March 26, 2021 • 41 mins
Are ads on the Web a necessary annoyance? The creators of ad-blocking software don't think so. We dig into the history of browser extensions like AdBlock and explore the controversies around them.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
and I love all things tech. It is time for
a classic episode. This episode is called how ad Blockers Work,
(00:27):
and it originally published on Marche. And I've got some
things to say about ad blockers. I'll save it for
the end, and it's likely going to be repeated in
the actual episode, which you know, full disclosure, I have
not gone back and listened to, so it may very
well be that everything I say is repetitive. But that way,
(00:48):
I'll just throw it at the end, and if you
hear stuff I've already said, you know you just stop it. Anyway,
let's go back and listen to this classic episode. Before
we get started on this, We'll go ahead and say
that you know, there there are the advertisers who make
ads are not necessarily trying to make them to annoy you.
(01:09):
That would actually be counter productive to what the ad
is supposed to do. Well. I would argue that some
ad theory um states that if you annoy an audience
enough to get their attention, then that's a good thing.
But that's but but we're getting into sticky territory there,
and we'll we'll cover all of that as we go along.
But if you wanted to hear a really simple story
(01:30):
about how ad block came to be bad news everyone.
As it turns out, ad block has got an incredibly
complex story because it is one of those things where
it's kind of like a hydra. You know, eventually one
head would get cut off and two other heads would
spring up, and those two heads would each be doing
kind of what the first head did, but they're doing
(01:51):
it in a different way, and they're not really communicating
with each other, and when they do communicate with each other,
they're fighting a little bit. Yeah, it's a it's one
of those that it's it's not so simple as to say, like, uh,
you know this one piece of software. Now it's version two,
now it's version three. You actually have lots of forking
going on. It's more like Windows. How Windows would occasionally
(02:12):
fork into different groups and you're like, well, I used
to be able to explain the history of Windows, but
now not so much. But you can actually trace it
back to a single point, a historical moment when the
very first version of ad block came out, and it
originally came out for the Firefox web browser. This was
(02:34):
a browser extension. UM Firefox being open source, it allows
people to developers well, I mean developers are people. I
didn't mean to. UM. It allows you to create extensions
or add ons for the browser in order to change
or improve or to increase its functionality. Right, Yeah, because
there's some things that a browser can do, and then
(02:54):
occasionally the web develops in such a way where there's
some really awesome stuff you could you if the browser
just supported it, and the extensions kind of allow you
to create that ability, right, and so according to one
Vladimir Poland, a Danish programmer by the name of Henry
Ostav Sarson, I think I got that right. Yeah, well
(03:15):
it's definitely better than I could have. UM who developed
this extension. I I don't remember now if we said
already in two thousand two. No, we did not. Yeah.
By the way, the reason why we said we don't
know already is because you guys do not get treated
to the fact that our buildings started to vibrate because
of something going on somewhere inside this building, and we
(03:37):
figured you'd rather be you know saved that experience. But yeah,
three minute break in which we went what is that? Yeah,
But in two thousand two, in fact, he did begin
development on this. This was formally the ad Block Extension,
and at that point it was spelled A D little
B L O C K. No. The reason I say
(03:58):
little B is because the other versions will talk about
differentiate themselves with capitalization as well as adding other words.
But this is the first one. Now, this one could
block images, which at the time was pretty much the
main form of web advertising. It wasn't the only one
that was the main one. So things like banner ads
(04:19):
that were at the top, or the ones that are
along the side of the column, or even just inserted
directly as like a picture inside an article. That's the
kind of stuff that would block. Sure. And so if
you found an image that you didn't like a probably
because it was an add, you could add that that
that images u r L to a list of blocked images, right,
(04:39):
and it would actually go all the way back to
where the source of that image came from and then
start blocking other images from that source. Because, of course,
if there's one advertiser that happens to run a lot
of different campaigns, and back in those early days of
the web, there were a few that had lots and
lots of clients. You could essentially blanket block a whole
(04:59):
list stuff advert right. It was pretty effective at the time. Yeah, yeah,
for for images. Anyway, they did have some downs sides.
One of the downsides was that it did not actually
prevent the web page from loading the image. In fact,
that the earliest version, which they called point three. Uh
I assume that versions point one and point two or
(05:19):
earlier dat yeah, yeah, and never were released. But this
point three one, it did not prevent the images from
loading at all. It would, in fact, first load the
entire web page images and all, and then block those ads.
Right now, this was an important deal, Like people really
wanted to have it blocked, not just you know, from view,
(05:41):
but blocked period so it wouldn't download. Not just because
people thoughts or at least some people thought that advertising
was really intrusive and and it decreased their enjoyment of
the surfing experience visually annoying, but also was using up
precious memory and usage bandwidth. Yeah, so you would take
you extra time to download a web page because I
(06:03):
had to download all of those assets, including the ads,
and if you could turn those ads off, then the
web pages would load faster. You know, this is the
era of dial up. You know, I remember that era well, uh,
not happily, but I do remember it well. I couldn't
have find memories of it, not at all. Uh. You
know when when someone would would say, hey, you need
(06:24):
to go and look there's this funny picture, and you
click on it and then six minutes later you go
and make yourself a cup of coffee. Right, You're like, well,
you know, I'm just gonna go wander offer a bit.
But anyway, so this ad block version was limited in
its use, but it had potential. And so the next
version of ad block came along from someone else. Because
(06:47):
Sorenson was interested in creating this tool, but not necessarily
interested in continually updating it and uh and and and
giving it more features. It was kind of a one
off for Sarrenson. So we then have a mysterious figure.
So someone by the handle of Rue, whose name I'm
still not sure of. Yeah, Ru are you e? As
(07:11):
in uh, you know that that spelling not r O O.
But the Ru created ad block zero point four and
went in a completely different way used XML binding language
also known as x b L. Now that's a web
markup language, so HTML is hypertext markup language. This is
(07:32):
similar except instead of it telling specifically like a browser,
how to display things, it's more about defining specific behaviors
of elements that would be displayed in a web page.
So it's all about letting a program know what any
particular element is supposed to be able to do, so
that the computer does that thing when you make the command.
(07:54):
So an easy example is a scroll bar. If you
were to put a scroll bar within the context of
a web page itself, you know this isn't this isn't
the browsers scroll bar, but something that's inside the web page.
Then you might use XBL to define those behaviors, so
you say, when the user drags the scroll bar, this
is the thing that's supposed to happen. Now, in this case,
(08:14):
they were using XBL to sort of, uh, just prevent
again these these display these ads from displaying. But it
could prevent more than just images because it was working
within the code of the browser. It could also prevent
flash and Java objects right, and this was another big
advance as far as ad blocking was concerned because anyone
(08:36):
who has been using the web for a while knows
ads that are just pictures that appear on the top
or the side, or within the context of an article
or something. That's just a small slice of the types
of web advertising we've seen out there. There are a
lot of things that have float over ads, float under ads,
AutoPlay ads, which boy, are those my favorite. I definitely
(08:59):
feel some sympathy here for folks who really get tired
of ads that have, you know, a negative impact on
your user expect if they're intrusive. Absolutely. I mean, if
I go to a website where there's some sort of
audio component that I want to listen to, and because
I moved my cursor and it goes over a AD
panel and then some advertising audio starts playing at the
(09:21):
same time, that's clearly not an enjoyable experience. You can't
really get around that. But anyway, Yeah, this meant that
it was more useful than the point three version of
ad block, But it should be said that because it
was using a different approach, while it was called ad
Block zero point four, it wasn't necessarily a direct descendant
(09:43):
of ad block ad Block zero point three. And this
is where we already have some confusion, right, right, further
confusion would happen because Um Latimer point who who we
mentioned earlier, was basically unaware of of this update going
out and created his own point for right. So you
have Ladimir saying, okay, I know that this this thing
(10:07):
that Sarnsen did was useful, but it was very limited.
