Adblock Plus and (a little) more
Advantage ABP: Successfully blocking ads on Facebook for 1 year, 1 month and 1 day. · 2018-08-13 17:31 by Aaron Scheib
For years, the ad blocking community and Facebook have been playing a sophisticated, but annoying, game of ping pong. In a nutshell: Facebook tries to reinvent the destruction of user experience with annoying ads. In response, the filter list community and the ABP team develop innovations in ad blocking. And vice versa. So the game went on, without an end in sight.
Until now. The Adblock Plus community has won a hard-fought set: For an uninterrupted 1 year, 1 month and 1 day Adblock Plus users have had the upper hand in the ping pong game! For them, Facebook remains not only free of charge, but ad-free as well.
As you may know, shielding users from (the ever evolving formats of) online advertisement is not always easy. Advertisers constantly come up with new ways to try and grab our attention. Blocking ads is especially challenging when competing with the number 2 in online advertisement, Facebook.
A little over a year ago, we saw the longest rally in the game. Within just a few days, Open Source workarounds and Facebook circumventions surpassed each other again and again. Until suddenly, Facebook was left with no way to force ads on users any further. The fair web emerged victorious!
Here’s how it happened: Our extension learned how to “read” ads, enabling it to point out typical elements of ads shown on Facebook – and there are plenty of different types and places Facebook crams them into! Just a few days ago, they even enabled playable ads for games in the newsfeed. And since Facebook forces users to use their Messenger, we’ve seen ads emerging in between chats, too! Now, with the help of the many, great filter list authors over on EasyList, ABP adapts to any new and annoying inventions by Facebook.
Of course, the ping pong game is far from over and the advantage may shift again in the future. But we are prepared! We – that’s the ABP team, filter list authors and our users who help us strengthen our newest sidekick: Sentinel. Sentinel is the result of marrying ad blocking and machine learning. Would you like to join our game with Facebook? Feed Sentinel your annoying ads to help us keep social media ad free for years to come over at adblock.ai!
Comment [3]
Commenting is closed for this article.
rh · 2018-08-14 06:04 · #
Propaganda :-)
Reply from Aaron Scheib:
From whom? To whom? For what? Please specify! :D
Sumit · 2018-08-25 10:33 · #
No doubt, adblock is the best ad blocking app I’ve ever used. The paid and free version is worth trying. This is why I’ve listed it at the top of a self-created list of ad blockers
Reply from Aaron Scheib:
Great list Sumit! Let it be known though, that ABP is free for all users on every platform. :) Cheers!
Darkmage · 2018-09-23 19:18 · #
I still see Sponsored posts every other friends’ post… Love how on TV: “Less ads, more from your friends.” LOL. Yeah right! I’m getting flooded with sponsored posts Desktop and mobile and nothing is blocking it! :( All I get is Political ads and I don’t even have a political page… LOL. Here is how it is on my timeline.
Friends Post
political ad
political ad
political ad
Friends post
Gaming ad
political ad
Clickbait ad
Friends post.
Literally how my time line is now… Mobile is the same way… No issues on any other site! Aside from some white listed YouTube Creators. Otherwise, this is highly annoying! :( Been using ABP for years and years! Since before Chrome was a thing! So, I don’t blame ABP for any of it. (Yes, I did update filters) If there is a filter out there though that helps blocked Sponsored ads, please point me in the right direction! :)
Reply from Aaron Scheib:
Hey Darkmage, check out our most recent blog entry – there’s news about ads on Facebook once again ;) Hope the issue’s been solved for you!