AdBlock Plus and Facebook are in an arms race. “The makers of Adblock Plus (ABP) have already found a way to defeat Facebook’s anti-ad-block tools. An updated filter list for ABP will disappear web ads on Facebook’s desktop site – including banners the social network said it would force people to see even if they are using ad-blocking tools.”
AdBlock Plus has been blocked in China. “ABP communications boss Ben Williams said in a blog post that the ban was part of a larger effort by the state to crack down on technology tampering with ads. In the process, Williams claims, it and other ad-blocking tools are being ‘bullied’ out of the mainland as casualties of China’s tough rules on internet advertising. ABP stands to lose about 159 million of its users as a result of the policy.”
Are you using AdBlock Plus? Are you seeing error messages when you try to use YouTube? You’re not alone. “In our tests, the problem would only occur on Chrome with Adblock Plus, while Firefox with the extension installed would work just fine. Others have reported that the problem occurs in every browser. The issue appears to also only affect certain Google accounts, so some users have simply changed accounts to avoid the error.” I get that error occasionally, even using YouTube Red with no ad blocker, so…
I’m not going to lie to you: I use an ad blocker. I felt like I had to do that after the auto-playing audio at 2am, the browser crashes, and the malvertising scares. I want to support publishers, but do I have to do it at the cost of my own productivity? I hope this gets resolved one day. Anyway, I used AdBlock. And yesterday I discovered that AdBlock has been bought. I don’t know who bought it though, because the buyer wants to remain anonymous. I also learned that AdBlock will be participating in what’s called “The Acceptable Ads program,” where some group of individuals decides what’s a non-annoying ad and lets it through AdBlock. I don’t even care about that, though. You know why? Because according to the Chrome store, AdBlock can both read and change all the data on all the sites you visit, as well as […]
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