I want to make my own approach and try and
create a more versatile, useful platform to block this sort
of intrusive advertising. Uh and started working on and then
was prepared to release it, and then discovered through some
(10:27):
I have no idea what the tone was from the
basis of the history that that that Pollent wrote, I
would like to imagine that Rue was a little miffed.
Great was the message thereof and that um and that
Vladimir found out that he couldn't release it as a
point for because there was already a point for. So
now comes the discussion of whether or not Vladimir's work
(10:49):
should be incorporated into a point five version. So keep
in mind that while this is all going on, Firefox
itself is continuing to slowly release updates, which necessitates that
browser extensions be updated as well. Because exactly. Yeah, So
this was not, you know, just an academic discussion of
(11:12):
should this go forward or not. It needed to keep
developing for it to be useful. So his approach was
to look at content policies to both predict and block ads,
which ended up being an advance over the previous versions
because it was finally allowing the user to have these
ads blocked before the page even loaded. So now we
(11:34):
get into that that era where things can be sped
up because you don't need to load all the assets.
He also had this discussion with Rue about what needs
to be done. They decided to kind of collaborate, but
according to Plans history, he got very frustrated that Ru
would kind of piecemeal pick the bits that Vladimir had
(11:56):
created and then ignore everything else. And Laddim felt that
a lot of the things he had contributed were being
ignored and that uh, and that some of the things
he had made we're being used in ways he had
not intended. There was one in particular way said users
were complaining about this particular interface, and the problem was
I had never intended users to be activating this interface.
(12:19):
It wasn't meant for us. But now it's part of
what because I'm not the one who I don't own
ad block and not implementing these changes myself, and so
that became kind of a source subject. So you move
forward to two thousand and five, and no one had
really worked on ad block. Yeah that there was still
(12:41):
some of that xbl stuff involved, and and some of
Ladimir's approaches were in there. He was kind of a mishmash.
It was like a Frankenstein's Monster version of the of
what what each person like rou and Ladimir had both
had in mind. But out of this grew um what
was going to be called ad Block Plus. Yeah. This
(13:03):
is when a fellow named Michael McDonald who used the
handle mc m came along and he created a new
version going back to point three as sort of the
point of inspiration with enhanced features. He did call it
ad Block Plus. And at this point one of the
things that was added was this ability for users to
(13:23):
white list certain file sources so that they would still
get those shown to them, right, white white listing being
the opposite of blacklistings, certifying that a certain thing or
person or entity is acceptable exactly. So instead of just
having a giant X over any advertising, this would allow
you to be more selective, so you could say, no,
(13:46):
I want to see these particular types of ads, these
ads are okay. So Vladimir and Rue continued there discussion
about what should be ad block, and Ladimir even went
so far as to offer to rewrite, uh the zero
point five version of ad block and then adding the
new features as well as try and tweak some of
(14:08):
the stuff that he felt was clunky or not user friendly.
But there was more disagreement between Rue and Ladimir, and
then eventually Ladimir contacted McDonald mc m about ad Block Plus. Yeah,
and m c m said, you know you can, you
can come on over, you can come on over here,
because I don't really want to to forever be developing
(14:31):
this this extension, just like you know Sartinson did years ago.
He you know Sartenson said, no, I made this thing,
but I don't want to have to keep making it.
And especially at the time Firefox was going through this
kind of like update every other day sort of process,
it was really rapid. Yes, So McDonald said, you know,
I really don't have the time and effort that to
(14:53):
to be the steward of this extension. So so Latimer,
if you want to take it, take it, and Latimer
say a yeah, okay, fine. So in January two thousand
and six, they launched ad Block Plus zero point six.
So again, the versions are starting to get a little
confusing because this ad block Plus was not directly connected
(15:15):
to ad Block. It existed as his own thing at
the same time. So we have two different versions going on,
two different approaches um and two different communities of users.
So then Pilot decides he'll he'll keep on working on
ad block Plus and he wanted to try. You know,
it's not that he hated the old ad block. He
(15:38):
actually tried several times to address issues because as the
the extension got older and less relevant, it also became
clear that there were some security vulnerabilities, and so he said, listen, guys,
I found these vulnerabilities. You really should patch them. You
need to. You need to update ad block so that
(16:00):
doesn't remain a vulnerability for users. And then it got
to a point where it's like, really, I mean, I
can I can help do this if you need to.
But it was kind of one of those things where
ad Block just sort sort of began to die out
at that point. In ad Block Plus was the it's
wrong to say the winner because it wasn't like it
(16:22):
was a real battle, but it's the survivor of the two.
Yeah yeah, I was about to say it sounds like
like internet Darwinism. Yeah yeah, it kind of is. So
h then you get into I got really snarky with
this note, y'all, But I'm going to go ahead and
include it because schadenfreude. No. In two thousand seven, PC World,
(16:42):
the magazine named ad Block Plus one of the one
best products of two thousand seven. The reason why I
felt the need to include this is because today PC
World is online only. It ended its print format in
two thousand thirteen, and now it depends very heavily on
the online format, you know, the one that is sported. Yeah, so, um,
(17:11):
I did. I didn't want to mention though, that that
it's certainly not the only award that ad Block Plus
is one. Um. For example, it also nabbed best Firefox
Extension from Lennox Magazine, in which, by the way, you
can still get in print, So bully for them, how
about that. So then we move up to December eight,
two thou nine, and boy, we just we just got
(17:35):
to the point where we narrowed it down ad block
Plus was the only player in the game. It was
going to be so much easier to talk about this
for the rest of this podcast. And then Google made
an announcement, which led to a whole bunch of more
mass happening. Well, we have more to say about ad blockers,
but first, um, hey, what do you know? We have
some ads. We'll be right back. Okay, so December eight,
(18:04):
two thousand nine, and this is the first time where
we can actually put a specific date on one of
these things. You know, again, developers don't necessarily write down
stuff for historical records, which, guys, you've got to start
doing that. Yeah, seriously, everyone get on that. I know. Well, actually,
I mean everyone is on that at this point because
of the popularity of blogging and micro blogging. But at
(18:25):
any rate, right, this is when Michael Gunlock developed his
own ad blocker called ad block with a capital B
this time. Right, that makes it totally different obviously spelled
the same way as the original ad block, except that
the B is capitalized. Like you said, Look, it's the Internet.
Things can be case sensitive. I just think that's funny
(18:46):
that you already have a product called ad block Plus,
so clearly what you want to come out with is
one called ad block. But you know, again, these are
open source approaches. It's not like these these different developers
are all getting into it in order to make book
who's amount of money. It's stopped something that they felt
was necessary to extend functionality, and it's a passion thing. Absolutely.
(19:07):
So this is totally separate from the original ad block
and also ad block Plus. And originally this was an
extension for Google Chrome. And in fact, the reason why
I said December eight, two thousand nine, is that's also
the very first day that Google allowed extensions in Chrome,
(19:27):
only in the beta version of Chrome. Actually at the time,
it would roll out extensions for for Chrome as a
as a whole a couple of months later, but you know,
they made this amount announcement, and gun Launch checked to
see whether there was already an ad block for Chrome,
and specifically ad block plus for Chrome because he really
liked that block plus it was his favorite Firefox extension.
(19:47):
And he saw that there wasn't and started coding one
like on the spot. Yep, and so uh and now
these days you can actually get it from multiple uh browsers,
not just Google Chrome. Also there's version for Safari and
one for Opera. Ad Block Plus, by the way, also
available on multiple browsers, including Chrome, Safari uh as well
(20:09):
as Internet Explorer and of course Firefox where it got started.
