Blocking Adblock Users without Javascript

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Geek on the Hill
I know some people here have Web sites, so I wanted to share my latest way to block and/or annoy Adblock Plus / Adblock Latitude users.

All this is a simple PHP script that opens three nested divs with IDs selected from Adblock's "EasyList" subscription. The script should be included in the PHP code at the beginning of the content you want to protect. You will also need to close the divs at an appropriate place on the page.

For example, if you use a common header and footer for all your pages, you may want to insert the script at the end of the header, and three </div>'s at the beginning of the footer. That would allow the header and footer to display, but nothing in between, as long as Adblock is enabled.

Here's a demo page: http://www.rjmsandbox.com/ABP_Blocker/ . Try it with ABP enabled and disabled to see the difference.

Here's the script:

PHP:
<?php
// first div
$fcontents = join ('', file ('ab1.txt'));
$s_con = split("~",$fcontents);
$div_id = rand(0,(count($s_con)-1));
$output = "<div id=\"" . $s_con[$div_id] . "\">";
$output = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n"), "", $output);
echo $output . PHP_EOL;

// second div
$fcontents = join ('', file ('ab2.txt'));
$s_con = split("~",$fcontents);
$div_id = rand(0,(count($s_con)-1));
$output = "<div id=\"" . $s_con[$div_id] . "\">";
$output = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n"), "", $output);
echo $output . PHP_EOL;

// third div
$fcontents = join ('', file ('ab3.txt'));
$s_con = split("~",$fcontents);
$div_id = rand(0,(count($s_con)-1));
$output = "<div id=\"" . $s_con[$div_id] . "\">";
$output = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n"), "", $output);
echo $output;
?>
Here's the code for the demo page:

HTML:
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>PHP Blocker Demo Page</title>
</head>

<body>
<p><strong>Protected Content Follows</strong></p>
<? include("adblock-div-generator.php"); ?>
<p>Velit ullamcorper ut vestibulum porta eros nam gravida a a velit a integer per vestibulum senectus ipsum a feugiat egestas in condimentum integer suscipit adipiscing a nam. A adipiscing tristique mi nullam velit parturient praesent venenatis dictum a condimentum hac parturient proin lacus malesuada morbi habitant eget a condimentum hac nec eu habitant fames condimentum. Consectetur a cum fusce egestas auctor consectetur tortor vestibulum mi scelerisque pharetra turpis vitae quam eros vestibulum nisl. Per natoque tincidunt eu scelerisque eleifend in pretium mi adipiscing leo proin a sed a laoreet mus potenti taciti mus dis cras convallis elementum sociis elit vestibulum lorem praesent.</p>
<p>A interdum fames ipsum vestibulum ut conubia eu ullamcorper duis magnis imperdiet gravida adipiscing commodo tempor velit a orci ullamcorper nunc adipiscing. Parturient consequat non dis sagittis dapibus accumsan per amet habitasse eu a himenaeos a magna neque platea diam. Eget laoreet aptent varius ornare a tempus velit a ligula diam varius tempor quis consectetur. A vestibulum mus dis consectetur mi ullamcorper in at ullamcorper massa laoreet senectus maecenas platea condimentum posuere. Dapibus at a gravida curae dictumst eget enim sit a purus bibendum habitasse imperdiet parturient cum cras a a parturient quis fringilla ac fermentum lacus litora ut cras. Parturient mus suspendisse elit parturient a parturient parturient a pretium vestibulum dolor a id arcu condimentum phasellus per adipiscing massa dignissim adipiscing eros odio a.</p>
<p>Condimentum urna turpis scelerisque nullam venenatis mi rhoncus id parturient habitant morbi sed conubia quam vivamus vestibulum a amet dignissim adipiscing ad in sociis sociosqu non nam. Fringilla quam suspendisse scelerisque magnis a accumsan himenaeos parturient est a at massa a eros id vestibulum aliquam facilisi libero enim parturient mi hac condimentum. Consectetur nam ipsum scelerisque porttitor placerat et vel montes nostra torquent a suspendisse a scelerisque adipiscing aenean id sapien sodales mus parturient. Vestibulum diam adipiscing a a semper leo turpis scelerisque consequat lectus ornare dis ullamcorper adipiscing. Laoreet at sagittis convallis parturient accumsan integer ridiculus volutpat vestibulum odio ante facilisis parturient nisl.</p>
<p>A vestibulum feugiat adipiscing elit felis parturient ante fermentum tellus condimentum cursus morbi eu metus a id facilisis taciti ad a non lacinia accumsan nec at senectus pharetra nibh. A accumsan odio at condimentum viverra quam convallis platea velit lacinia pharetra suspendisse nascetur dignissim velit a per pharetra euismod curabitur commodo.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><strong>End of Protected Content</strong></p>
</body>
</html>
To make it extra annoying, the three div IDs are randomly selected each time the script runs, so every time the user opens another page, he would have to disable the filters all over again (or disable Adblock altogether) in order to see your content.

