Why can't we have an undetectable adblocker?

On 08/11/2019 12.03, NY wrote:
"Commander Kinsey" wrote in message
newsp.0awubiclwdg98l@glass...
On Thu, 07 Nov 2019 22:23:28 -0000, Sjouke Burry
wrote:

On 07.11.19 21:47, Commander Kinsey wrote:
Why can't someone write an adblocker that isn’t detectable?Â* Don't
block the ad, simply download it but don't display it, the web
server wouldn't know the difference!

Why not leave the generation alone, and just print a grey square
across it?
And turn the sound to zero volume, dont try to stop them, just make them
silent/invisible.
That should be quite undetectable.

Agreed.Â* The simplest way to block them is to cover them up, yet
adblockers do stupid things like not downloading the ad at all.Â* I
don't give a **** if a bit of my unlimited bandwidth is used up, but I
do care if the website can see I haven't downloaded the ad, then
prevents the whole page from loading.Â* Adblockers just aren't doing
their job properly.

Also I wish that sites would reserve page space for ads and
illustrations in advance of downloading the ad/picture - so the text on
the page wouldn't keep jumping around as successive pictures/videos etc
are downloaded.

img width="100" height="100" ...

Don't omit the width/height parameters!

They don't know in advance the exact size the add will have. They are
dynamic.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:


Also I wish that sites would reserve page space for ads and
illustrations in advance of downloading the ad/picture - so the text on
the page wouldn't keep jumping around as successive pictures/videos etc
are downloaded.

img width="100" height="100" ...

Don't omit the width/height parameters!

They don't know in advance the exact size the add will have. They are
dynamic.

i don't know what ad blockers either of you are using, but i don't see
text jumping around at all, on multiple platforms.

On 08/11/2019 11.49, Shadow wrote:
On Fri, 8 Nov 2019 09:33:49 -0000, CoMmAnDoTrOn
wrote:

Commander Kinsey wrote:

How hard can it be to run whatever the ad requests, and ONLY omit the
actual display on the screen?

Anything is easy for the person who will not do it himself or herself.
I challenge Commander Kinsey to walk the talk and produce a *working*
adblocker which gets around our powerful techniques at Leet Website
Command.

Our ads run a script *after* the actual display, to check whether the ad
is actually displayed and tell the web server. We can tell when the
actual display is omitted. We can tell when the ad is displayed but
covered over. If you run whatever the ad requests, the server knows when
there is an adblocker. If you don't run whatever the ad requests, the
server knows from the silence.

Adblockers cannot fake what our script tells the server. We change it
every few hours, faster than adblockers can keep up. We change it by
geographic location. No adblocker can afford to pay for the full-time
army of workers needed to keep up with our constant changes.

Personally I don't give a sht about ads. Give me all the
jpg/gif ads you want. Right there, on the web page.Some are quite
funny, others are useful. Some are ignored after a glance. And I
glance at them all.

If I'm on a computer page, show me ads for cheap RAM. Cycling
page? Ads for gears are OK. pR0n sites, bring on the dildo ads (I
won't buy one, but somebody might).

What is NOT acceptable are the datamining and profiling
scripts corrupt companies use to ID you and your "preferences" and
then sell that personal data to third parties, many of which are
malicious.

I accept adds, but I find not acceptable adds that make difficult
reading the content of the page or use noticeable resources in my
machine. Like the add moving when I move the page. Like downloading a
video (using my bandwidth) and playing it


That's not advertizing, it's spying on your users.
What exactly does your company do with the information it
gathers from it's naive users?
[]'s



--
Cheers, Carlos.

"Shadow" wrote

|
| What is NOT acceptable are the datamining and profiling
| scripts corrupt companies use to ID you and your "preferences" and
| then sell that personal data to third parties, many of which are
| malicious.
| That's not advertizing, it's spying on your users.

Exactly. Which is one of the many reasons not
to run script.

| What exactly does your company do with the information it
| gathers from it's naive users?

Probably nothing. Most webmasters are not actually
setting up the ads and probably don't even understand
the code. They just insert script snippets so that the
likes of Google can jump in with ads and cross-site
scripting.
In the old days, (as you probably know, but I'll recap
for anyone who doesn't know), there were
banner ads that a webpage would include code for.
And the ad images were locally sourced. Today it's
greedy and uneducated webmasters who set up their
pages according to instructions from the sleazeball
spyware/adware companies who pay them.

So the basic formula is to find some kid out of college
who can write a somewhat coherent article about a
trending topic:

Is gluten a miracle for younger looking skin?!
New research raises questions!!

