Firefox: advertising thief
p2pnet news | Advertising:-
Huh?
But before we get to this, was Julius Caesar the world’s first advertiser? Says Yuko Tanaka on lian.com:
The urge to inform the public of official developments and pronouncements has been a characteristic of most autocratic rulers. This urge was fulfilled in ancient Rome by the Acta Diurna (”Daily Events”), a daily gazette dating from 59 BC and attributed in origin to Julius Caesar. Handwritten copies of this early journal were posted in prominent places in Rome and in the provinces with the clear intention of feeding the populace official information.
The Acta Diurna was not, however, restricted to proclamations, edicts, or even to political decisions taken in the Roman Senate, the actions of which were reported separately in the Acta Senatus (literally “Proceedings of the Senate”). The typical Acta Diurna might contain news of gladiatorial contests, astrological omens, notable marriages, births and deaths, public appointments, and trials and executions. Such reading matter complemented the usual fare of military news and plebiscite results also given in the Acta Diurna http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acta_Diurna and presaged the future popularity of such newspaper fillers as horoscopes, the obituary column, and the sports pages.
In short, advertising has been around in one form or another since the year dot and if love makes the world go round and money greases the wheels, advertising keeps them spinning, like it or not.
I’d much prefer to run p2pnet without it and I regularly turn down advertisers who want me to promote credit cards, gambling, so-called loan and student essay-writing services, and so on.
And Yes, as of a few days ago, words underlined in green started appearing and they are indeed links to ads. But I try to make sure they lead to authentic products and services. And I’ve tried to minimise their impact: ie, you don’t have to actively click on the ads to make them go away, and they only display for a couple of seconds.
Ad blockers
And there are, of course, ad-blockers, commercial and free. These are stand-alone or built-in applications designed to block intrusive advertising, and one of the best is included with Mozilla’s Firefox.
Back to You’ve reached this page because the site you were trying to visit now blocks the FireFox browser, it’s the headline on a new site dedicated to trying to convince us blocking ads we don’t want to see isn’t our right, and anyone or anything which helps us to do so is a thief.
whyfirefoxisblocked.com declares:
The Mozilla Foundation and its Commercial arm, the Mozilla Corporation, has allowed and endorsed Ad Block Plus, a plug-in that blocks advertisement on web sites and also prevents site owners from blocking people using it. Software that blocks all advertisement is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers. Numerous web sites exist in order to provide quality content in exchange for displaying ads. Accessing the content while blocking the ads, therefore would be no less than stealing. Millions of hard working people are being robbed of their time and effort by this type of software. Many site owners therefore install scripts that prevent people using ad blocking software from accessing their site. That is their right as the site owner to insist that the use of their resources accompanies the presence of the ads.
While blanket ad blocking in general is still theft, the real problem is Ad Block Plus’s unwillingness to allow individual site owners the freedom to block people using their plug-in. Blocking FireFox is the only alternative. Demographics have shown that not only are FireFox users a somewhat small percentage of the internet, they actually are even smaller in terms of online spending, therefore blocking FireFox seems to have only minimal financial drawbacks, whereas ending resource theft has tremendous financial rewards for honest, hard-working website owners and developers.
Does the ‘thief’ accusation and all those poor people being thrown out of work remind you of anyone?
The site concludes, “If you are offended by the Mozilla Corporation’s endorsement of dishonesty please contact the Mozilla Foundation and ask them to stop empowering internet theft.”
Definitely stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
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August 17th, 2007 at 9:17 am
“Software that blocks all advertisement is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers”.
Considering that web browsers are client side, this statement is fallacious. The developers construct a set of pages and scripts and upload it to a server. The server then accepts / declines requested connections from clients (usually web browsers). Ergo, clients determine what content they need, not the website, or the server.
The person who wrote that statement, either doesn’t understand the http request / response protocol, or is trying to speciously attack the freedom with which people browse the web, which includes the right to request only the content they desire. If that excludes advertising, then, that’s their prerogative.
nota bene:
The blocking of firefox relies on the HTTP GET request agent field, which can be readily changed by the client.
August 17th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Adblock plus is one of the great reasons to use Firefox. I always install it on others peoples systems for them. They always tell me afterwards that pages load faster, and it’s now a pleasure to browse. As far as i’m concerned, everyone should get firefox + adblock plus + g.filterset.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:22 am
any website that has any real impact on the web e.g amazon.com that blocks firefox will suffer a PR nightmare not to mention anty-monopoly / competition legal issues.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Since I no longer view commercial tv programs on the air, I find that I am far more sensitive to the commerical. As far as I am concerned it is a despicable practice. As long as FireFox will block them, I will use it. Still that isn’t the only tool to hand to be used to block ads that I so dislike. Windows includes free of charge, a host file. Only thing is, it comes blank and it is expected that the user fill it to make it work. Still should neither of these be successful, there are tons of other programs out there that do the same function, such as Admuncher.