So now we're covering pretty much all the basis and
some of these you know, you're you're limited on choice,
Like if you're using Opera, Uh hello, Now, I mean,
I know that the Opera fans out there are big
passionate fans. They love that browser. I just I think
(20:30):
there might be three of you. But hey, if you're
one of those three, write us and tell us why
Opera is the best, because I would I would love
to hear it. I've I've used it a couple of
times and that's all I know about it. So at
any rate, uh, you had ad block going under version
numbers like two point oh being the first one that's
being released for actual use, so we're no longer at
(20:54):
the zero point whatever. For ad block, it's it's on
a totally different path. Again, it's not really connected to
those other ones other than the fact that the end
result is it blocks ads. Right, It's supposed to be
based on the same concept, so it was written from
an entirely separate bit of code exactly. So one of
my favorite stories about the the ad block extension is
(21:18):
what happened on April Fool's Day two thousand twelve. So
this day, the developer decided to do something playful by
tweaking the code a little bit, so instead of just
blocking ads so that you don't see them, it replaced
ads with the Internet's favorite thing, little cats. So it
became cat block Day. And in fact, it got so
(21:40):
popular that and people loved it so much that they
went ahead and added cat block as an as an
optional add on it. Yeah, you could subscribe and get
cat block if you wanted everything to permanently well everything
all the ads to permanently be switched over to cats,
not not the entire and not just a cat browser,
(22:01):
although someone's got to have done that, I'm sure, right,
I'm positive anyway, Yeah, so uh interesting, yeah yeah. So.
Features of good launches ad block are that it can
it can block resources in Google Chrome so that the
elements won't even load in the browser, right, um, and
that includes uh, not just pictures but also flash elements.
(22:25):
It can block ads and videos like if if YouTube
plays an ad before a video, it can just wipe
that from creation, right yea, at least as far as
your concerned. Yea. Um. The current version I believe is
available in more than thirty languages. Yep, yep, it's got
international capabilities built right into it. Also a note of
interest in good Luck launched a successful Crown funded campaign
(22:48):
to and and follow me closely here, kids create ads
for ad block so that ad block can block more ads.
I'm pretty sure you're talking about bob blah blaws blaw blog.
That's that's what it sounded like to me. It was.
The campaign was to advertise his his service ad Block,
(23:08):
because not that many people use it. I mean, I
think that as as of the campaign, he was saying
that only three and ten Internet users had any kind
of ad blocking software at all. Um. And so he
thought that, you know, more people need to know about
this thing awareness problem, right right, Yeah, and and that
you know, if people knew so, right, So he launched
(23:30):
this campaign and yeah, they made enough money to like
put up a billboard in Times Square. Yeah. So they
took an analog and ad blocking company paid for an
advertisement and what is one of the world's most well
known advertising Mecca's meat Space, where no one can block it. Yeah, okay,
(23:55):
I'm my brain is hurting right beautiful, Well, anyway, if
you're one dring, Hey, what happened ad block? Plus? He
kept on keeping on. Yeah. In two tho it would
receive an anonymous donation that was generous enough to allow
Ladimir to quit his day job and work full time
on the project for two entire years. Yeah. He during
(24:15):
that time expanded it for use with all of the
browsers that we were talking about a moment ago. Oh
and also Firefox Mobile and Android. I didn't even mention
the mobile operating system, right, um and then inn would
incorporate what became a very controversial feature, UMU developer led
white listing. Yeah. So you know, the earlier white listing
(24:37):
we were talking about was about users defining Okay, I
want to see this particular content, right, every personal user
using this ad blocking software. This is on the developer side,
This is before it ever gets to the user. And
the idea was that the philosophy was kind of interesting
to me. The the premise is that people want ad
(24:58):
block because they don't want annoying, intrusive ads. However, a
lot of people still want to be able to support
the sites that they go to, and they realize that
those sites depend on AD revenue exactly, so in order
to make sure they are not denying these these different
sites that add revenue, that they are allowing their participating
(25:20):
in this kind of marketplace where we can have people
paid for the work that they're doing and other people
can enjoy that work. Ad blog plus took it kind
of upon itself to define what a good ad is
versus not a good ad. Yeah, the whole thing grew
out of a partnership between Ladimir and uh person by
(25:40):
the name of till fed A who's who's an online
marketer who agreed that lots of online ads are really terrible.
Um but but right, But he didn't want to see
the revenue from online ads dry up entirely. Yeah, So
it's kind of an idea that ads that follow a
certain set of rules are okay, right if if they're
(26:01):
not um, if they're not preventing you from accessing the
content that you went to that page to read, or
or auto playing sound which is terrible all the time,
or video or or otherwise just coming up the works
in such an annoying way that that you want to
block that thing. Yeah. In fact, ideally according to this
that has very strict size restrictions that you know, ads
(26:23):
have to be a certain size and write all that down.
But there ideally our text only, which advertisers do not
care for. Uh. You know it's you know, it's not
as eye catching as something like picture of so. But
according to the white listing approach, it's supposed to be
text only. None of that AutoPlay stuff, whether it's sound
(26:43):
or video. It's supposed to be um, like you said,
it's supposed to be unobtrusive. So it's not supposed to
cover up things you can't have like a scrolling swoop
in or scroll in or or shadow box or yeah
or reform all the words to spell out this product
is awesome. You know, it's not supposed to do any
of that kind of stuff. Uh. And that if you
(27:03):
played by those rules and if you filled out some
forms and stuff, you could work with ad blocks because
to get onto this white listed program. So like a
company that would provide advertising, because you know, the companies
that you see advertising online, they're usually not the ones
that are handling the actual ads. It's usually an ad agency.
There are some companies that have their own ad departments,
(27:25):
but a lot of them will go to a third party.
So if these third parties partner with ad block plus
and create ads in this way, those ads would in
theory not be automatically blocked by the ad blocker. However,
if if as a user you wanted to still say
I don't want to see any ads. I don't care
about the revenue thing, I don't care. All I want
(27:46):
is all the free existence, you could actually turn that
option off so that you it was automatically on by default,
but you could turn it off in the settings and
uh and block all ads whether they are on a
quote unquote good ad list or not. Also, it was
kind of a um honor system approach. It still is
(28:08):
kind of an honor system approach because ad block plus
doesn't have an automated way to make sure that the
ads that are submitted in fact follow those criteria. Right.
Once a company gets gets white listed, all of their
ads are white listed, and it's up to the developers
and also to the users of the program to pick
out ads that they still find offensive and submit a
(28:28):
report about them. Right. So, if as a user, you
see something on a web page and you think, wait,
that doesn't fit the criteria, and I've totally got ad
blocker plus on and it should be blocking all this stuff.
You can report the ad and then add block plus
could take action and say, hey, guys, this isn't following
the rules that we said. Of course, there was still
pushback from from users about this, who said that, um,
(28:50):
you know, first of all, they didn't agree with a
group of developers making this choice for them of what
was and wasn't acceptable um. And second of all, that
there was a potential that ad block plus was getting
paid to serve ads to them. Yeah, there was a
blogger named um Sasha Palenberg who first said that ad
(29:12):
block plus was an advertising mafia, that this put them
in charge, like they were the ones who could say
what ads are showing on the web in which ones
aren't effectively at least to the audience that uses ad
block Plus. And then someone who has not been named
as far as I can tell, an anonymous person alleged
that the developers of ad block plus had demanded a
(29:33):
share of ad revenue in order to white list ads
from his or her site. We don't know who this
person is, We don't know their gender or anything, but
According to this, one person who presumably works for an
advertising company ad block plus was saying, okay, well, if
you share a third of your money that you make
from these ads, then you can totally be on the list. Um.
(29:55):
Not a lot. Not that everyone who applies to get
on the list makes it right. Most people don't, and
ad block has has. Ad Block plus rather has said
a lot about this issue online and in blogs and interviews. UM.
They they published a uh clarifying piece in October stating
that it rejects over half of its applicants based on
unacceptable ad practices right out the door um, and that
(30:17):
overall it only has accepted about nine point five percent
of its applicants to the program. Meanwhile, over at ad
block you have the founder saying, hey, uh, I'm sure
if I had an option, they're saying, show me ads
that don't suck. Those are his words that my users
would opt in. But it doesn't actually have that functionality.