Then stretch the article out to get as
many ads as possible on the page. Then insert the code
that will allow Google to put in those ads. Technically,
the originating domain is only creating part of the
webpage.

And that's not even getting into other spyware, like
people letting Google Analytics spy on their visitors
because they don't understand how to read their own
web server logs and Google will give them access to
pre-digested data for free -- so long as the webmaster
gives Google access to their traffic.

The whole system has become a kind of addiction
cycle. Google comes out with free functionality.
Under-trained webmasters who don't even know how
to write code share tips online about how to use Google's
freebies. Their bosses have no idea of the incompetence
because they, themselves, can't understand what the
webmasters are doing in their WYSIWYG webpage editors.
The end result is a monstrosity that's entirely
dependent on Google. Not only for ad money but also
for fonts, maps, jquery, visitor data... The webmasters
don't know how to do any of that on their own! It never even
occurs to most that they could put a picture of a map on
their webpages rather than send every visitor off to Google
for a map.

"NY" wrote

| Also I wish that sites would reserve page space for ads and illustrations
in
| advance of downloading the ad/picture - so the text on the page wouldn't
| keep jumping around as successive pictures/videos etc are downloaded.
|
| img width="100" height="100" ...
|
| Don't omit the width/height parameters!

I don't think that's generally the problem. Rather, many
commercial websites are now 4-20 MB of script, images
and video. The page is created dynamically. Not only does
it wait for Google to set up the ads. There's also likely to
be extensive customization due to data mining. There
have been stories in the past, for instance, about how
shopping sites or airline ticket sites will post different
prices to different people. In other words, in many cases
you're not getting a webpage at all. What you see is really
the GUI of a large software program that you download in
pieces, and which then gets compiled in stages on your
computer, in conjunction with extensive communication
between your browser and a dozen+ different domains.

All the while that
software program is also pulling in data about your mouse
movements and sending that back to various sites, to
analyze what you're looking at in the page. It's crazy.
We're very close to phasing out HTML altogether in favor
of something like a phone app. The privacy and security
issues with that are mind boggling. (Flash, after all, is
being phased out *because* it's such a security nightmare.
The apeeal of HTML and CSS is that they're not executable.)

But people are not upset because to the casual observer
the mechanics are not visible. They just see pages that are
getting snazzier and more responsive. For instance, I just
opened washingtonpost.com. It loaded in less than a second.
Almost instant to me. A tiny pause and... there it is.
No script to download. No script to run. Iframes and images
from ad servers are all blocked. Web bugs from Google
and others are blocked. So I'm just getting the actual
webpage itself with the images that are actually part of
the webpage.

Since I rarely enable script, most webpages I see
load almost instantly and there's no jumping around.
The browser just downloads the HTML file and images,
then does the best it can of putting it all together.
That's an amazingly fast operation.

On 08/11/2019 14.44, nospam wrote:
In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:


Also I wish that sites would reserve page space for ads and
illustrations in advance of downloading the ad/picture - so the text on
the page wouldn't keep jumping around as successive pictures/videos etc
are downloaded.

img width="100" height="100" ...

Don't omit the width/height parameters!

They don't know in advance the exact size the add will have. They are
dynamic.

i don't know what ad blockers either of you are using, but i don't see
text jumping around at all, on multiple platforms.

No no, that situation happens with non blocked adds.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 08/11/2019 14.48, Mayayana wrote:
"Shadow" wrote

....

yes, but...

The end result is a monstrosity that's entirely
dependent on Google. Not only for ad money but also
for fonts, maps, jquery, visitor data... The webmasters
don't know how to do any of that on their own! It never even
occurs to most that they could put a picture of a map on
their webpages rather than send every visitor off to Google
for a map.

The but is that the image of a map can not resize or move. On the other
hand, I'm sure there is legalesse that prohibit taking a photo of a
google map and posting it.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

Also I wish that sites would reserve page space for ads and
illustrations in advance of downloading the ad/picture - so the text on
the page wouldn't keep jumping around as successive pictures/videos etc
are downloaded.

img width="100" height="100" ...

Don't omit the width/height parameters!

They don't know in advance the exact size the add will have. They are
dynamic.

i don't know what ad blockers either of you are using, but i don't see
text jumping around at all, on multiple platforms.

No no, that situation happens with non blocked adds.

get a better ad blocker, one that blocks all ads.

Ads which interfere with browser functionality are bad.
Ads which obscure web page are bad.
Ads with video and/or audio are bad.

