Adblock Plus, scourge of websites, seeks industry deal

YahooNews ^ | February 7, 2016 | Marie Julien

[hiho hiho]

Berlin (AFP) - For its users, Adblock Plus stands as a bulwark against intrusive advertising. But websites dependent on advertising revenue to remain free-of-charge see the open source software as a scourge.

Now the German firm behind Adblock Plus is taking a more conciliatory tack, reaching out to its adversaries to find an "acceptable" level and form of advertising on the net.

Adblock Plus' owners, Eyeo, have dubbed the discussions surrounding its plans to set up an independent committee for acceptable advertising as "Camp David", alluding to a 1978 peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.

And that gives an idea of the scope of the difficulties in getting Internet publishers, advertisers and ad-blockers to sit around the same table and talk.

Developed 10 years ago and downloaded hundreds of millions of times, the open-source software Adblock Plus is one of the most popular ad-blocking programmes, aimed at preventing intrusive adverts from popping up on the screen and tracking a user's search history for commercial ends.

Its rising popularity is a red rag to a bull for Internet websites that can only remain free thanks to revenues from advertisers.

Adobe and Pagefair, which help Internet sites circumvent the blockers, have estimated that nearly $22 billion in revenues were lost globally last year as a result of ad-blocking software.

--------- "Clearly, Eyeo's primary aim is to get its hands on a share of the advertising revenues."

[hiho hiho]

"Clearly, Eyeo's primary aim is to get its hands on a share of the advertising revenues."

[r_barton]

People using ad blockers is really a consumer boycott of crappy, annoying, take-over ads. We are tired of putting up with it. I wouldn’t block quality, but I refuse to be a target of spammy garbage.

[ShadowAce]

[r_barton]

Switch to UBLOCK ORIGIN. It works much better as an ad blocker.

[Prov1322]

I use both ABP and uBlock. They play well together and I completely forget that there are ads incessantly popping up on websites until I am on someone else’s computer and see all the wonders I am “missing”.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

I’m perfectly willing to tolerate ads on a website. I’m not willing to tolerate auto-playing videos with sound.

[Azeem]

Make a deal, face the wheel.

And all my wheel slots say, “Will find another open source ad blocker that didn’t sell us out.”

[PAR35]

I was late to AdBlock. I used Noscipt and a 3rd party popup blocker to block some of the more intrusive ads. I finally gave in and added AdBlock because of the intrusive spy cookies in even the simplest ads. I understand the need for ad revenue to support the internet, but until they go with clean, static ads, I’ll just opt out.

[IronJack]

In other words, AdBlock will charge advertisers for access to YOUR machine.

That's awful nice of them.

[oh8eleven]

"... acceptable" level and form of advertising on the net.
The only acceptable level is zero. I'm so sick of commercials on TV - and pop ups on the PC, I'm thiiiiiis close to canceling all of it.

[RC one]

[montag813]

AdBlock’s creators deserve to reap BILLIONS from any deal.

[Rebelbase]

It’s astounding that there are still FReepers who complain about popups and ads on linked articles.

[McGruff]

For Opera I use:

Flashcontrol 7.0.0
Prevents Flash content from loading unless you allow it

[oh8eleven]

Why is it astounding?

[pa_dweller]

nearly $22 billion in revenues were lost globally last year as a result of ad-blocking software

I'd estimate $10 billion of that was lost by toupee sellers due to fewer people having to tear their hair out from dealing with all the ads.

[newfreep]

Another believer in “UBLOCK ORIGIN” - far lighter & faster without the bogging down of AdBlockPlus

[FunkyZero]

The ads never bothered me until they started scripting entire screen hijacks that pop up and gray out/disable the entire screen. The video ads that force you to watch a 30 second ad before a 15 second news clip are also over the top. That’s when I started using adblock and element hider. Sidebar ads don’t bug me at all... had they kept it clean, this wouldn’t be a problem. It’ll be a sad day if they start taking bribes from advertisers. Hopefully someone else will step in and fill the void if it goes there.

[Resettozero]

Test-driving uBlock Origin now with Disable HTML5 Autoplay just added now. Still running ABP also while waiting for further news.

[r_barton]

The nice thing about Ublock Origin is you can whitelist sites that you like and allow them to get the ad revenue. So you can turn it on and off for various sites by clicking on its icon.