The IDs are selected from three text files populated with banned IDs selected from EasyList. Look for the entries beginning with ###, copy three handfuls of them to text files, Remove the ###s, and separate the entries with tildes. Then save them as ab1.txt, ab2.txt, and ab3.txt.

Here's one as an example:

Code:
ContentAd
~
ContentAd1
~
ContentAd2
~
ContentAdPlaceHolder1
~
ContentAdPlaceHolder2
~
ContentAdView
~
ContentAdXXL
~
ContentAdtagRectangle
~
ContentPlaceHolder1_adds
~
ContentPlaceHolder1_advertControl1_advertLink
~
ContentPlaceHolder1_advertControl3_advertLink
~
ContentPolepositionAds_Result
~
ConversationDivAd
~
CornerAd
~
CountdownAdvert
~
DARTad300x250
~
DFM-adPos-bottomline
~
DFPAD_MR
~
DFP_in_article_mpu
~
DFP_top_leaderboard
~
DartAd300x250
~
DartAd990x90
~
DealsPageSideAd
~
DivAd
~
DivAd1
~
DivAd2
~
DivAd3
~
DivAdA
~
DivAdB
~
DivAdC
You can see the other two example text files here and here. Any handful of banned div IDs from EasyList can be used, however.

Rich
 
By the way, I know the script can be cleaned up and iterated rather than simply repeated three times. I'll get to it in the morning.

Rich
 
I don't wish to be annoyed, and I would certainly not use a website that tried to annoy me.
 
I don't wish to be annoyed, and I would certainly not use a website that tried to annoy me.

Likewise. I just browse elsewhere - it's not like there aren't other sites with good content & willing to sell me products without annoying me.

Rich, if you'd be kind enough to post a list of sites that you put that/similar code on, I'd be glad to add them to my "do not browse" list or add them to the router block list.
 
I don't wish to be annoyed, and I would certainly not use a website that tried to annoy me.

Yeah, that. I very quickly decide I don't need what's on that site if I can't see it with AdBlock on.

And I realize that advertising supports the "free" internet. But if the advertising was not pop-over, pop-under, open/close (moving all the content and links around as you're trying to click or read) I wouldn't have resorted to AdBlock in the first place.

I'm not sure how we arrive a detente in this environment. I support ads that don't "pollute" the environment and make it unusable for my intended purpose (which is usually research). I appreciate that much of the content is "free" to me because advertisers support it. But when I can't use the site because of the ads, I get a tool to make it usable. And then I can't use the site with the tool, that pretty much takes me out of using it at all.

John
 
Yeah, that. I very quickly decide I don't need what's on that site if I can't see it with AdBlock on.

And I realize that advertising supports the "free" internet. But if the advertising was not pop-over, pop-under, open/close (moving all the content and links around as you're trying to click or read) I wouldn't have resorted to AdBlock in the first place.

I'm not sure how we arrive a detente in this environment. I support ads that don't "pollute" the environment and make it unusable for my intended purpose (which is usually research). I appreciate that much of the content is "free" to me because advertisers support it. But when I can't use the site because of the ads, I get a tool to make it usable. And then I can't use the site with the tool, that pretty much takes me out of using it at all.