This reminds me of the greed and stupidity of a certain CEO that had the balls to state that when you fast forward a dvd through the ads or go to the bathroom during the commercials, you were stealing. All this is, is spin to try and make the user feel guilty in hopes that the presenter of the ad will get more income. I don’t believe, won’t put up with it, and certainly, there is no content that ranks so high in interest I am willing to put up with that sort of attitude for a minute.
When I run into this sort of setup, I don’t pause for a second to think about it. I ignore both the site and the item that might have brought me there. I make certain that the cookie provided by the site is removed and blocked from ever having the chance of stumbling up on it again. Often I add the site address to the host file as well.
The owner of such a site might think his content precious. I beg to differ that it is on par with worthless to my interest solely by the attitude of the site owner alone. I chose where I go and where I stay. The owners of such sites have little control over that and never will.
I would suggest that if the surfing public feels the same way, no visitors showing up and that owners site, would have him changing his tune rather quickly if he wants to stay on line. I don’t NEED him or his ads; bet he don’t feel the same way if no one shows up.
FireFox continues to make headway into the computer surfer’s awareness. Europe leads the pack in adoption of the browser as the prime surfing product of choice. It is the security issues as much as the enabling of choice to the user that is driving this revolution. I long ago had enough of IE and M$’s lack of interest in securing the browser.
Of course, if I was really curious, I would use a live run disc of Suse linux with the Konquer browser. A browser that allows you to set what will be sent to the website as the identifying browser you are using. It really screws with sites when you tell it you are using IE but won’t accept the IE format to take in the ads.
Beyond greed, this guy has a lot to learnn about shackling the publics options. I won’t be his guinea pig.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:58 am
“Ad blocking is theft.”
To which I say, in the immortal words of Bender the Robot
(from Futurama):
BITE MY SHINY METAL…
August 17th, 2007 at 11:08 am
To be honest, I can understand the advertisers insistence that his ads get viewed by the reader without being subject to software that blocks the ads.
However, if advertisers truly are insisting that the sites they support use a script to prevent sites being viewed by clients with ad blocking software, then they need to be consistent and cease from allowing their ads in popup windows.
After all, the reader is reading the website, not the popup windows that appear without the reader’s consent.
Allowing popup advertisements without consent of the reader is just as bad, if not worse, as readers blocking ads they should be looking at.
August 17th, 2007 at 11:16 am
And anyway Newton will make a mint from the in your face ads here
August 17th, 2007 at 11:37 am
“And anyway Newton will make a mint from the in your face ads here.”
So far, in the two days these have been active I’ve earned a grand total of $10.82 (ten dollars and eighty-two cents)
Wowee!!!!!
Let’s see —- the Bahamas, maybe? Or Paris?
Cheers!
August 17th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Note the link to “Firefox Myths.” This doesn’t surprise me, since this guy has a history of spreading lies. Thankfully no one takes him seriously.
August 17th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
This is hilarious – I just visited the website whyfirefoxisblocked.com, and the page was blank – until I disabled my Adblock Plus! This website is included in one of the Adblock Plus filter lists that I subscribe to. So if you are running Adblock Plus, you probably won’t see their message – ever.
I haven’t experienced any sites that block Firefox, but there is a Firefox add-on called User Agent Switcher. It lies to websites that you visit, telling them that you are running Internet Explorer or whatever, while you keep all the features of Firefox. Installation of User Agent Switcher is simple, like all other Firefox add-ons. Just use Google to find it. If you are going to steal, why not lie as well.
I suppose that spreading the word about User Agent Switcher might constitute Conspiracy to Commit Theft according to these idiots, but I’m taking my chances.
August 17th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
In the immortal words of the late Eddie Gurrerro:
I lie, I cheat, I steal.
I also use Opera.
August 17th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I am switching to FireFox!
August 17th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
whyfirefoxisblocked.com is down who is attacking the site? Good job!
August 17th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
It’s the Slashdot effect.
HAHAHA!
And what about the use of hosts files for ad blocking? Nothing
he can do about this one now, can he:
127.0.0.1 whyfirefoxisblocked.com
By the time this is all over, no one is going to visit his sites. They’ll
all end up in hosts files or as banned sites in Ad Block Plus.
