back to article Google discovers Chrome can (really) block ads

Google Chrome now includes the ability to completely block resources from loading inside the browser, and the latest incarnation of the AdBlock extension for Chrome is using this "beforeload" event to not only hide ads from the user but prevent them from downloading entirely. This brings the Chrome AdBlock extension in line …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Online Ads should not exist

    So El Reg has adverts, eh? Who would have thought? I very seldom see any ads anywhere, which suits me just fine. (Thanks to Noscript, Adblock, hand-made proxy scripts and an updated hosts file.)

    If a site cannot survive without adverts, well, "goodbye".

    I pay for my bandwidth, and I do not find it necessary to pay to download screen-space wasters that I will not read or click. If I want to buy something online, which I often do, I go and look for it.

    I have half a dozen web sites of my own. I pay for the hosting myself. And they survive without third-party advertisements despite not achieving high hit rates. As far as I am concerned, everybody else with a web site should do the same too.

    1. JohnG

      Re: Online Ads should not exist

      "I have half a dozen web sites of my own. I pay for the hosting myself. And they survive without third-party advertisements despite not achieving high hit rates."

      Surely your web sites survive BECAUSE of low hit rates, not DESPITE low hit rates. If you run a popular site then traffic volumes can take you into an area of higher costs. In that case you can:

      a) Pay for it out of your wages - nice if you can afford it;

      b) Find a way for the site to fund itself e.g. adverts;

      c) Close the site.

      "As far as I am concerned, everybody else with a web site should do the same too."

      I guess "everybody else with a web site" will roundly ignore you and do as they please.

  2. A J Stiles
    Boffin

    Better idea for advert blocking

    ISPs could offer fully transparent advertisement blocking (for a small premium, naturally) using a proxy or specially-munged nameservers. It would work with any browser, with no software to download.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Something within me...

      ...thinks this would be a bad idea. It would likely up the costs of the broadband service and runs the risk of installing a filtering service which is then easier to hijack by UK.gov ... gov.

      Now ... if the routing wizards at Linksys, Netgear, et al. created a DSL modem for the home that allowed the owner to sign up to a regularly updated blocking service, that would be great. A way of stopping the kids from viewing unwanted material without having to watch over their shoulders and without affecting anyone else on the interwebs.

      After all, the resources are already out there; we subscribe to one at work and it works reasonably well.

  3. Change can be good
    Alien

    Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera are great browsers.

    Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera are great browsers.

    Internet Explorer is not cross-platform.

    It is not surprising Internet Explorer is losing market share.

  4. dave 46
    FAIL

    how about ad-delay

    I don't mind ads on most sites but what does annoy me is when a page doesn't load because the stupid ad server is incredibly slow.

    Many a time I'm trying to load pages painfully slowly and just before I give up on the site I'll try adblock and suddenly the pages load in a flash.

    I'm amazed websites put up with it to be honest, and even more surprised browsers stall loading the whole page becuase of one or two off-site laggards,.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Advertising is a curse..

    Ok perhaps the title is a tad extreme but advertising is simply not needed, if the web was my only source of information then perhaps but it is only 1 slice, advertising is already so prevalent throughout all mediums that people just accept the fact it "has" to be there.

    With the advent of malicious code injection routines via ads on webpage’s it has turned what is a passive medium into something potentially (I say potentially because yes like most IT savvy people I have enabled all the correct security at home additional proxies, hardened firewalls etc but there is always a way of getting through), dangerous and for that fact alone I will block ads that have been served up to me.

    The advertisers won't miss me there because they have me captured via all the other mediums, TV, Billboards etc

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    more concerned about tracking

    ...I don’t want anyone tracking my activities and reporting back to any one. And definitely not so they can target ads to me. Wankers.

    I've never bought anything because of an advert anyway. I despise them so much. I'll find out about what products or services I require myself.

    I don’t need to be told to buy the iPhone cause it makes you look great, or that I must drive a Lexus 4x4 to be someone. You see the saddos every day, they purchase these heavily advertised products because they believe the crap the adverts tell them.

    Sorry, I'm far more intelligent than that and can see through the crap like a pain of glass.

    Advertisers really some of the lowest forms of life in my eyes, and those who buy into the hype, even lower.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      a pain of glass

      > Sorry, I'm far more intelligent than that and can see through the crap like a pain of glass.

      >

      > more intelligent......pain of glass

      Thats just too easy.

  7. Doug Glass
    Go

    Yeah Well

    Following the web instructions I found made it is a royal pain in the ass to get it working compared to Firefox's ad blocking plugin's installation. Of course I'm likely going about it all wrong but then that's just another problem for us non guru everyday types who just want the frakkin' thing to work.

    Oh well, at least I have my iPhone. Oh ... uh damn, no I have a Palm Pre+ that just works and does everything I want it to. Oh well, fanboi status averted ... uh aborted ... what-frakkin'-ever.

  8. xenny

    web sites need some form of income

    In the absence of an effective micropayment system, and given peoples reluctance to pay large subscription fees, what other funding model is there?

    I typically browse with flash and image downloading disabled. I don't consider that actively blocking adverts, I uses negligible bandwidth downloading text adverts, and I feel I'm behaving in a moral fashion, accepting advertising in a reasonable medium in recompense for viewing material I find interesting.