(30:39):
This would become so controversial that ad block plus actually
ended up, and not not just among advertisers. Clearly it's
controversial to them, but also to users, users who said, hey,
I don't want this to be on by default. I
don't want to have to go into my settings and
change it. They ended up for king ad block plus
because it couldn't get more confusing, right uh, and created
(31:02):
ad block Edge, which doesn't have any of the white
listing features. It's essentially this is this is just going
to block everything unless you manually go in and tell
it not to write um and and a brief point
going back to that monetary issue UM In that company
blog from ad block Plus, basically they said that less
than ten percent of the applications that they've advanced to
(31:25):
the final stages UM were submitted with some kind of
monetary benefit to ad block plus. So some were submitted
with monetary benefit. Yes, that just raises more questions. Really,
I don't know that I would call that so clarifying anymore.
I think there needs to be a clarification of the
clarifying statement. After this next set of ADS, I promise
(31:48):
will block more until we need to run more ads.
Take it away ads. This is, UH is beyond just
the issue of I don't want to see ADS or
I find this intrusive. There there are other thing considerations
(32:10):
that are legitimate that people have because today the way
the web works, there's a lot of different ways to
kind of gather information about users, even in ways that
don't necessarily name who you are, but if there's enough
of your behavior there, they can totally tell who you are.
They can and they can certainly track you anonymous user number,
(32:31):
you know x online as much as they want to,
and people do continually, and a lot of that tracking
software is packaged along with ad serving software, so so
you know, and these are are modern times of big data.
It's kind of an issue. Um As of March, ad
block plus claim to have the capacity to block eight
(32:52):
thousand six different trackers, you know, different cookies and scripts
and all that other stuff that runs in the background
of sites that you visit, collecting continual information about you
and your activities and your habits to either use or
to sell to other companies, you know, companies that are
sifting through it for whatever potentially nefarious purposes they choose
to or just other advertisers. It may not be so
(33:14):
much nefarious, but it could just mean that you're going
to get yet more ads right right, and and those
weird creepy ads that show that they know what you've
been looking at on Amazon dot Com right right, Like
when you go to Facebook and you notice that all
the ads on Facebook somehow match things that you had
just been browsing on a totally different site. What really
confuses me is when they serve me ads of something
(33:35):
that I just purchased because I'm like, I I did
like that thing. Yeah, I already thought it. I bought
the thing that you told me to. I'm not going
to buy it again. I'm not going to click there.
What confuses me is when I get the ones for
enormous muscles, because y'all, I don't know if you see
me recently, but I mean you're basically already already human perfections. Actually,
(33:58):
I mean, like you know, I don't so much have
a six pack as I have a raging kicker. That's
what I've got going on. But anyway, so to get
down to the the side that we're on. So we're
Lauren and I Obviously we both work for a company
that's a web based company. We get, uh, you know,
there there are ads that run on how Stuff Works
(34:19):
dot com. Absolutely, and so we run ads in our podcast.
It's a it's a different kind of thing certainly, but
still it's it's that's how that's that's one of the
main ways we generate revenue. Yeah, that that is what
allows us to have jobs. Right, So if everyone were
to block it and it got to a point where
advertisers said, well this, this isn't working because now we
(34:40):
can no longer make any money. Like essentially, if you
pull the rug out from underneath that entire industry, you, uh,
it forces everyone to have to rethink how do I
make money? Because if I can't make money, I'm not
going to do this. I'm gonna go do something else
where I can make money. Sure, so you know, are
you going to put your content behind pay walls of
various tiers or are you going to rely on donations
(35:02):
or merchandise? Uh? And and none of those are as
easy I guess as just selling ad spaces, right, Yeah,
And it all depends. Like there's some larger organizations that
have a historical following that could do things like shift
to a paywall method and still stay afloat. There are
others that cannot, just as there are examples of uh
(35:26):
companies that or or individuals who exist on on patronage.
There's there's the site Patreon now where you can pledge
a certain amount per month for people who are doing
things and a crowdfunding you know that the controversial Penny
Arcade crowdfunder that that basically let them run their site
for a year for you. So, I mean there there
(35:48):
are other ways, but it's not necessarily something that's within
the grasp of everyone. So sure, you know, I think
that the general recommendation is too if you like a site,
uh white list it and and let let it serve
you ads, right and uh so yeah, I mean this
needs to be an ongoing conversation between users and advertisers
(36:11):
and the companies that want to advertise, right, because, like
I said, most most companies are saying, we want people
to be encouraged to buy our goods and services or
to at least have a more increased awareness of them.
We would rather that increased awareness doesn't come along with Oh,
those are those irritating so and so's that always block
it whenever I want to watch such and such a right, right.
(36:33):
I think it's really interesting that in all of this Google,
which is an ad company, don't don't ever think it's
a search company because that's not what they're there for. Um,
you know, they allowed, they chose to allow ad blocking
extensions for for Chrome for its browser. UM. Speaking about
the Jonathan Rosenberg, the senior vice president of Product Management
(36:55):
as of two thousand nine, wrote in an in company
letter UM that aiding users with options can can really
only grow and enrich the Internet community at large. Yeah,
it's a very interesting take. I mean, particularly from someone who,
like like you said, is working for essentially an ad company.
You know, they absolutely didn't have to do that, and
(37:15):
I think it's pretty pretty beautiful that they do. I
have a quote actually from another Google employee, one um
Linus Upson, who is of at least was Google's engineering director,
about this entire issue. He said, it's unlikely ad blockers
are going to get to the level where they imperil
the advertising market, because if advertising is so annoying that
a large segment of the population wants to block it,
(37:38):
then advertising should get less annoying. Yeah, I agree with that.
I think that, you know, the best way of going
about this is to design ads that are that definitely
advertise your product or service, but don't do so at
the expense of the user experience. It's really I mean,
that's easy to say, it's really hard to do because
(37:59):
but but you know, I kind of appreciate that it's
pushing the design impetus back to the people responsible for it.
It's saying like, don't create bad stuff. If you want
people to not block it, don't don't go with the
easy approach of using something that blocks their view of
what they're trying to get at, or something that's so
eye catching that you literally can't pay attention to anything
(38:19):
else on the page. Right if it if it looks
like a MySpace page, let's the old school MySpace. By
the way, it's like Geo c s that would have
been a better way of putting it. Yeah, if it
looks like a Geo cities page, you may want to
revisit that unless you're doing it specifically for the irony
and it's going on a site that that would that
would fit in well. And that wraps up that classic
(38:40):
episode of tech stuff the things I wanted to say
about ad blockers. So I used to be a big
user of ad blockers because a lot of ads were
so intrusive, particularly the ones that would just launch with
audio and video out of nowhere, and it was really disruptive,
especially if you're someone who's doing a lot of research
(39:01):
you've got a lot of tabs open, maybe you don't
even know which tab is the one that's making the noise.
I know that at least in Google Chrome you can
see the little megaphone icon that shows which one is
playing noise. But when you've got like twenty tabs open,
it's hard to even see that. So you know, it's
one of those things where because the ad experience was
(39:24):
so bad, I didn't want to have to deal with it. However,
that being said, I also these days feel like it's
really giving the short end of the stick to the
companies that are running the uh, the site or service
that I'm on. You know, that's how they generate revenue.
(39:45):
And if I'm denying that, then if you do enough
people do that, then the stuff goes away, right, There's
not enough money to support it. And as someone whose
job depends upon ad revenue, I I get it. Um.
I wish that ads could be less intrusive, and I've
actually found some ads to be really helpful. I followed
(40:06):
some ads, and I've bought stuff. Heck, I've bought stuff
from other podcast ads and including some of my own.
I've used my own. I've used my own discount code
to buy stuff, so they do work, but yeah, I
don't like that. I still only the disruptive ones that
ends up being something that sticks in my you know,
six center my skin, and I don't care for it.
(40:28):
But I definitely understand the need for ads, and um, yeah,
I don't use ad blockers anymore. Sometimes that ends up
being a challenging situation. But at the end of the day,
that was the choice I made. Not that I'm telling
any of you guys how to choose to do things,
(40:50):
just that it was something that I ultimately decided. I would,
you know, live in an ad filled world because I
want the stuff I to keep going. All right, that's it.
