Probably the best way to defeat ad blockers is to make the ads as unobtrusive and un-annoying possible. Facebook seems to have succeeded at this . Mobile adverting may also be more resistant to ad blocking.
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An ad-blocker doesn't care how "unobtrusive" or "un-annoying" your ad is.
The sure-fire way to defeat an ad-blocker is to serve the ad from the same domain as the parent site. If they did that, ad-blockers would suddenly not work, and would have to become a lot more complicated to figure out which code is an ad and which is normal content. It's fairly easy these days because they outsource the ads to other domains, so the ad-blocker just has to block anything pointing to doubleclick.com and friends.
Adblockers have been blocking sections of HTML for years. Here's how to write such rules for Adblock Plus: https://adblockplus.org/filters#elemhide
There's even an extension you can install to create such rules by pointing and clicking on the offending section of the page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/elemhidehelpe...
I think uBlock does this out of the box.
It does. I used it to block twitter's new 'moments' icon, for example.
Ad blocking is a symptom of something else. Sure you can use same domain and make current ad blockers not work, but people will figure out better ways.
The reason why people install ad blockers in the first place is because they are becoming more and more aggressive. Toning them down is much smarter long term strategy, but it requires cooperation from everyone that is involved in advertisements.
People won't install ad block if they have no reason for it.
The whole thing reminds me of piracy, you can go add anti copying mechanisms, sitting down paying websites, start suing people or you start creating services like Netflix.
Ehh, noticed some typos made by Swype, but can't edit this post anymore, the last line should be:
"The whole thing reminds me of piracy, you can go add anti copying mechanisms, shutting down pirate websites, start suing people or you start creating services like Netflix."
Whenever I reinstall my computer, I spend ~10 minutes online before I think "Oh, yeah, I need adblock". Websites are vastly different before and after, and they remind me why I need it.
If everyone's ads were unintrusive, I'd never remember to install adblock
It doesn't matter if one site does it. They all have to do it.
The world would be a better place if ad blockers did win, anyway. Journalism in particular seems to be much better under a subscription based model.
> The world would be a better place if ad blockers did win, anyway. Journalism in particular seems to be much better under a subscription based model.
When was this time that journalism was done under a purely subscription model?
There was a time when subscriptions formed a much greater proportion of journalistic income.
There are also publications which rely less on advertising and more on subscriptions (or other income, like, say, Al Jazeera).
> There was a time when subscriptions formed a much greater proportion of journalistic income.
Actually, that is totally false. Historically, print advertising formed a far greater proportion of newspaper revenue than subscription revenue did.
In fact, only in the digital age (and the collapse of advertising revenue) has subscription revenue overtaken advertising for some publications. [0]
You're mythologizing an imagined past which never existed. Every kind of journalism, from The New Yorker to the NY Post, has consistently been heavily subsidized by advertising to survive, with advertising forming the bulk of revenue.
> or other income, like, say, Al Jazeera
Personally, I find advertising a much more palatable funding source than pollution from a dictatorship.
[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/the-new-york-times-now-gets-m...
There was a time when subscriptions formed a much greater proportion of journalistic income than they do now.
>You're mythologizing an imagined past which never existed
You seem intent on building up straw men and tearing them down. I'll let you do it in peace.
>Personally, I find advertising a much more palatable funding source than pollution from a dictatorship. > >[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/the-new-york-times-now-gets-m....
Pollution from a dictatorship? What?
I'd much rather read the New York Times than the filth spewed out by businessinsider, bad though the New York Times often is.
> There was a time when subscriptions formed a much greater proportion of journalistic income than they do now.
You're clearly intent on ignoring my argument, because otherwise you would actually check the citation which I offered. It directly refutes this point. Taking the NYT as an example, only in the last few years has subscription revenue formed a greater proportion of revenue than advertising.
> You seem intent on building up straw men and tearing them down. I'll let you do it in peace.
I think you're the one building a straw man. If you want to engage in an actual argument, offer some counter-citations.
> Pollution from a dictatorship? What?
Al Jazeera is only able to produce journalism without relying in advertising because the Qatari government funds it with oil money.
Before the advent of internet.
Wrong. For most of history, journalism has been subsidized by advertising. (See my other reply for references.)
To this day, the vast majority of newspaper revenue comes from print advertising.
The limit is surreptitious product placement - the commercial corruption of the text. I run uBlock Origin myself, and agree that some kind of blocking is essential. But this seems an inevitable consequence - as product placement is being used in TV shows to counteract TIVO, etc.