Enjoy your future of pay walls!

I love how people say "I will!"

For starters, most won't. These are people who tend to be ideological and naive kids who probably still have their parents paying their bills. Or they don't really fully understand what the implications are. Also, subscription models have proven to be poor solutions and don't work very well at best, and at worst, completely fail taking the website with it.

Another thing, what about poor people? We talk about how people "are happy to pay for content they like!" Only, there are going to be a massive amount of people who simply can't afford to use the internet that way. If the entire internet turned into "pay as you go", the poor & working class are screwed. They're the ones who are going to be the hardest hit. Not just poor people in the U.S but what about all that traffic from other countries? And there is a lot of it... That's a lot of people who used to be able to keep up with current events, study science, math, history (educate themselves), chat on forums, make new friends, play games who now can't, because they can't afford it. To me, that's a shame. A travesty even if you take into account the educational aspect.

I feel like the people who push for the paywall & a la carte type solutions don't really consider the full implications of their suggestions. I mean, I thought about it myself the last time it came up on hackernews for weeks, no, months and I still have no clue how the internet would evolve as a result. And what little I did conclude wasn't good. Yet these people seem to be so certain...

That's only a scary threat to people who are afraid of spending money.

I think that would also imply a reduction in clickbait so I will!

It´s not about pay walls. For example:

I want to rent a flat and I´m ready to spend 30% of my mothly net salary so I go online and what do I see? 6 different irrelevant ads. And this is a site, where the the landlords have to pay for placing their adverts.

I want to go to the cinema and check out online the program. What do I see? 2 irrelevant ads on the site, one more before the trailer and if I buy a ticket I get in the cinema 30-40 mins of bullshit ads before the movie begins.

This is really distracting.

Content optimized to generate revenue through direct payments will be of higher quality than content optimized to generate ad revenue. For example a paid search engine would display the most accurate results instead of those results that are quasi accurate but most likely to generate ad revenue.

Also.on such an internet it would be easier to get users to pay for content because there would be infrastructure in.place and it would be the norm.

For me, precise and binding terms of service are what's at issue. When people start forking over dollars, they will be more sensitized to precisely what's being exchanged. They way the deal is structured now, they're implicitly agreeing, usually without knowing about it in the first place, to give over an unspecified amount and type of information to an unspecified set of businesses who will be licensed to use it in unspecified ways for an unspecified period of time. That's just stupid. I'd be all for an advertising-based model if there were precise terms of service that would be binding for both parties. Until then, I cannot prove that I'm not being screwed now or later by someone completely unrelated to the content I'm trying to read.

I paid for my TV channel and it still shows me ads!

That's exactly the point, i rather see nothing at all (if i don't have the budget to pay for something) rather than getting drained by all the advertising distractions, and i suspect many people feel the same.

A while ago, Internet was about people sharing things, freely. And it was an interesting place!

Not all the content has to be written by professional writers and a lot of code is actually written for free by volunteers...

The good way to avoid the future of pay walls is to share content. Users must bankrupt major copyright holders and media monopolies to stop them influencing laws and technology.

The thing is, that's not really true. Developers made it possible for advertisers to insert their adverts into web resources. Advertisers decided to use that power to track users through cookies, tracking pixels, localStorage and various Javascript tricks. Yes, there were no doubt a few developers working for the ad companies, but they are far outweighed by the mass of developers that work for content sites.

Web _advertisement_ developers did.

Also, to get money back for hosting content, ads was pretty much the only way, as a lot of people rather not pay a sub fee.

Patreon or similar options are the best I think.

> ad-blocking isn't about being privacy conscious

There are two kinds of readers in this world: those who can read with a bunch of gyrating monkeys, dancing squirrels or flashing crap in the sidebar, and those who can't. I'm one who can't. If the ads behaved themselves better, I might be able to tolerate them. As it is, I block all of them. It's quite jarring to use the web on a browser which doesn't block ads - I find it unusable, for page load-speed and composition reasons (ads constantly muscling in on the body text as they get dragged in).

> Heck, any third-party service can be a very good tracker. Are you also blocking Gravatar and Disqus?

GP mentioned Ghostery. AFAIK it does block these and many other non-ad third-party requests in its default configuration.

> But lets be honest, ad-blocking isn't about being privacy conscious.

Let's be honest, advertising is what pays for the whole menagerie of creepy snoops, therefore ad-blocking hurts even those creeps who track without ads of their own.

> tracking is done much more efficiently by very common utilities, like by Google Analytics, or the Facebook Like, Twitter's Tweet, or Google's +1 buttons

That's why Ghostery is blocking those for me.

I am sure that he meant these tools too, most if not all of which are on the adblocking lists.

> ... as the advertisers themselves lack the means of doing any meaningful analysis ...

What information/data do you have do back this claim in regard to the 'meaningful' analytics?

But adds are reason for the spying. There is no reason to collect all the data if they cannot monetize them. Currently there is no other way than adds.

WOW! Very insightful - I never knew I had an Advertising ID

This is how most advertising platforms work. Google and Facebook, for example, serve the ads themselves and don't give your information to the advertisers because that'd help the advertisers target you better without the help of Google. It still means they all collect and store a whole bunch of incredibly intrusive tracking information; for example, if I recall correctly iAd tracks and stores your GPS location to target you with ads.

I don't wont any single actor to have that much data about me. I block as much as possible. including stuff like Disqus or Gravatar.

Isn't it in-app advertising? If so then it's even worse. My understanding is that cookies are not shared across apps, so the advertiser on app1 cannot correlate your identity with the one on app2, defeating cross-app tracking (the app equivalent of cross-website tracking). If you make it a central, Appled owned (i.e. access to much more information) then you re-enable cross-apps tracking.