If you guys have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,
reach out to me. The best way to do that
is over on Twitter and the handle we use as
(41:11):
text Stuff hs W and I'll talk to you again
really soon. Y. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff. I'm your host,
Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
and I love all things tech. It is time for
a classic episode. This episode is called how ad Blockers Work,
(00:27):
and it originally published on Marche. And I've got some
things to say about ad blockers. I'll save it for
the end, and it's likely going to be repeated in
the actual episode, which you know, full disclosure, I have
not gone back and listened to, so it may very
well be that everything I say is repetitive. But that way,
(00:48):
I'll just throw it at the end, and if you
hear stuff I've already said, you know you just stop it. Anyway,
let's go back and listen to this classic episode. Before
we get started on this, We'll go ahead and say
that you know, there there are the advertisers who make
ads are not necessarily trying to make them to annoy you.
(01:09):
That would actually be counter productive to what the ad
is supposed to do. Well. I would argue that some
ad theory um states that if you annoy an audience
enough to get their attention, then that's a good thing.
But that's but but we're getting into sticky territory there,
and we'll we'll cover all of that as we go along.
But if you wanted to hear a really simple story
(01:30):
about how ad block came to be bad news everyone.
As it turns out, ad block has got an incredibly
complex story because it is one of those things where
it's kind of like a hydra. You know, eventually one
head would get cut off and two other heads would
spring up, and those two heads would each be doing
kind of what the first head did, but they're doing
(01:51):
it in a different way, and they're not really communicating
with each other, and when they do communicate with each other,
they're fighting a little bit. Yeah, it's a it's one
of those that it's it's not so simple as to say, like, uh,
you know this one piece of software. Now it's version two,
now it's version three. You actually have lots of forking
going on. It's more like Windows. How Windows would occasionally
(02:12):
fork into different groups and you're like, well, I used
to be able to explain the history of Windows, but
now not so much. But you can actually trace it
back to a single point, a historical moment when the
very first version of ad block came out, and it
originally came out for the Firefox web browser. This was
(02:34):
a browser extension. UM Firefox being open source, it allows
people to developers well, I mean developers are people. I
didn't mean to. UM. It allows you to create extensions
or add ons for the browser in order to change
or improve or to increase its functionality. Right, Yeah, because
there's some things that a browser can do, and then
(02:54):
occasionally the web develops in such a way where there's
some really awesome stuff you could you if the browser
just supported it, and the extensions kind of allow you
to create that ability, right, and so according to one
Vladimir Poland, a Danish programmer by the name of Henry
Ostav Sarson, I think I got that right. Yeah, well
(03:15):
it's definitely better than I could have. UM who developed
this extension. I I don't remember now if we said
already in two thousand two. No, we did not. Yeah.
By the way, the reason why we said we don't
know already is because you guys do not get treated
to the fact that our buildings started to vibrate because
of something going on somewhere inside this building, and we
(03:37):
figured you'd rather be you know saved that experience. But yeah,
three minute break in which we went what is that? Yeah,
But in two thousand two, in fact, he did begin
development on this. This was formally the ad Block Extension,
and at that point it was spelled A D little
B L O C K. No. The reason I say
(03:58):
little B is because the other versions will talk about
differentiate themselves with capitalization as well as adding other words.
But this is the first one. Now, this one could
block images, which at the time was pretty much the
main form of web advertising. It wasn't the only one
that was the main one. So things like banner ads
(04:19):
that were at the top, or the ones that are
along the side of the column, or even just inserted
directly as like a picture inside an article. That's the
kind of stuff that would block. Sure. And so if
you found an image that you didn't like a probably
because it was an add, you could add that that
that images u r L to a list of blocked images, right,
(04:39):
and it would actually go all the way back to
where the source of that image came from and then
start blocking other images from that source. Because, of course,
if there's one advertiser that happens to run a lot
of different campaigns, and back in those early days of
the web, there were a few that had lots and
lots of clients. You could essentially blanket block a whole
(04:59):
list stuff advert right. It was pretty effective at the time. Yeah, yeah,
for for images. Anyway, they did have some downs sides.
One of the downsides was that it did not actually
prevent the web page from loading the image. In fact,
that the earliest version, which they called point three. Uh
I assume that versions point one and point two or
(05:19):
earlier dat yeah, yeah, and never were released. But this
point three one, it did not prevent the images from
loading at all. It would, in fact, first load the
entire web page images and all, and then block those ads.
Right now, this was an important deal, Like people really
wanted to have it blocked, not just you know, from view,
(05:41):
but blocked period so it wouldn't download. Not just because
people thoughts or at least some people thought that advertising
was really intrusive and and it decreased their enjoyment of
the surfing experience visually annoying, but also was using up
precious memory and usage bandwidth. Yeah, so you would take
you extra time to download a web page because I
(06:03):
had to download all of those assets, including the ads,
and if you could turn those ads off, then the
web pages would load faster. You know, this is the
era of dial up. You know, I remember that era well, uh,
not happily, but I do remember it well. I couldn't
have find memories of it, not at all. Uh. You
know when when someone would would say, hey, you need
(06:24):
to go and look there's this funny picture, and you
click on it and then six minutes later you go
and make yourself a cup of coffee. Right, You're like, well,
you know, I'm just gonna go wander offer a bit.
But anyway, so this ad block version was limited in
its use, but it had potential. And so the next
version of ad block came along from someone else. Because
(06:47):
Sorenson was interested in creating this tool, but not necessarily
interested in continually updating it and uh and and and
giving it more features. It was kind of a one
off for Sarrenson. So we then have a mysterious figure.
So someone by the handle of Rue, whose name I'm
still not sure of. Yeah, Ru are you e? As
(07:11):
in uh, you know that that spelling not r O O.
But the Ru created ad block zero point four and
went in a completely different way used XML binding language
also known as x b L. Now that's a web
markup language, so HTML is hypertext markup language. This is
(07:32):
similar except instead of it telling specifically like a browser,
how to display things, it's more about defining specific behaviors
of elements that would be displayed in a web page.
So it's all about letting a program know what any
particular element is supposed to be able to do, so
that the computer does that thing when you make the command.
(07:54):
So an easy example is a scroll bar. If you
were to put a scroll bar within the context of
a web page itself, you know this isn't this isn't
the browsers scroll bar, but something that's inside the web page.
Then you might use XBL to define those behaviors, so
you say, when the user drags the scroll bar, this
is the thing that's supposed to happen. Now, in this case,
(08:14):
they were using XBL to sort of, uh, just prevent
again these these display these ads from displaying. But it
could prevent more than just images because it was working
within the code of the browser. It could also prevent
flash and Java objects right, and this was another big
advance as far as ad blocking was concerned because anyone
(08:36):
who has been using the web for a while knows
ads that are just pictures that appear on the top
or the side, or within the context of an article
or something. That's just a small slice of the types
of web advertising we've seen out there. There are a
lot of things that have float over ads, float under ads,
AutoPlay ads, which boy, are those my favorite. I definitely
(08:59):
feel some sympathy here for folks who really get tired
of ads that have, you know, a negative impact on
your user expect if they're intrusive. Absolutely. I mean, if
I go to a website where there's some sort of
audio component that I want to listen to, and because
I moved my cursor and it goes over a AD
panel and then some advertising audio starts playing at the
(09:21):
same time, that's clearly not an enjoyable experience. You can't
really get around that. But anyway, Yeah, this meant that
it was more useful than the point three version of
ad block, But it should be said that because it
was using a different approach, while it was called ad
Block zero point four, it wasn't necessarily a direct descendant
(09:43):
of ad block ad Block zero point three. And this
is where we already have some confusion, right, right, further
confusion would happen because Um Latimer point who who we
mentioned earlier, was basically unaware of of this update going
out and created his own point for right. So you
have Ladimir saying, okay, I know that this this thing
(10:07):
that Sarnsen did was useful, but it was very limited.
I want to make my own approach and try and
create a more versatile, useful platform to block this sort
of intrusive advertising. Uh and started working on and then
was prepared to release it, and then discovered through some
(10:27):
I have no idea what the tone was from the
basis of the history that that that Pollent wrote, I
would like to imagine that Rue was a little miffed.