August 17th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Advertisement supports many a good site, and I have no problem with many types of ads. I am also a big user of Adblockpro. P2pnet.net is a perfect example on how to display ads. I see these ads when I view the page. If I am interested in the product advertised, I will click on the ad, and hopefully, Jon will see some revenue because of it. The reason I am using FrostWire this day is due to the fact that it was advertised on Jon’s website.
INTRUSIVE ads, however, are a different story. Most people who read books will be annoyed if someone else came over and stuck a leaflet over what they were trying to read. In fact, doing such a thing would be very rude. This is exactly what pop up and slide down ads do. When websites use such tactics, they get added to my block lists. If I am not able to block the ad successfully, I will try to hack together a solution or go elsewhere.
As far as over the air TV goes, I can understand some ads. However, most people pay an exorbitant amount of money for cable or satellite subscriptions. Since they are already paying to view the content, there is no real reason for these channels to be saturated with ads (besides greed), and yet they are. I have quit watching TBS and many other Turner stations simply because of their popup ads disrupting my viewing of the few good things they air. I also hate when commercials are blasted with high volume as much as I hate someone screaming in my face.
Other ads are simply inappropriate for children and family viewing (”Smiling Bob, Cialis, Viagra, etc.). I quit watching what little of G4 that was interesting because of the phone whore commercials. I imagine there are many, many others who feel the same way. The reason more and more people are blocking ads is because they are getting weary by the day of big companies shoving crap they don’t need or want in their faces. It seams that ads are becoming more intrusive by the day not to mention an invasion of privacy. Most people also resent being spied upon, and this is another reason why they use countermeasures against ads.
Jon displays ads appropriately, and therefore, I allow them to be shown on my browser. When people use the internet or watch TV, they are looking for a pleasant or informative experience. When an unpleasant advertisement is show, that detracts from the user experience. This is the main reason why people block , ignore or otherwise dispense of advertisement. If advertising companies want to reach people, they need to make their ads more pleasant and less intrusive. Failing that, people will use countermeasures so that they will not be subjected to unpleasant experiences. This is common sense and simple psychology.
Advertisers and the people who display content need to accept the fact that people now have a choice on how they view entertainment and information. I myself and many other people will refuse to buy products that are advertised intrusively. Many of us will also use other content if we cannot get away from intrusive advertisements. Thanks to the Internet, this other content is now much more readily available. Again, we are the customers, and we have choice and more power to exercise out choice thank to the Internet.
August 17th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
They can suck my ass hairs.
August 17th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
For those wondering what to do with that empty hosts file:
http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
August 17th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
They have the answer in their hands, if only they switched their brains on and listened: “only are FireFox users a somewhat small percentage of the internet, they actually are even smaller in terms of online spending”. At risk of offending some people, independently minded people are more likely to use Firefox, and less likely to be swayed by an ad. It’s precisely because there’s a totally ZERO chance that I’m going to be interested in Lavalife, Classmates.com or Vonage that I block the ads. I’ve been on the web since about 1996, and I haven’t responded to a single ad, so what exactly am I stealing?
August 17th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Lol, Congrats on your $10.82 Jon. Cheers to you too.
August 18th, 2007 at 12:24 am
You know, back when you had an occasional non animated on on a web page, it wasn’t bad. The ads didn’t eat at your system resources, the websites didn’t install adware of spyware on your computer, and the internet was a grand place to browse.
Then, you had to “surf”. Why? Because the internet became choppy. Obnoxious popup ads began to appear, animated gif and flash images began to appear in growing numbers on single pages, the latter of which consumes large amounts of memory, slowing your browsing down, hampering you computer’s multitasking abilities, and being a real pain in the arse. The minute these things started happening, the day ad companies thought they could take computer power from you, the day the decided to force such things upon you with no other options for those who weren’t tech savvy, that was the day I advocated adblocking programs.
Sadly, that day came way before firefox, and possibly even before such programs evolved to be truly useful.
You say block firefox? I say block you.
And your ads as well. Good riddance.
If I need to go to your website, I’ll use opera with adblock, and have it identify itself as IE or some other browser.
Bite me.
Kudos on this article.
It really stimulated on of my pet peaves.
This is my first visit to this site, and it seems the ads on this page aren’t obnoxious, nor are they flash images (but that could change from a refresh I suppose).
Its websites like this that deserve to have their ads viewed I suppose.