  9. JDX Gold badge
    Badgers

    re:No Source Code. For many people, that's a deal-breaker.

    Define many, please. I think you actually meant "a tiny minority". I'm a developer myself and I don't know anybody who picks their browser based on being able to view the source-code. I don't deny such people exist but I can't imagine they're many.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    AdBlock

    I'm really liking this extension.

  11. Lloyd
    FAIL

    Hmmm

    I can see that working, an extension that blocks ads on a browser that is made by a search company who make their money from ads? Likely much? Wait until advertisers start putting pressure on them to block it.

    1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Why would Google NOT want to have people installing this

      The users who will install it are the ones who won't click on adverts in the first place. By removing themselves from the advertising 'ecosystem', Google automatically gets a higher click-rate for those that are left, who will still be the vast majority of clueless users.

      Example:

      1% of adverts result in a click-through.

      90% of users never click through adverts, the reamining 10% are responsible for those click-throughs.

      half of users install the ad-blocker. Only users who don't click on ads do this.

      You are left with:

      50% no ads

      40% ads but no click-thorugh

      10% click-through

      By doing this, you have halved the number of impressions that the advertiser has to make, thus halving their bandwidth costs. At the same time, the number of 'hits' they get has stayed the same, equating to twice the click-through-per-impression rate.

      This can only be good for Google.

  12. Dan Keating
    FAIL

    The irony

    As I'm about to post in defence of advertising ... 'Ads by Google' on this very page is trying to sell me a 'Chrome Bar Stool'. How very smart. Perhaps we don't need ads after all.

  13. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
    FAIL

    A quick explanation for those who think blocking adverts is evil:

    1) Advertisers are usually only interested in click-through rates, not on impressions.

    2) People who click through adverts are not the same people who will install an ad blocker.

    3) If people who won't click through ads don't see them, then by extension, those adverts that are being shown are more likley to be being shown to people who WILL click through them.

    4) This is GOOD for the advertiser who saves on bandwidth. It is also GOOD for the user who doens't want to see them, who also saves on bandwidth.

    5) Sites which survive solely on advertising revenue will still attract plenty of users without a blocker installed. Since they usually get paid by click-through rate, rather than per impression, their revenues will not change.

    Personally, what I find evil is the idea that not seeing your advert in the first place makes me evil. If I don't want to buy your crap, I don't need to have a garish flash advert telling me about it. if I decide that I DO want to buy something online, then I will do the research as to what it is I want, and find the cheapest retailer. I understand, however, that many people are easily swayed by advertising, which is why the industry still exists, despite its sole purpose being to sell people things they either do not want, or are inferior to another product, which does not require advertising to sell.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @JohnG

    Two of my sites have achieved protracted bursts of very high usage, which did not influence the economics adversely. The others are niche sites but the same would apply to them - the business model in place is scaleable and the inefficiencies are at the low end of the hit rate curve. But even at the inefficient end, they are still self sustaining.

    The correct answer is indeed B: Find a way of making the site self-funding, but advertising is the not the best answer to that. (And preferably not selling tee-shirts either!)

    In the longer term more people are blocking advertising and the amount of revenue from on-line advertising seems set to continue a pattern of decline that was brought about by the economic situation.

    There is no moral compulsion to volunteer to view adverts and if sites that depend on advertising revenue for their existence fail, we will just go somewhere else that offers the same thing with a more sustainable business model.

  15. Stuart Castle Silver badge

    Ads

    I can see both sides of the coin here..

    As a user, I find ads annoying, but I don't usually disable them.

    Why?

    I am a mod for a fair size forum. We have ads, but none of the admin team really like them, so they are as unobtrustive as we can make them. However, the reason we have them is that even if no one clicks on them, they do pay for the running costs of the site.

    Before, the admins were each contributing a lot of money each month. And, frankly, some of them were getting a little pissed off with having to pay for other people to enjoy themselves. Also, as an admin of a forum, you get a fair amount of abuse from forum members. As such, they would have been paying to be insulted. I know some people are happy with that concept, but my colleagues weren't.

    At the moment, the site makes a small profit. A few hundred pounds a year. Nothing earth shattering, but enough that we can afford to look at improving the site.

    People moan about being advertised to, but a *lot* of the web is funded by advertising. I am not talking about the large sites (google, digital spy, the newspapers etc). I am talking about the small, independent sites who don't have a large parent company able to spend a lot of money on a site. People who may even rely on that site as their primary source of income.

    When you use adblockers, remember, it's not big business you are killing. They generally have another source of income. It's the small independent sites.

  16. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Rasczak
      FAIL

      On a bike

      "Oooh, our browser has far better versions of x plugin built straight in and had it long before yours did!"

      There fixed it for you.

      I know, I've risen to the flame bait, but I get this a lot.

      http://www.chrishardie.com/blog/2008/02/someone-on-the-internet-is-wrong.html

  17. Keith Doyle
    Thumb Down

    Ad Blockers...

    If you want my eyeballs, you will have to pay ME. My eyeballs are not FREE, you freetards. Can't make a business model out of that, then cry me a river and go away...

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