John

This ^^^^
 
^^^^^ Well said! No offense intended, but If I can't block your ads, and don't need your specific content enough to pay for it, I don't need your content. A habit I developed while doing on-line investigations. :)

Jim
 
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To each his own. My opinion is that ABP users are not generating any revenue for me anyway, so I really don't care if they go elsewhere. In fact, good riddance to them. They're doing me a favor by saving me the bandwidth.

This is even more true considering that the latest forks of ABP and ABL no longer respect the "Acceptable Ads" standards (as if they had the right to decide what is and is not acceptable, but that's another issue), and judging by the comments in their forum, most ABP users have always disabled the "Acceptable Ads" feature, anyway.

If you disagree with my approach to ABP users, then don't use it. My feelings won't be hurt in the least.

Rich
 
To each his own. My opinion is that ABP users are not generating any revenue for me anyway, so I really don't care if they go elsewhere. In fact, good riddance to them. They're doing me a favor by saving me the bandwidth.

This is even more true considering that the latest forks of ABP and ABL no longer respect the "Acceptable Ads" standards (as if they had the right to decide what is and is not acceptable, but that's another issue), and judging by the comments in their forum, most ABP users have always disabled the "Acceptable Ads" feature, anyway.

If you disagree with my approach to ABP users, then don't use it. My feelings won't be hurt in the least.

Rich


....we have reached detente, and so quickly! Thanks for the heads-up on the forum. I had no idea there was such a thing!

Jim
 
Rich, is there a better (more acceptable to you as an site author) tool for getting rid of the egregious ad content without killing properly formatted and embedded ad content? As I mentioned, I have no problem with ads on sites, its the pop over and format changing ones that I am trying to get rid of. If there's a better tool than AdBlock I'd be interested.

John
 
One of the reasons I bailed on Yahoo was the annoying ads which would move across the screen and block my view of anything, waste my time trying to stop them. Enough of that nonsense. Now I don't use Yahoo at all. Judging by what I hear, I am not alone in this exodus. So go forth and plaster banner ads; evolution will sort it out in the end.
 
Rich, is there a better (more acceptable to you as an site author) tool for getting rid of the egregious ad content without killing properly formatted and embedded ad content? As I mentioned, I have no problem with ads on sites, its the pop over and format changing ones that I am trying to get rid of. If there's a better tool than AdBlock I'd be interested.

John

Not that I know of, John. But frankly, I don't see many of those sorts of ads anymore, at least not on halfway-decent sites.

ABP was supposed to be the program you're looking for, by the way. When ABP first came out, they objected mainly to pop-ups and other intrusive ads. But as time went on and many webmasters -- including myself -- actually tried to work with accommodate Wladimir Palant and his flock of crybabies, it became clear that for most of them, there was no such thing as an "acceptable ad." The standards for what was "acceptable" became absurd.

Last I checked, pretty much any banner above the fold or in a content div was unacceptable, as are any ads with animation, ads that are too colorful (seriously -- ads that are too colorful are considered "distracting"), or even text ads that changed color or other attributes (such as becoming underlined, for example) when hovered -- even if all the links in the site, ads and otherwise, used that same behavior.

It's hard for me to come up with any ads that are less intrusive than Amazon's, and yet they're banned as a group. Same thing with Adsense, most of whose ads are not visually annoying, my low opinion of Google as a company notwithstanding. Similarly, all the ads from entire ad networks like Linkshare and Commission Junction are blocked -- even simple, un-animated, blandly-colored banners.

The truth is that to the majority of ABP users (well, at least the ones who post on their forums), there is no such thing as an "acceptable ad." They feel entitled to view the content, exactly the way they want it, on none other than their own terms, even it it means essentially stealing it from the person who's already giving it to them for free. The way they whine, moan, and complain in their forum (which I won't reward with a link -- I'm sure you can find it yourself) every time they have to look at a single ad is truly nauseating. You'd think they'd lost a limb the way they ***** and moan about their perfect lives being thrown into turmoil by their having to see a single ad. Oh, the injustice!