August 18th, 2007 at 3:30 am
Hehe. They’re funny. They think we care. That’s cute.
August 18th, 2007 at 3:34 am
OMG! How can I re-request all those zillions of ads I’ve skipped since 1996 (I use Lynx) to compensate the poor, starving, indebted Content Creators?
August 18th, 2007 at 6:26 am
When popups first started to appear online I sought out something to block them, the Proxomitron.
When I was sick to death of IE, I sought an alternative, and I have been using firefox since version 0.5. Adblock is one of reasons I have stuck with it.
Oh, and if you want to go where you want and view whatever content you like, install a plugin called ‘User Agent Switcher’ and set the user agent to IE6.
Lets see this little monkey and all his friends try to stop that.
August 18th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Jon builds a website. The website consists of HTML encoding that suggests a certain display and functionality, according to open standards endorsed by the W3C and others.
I own a computer. My computer runs a web browser that renders a website based on the HTML and based on my individual preferences. Above all, I retain ultimate control of how my computer runs. Basic property rights give me that power.
That’s how the Internet works.
Any business model which tries to ignore the functionality of the Internet, by asking a computer owner to surrender control of his own machine, is therefore fatally flawed. If there’s one thing we, as p2pnet readers, should know by now, you don’t get to call people thieves for asserting their personal rights and rejecting a bad business model.
August 19th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
I was actually wondering when something like this would get addressed someway shape or form – maybe not in the accusation of stealing, but the proclamation how much ad-blocking “hurts.” Because let’s face it, AdBlocker (Plus) with Filterset.G are awesome plug-ins which make it easier to block ads than ever before, for free.
Speaking of the two plugins, it’s interesting to note that it’s not Firefox’s fault for blocking ads, heck, it’s not even AdBlocker (Plus)’s fault, but it’s Filterset.G which has the filter with it. And like many other people mentioned, blocking Firefox is not the solution because there are many alternatives with other browsers.
—–
In MacOS’s Safari, there’s PithHelmet (shareware)
In Windows, use the HOSTS file (but a bit complicated)
There’s AdMuncher an executable
There’s Opera, which does has a manual ad-blocker
And of course, just about every updated browser has a pop-up blocker.
—–
I find it useless to be upset about this, since in life there are more frustrating things than with computer politics. After all – just use the other alternatives in the other browsers, or like someone else mentioned use User Agent Switcher, an add-on which pretends to be a different browser.
Jon, if you have several websites which do this, let me know – I’d like to be informed.
August 19th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
So basically, “theft” is now defined as “any situation in which someone doesn’t make as much money as he or she thinks he or she should”.
Got it.
August 19th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
I use FF and don’t have any extensions installed but I still manage to block ALL adservers!
http://www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html
Works great!
August 19th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
The advertiser lost me at the ‘hard working’ part. Real hard working folks could afford more things in life if they weren’t supporting the advertising welfare bums.
August 20th, 2007 at 3:49 am
This is cool. Kind of encouraging really. It means these system sucking, spyware installing, rip-off, spammy, bottom-feeding, scum suckers are finally starting to get the point.
And your right spam boy. We Firefox users don’t want your viagra, so get the fuck off our internet, and go whine to your mummys. We don’t care.
August 20th, 2007 at 4:47 am
People,
there is an alternative to HOSTS file hacking in IE: http://www.ie7pro.com/
I rarely use IE, but there are a few services which still seem to get away with excluding everything else. Yahoo! Launchcast is one of these, and it has started running very processor-intensive ads alongside the song info. This addon (IE7 only I think) cleared that little annoyance right up.
So maybe these idiots should block IE as well? In fact, why not block every user agent? Can’t be too careful…
Chris
August 20th, 2007 at 8:40 am
I was just thinking, I wonder if the people behind this ever use fast forward to pass commercials on their TV programs. Or leave the room when the commercials are on TV.
If they do, then they are only hypocrites.
There site doesn’t even have a contact address.
August 20th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Jeez, I’ve been house sitting for a few days so I watched a few programs on cable. OMG, I changed the channel every time commercials came on. Who knew I was stealing?
P.S. After watching a while I have concluded that I would not have cable or satellite TV in my house even if THEY PAID ME! What a load of crap.
August 20th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Who’d want Yahoo or IE anything for any reason?
August 21st, 2007 at 3:06 am
Launchcast is pretty good, highly customizable, free radio. As Pandora is no longer available in the UK, this is a pretty good substitute. Might be possible to make it work using the activex plugin for Firefox, I suppose – haven’t tried.