TECH PING Adblock extension ...sells to mystery buyer, refuses to name new owner

the Next Web ^ | 2 Oct '15 | Owen Williams

[Chickensoup]

Adblock, a popular extension for blocking advertising in Chrome and Safari with more than 40 million users, was quietly sold today.

The extension displayed a popup on October 1 saying that it is now allowing EyeO’s acceptable advertising — which allows advertisers to buy their way onto the whitelist — through the filter.

________________

I have recommended adblock a number of times but noticed when the last update which happened last week that I was seeing ads. And now I know why.

They are co-opted.

I am now trying Ghostary. Are there other adblocking extensions available that our techs recommend?

[Abby4116]

Does it work on IE?

My IE does not work at all. It didn't work in win 8.1 nor will it work in 10.

I use Comodo Dragon or Chrome with Ghostery and it does a good job.

[orangeTank]

uBlock Origin only supports Chrome and Firefox.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Blocking bump.

[Chickensoup]

same thing.

[Chickensoup]

Blue ads are still on startpage.

[Prospero]

Ghostery is more a tracker-blocker, and seems to work amazingly well, and makes for a great demonstration tool.

Just linked over to a story on the UK's Daily Mirror, for example, and watched 109 trackers tally up, after whitelisting. An eye-opener for those who don't quite get how the whole cookie thing rolls.

Adblocker has been a great tool, preventing the auto-loading of videos, especially on Breitbart, to name just one site. Before, I had to quit going there, there were so many of these obnoxious ads.

And, yes, I get the revenue stream appeals, but if I wanted to watch television, and have my wits scrambled, by laundry soap ads, I would watch SyFy all day.

Thanks for the Heads Up!

[Qiviut]

I haven’t looked into it, just saw it in the comments. I need to investigate. I don’t use Ghostary either so I’ll be looking at that as well. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.

[PROCON]

Yes, it was on the Lucianne site. ADBLOCKER did allow an out option which I took.

[ConjunctionJunction]

I’m not seeing any ads at Startpage.

[Chickensoup]

with adblocker previously when one used startpage for a search, the blue field paid for ads on the top of the of the results were not there, it was pure search, no ad.

Now the blue field paid for ads are back. Adblock no longer blocked them and Ghostary cannot.

[Kommodor]

No one expects the advertising inquisition!

(sigh)

[oh8eleven]

For those who are interested ... "Adblock vs. Adblock Plus: What’s the Difference and Which Is Better?"

[snarkpup]

Does Ublock Origin work OK with NoScript? And how much does it block that NoScript doesn't already block?

[Chickensoup]

would this be of interest to the Tech Ping list?

[Chickensoup]

This was written after the sale but before the new release.

[dayglored]

> would this be of interest to the Tech Ping list?

Sure would! Thanks to Chickensoup for the ping!!

AdBlock sells out ?!? WTF ... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: just search on keyword "windowspinglist".

[dayglored]

Note — this is from October 2015...

[Chickensoup]

Yes the news about the sale was Nov 15 but the change in performance I noted after update this past week.

[dayglored]

Aha, okay. Do you know how long this new release has been out? I want to warn my users here at work...

[Chickensoup]

Sometime in the past 7 days I noticed the download, probably in the past 4.

I removed adblock

If there is someone out there with adblock on they can look at update schedule or the info at addremove programs and know the exact date time.