Article in the Boston Globe today about them and how they are threatening internet business. Are there universally recommended ones?
Ad Blockers
- Thread starter Bleedred
- Start date
I've been using uBlock Origin for a while now, after getting tired of the bloat of AdBlock Plus. I turn it off for most sites, but keep it for some obnoxious sites and certain elements of other sites that I find distracting (like the huge board stats block on here for instance).
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/10-ad-blocking-extensions-tested-for-best-performance/view-all/
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/10-ad-blocking-extensions-tested-for-best-performance/view-all/
Just to clarify, turning your adblock software on and off depending on the quality/reliability of the site is illogical. Even the most benign site (like SOSH) has no control over what servers the advertisers are using and some of the biggest and most 'reliable' advertisers are unaware that the companies serving their ads may be using 'secondary' tier servers to furnish portions of their ads. Those are far more susceptible to either being poisoned or actually harboring malware.
Sadly, with the state of things on the Net today, blocking virtually all ads is the only sensible first line of defense.
Sadly, with the state of things on the Net today, blocking virtually all ads is the only sensible first line of defense.
know very little about the details, but my tech nephew last weekend read a story that ghostery had some pretty incredible results in allowing pages to loan fast and efficiently
I've been experimenting with Ghostery for a couple of weeks, mostly as an effort to goose performance on my 2010-vintage macbook. Early returns are favorable!
nvalvo said:
Ghostery and Disconnect are privacy/tracking cookie blockers, not ad blockers. They are both very good at what they do, but limited. Ghostery is closed source which is a concern for privacy software. I'd recommend Disconnect in its place. For those with ethical concerns over ad blocking but still want privacy protections they are probably your best bet.
uBlock, and Adblock Plus, etc, can perform both functions, in terms of ad blocking and tracking/cookie blocking, as long as you enable the right sets of filters.
I recommend uBlock over adblock plus because it's more efficient on system resources.
With either, add the fanboy ultimate list and it should cover everything you need to block:
https://www.fanboy.co.nz/filters.html
I also run Disconnect in conjunction with this.
Joe Sixpack said:
There is uBlock and uBlock origin. The short story: Original author of uBlock gets tired of endless stupid support requests and hands off control to someone else who soon adds a donate button, and rewrites the wikipedia article to eliminate credit for the real author, seems to do little more than attempt to monitize the app. Infuriated original author forks to what requires a new name, hence 'uBlock origin' which is probably what one should choose.
AdBlock also has forked into several varieties, anyone using Palemoon should use Adblock Latitude, designed for Palemoon.
The Cost of Mobile Ads on 50 News Websites
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/01/business/cost-of-mobile-ads.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/01/business/cost-of-mobile-ads.html?_r=0
When I recently allowed my Moto X 1st Gen to update to Lollipop 5.1 I also decided to try a new app called Adguard. Unlike other adblockers, this app not only blocks browser ads, it claims to block ads in almost all apps. This sounded intriguing as I get a lot of news on the phone using News Google Reader Pro which serves up news using it's own interface, not via your browser and it's been riddled with ads.. Amazingly, the app seems to do just what it claims, currently free (though there is a premium version and while not explicitly stated it appears free use expires after some period which so far I can't figure out). There is a very active support forum, very responsive to users and the developer, who is in Moscow, speaks perfect english. The downside is, if forced to the premium version, he's made it expensive: $9.95 per year. I recommend trying the free version.
It works by running everything thru a VPN server, the neat part is that server is on your phone, not remote, so the app shouldn't allow data mining/surveillance by anyone including the app developer. So far after 2 weeks it also does not seem to be a battery killer.
It works by running everything thru a VPN server, the neat part is that server is on your phone, not remote, so the app shouldn't allow data mining/surveillance by anyone including the app developer. So far after 2 weeks it also does not seem to be a battery killer.
I have a friend who works in online advertising. Yesterday he went on a Facebook rant claiming that using ad blockers is the same as stealing content since the websites aren't getting paid. I don't have much knowledge in this area, but I think he's being ridiculous.