I tried working with Palant and the ABP "community," but it became pointless because the definition of what was "acceptable" became an increasingly small target until it eventually vaporized into something utterly absurd. Had that not been the case, then ABP itself would have been the program you're looking for that only blocks truly intrusive ads.

Search up their forum and read some of their incessant whining, if you like. Maybe that will help you understand why I feel absolutely zero obligation to that bunch of snot-nosed, self-centered whiners and crybabies.

Rich
 
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Rich, I hope all websites with your script are identified as having malware.
 
Rich, I hope all websites with your script are identified as having malware.

That would require quite an expansion of the definition of "malware" to include three nested divs that do nothing whatsoever client-side. But hey, whatever.

Your comment does, however, lead me to suspect that you may be one of the self-centered, snot-nosed, whining crybabies to whom I alluded earlier; so I'll take it for what it's worth rather than feeling offended.

Rich
 
[snip of well written and informative post]
Rich

Thanks, Rich. One site which was terrible on the expanding/contracting banner ads was CNN. They'd expand at the top of the page and then just about as I was ready to click and article, they'd contract and I'd click something unrelated. But the've got a whole new format for the new year so we'll see. I still see plenty of ads with AdBlock on (unless I've somehow turned it off. Hmm, better check that.)

I am using Ghostery which gives me individual control of trackers. I like the individual control and I'm not a whiney crybaby (I hope). I expect and even want some ads. Just not ones that cover the content and move around. Blink if you must (although I prefer the rollover changes. As a user I get to control what I see that way.)

John
 
Thanks, Rich. One site which was terrible on the expanding/contracting banner ads was CNN. They'd expand at the top of the page and then just about as I was ready to click and article, they'd contract and I'd click something unrelated. But the've got a whole new format for the new year so we'll see. I still see plenty of ads with AdBlock on (unless I've somehow turned it off. Hmm, better check that.)

I am using Ghostery which gives me individual control of trackers. I like the individual control and I'm not a whiney crybaby (I hope). I expect and even want some ads. Just not ones that cover the content and move around. Blink if you must (although I prefer the rollover changes. As a user I get to control what I see that way.)

John

Nah, I actually agree with you. I've never used a single pop-up ad nor any that in any way changed size or obscured the content. I also disable user tracking on any ads I can, and I have disaffiliated from a few ad agencies because of their [lack of] privacy practices. I hate intrusive ads and those that violate privacy as much as anyone, quite frankly.

My problem with ABP is that the whiners and crybabies are the ones who set the tone and come up with the ridiculous and impossibly restrictive definitions of what ads are "acceptable;" and the EasyList, which is the most common set of definitions and is near-ubiquitous, incorporates these absurd definitions and applies them even to users whose involvement with ABP is at most casual and who wouldn't mind seeing static banners and other non-intrusive ads.

Rich
 
I would settle for auto-blocking auto-play videos that most news media sites have now. I stopped going to CNN's website due to their intrusive ads and auto-play videos, complete with 30 second commercials at the beginning.
 
I would settle for auto-blocking auto-play videos that most news media sites have now. I stopped going to CNN's website due to their intrusive ads and auto-play videos, complete with 30 second commercials at the beginning.

This is my primary complaint with websites these days. Ads on most sites are generally unoffensive, and I typically have AdBlock set to allow ads on the websites I frequent.

But I can't stand websites that generate noise when they're opened. I've learned to leave Flash disabled by default in my browsers, which stops most of the offenders. If there's a video I want to watch, which is rare, I'll right-click and enable Flash for that single component.
 
I would settle for auto-blocking auto-play videos that most news media sites have now. I stopped going to CNN's website due to their intrusive ads and auto-play videos, complete with 30 second commercials at the beginning.

The other most annoying things nowadays, in my opinion, are overlay scripts that come up about five seconds into viewing a page and that ask the visitor to sign up for a newsletter, "like" the site on Farcebook, complete a survey, etc. I almost always click out of those sites.

Rich
 
Longtime ABP user, but didn't know they had forums.