Great was the message thereof and that um and that
Vladimir found out that he couldn't release it as a
point for because there was already a point for. So
now comes the discussion of whether or not Vladimir's work
(10:49):
should be incorporated into a point five version. So keep
in mind that while this is all going on, Firefox
itself is continuing to slowly release updates, which necessitates that
browser extensions be updated as well. Because exactly. Yeah, So
this was not, you know, just an academic discussion of
(11:12):
should this go forward or not. It needed to keep
developing for it to be useful. So his approach was
to look at content policies to both predict and block ads,
which ended up being an advance over the previous versions
because it was finally allowing the user to have these
ads blocked before the page even loaded. So now we
(11:34):
get into that that era where things can be sped
up because you don't need to load all the assets.
He also had this discussion with Rue about what needs
to be done. They decided to kind of collaborate, but
according to Plans history, he got very frustrated that Ru
would kind of piecemeal pick the bits that Vladimir had
(11:56):
created and then ignore everything else. And Laddim felt that
a lot of the things he had contributed were being
ignored and that uh, and that some of the things
he had made we're being used in ways he had
not intended. There was one in particular way said users
were complaining about this particular interface, and the problem was
I had never intended users to be activating this interface.
(12:19):
It wasn't meant for us. But now it's part of
what because I'm not the one who I don't own
ad block and not implementing these changes myself, and so
that became kind of a source subject. So you move
forward to two thousand and five, and no one had
really worked on ad block. Yeah that there was still
(12:41):
some of that xbl stuff involved, and and some of
Ladimir's approaches were in there. He was kind of a mishmash.
It was like a Frankenstein's Monster version of the of
what what each person like rou and Ladimir had both
had in mind. But out of this grew um what
was going to be called ad Block Plus. Yeah. This
(13:03):
is when a fellow named Michael McDonald who used the
handle mc m came along and he created a new
version going back to point three as sort of the
point of inspiration with enhanced features. He did call it
ad Block Plus. And at this point one of the
things that was added was this ability for users to
(13:23):
white list certain file sources so that they would still
get those shown to them, right, white white listing being
the opposite of blacklistings, certifying that a certain thing or
person or entity is acceptable exactly. So instead of just
having a giant X over any advertising, this would allow
you to be more selective, so you could say, no,
(13:46):
I want to see these particular types of ads, these
ads are okay. So Vladimir and Rue continued there discussion
about what should be ad block, and Ladimir even went
so far as to offer to rewrite, uh the zero
point five version of ad block and then adding the
new features as well as try and tweak some of
(14:08):
the stuff that he felt was clunky or not user friendly.
But there was more disagreement between Rue and Ladimir, and
then eventually Ladimir contacted McDonald mc m about ad Block Plus. Yeah,
and m c m said, you know you can, you
can come on over, you can come on over here,
because I don't really want to to forever be developing
(14:31):
this this extension, just like you know Sartinson did years ago.
He you know Sartenson said, no, I made this thing,
but I don't want to have to keep making it.
And especially at the time Firefox was going through this
kind of like update every other day sort of process,
it was really rapid. Yes, So McDonald said, you know,
I really don't have the time and effort that to
(14:53):
to be the steward of this extension. So so Latimer,
if you want to take it, take it, and Latimer
say a yeah, okay, fine. So in January two thousand
and six, they launched ad Block Plus zero point six.
So again, the versions are starting to get a little
confusing because this ad block Plus was not directly connected
(15:15):
to ad Block. It existed as his own thing at
the same time. So we have two different versions going on,
two different approaches um and two different communities of users.
So then Pilot decides he'll he'll keep on working on
ad block Plus and he wanted to try. You know,
it's not that he hated the old ad block. He
(15:38):
actually tried several times to address issues because as the
the extension got older and less relevant, it also became
clear that there were some security vulnerabilities, and so he said, listen, guys,
I found these vulnerabilities. You really should patch them. You
need to. You need to update ad block so that
(16:00):
doesn't remain a vulnerability for users. And then it got
to a point where it's like, really, I mean, I
can I can help do this if you need to.
But it was kind of one of those things where
ad Block just sort sort of began to die out
at that point. In ad Block Plus was the it's
wrong to say the winner because it wasn't like it
(16:22):
was a real battle, but it's the survivor of the two.
Yeah yeah, I was about to say it sounds like
like internet Darwinism. Yeah yeah, it kind of is. So
h then you get into I got really snarky with
this note, y'all, But I'm going to go ahead and
include it because schadenfreude. No. In two thousand seven, PC World,
(16:42):
the magazine named ad Block Plus one of the one
best products of two thousand seven. The reason why I
felt the need to include this is because today PC
World is online only. It ended its print format in
two thousand thirteen, and now it depends very heavily on
the online format, you know, the one that is sported. Yeah, so, um,
(17:11):
I did. I didn't want to mention though, that that
it's certainly not the only award that ad Block Plus
is one. Um. For example, it also nabbed best Firefox
Extension from Lennox Magazine, in which, by the way, you
can still get in print, So bully for them, how
about that. So then we move up to December eight,
two thou nine, and boy, we just we just got
(17:35):
to the point where we narrowed it down ad block
Plus was the only player in the game. It was
going to be so much easier to talk about this
for the rest of this podcast. And then Google made
an announcement, which led to a whole bunch of more
mass happening. Well, we have more to say about ad blockers,
but first, um, hey, what do you know? We have
some ads. We'll be right back. Okay, so December eight,
(18:04):
two thousand nine, and this is the first time where
we can actually put a specific date on one of
these things. You know, again, developers don't necessarily write down
stuff for historical records, which, guys, you've got to start
doing that. Yeah, seriously, everyone get on that. I know. Well, actually,
I mean everyone is on that at this point because
of the popularity of blogging and micro blogging. But at
(18:25):
any rate, right, this is when Michael Gunlock developed his
own ad blocker called ad block with a capital B
this time. Right, that makes it totally different obviously spelled
the same way as the original ad block, except that
the B is capitalized. Like you said, Look, it's the Internet.
Things can be case sensitive. I just think that's funny
(18:46):
that you already have a product called ad block Plus,
so clearly what you want to come out with is
one called ad block. But you know, again, these are
open source approaches. It's not like these these different developers
are all getting into it in order to make book
who's amount of money. It's stopped something that they felt
was necessary to extend functionality, and it's a passion thing. Absolutely.
(19:07):
So this is totally separate from the original ad block
and also ad block Plus. And originally this was an
extension for Google Chrome. And in fact, the reason why
I said December eight, two thousand nine, is that's also
the very first day that Google allowed extensions in Chrome,
(19:27):
only in the beta version of Chrome. Actually at the time,
it would roll out extensions for for Chrome as a
as a whole a couple of months later, but you know,
they made this amount announcement, and gun Launch checked to
see whether there was already an ad block for Chrome,
and specifically ad block plus for Chrome because he really
liked that block plus it was his favorite Firefox extension.
(19:47):
And he saw that there wasn't and started coding one
like on the spot. Yep, and so uh and now
these days you can actually get it from multiple uh browsers,
not just Google Chrome. Also there's version for Safari and
one for Opera. Ad Block Plus, by the way, also
available on multiple browsers, including Chrome, Safari uh as well
(20:09):
as Internet Explorer and of course Firefox where it got started.
