Free Republic

Ad-blockers may seem like an answer to an internet user’s prayers. No annoying pop-ups, no promos before videos and no concerns about accidentally clicking on a virus. But for ad-driven websites, they’re a revenue leech that needs to be pried off. This is becoming one of the internet's biggest debates. More countries are cracking down on ad-blockers—the EU’s European Commission even proposed a rule this week that would allow media companies to ban users who use ad-blockers. The debate is no longer on the fringes with tech’s biggest names, including Facebook, weighing in. “Ads support our mission of giving people...

As the fifth anniversary of the social media-driven Arab Spring uprisings approaches, Egyptian authorities have arrested three influential Facebook administrators, accusing them of belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. On Saturday Egypt’s Interior Ministry charged two men and one woman, all in their late 20s, with membership in the Muslim Brotherhood and using social media to incite against state institutions. Combined, the three individuals administer 23 Facebook pages.

Ad blocking is something of a contentious issue, but it's one that has been brought to prominence in 2015. The adblockalypse arrived this year as the debate about whether disabling ad blockers was preferable to paying for content. Adblock Plus -- one of the best known ad blockers out there -- recently updated its acceptable ads policy which gives people the option of permitting certain ads to appear in their browser. But a new deal struck with ASUS means that anyone buying a phone or tablet from the Taiwanese company in 2016 will find that ad blocking is baked in...

Several years ago, we started to offer Acceptable Ads as a feature in Adblock Plus as a middle way between ad blocking users who opted out of traditional ad formats, while allowing publishers and content-creators to continue to monetize with unobtrusive ads. This first version allowed users to whitelist individual websites that they wanted to support. In 2011, we published a set of guidelines that our user community deemed “acceptable,” and these acceptable ads are shown by default to our users to allow a compromise between blocking all ads, or no ads at all. Since then, we have thought about...

... Adblock Plus already has a Firefox for Android add-on, though it requires installing two apps and setting them up. The company also has an Android app that blocks in-app ads, but it only works on Wi-Fi connections and has to be sideloaded and hooked up to a proxy. In other words, Adblock Plus isn’t easy to use on mobile. Adblock Browser is supposed to change that. “This is the first time we’ve really gone with a solution that is completely ours,” communications manager Ben Williams told VentureBeat. Adblock Browser wasn’t exactly written from the ground up. The team used...

I have long ago "cut the plug" and watch movies and TV exclusively thru the internet using sites like Veetle, Solar Movies, an Movies4k. I have always used no script and AdBlockplus as these sites are notorious for popups and ads...but once defeated the content is amazing. Recently I noticed videos have been lagging. The sound is fine but the picture keeps studdering/ quickly freezing and unfreezing. I have done all I can think, cleared temp files, reinstalled firefox, no success. I then disabled all add-ons and BINGO-movies now playing perfect-no lag...but the damn ads are back! When I reinstall...

Note: This is explicitly posted in my private blog rather than the Adblock Plus blog. This post represents my own opinion only. It is likely unwise to rant about a competing project but I just don’t want to keep my findings to myself. If you are here for Adblock Plus bashing and don’t care enough to read the post, please make sure to read the edit at the bottom nevertheless. On Chrome, two popular ad blockers are currently available: AdBlock and Adblock Plus. Despite the confusingly similar names, they are completely unrelated projects. I am in charge of the latter,...

Firefox's ad-removal tool is its most popular add-on. Now its creator wants to let you use it ethically. First, a confession: I read the Web without ads. For years now, I've been using Adblock Plus, a plug-in for Firefox that eliminates nearly every ad I encounter online. I understand the irony here; Slate and other publications I've written for make money from advertisements, so my blocking them is akin to an airline pilot siphoning fuel from his tank before he takes off. And now, by discussing the appeal of ad-blocking software in this column, you could say I'm making matters...