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It looks like Adblock Plus may be selling out those using it to block all online advertising, with a confidential source recently telling the Financial Times that the company behind the popular add-on, has been taking payments to allow some adverts on to its whitelist. At least four companies, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Taboola have paid undisclosed sums to Eyeo GmbH to allow their adverts to get though it's blocking add-on.
The free to download add-on is available for both Firefox and Chrome and this is obviously how the German startup plans to monetize their creation. Ben Williams, from Adblock Plus explained that “over 90 percent [of advertisers who apply] get whitelisted for free”. There is also an option to turn off these Adblock approved whitelists as well, so if you do want to keep using it at least you don't have to see these whitelisted adverts.
This does demonstrate however that big online advertisers such as Google, do see advert blocking software as a threat to their business models. Google has even gone so far as to completely remove all ad blocking software from the Google Play market place, meaning that Android users have to go elsewhere to find a way to block intrusive adverts on their mobiles and tablets. Strangely it has not yet, removed Adblock Plus from the Chrome web browser store, but it knows that doing so would create a massive backlash against it's browser.
While Adblock and similar tools are useful on some sites that are stuffed full of adverts and Flash adverts that are terrible for lower powered devices, these adverts do also support the sites that are being viewed and many would not exist at all without adverts. So maybe allowing some unobtrusive, non-targeted adverts though is not all that bad and will help sites provide you the content that you love.
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KitGuru Says: Adblock Plus and other similar tools have grown out of a need, due to the web becoming increasing covered in horrible, irrelevant and intrusive adverts. Even if this allows some unobtrusive adverts though I don't think this is the end of the world. Do you use an ad blocker?
Source: Betanews
Me recommend using adblocker. Its part of my life. The other good alternative to adblock plus is Adguard which is also really good.
I don’t mind adverts in a corner or in a sidebar, I know they help pay for some sites I visit. But when they started taking over 50% of the screen, and I had to wait 5-10 seconds for a little “x” to appear in the corner before I could close them? That’s what drove me to Adblock.
There are sites that put even videos in their articles that start loading and playing automatically. In other cases sites are so bloated that you can’t even read the articles with so many distractions, sometimes popping up from all corners of the screen. In other cases the articles are not on the top of the screen under the site’s logo, but you have to scroll half the screen to read them, with advertisings and meaningless stuff on the top of the sites.
In most cases users are forced to react aggressively when they see a site becoming more and more bloated every time they visit it.
I use ABP also because of the overwhelming ads everywhere! On YouTube I stopped using ABP, as I knew it was the way for creators to get some profit for the amazing work they had pulled out. Soon after Youtube started showing those “unskippable” ads during videos, it was hello for ABP on YouTube once again… Ads serve the site owners to the certain point, but once audience gets fed up with them, it’s another story…
Surely people will just start using other adblocking software the second ABP stops being so effective? And if so what’s the point – they can’t pay them all off!
And you think ISP’s should be charging them for that shit, we pay for a service to browse surf and enjoy the web not pay for a service demanding every penny in our wallets!
The problem is that more and more people are using adblock, for instance I do not have a single friend that does not use it..
You always hear that consumers vote with their wallets, I don’t see how this is any different. We are sending a message and it is up to them to decide what the problem is and how to resolve it.
(Should you be from an add company, the problem is too many/invasive ads.)