So now we're covering pretty much all the basis and
some of these you know, you're you're limited on choice,
Like if you're using Opera, Uh hello, Now, I mean,
I know that the Opera fans out there are big
passionate fans. They love that browser. I just I think
(20:30):
there might be three of you. But hey, if you're
one of those three, write us and tell us why
Opera is the best, because I would I would love
to hear it. I've I've used it a couple of
times and that's all I know about it. So at
any rate, uh, you had ad block going under version
numbers like two point oh being the first one that's
being released for actual use, so we're no longer at
(20:54):
the zero point whatever. For ad block, it's it's on
a totally different path. Again, it's not really connected to
those other ones other than the fact that the end
result is it blocks ads. Right, It's supposed to be
based on the same concept, so it was written from
an entirely separate bit of code exactly. So one of
my favorite stories about the the ad block extension is
(21:18):
what happened on April Fool's Day two thousand twelve. So
this day, the developer decided to do something playful by
tweaking the code a little bit, so instead of just
blocking ads so that you don't see them, it replaced
ads with the Internet's favorite thing, little cats. So it
became cat block Day. And in fact, it got so
(21:40):
popular that and people loved it so much that they
went ahead and added cat block as an as an
optional add on it. Yeah, you could subscribe and get
cat block if you wanted everything to permanently well everything
all the ads to permanently be switched over to cats,
not not the entire and not just a cat browser,
(22:01):
although someone's got to have done that, I'm sure, right,
I'm positive anyway, Yeah, so uh interesting, yeah yeah. So.
Features of good launches ad block are that it can
it can block resources in Google Chrome so that the
elements won't even load in the browser, right, um, and
that includes uh, not just pictures but also flash elements.
(22:25):
It can block ads and videos like if if YouTube
plays an ad before a video, it can just wipe
that from creation, right yea, at least as far as
your concerned. Yea. Um. The current version I believe is
available in more than thirty languages. Yep, yep, it's got
international capabilities built right into it. Also a note of
interest in good Luck launched a successful Crown funded campaign
(22:48):
to and and follow me closely here, kids create ads
for ad block so that ad block can block more ads.
I'm pretty sure you're talking about bob blah blaws blaw blog.
That's that's what it sounded like to me. It was.
The campaign was to advertise his his service ad Block,
(23:08):
because not that many people use it. I mean, I
think that as as of the campaign, he was saying
that only three and ten Internet users had any kind
of ad blocking software at all. Um. And so he
thought that, you know, more people need to know about
this thing awareness problem, right right, Yeah, and and that
you know, if people knew so, right, So he launched
(23:30):
this campaign and yeah, they made enough money to like
put up a billboard in Times Square. Yeah. So they
took an analog and ad blocking company paid for an
advertisement and what is one of the world's most well
known advertising Mecca's meat Space, where no one can block it. Yeah, okay,
(23:55):
I'm my brain is hurting right beautiful, Well, anyway, if
you're one dring, Hey, what happened ad block? Plus? He
kept on keeping on. Yeah. In two tho it would
receive an anonymous donation that was generous enough to allow
Ladimir to quit his day job and work full time
on the project for two entire years. Yeah. He during
(24:15):
that time expanded it for use with all of the
browsers that we were talking about a moment ago. Oh
and also Firefox Mobile and Android. I didn't even mention
the mobile operating system, right, um and then inn would
incorporate what became a very controversial feature, UMU developer led
white listing. Yeah. So you know, the earlier white listing
(24:37):
we were talking about was about users defining Okay, I
want to see this particular content, right, every personal user
using this ad blocking software. This is on the developer side,
This is before it ever gets to the user. And
the idea was that the philosophy was kind of interesting
to me. The the premise is that people want ad
(24:58):
block because they don't want annoying, intrusive ads. However, a
lot of people still want to be able to support
the sites that they go to, and they realize that
those sites depend on AD revenue exactly, so in order
to make sure they are not denying these these different
sites that add revenue, that they are allowing their participating
(25:20):
in this kind of marketplace where we can have people
paid for the work that they're doing and other people
can enjoy that work. Ad blog plus took it kind
of upon itself to define what a good ad is
versus not a good ad. Yeah, the whole thing grew
out of a partnership between Ladimir and uh person by
(25:40):
the name of till fed A who's who's an online
marketer who agreed that lots of online ads are really terrible.
Um but but right, But he didn't want to see
the revenue from online ads dry up entirely. Yeah, So
it's kind of an idea that ads that follow a
certain set of rules are okay, right if if they're
(26:01):
not um, if they're not preventing you from accessing the
content that you went to that page to read, or
or auto playing sound which is terrible all the time,
or video or or otherwise just coming up the works
in such an annoying way that that you want to
block that thing. Yeah. In fact, ideally according to this
that has very strict size restrictions that you know, ads
(26:23):
have to be a certain size and write all that down.
But there ideally our text only, which advertisers do not
care for. Uh. You know it's you know, it's not
as eye catching as something like picture of so. But
according to the white listing approach, it's supposed to be
text only. None of that AutoPlay stuff, whether it's sound
(26:43):
or video. It's supposed to be um, like you said,
it's supposed to be unobtrusive. So it's not supposed to
cover up things you can't have like a scrolling swoop
in or scroll in or or shadow box or yeah
or reform all the words to spell out this product
is awesome. You know, it's not supposed to do any
of that kind of stuff. Uh. And that if you
(27:03):
played by those rules and if you filled out some
forms and stuff, you could work with ad blocks because
to get onto this white listed program. So like a
company that would provide advertising, because you know, the companies
that you see advertising online, they're usually not the ones
that are handling the actual ads. It's usually an ad agency.
There are some companies that have their own ad departments,
(27:25):
but a lot of them will go to a third party.
So if these third parties partner with ad block plus
and create ads in this way, those ads would in
theory not be automatically blocked by the ad blocker. However,
if if as a user you wanted to still say
I don't want to see any ads. I don't care
about the revenue thing, I don't care. All I want
(27:46):
is all the free existence, you could actually turn that
option off so that you it was automatically on by default,
but you could turn it off in the settings and
uh and block all ads whether they are on a
quote unquote good ad list or not. Also, it was
kind of a um honor system approach. It still is
(28:08):
kind of an honor system approach because ad block plus
doesn't have an automated way to make sure that the
ads that are submitted in fact follow those criteria. Right.
Once a company gets gets white listed, all of their
ads are white listed, and it's up to the developers
and also to the users of the program to pick
out ads that they still find offensive and submit a
(28:28):
report about them. Right. So, if as a user, you
see something on a web page and you think, wait,
that doesn't fit the criteria, and I've totally got ad
blocker plus on and it should be blocking all this stuff.
You can report the ad and then add block plus
could take action and say, hey, guys, this isn't following
the rules that we said. Of course, there was still
pushback from from users about this, who said that, um,
(28:50):
you know, first of all, they didn't agree with a
group of developers making this choice for them of what
was and wasn't acceptable um. And second of all, that
there was a potential that ad block plus was getting
paid to serve ads to them. Yeah, there was a
blogger named um Sasha Palenberg who first said that ad
(29:12):
block plus was an advertising mafia, that this put them
in charge, like they were the ones who could say
what ads are showing on the web in which ones
aren't effectively at least to the audience that uses ad
block Plus. And then someone who has not been named
as far as I can tell, an anonymous person alleged
that the developers of ad block plus had demanded a
(29:33):
share of ad revenue in order to white list ads
from his or her site. We don't know who this
person is, We don't know their gender or anything, but
According to this, one person who presumably works for an
advertising company ad block plus was saying, okay, well, if
you share a third of your money that you make
from these ads, then you can totally be on the list. Um.
(29:55):
Not a lot. Not that everyone who applies to get
on the list makes it right. Most people don't, and
ad block has has. Ad Block plus rather has said
a lot about this issue online and in blogs and interviews. UM.
They they published a uh clarifying piece in October stating
that it rejects over half of its applicants based on
unacceptable ad practices right out the door um, and that
(30:17):
overall it only has accepted about nine point five percent
of its applicants to the program. Meanwhile, over at ad
block you have the founder saying, hey, uh, I'm sure
if I had an option, they're saying, show me ads
that don't suck. Those are his words that my users
would opt in. But it doesn't actually have that functionality.
(30:39):
This would become so controversial that ad block plus actually
ended up, and not not just among advertisers. Clearly it's
controversial to them, but also to users, users who said, hey,
I don't want this to be on by default. I
don't want to have to go into my settings and
change it. They ended up for king ad block plus
because it couldn't get more confusing, right uh, and created
(31:02):
ad block Edge, which doesn't have any of the white
listing features. It's essentially this is this is just going
to block everything unless you manually go in and tell
it not to write um and and a brief point
going back to that monetary issue UM In that company
blog from ad block Plus, basically they said that less
than ten percent of the applications that they've advanced to
(31:25):
the final stages UM were submitted with some kind of
monetary benefit to ad block plus. So some were submitted
with monetary benefit. Yes, that just raises more questions. Really,
I don't know that I would call that so clarifying anymore.