I have to imagine that the people you see on those forums are not typical ABP users. Sort of like the people active on this forum are not typical pilots. People active on forums are, however, typically whiners and crybabies with enough passion about a subject to bother seeking out a forum. :rolleyes:

Anyhoo... Back to my frustration-free browsing...
 
Reasonable advertising is OK - though if I have to pay for a site, I ought to be able to opt-out of advertising for that site. Very tired of pop-ups, pop-unders, resizing and moving ads, as well as those that are designed to encourage click-fraud either by placing the links elsewhere in the page or slow-loading so that fast hands cause an advertising click instead of the intended article. The ones that do data mining or load malware (broadly defined) are bad too. And yes, I includes the "must explicitly opt-out" links in Adobe downloads to be in the bad category.

It's apparent that the advertising industry doesn't police itself well: it is no surprise that the ad-blocking industry does the same. Arms race begets arms-race. Mutually assured destruction.

"Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?"
 
My opinion is that ABP users are not generating any revenue for me anyway, so I really don't care if they go elsewhere. In fact, good riddance to them. They're doing me a favor by saving me the bandwidth.
Some ABP users will disable ABP for sites they find useful and wish to support, but they need to browse the site first to make that determination. Many will leave it on 100% of the time, of course. You may have better data than I do whether traffic from the former group pays for the bandwidth used by the latter.

I do wonder whether the ABP forums provide a representative sample for judging of the attitudes of ABP users. The members of flyertalk.com are likely not representative of the average airline passenger, for example, though they all use the 'product'.

EDIT: Oops, I see Joe already made my second point. What he said.
 
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Some ABP users will disable ABP for sites they find useful and wish to support, but they need to browse the site first to make that determination. Many will leave it on 100% of the time, of course. You may have better data than I do whether traffic from the former group pays for the bandwidth used by the latter.

I do wonder whether the ABP forums provide a representative sample for judging of the attitudes of ABP users. The members of flyertalk.com are likely not representative of the average airline passenger, for example, though they all use the 'product'.

EDIT: Oops, I see Joe already made my second point. What he said.

It's hard to accurately measure the number of users blocking ads because you have to rely on indirect measurements. ABP downloads the banned content. It just prevents the browser from rendering it. In addition, most of these methods require client-side scripting that ABP disables once they figure it out. (They even disable requests to disable ABP that they think aren't worded politely enough. These people are a trip.)

The way this whole thing came about yesterday is that I was talking to a colleague of mine whose entire business is on the skids because of Adblock. His whole business is building niche sites for oddball interests. He hires writers to write the content, and he builds and monetizes the sites. Adblock is ruining him. All the methods he's tried to detect ABP and request that users disable it fail after a while because ABP figures them out and disables the scripts.

I'd been noticing a higher rate of blocking, as well. I also noticed that Pale Moon had come out with its own fork of ABP that didn't respect the "acceptable ads" initiative, and that another fork of ABP that also disregarded the initiative was becoming very popular. The users who refuse to look at ANY ads are gradually becoming the majority. This is reflected in the EasyList definitions. Practically anything that could possibly be an ad is blocked by EasyList.

It occurred to me that anything that had a chance of working would have to be 100 percent server-side, which ruled out JS and jQuery. So I suggested to Keith that we come up with a server-side Adblock-blocker. He told me it was impossible, so I went ahead and wrote one. It took me about 20 minutes using an existing script that I've been using for ages as a generic randomizer / rotator. That's why it's not refined at all. It was a quick-and-dirty script to prove the concept.

I'm not in Keith's position because, firstly, I'm semi-retired; and secondly, my ad-monetized sites are more hobbies than anything else. On a good month, my ad revenue is between $500.00 and $600.00, all of which is gravy. Keith, on the other hand, relies on ad revenue to feed his family.

But I find the attitude of ABP users -- again, judging by the ones on the ABP forum -- to be far more noxious than Keith does, probably because he's younger than me and is more used to dealing with spoiled crybabies who were told how "special" they were too many times for their own good. They feel entitled to have anything they want, exactly how they want, on their own terms, and without concern about how their self-centeredness may affect others.