How is iAd different from say, Facebook or Google, except for the vast amount of data collected across sites, platforms and services by these companies? Don't Facebook and Google also match the user profiles that they create/manage with their ad inventory and display targeted ads? They're not really selling your personally identifiable information to advertisers, but instead provide only aggregate data about the reach. The advertisers have to trust Facebook or Google too for the matching.

[I'm talking purely about what these companies do, and not about malicious sites and other ad networks or about how safe the personal profile information really is.]

This is the opposite of what he wants as it furthers the effect of the tracking by centralising it to a single omnipotent vendor (as ads by Google currently are)

It sounds from your comment like you think that other ad networks (Google, Facebook, etc) _don't_ work this way? Sigh, I knew this would happen eventually as long as people kept cynically saying that ad networks "sell" your info to advertisers, knowing that those not familiar with the context would assume that meant that advertisers actually had access to the raw profile info.

I am leaning towards it. An analogy would be, "How much blood do you want to give; an ounce or a pint?" you still are losing blood but a heck of a lot less.

I couldn't stop myself from reading the GNU GPL section in Richard Stillman's slow paced voice.

I registered just so I could say, THANK YOU.

Never could I ever explain open source licensing better than this comic.

Rofl!

Unless you are a lawyer or have heard it from a lawyer, you should not claim (unqualified) what a license does or does not cover.

The last clause, I think, sounds like it is meant to cover the work in question (the code). I am not asserting this is true, but lawyers have accepted this as being true. For example, the free software foundation (which has lawyers more skilled in copyright law than most places) accepts this as a free license.

Please don't; by using it you aren't actually granting a license to your code at all but rather only to the license file itself. Read it carefully.

It also fails to disclaim liability, though the WTFPL does have an optional warranty disclaimer variant.

And no, I don't know what planet you live in, but it's not offensive to GPL evangelists (especially not more than proprietary licenses).

In fact, the big irony is that the FSF both approves the WTFPL and considers it GPL-compatible, [1] but the OSI rejects it entirely! [2]

The GPL evangelists have the upper hand here.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#WTFPL

[2] http://opensource.org/minutes20090304

If you're amused by the WTFPL, see also the Tumbolia Public License[1] and the Solipsistic Public License [2].

[1]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joshleaves/licenjs/4174e04...

[2]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matildah/SPL/fb35894f14be4...

You appear to be operating under the assumption that the license is novel -- it is not. This is a well established license, though unfortunately not as accepted by lawyers as most open source licenses so it ends up doing more harm than good.

The license is obviously a bit tongue in cheek, but it's no different than a public domain license to GPL evangelists, other than being less legally rigorous.

I don't get your comment at all. For the life of me I can't understand why you use the word offensive or why you seem to delight in this license so much.

If you actually want to offend the GPL enthusiasts, may I recommend the "Anyone but Richard Stallman License" (https://github.com/landondyer/kasm/blob/04ef65a38f72636b9925...) as a much better alternative.

I prefer BSD or MIT any day, I can't take the license seriously, heck even the Beerware License sounds like a better alternative, and a quite shorter one at that. As long as the whole liability claim is shoved in somewhere all should be well.

You can't charge money on each and every site, it makes no sense for eg. a blog and even if it did - transaction fees would make it infeasible. A blog still costs money to run/host, it has to get paid somehow.

Ads are basically a bad implementation of micropayments that the internet seriously needs.

First company to solve the problem of charging 0.000x per request will become the next Big Thing.

I think only the ISPs would be able to do this though, metered and bandwidth cost sharing, internet as a utility like gas/elecricity.

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

Why do you feel forced? Stop using websites which rely on advertising. Simple enough.

The reality is, money publishers get from ads are much more than they would get from content. You'll need insane amount of traffic to make it work with very low cost subscription costs that some will pay for.

Simple solution: Don't go to that site.

Personally, I'd rather be asked for a small donation towards the sites running costs than running ad blocker. Unfortunately, this type of option isn't available in all websites or media providers.

Unless there's a method where I can directly pay them with cash or BitCoins. I'm blocking their ads and consuming their service for free. For reasons already mentioned by others.

I'll use Nexus mods as an example (http://www.nexusmods.com/games/). When accessing their site (which I do regularly), their web service tells you that they need ads to survive and offer you a life time ad-free subscription for 2.50GBP. Of course, it only shows when it can detect you're using Ad Blocker Plus. But this is the subscription model that more clients need to use.

YouTube Red (not RedTube... made the mistake of recommending this to a client yesterday) is another similar method. Though everyone knows Google is trolling my browsing habits anyway.

I know you're joking but the latest season of south park covers the "arms race" between advertisers, ad blockers, and sponsored content in a very hilarious and relatively accurate way. The ultimate result of course being terminator style AI advertisements.

Can do: https://gist.github.com/clsr/3f5ca796463a0e6fc8af

(Fuck)^(n+1)Adblock

It still allows Google to track you. It's not a solution.

When the arms-race really gets going, we will need better names than these :)

Straight Jackin'.

You can get Privacy Badger and Disconnect lists in uBlock Origin. No reason to have all three.

Version 1.4.0 of uBlock Origin adds the ability to redirect a blocked resource to a local, neutered version of the resource. FuckAdblock is part of the available neutered resources:

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/db74ea310b966def35e84...

So a filter like the following one work with uBO 1.4.0 to neuter FuckAdblock on the site:

    ||fuckadblock.sitexw.fr/fuckadblock.js$script,redirect=fuckadblock.js-3.2.0