I think there needs to be a clarification of the
clarifying statement. After this next set of ADS, I promise
(31:48):
will block more until we need to run more ads.
Take it away ads. This is, UH is beyond just
the issue of I don't want to see ADS or
I find this intrusive. There there are other thing considerations
(32:10):
that are legitimate that people have because today the way
the web works, there's a lot of different ways to
kind of gather information about users, even in ways that
don't necessarily name who you are, but if there's enough
of your behavior there, they can totally tell who you are.
They can and they can certainly track you anonymous user number,
(32:31):
you know x online as much as they want to,
and people do continually, and a lot of that tracking
software is packaged along with ad serving software, so so
you know, and these are are modern times of big data.
It's kind of an issue. Um As of March, ad
block plus claim to have the capacity to block eight
(32:52):
thousand six different trackers, you know, different cookies and scripts
and all that other stuff that runs in the background
of sites that you visit, collecting continual information about you
and your activities and your habits to either use or
to sell to other companies, you know, companies that are
sifting through it for whatever potentially nefarious purposes they choose
to or just other advertisers. It may not be so
(33:14):
much nefarious, but it could just mean that you're going
to get yet more ads right right, and and those
weird creepy ads that show that they know what you've
been looking at on Amazon dot Com right right, Like
when you go to Facebook and you notice that all
the ads on Facebook somehow match things that you had
just been browsing on a totally different site. What really
confuses me is when they serve me ads of something
(33:35):
that I just purchased because I'm like, I I did
like that thing. Yeah, I already thought it. I bought
the thing that you told me to. I'm not going
to buy it again. I'm not going to click there.
What confuses me is when I get the ones for
enormous muscles, because y'all, I don't know if you see
me recently, but I mean you're basically already already human perfections. Actually,
(33:58):
I mean, like you know, I don't so much have
a six pack as I have a raging kicker. That's
what I've got going on. But anyway, so to get
down to the the side that we're on. So we're
Lauren and I Obviously we both work for a company
that's a web based company. We get, uh, you know,
there there are ads that run on how Stuff Works
(34:19):
dot com. Absolutely, and so we run ads in our podcast.
It's a it's a different kind of thing certainly, but
still it's it's that's how that's that's one of the
main ways we generate revenue. Yeah, that that is what
allows us to have jobs. Right, So if everyone were
to block it and it got to a point where
advertisers said, well this, this isn't working because now we
(34:40):
can no longer make any money. Like essentially, if you
pull the rug out from underneath that entire industry, you, uh,
it forces everyone to have to rethink how do I
make money? Because if I can't make money, I'm not
going to do this. I'm gonna go do something else
where I can make money. Sure, so you know, are
you going to put your content behind pay walls of
various tiers or are you going to rely on donations
(35:02):
or merchandise? Uh? And and none of those are as
easy I guess as just selling ad spaces, right, Yeah,
And it all depends. Like there's some larger organizations that
have a historical following that could do things like shift
to a paywall method and still stay afloat. There are
others that cannot, just as there are examples of uh
(35:26):
companies that or or individuals who exist on on patronage.
There's there's the site Patreon now where you can pledge
a certain amount per month for people who are doing
things and a crowdfunding you know that the controversial Penny
Arcade crowdfunder that that basically let them run their site
for a year for you. So, I mean there there
(35:48):
are other ways, but it's not necessarily something that's within
the grasp of everyone. So sure, you know, I think
that the general recommendation is too if you like a site,
uh white list it and and let let it serve
you ads, right and uh so yeah, I mean this
needs to be an ongoing conversation between users and advertisers
(36:11):
and the companies that want to advertise, right, because, like
I said, most most companies are saying, we want people
to be encouraged to buy our goods and services or
to at least have a more increased awareness of them.
We would rather that increased awareness doesn't come along with Oh,
those are those irritating so and so's that always block
it whenever I want to watch such and such a right, right.
(36:33):
I think it's really interesting that in all of this Google,
which is an ad company, don't don't ever think it's
a search company because that's not what they're there for. Um,
you know, they allowed, they chose to allow ad blocking
extensions for for Chrome for its browser. UM. Speaking about
the Jonathan Rosenberg, the senior vice president of Product Management
(36:55):
as of two thousand nine, wrote in an in company
letter UM that aiding users with options can can really
only grow and enrich the Internet community at large. Yeah,
it's a very interesting take. I mean, particularly from someone who,
like like you said, is working for essentially an ad company.
You know, they absolutely didn't have to do that, and
(37:15):
I think it's pretty pretty beautiful that they do. I
have a quote actually from another Google employee, one um
Linus Upson, who is of at least was Google's engineering director,
about this entire issue. He said, it's unlikely ad blockers
are going to get to the level where they imperil
the advertising market, because if advertising is so annoying that
a large segment of the population wants to block it,
(37:38):
then advertising should get less annoying. Yeah, I agree with that.
I think that, you know, the best way of going
about this is to design ads that are that definitely
advertise your product or service, but don't do so at
the expense of the user experience. It's really I mean,
that's easy to say, it's really hard to do because
(37:59):
but but you know, I kind of appreciate that it's
pushing the design impetus back to the people responsible for it.
It's saying like, don't create bad stuff. If you want
people to not block it, don't don't go with the
easy approach of using something that blocks their view of
what they're trying to get at, or something that's so
eye catching that you literally can't pay attention to anything
(38:19):
else on the page. Right if it if it looks
like a MySpace page, let's the old school MySpace. By
the way, it's like Geo c s that would have
been a better way of putting it. Yeah, if it
looks like a Geo cities page, you may want to
revisit that unless you're doing it specifically for the irony
and it's going on a site that that would that
would fit in well. And that wraps up that classic
(38:40):
episode of tech stuff the things I wanted to say
about ad blockers. So I used to be a big
user of ad blockers because a lot of ads were
so intrusive, particularly the ones that would just launch with
audio and video out of nowhere, and it was really disruptive,
especially if you're someone who's doing a lot of research
(39:01):
you've got a lot of tabs open, maybe you don't
even know which tab is the one that's making the noise.
I know that at least in Google Chrome you can
see the little megaphone icon that shows which one is
playing noise. But when you've got like twenty tabs open,
it's hard to even see that. So you know, it's
one of those things where because the ad experience was
(39:24):
so bad, I didn't want to have to deal with it. However,
that being said, I also these days feel like it's
really giving the short end of the stick to the
companies that are running the uh, the site or service
that I'm on. You know, that's how they generate revenue.
(39:45):
And if I'm denying that, then if you do enough
people do that, then the stuff goes away, right, There's
not enough money to support it. And as someone whose
job depends upon ad revenue, I I get it. Um.
I wish that ads could be less intrusive, and I've
actually found some ads to be really helpful. I followed
(40:06):
some ads, and I've bought stuff. Heck, I've bought stuff
from other podcast ads and including some of my own.
I've used my own. I've used my own discount code
to buy stuff, so they do work, but yeah, I
don't like that. I still only the disruptive ones that
ends up being something that sticks in my you know,
six center my skin, and I don't care for it.
(40:28):
But I definitely understand the need for ads, and um, yeah,
I don't use ad blockers anymore. Sometimes that ends up
being a challenging situation. But at the end of the day,
that was the choice I made. Not that I'm telling
any of you guys how to choose to do things,
(40:50):
just that it was something that I ultimately decided. I would,
you know, live in an ad filled world because I
want the stuff I to keep going. All right, that's it.
If you guys have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,
reach out to me. The best way to do that
is over on Twitter and the handle we use as
(41:11):
text Stuff hs W and I'll talk to you again
really soon. Y. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
TechStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Oz Woloshyn
Karah Preiss
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