Posted on 07/30/2014 9:41:18 AM PDT by Utilizer
Note: This is explicitly posted in my private blog rather than the Adblock Plus blog. This post represents my own opinion only. It is likely unwise to rant about a competing project but I just don’t want to keep my findings to myself. If you are here for Adblock Plus bashing and don’t care enough to read the post, please make sure to read the edit at the bottom nevertheless.
On Chrome, two popular ad blockers are currently available: AdBlock and Adblock Plus. Despite the confusingly similar names, they are completely unrelated projects. I am in charge of the latter, yet people will occasionally ask me whether I would recommend AdBlock or Adblock Plus to them. There is certainly lots of room for improvement in Adblock Plus for Chrome, so my answer typically goes along the lines of: “These projects have different approaches but the resulting products are roughly comparable.” Recently, I looked over to the AdBlock for Chrome project and was shocked to discover that things changed, a lot actually. So next time somebody asks me about AdBlock and the difference to Adblock Plus, I can point them to this blog post.
(Excerpt) Read more at palant.de ...
Lots more details at link, with comments from users for those interested.
“Plus” is usually better. That’s what the “plus” is for....because it’s better. Don’t need a 5,000 word essay to know that. It’s common knowledge.
I’ve noticed that adblock plus caused it to block more than it should. I had to switch back to just adblock.
That’s what’s called jumping to conclusion - you may want to bother yourself and read more than just the title.
If you actually read the source link you would know that Adblock and Adblock Plus are unrelated platforms with different developers that are monetized in different ways
Adblock is gathering data on you and has transparency issues.
Plus appears to be the better choice.
Being on a 56K dial up line, AdBlock Plus and I are great friends.
Web site home pages that used to take several minutes to download now take 30 seconds or less thanks to ABP and some serious tweaking on my part.
If I had high speed Internet, I’d still use ABP just to get rid of the noise it prevents.
Great product!
I should not that “Adblock” and “Adblock Plus” are different extensions from different authors, despite their similar-sounding names. They implement their functions differently and it looks like Adblock is doing a bit more than simply phoning home and reporting where you are located.
The author of Adblock Plus is pointing out some worrisome trends in the other extension that he noticed as people kept asking him the differences between the two.
Worthy of note if you do not want information about you and your browsing being sent to others.
Agreed. I use Adblock Plus and Ghostery both, and they do great for blocking unnecessary ads and pop-ups. Really solved quite a few headaches on this end.
Here are just three of the worrisome changes:
AdBlock 2.6.11 (2013-10-25): The AdBlock feature which sends a unique user ID to the AdBlock server every day (you knew about this one, didn’t you?) has been extended. The server can now decide that the user should see a survey — this one is being opened in a new tab, immediately, no matter what the user is doing right now.
AdBlock 2.6.14 (2013-11-09): AdBlock won’t just send a unique user ID to its server now, it will also transmit user’s setting determining whether Google Search ads are allowed. The changelog message for this release: “Settings measurement.”
AdBlock 2.6.20 (2014-02-11): AdBlock will now send a request to goldenticket.disconnect.me each time it starts up — but not in the first two days after installation. It took a while until people noticed, apparently AdBlock partnered with Disconnect.me and advertises their services to selected users. The Disconnect functionality has been actually bundled with AdBlock and ads in their search were whitelisted. Another interesting addition: the unique user ID mentioned above will be sent to getadblock.com every time an AdBlock user visits that website. Or if an AdBlock user visits getadblock.com.malicious.com. Or any other website that has getadblock.com somewhere in the host name. If I were owning a website relying on ad revenue, I would have inserted a hidden frame into every page and used that bug to track AdBlock users — maybe some websites already had the same idea? And how does the changelog describe these changes? “Beta test for survey” – yes, sure.
Mommy, what's a 56K dial up line?
Just kidding.
I have one other. Maybe unique to the Firefox browser. It’s called Privacy Block Tracker Block.
OK... how about just going into the Preferences Menu and checking ‘Do not allow sites to track me’? I believe both Opera and firefox have that option.
If you don’t update how can it send data that it did not do in previous versions? It cannot, so therefore use the older version.
Most users will have no clue how to disable this, if it is at all possible considering the way browsers such as firefox have been progressing lately.
Sorry, I forgot about that. That’s a good option to take.
Here’s a link to TrackerBlock:
http://privacychoice.org/trackerblock
And a link to the add-on for Firefox:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/trackerblock/
Ghostery is excellent. I have all of the tracking companies turned off except for Google Analytics which is pretty harmless.
NoAds Advanced is also one I am testing, but still not really certain if it is helping or not so I may consider removing it in the future to see if it makes any difference.
http://filehippo.com/en/download_firefox/11540/
Google whatever Model number you wish and it will be available. To stop auto updates go to Options / Advanced and there it is in simple English.
Thanks for the link. I am sure that some of the more technologically-challenged FReepers will find the information most helpful. :)
I use 11.0 and it works just fine with AdBlock Plus and NoScript
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