One of the things you read a lot in the ABP forums is how they blame the failure of sites that go under because ABP cut off their ad revenue on the sites' owners' "failed business model." They don't consider that they did anything wrong at all by cutting off the revenue stream of someone who was willing to give them content for free. They have the "right" not to look at ads, you see; and if it puts the site out of business, it's the site owner's fault, not theirs.

They're real big on rights over there at ABP. Responsibility, not so much.

Ironically, Palant himself is one of the more reasonable personalities over there these days. But he's pretty much lost control of his flock. Palant's definition of an "acceptable ad policy" are unworkably restrictive, but at least he acknowledges that ads that pay the bills. He's also the one urging users to enable acceptable ads, but they're not listening; and in any event, it really doesn't matter because EasyList blocks anything that even hints of being an ad.

For my part and in my own defense, I gladly admit that I detest the prevailing attitude of the forum users at ABP. I even admit that I consider annoying them to be a worthy goal in itself. Whether it helps or hurts my own revenue in the end, the mental image of an ABP user stamping his feet and throwing a tantrum because I locked him out of my content gives me a serious case of the giggles.

Rich
 
I use ATT.net for my primary email. I pay dearly for this, as it is a part of my broadband ISP service. Unfortunately, ATT subcontracts their email accounts to Yahoo. So when I check my email on the web, I get all the Yahoo ads even though I am paying a premium for this email. I know, I could use a mail client like Outlook, but I like the convenience of the web, and also use my phone and tablet to check my mail.

So yes, I use Adblock.
 
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... ABP downloads the banned content. It just prevents the browser from rendering it. ...

Curious and hoping you can help me understand:
The ad content is downloaded but not rendered ... How does the ad provider know that the user hasn't seen (wasn't shown) the ad? I mean, how do they know the browser didn't render it (or what the browser did with it after download)?

My feeble mind has a model that says the ad "server" would be agnostic to the display of content.
 
Curious and hoping you can help me understand:
The ad content is downloaded but not rendered ... How does the ad provider know that the user hasn't seen (wasn't shown) the ad? I mean, how do they know the browser didn't render it (or what the browser did with it after download)?

My feeble mind has a model that says the ad "server" would be agnostic to the display of content.

Most of the PPV / PPI ads (all of them actually, as far as I know) use JS to report back whether the image was rendered. The JS usually checks the DOM to see if the rendered size corresponds to the image size. Hidden elements will have dimensions of 0 x 0.

As a webmaster, you can compare the numbers from the ad companies with those that would be expected based on server stats, and approximate the percentage of users who are blocking the ads. Or you can also use scripts to scope out the DOM.

Rich
 
. They feel entitled to have anything they want, exactly how they want, on their own terms, and without concern about how their self-centeredness may affect others.
Rich

Perhaps I have missed something in this thread, but I see some of the same attitude in your posts. YMMV.
 
Perhaps I have missed something in this thread, but I see some of the same attitude in your posts. YMMV.

Not to pile on, but I as thinking the same thing.

Reminds me of the hopper from DISH. THAT was a genius move by the CEO. He has the technology to basically Adblock every commercial on TV. He brought it to the negation table with the networks, so they had to cut deals with him.
 
Perhaps I have missed something in this thread, but I see some of the same attitude in your posts. YMMV.

The difference is that the site owner owns the content and is giving it away subject to certain terms, which the recipient is blatantly violating.

I compare it to picking up a hitchhiker who gets into my car, immediately tells me to go **** myself, and proceeds to change the radio station and mess with the heater. And if I kick his ass out and leave him on the side of the road, he'll blame me for stranding him.

Rich
 
The way this whole thing came about yesterday is that I was talking to a colleague of mine whose entire business is on the skids because of Adblock. His whole business is building niche sites for oddball interests. He hires writers to write the content, and he builds and monetizes the sites. Adblock is ruining him. All the methods he's tried to detect ABP and request that users disable it fail after a while because ABP figures them out and disables the scripts.

One of the things you read a lot in the ABP forums is how they blame the failure of sites that go under because ABP cut off their ad revenue on the sites' owners' "failed business model." They don't consider that they did anything wrong at all by cutting off the revenue stream of someone who was willing to give them content for free.

My opinion is that ABP users are not generating any revenue for me anyway, so I really don't care if they go elsewhere. In fact, good riddance to them. They're doing me a favor by saving me the bandwidth.
Just so we're clear, this guy builds sites that cater to a small group of people, about things he knows nothing about so he has to hire writers, and his sole revenue is ads? On the surface this sounds like sites such as about.com, where search engines lure you to the site with catchy titles but the content is just fluff. How many visitors has he made money from just because they were baited from a link on Google?

If Adblock is "ruining him", then he does have a "failed business model". People have hated ads since the very first one appeared on the internet. As soon as the first popup happened, developers were creating ways to stop them. Adblock isn't new. It's a direct response to people like him that bombard us with ads everytime we open our eyes. To build a career that relies on irritating people by having them view what they don't want to see is a bit silly. As silly as moaning about people that don't want to be subjected to that nonsense.

If you are so hostile to visitors that don't generate revenue, you might want to fix your code. The whole page still gets sent to the client, using your precious bandwidth. As it is not obvious to the user what happened, they are unlikely to turn off Adblock. All they see a header and footer, which looks like a company with a broken website that they don't care about, or a web designer that sucks at his job. Either way, they didn't get a chance to support the site or even see if it's worth supporting. Not everybody with Adblock is constantly checking what's being blocked and adding to their lists.

Your attitude is of "I'm taking my ball and going home if I don't get what I want". Sorry, but if that's your business model, you're in trouble. All it takes to steal most your visitors away is to make a site that is less offensive than yours.
 
The difference is that the site owner owns the content and is giving it away subject to certain terms, which the recipient is blatantly violating.

I compare it to picking up a hitchhiker who gets into my car, immediately tells me to go **** myself, and proceeds to change the radio station and mess with the heater. And if I kick his ass out and leave him on the side of the road, he'll blame me for stranding him.

Rich
In this case you're picking up a hitchhiker and kicking him out when he won't give you a bj. :D

The problem is the visitor doesn't get a chance to know what the terms are before they visit. Maybe you should add "This website is ad supported, Adblock users keep out!" to the meta search tags so people using Google would have a chance to go somewhere else instead of blindly clicking on a link to a site where they are not welcome.
 
In this case you're picking up a hitchhiker and kicking him out when he won't give you a bj. :D

The problem is the visitor doesn't get a chance to know what the terms are before they visit. Maybe you should add "This website is ad supported, Adblock users keep out!" to the meta search tags so people using Google would have a chance to go somewhere else instead of blindly clicking on a link to a site where they are not welcome.

Not a bad idea, but on production sites, there is a line that advises visitors to disable their ad blocker if they can't see the content. If they're still too dull to get it... well, that's not something I can fix.

The one thing that I seem not to be conveying adequately is that I really don't want these visitors, anyway. I consider them parasites, and I don't want them deriving whatever small benefit they might get from my content. So if they want to go elsewhere, they can do so with my blessings and gratitude.

So although your advice that I might be driving these parasites away is appreciated, that's pretty much what I'm trying to do. If they insist on being obstinate about their "right" to benefit from other people's work while spitting in their eyes, I really don't want to share anything with them. That's my right. They have theirs, and I have mine.

If I ever get really bored, I may just write a script to block the IP addresses of visitors who repeatedly try to get around any adblock-blockers that I choose to implement on sites that I own. That's my right, too.

Rich
 
Actually it's more like broadcast TV, I don't watch the commercials there either.
On the technical side, why the need to avoid JavaScript?
 
Actually it's more like broadcast TV, I don't watch the commercials there either.
On the technical side, why the need to avoid JavaScript?

Because JavaScript runs client-side and can be disabled by ABP.

Rich
 
I see a lot of references to whiners and crybabies because web surfers don't want to see obtrusive/intrusive ads. Does this also refer to web developers that want to foist those ads on us but can't get past ABP?

I get that some developers (as you say you are) don't do the pop-up/over/under/through crap, but a great many do. I can't tell before I go to a site whether it will be well behaved or not, hence I have installed and use ABP.

I'm always surprised when I use a public computer at how noisy most web sites are without ABP. I get that sites that don't actually sell products have to pay the bills somehow. And on sites that enable the "pay if you like it" links (like this one) I do pay if they provide me with useful content. But I'm not about to open the floodgates back up and uninstall ABP. Not unless/until the bulk of web developers decide to clean up their act.

Whining? Crying? Call it what you want - I call it evolution. Figure out a more courteous and respectful way of bringing in revenue and I'll wholeheartedly support it. Until then you can call me whatever you want because I won't be listening.
 
All it takes to steal most your visitors away is to make a site that is less offensive than yours.

Doing this paid for my Bonanza :D. The folks who bought Audi World learned this the hard way too.
 
I see a lot of references to whiners and crybabies because web surfers don't want to see obtrusive/intrusive ads. Does this also refer to web developers that want to foist those ads on us but can't get past ABP?

I get that some developers (as you say you are) don't do the pop-up/over/under/through crap, but a great many do. I can't tell before I go to a site whether it will be well behaved or not, hence I have installed and use ABP.

I'm always surprised when I use a public computer at how noisy most web sites are without ABP. I get that sites that don't actually sell products have to pay the bills somehow. And on sites that enable the "pay if you like it" links (like this one) I do pay if they provide me with useful content. But I'm not about to open the floodgates back up and uninstall ABP. Not unless/until the bulk of web developers decide to clean up their act.

Whining? Crying? Call it what you want - I call it evolution. Figure out a more courteous and respectful way of bringing in revenue and I'll wholeheartedly support it. Until then you can call me whatever you want because I won't be listening.

Gonna go sticking your fingers in your ears, closing your eyes, and saying, "NA NA NA NA NA NA" over and over again, are ya?

Rich
 
Being on Dish Net, I have limited use before getting throttled. What really, really ****es me off is autoplay videos/ads.

I don't really care about the sidebar/banners. The scrolling ads are irritating. But, the ones that block the content after say, 5-10 seconds when you have just started to read the content are absolutely offensive. They require an X out to close and many times they come right back.

Click to another page and guess what is back. I just stop using sites that use this tactic. Sometimes the x is so damn small, it triggers an ad click so now I gotta dump that new page as well. The website gets their "ad click" credit and I get ****ed off.
 
Stuff on the internet costs. Generating content took somebody's time. Building the pages takes time. Hosting the site takes storage, CPU and network bandwidth. I know everybody knows this at some level, but they seem to forget it when dealing with broadcast TV, radio, internet, etc.

So, you can have access to sites where people produce content and host as a hobby (which, if they get popular won't last long-bandwidth costs to much), you can have sites paid for by ads, or you can have pay sites.

Given the history, initially there wasn't that much web traffic. Then many of the players thought "Hey! This web stuff is just the ticket to let people look at our "magazine/newspaper/video/..." content. Then people stopped buying magazines/newspapers etc. So the providers took one of basically three approaches: paywall/subscription, voluntary contribution (wikipedia), ad revenue.

As with all technologies, some people began to abuse the system. (Anybody have an idea how much SPAM comes in to email? My work account, which is somewhat publicized in the industry and over 10 years old, gets >85% SPAM every day. And I have to pay for bandwidth and server side capabilities to deal with that volume. Which also costs money.) Intrusive ads are one of those abuses. As are sites that grab headlines and have fluff content. As are people who insist that their web content be free and they not be subject to any form of payment.

I try to be a good citizen and have no problem using sites like Rich's (I'm not sure I've ever visited one of your sites, but from what you've written I'm pretty sure you don't have moving target pop-over ads.) I'll even click on an ad from time to time if it interests me. But I have no use for sites with obnoxious ads. And I have no use for people who insist that the web be "free" to them. (And I'm not too keen on sites like Huffington Post where the content is generated for free while others make money off it.) "A worker is worthy of his hire."

Try to put yourself in the other person's shoes and see if you feel the same as you do now.

John
 
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