In other words, ads are bad.

If you are doing this to support your family, I suggest you change the focus
of your work.

"Carlos E.R." wrote

| The but is that the image of a map can not resize or move. On the other
| hand, I'm sure there is legalesse that prohibit taking a photo of a
| google map and posting it.
|

Both true, but not real problems. If I've got
Bob's Furniture Store I can draw a map of major
cross streets. My drawn map can easily bbe more
useful than Google's. Or I can get a free-to-use map.
People just use a Google link because it's free and
they can't be bothered to deal with it.

"Shadow" wrote

| The code looks OK (no calls to external resources), but it
| won't install on my browser (Palemoon 26) even after I edited the
| install.rdf.
| Any hints?
|
| Disregard. It won't work under Palemoon. A known issue.

Are you sure? It works fine in New Moon 28. In the add-ons
window it says it targets FF and "runs in compatibility mode"
in NM. It even says it's signed. Though I disable that restriction
in about:config, anyway.
But if by PM 26 you mean you're using a WebExtensions
version then, no, it wouldn't work.

Unfortunately, I tried several other things that didn't work.
This was the only one that did. But maybe there's a
WebExtensions equivalent. I really love it because I'm toggling
so much now.

On 08/11/2019 15.38, nospam wrote:
In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

Also I wish that sites would reserve page space for ads and
illustrations in advance of downloading the ad/picture - so the text on
the page wouldn't keep jumping around as successive pictures/videos etc
are downloaded.

img width="100" height="100" ...

Don't omit the width/height parameters!

They don't know in advance the exact size the add will have. They are
dynamic.

i don't know what ad blockers either of you are using, but i don't see
text jumping around at all, on multiple platforms.

No no, that situation happens with non blocked adds.

get a better ad blocker, one that blocks all ads.

I do not want to block all adds. Absolutely not!

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On Fri, 08 Nov 2019 00:47:09 -0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 08/11/2019 01.29, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Thu, 07 Nov 2019 22:23:28 -0000, Sjouke Burry
wrote:

On 07.11.19 21:47, Commander Kinsey wrote:
Why can't someone write an adblocker that isn’t detectable? Don't
block the ad, simply download it but don't display it, the web server
wouldn't know the difference!

Why not leave the generation alone, and just print a grey square
across it?
And turn the sound to zero volume, dont try to stop them, just make them
silent/invisible.
That should be quite undetectable.

Agreed. The simplest way to block them is to cover them up, yet
adblockers do stupid things like not downloading the ad at all. I don't
give a **** if a bit of my unlimited bandwidth is used up, but I do care
if the website can see I haven't downloaded the ad, then prevents the
whole page from loading. Adblockers just aren't doing their job properly.

Actually, some of the them are downloaded to find out if they match a
filter. Then, some of us do want them not downloaded, not only not
displayed, because we may have limited bandwidth or this is metered.
That is my case this instant, as I have the laptop tethered to my moble
phone.

You are in the minority, most people are on fast connections nowadays.

Another reason is that once they are downloaded, they do things like run
scripts to detect your actions, and that is worse than having the add
displayed. Or simply they run code to display the actual add.

They can't detect an action if it's not there to be clicked on.

Anyway, what's the point in blocking them in the current way by not downloading them, if that makes the site detect you've done so, and stop you using the site altogether?

On Fri, 08 Nov 2019 00:51:49 -0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 08/11/2019 01.30, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Thu, 07 Nov 2019 22:44:11 -0000, Carlos E. R.
wrote:

On 07/11/2019 21.47, Commander Kinsey wrote:
Why can't someone write an adblocker that isn’t detectable? Don't block
the ad, simply download it but don't display it, the web server wouldn't
know the difference!

They can find out, because they don't see the results of the scripts
they run with the adds. Like one cookie not appearing, or a download
request at some URL with the same identifier that does not happen.

How hard can it be to run whatever the ad requests, and ONLY omit the
actual display on the screen?

Well, they are associated and unwanted actions the adds do that is not
displayed. I really prefer that nosy code not running, if possible.

All very well, but if that breaks the page so you can't see what you wanted to see, then you have to turn the blocker off anyway!

On Fri, 08 Nov 2019 11:03:21 -0000, NY wrote:

"Commander Kinsey" wrote in message
newsp.0awubiclwdg98l@glass...
On Thu, 07 Nov 2019 22:23:28 -0000, Sjouke Burry
wrote:

On 07.11.19 21:47, Commander Kinsey wrote:
Why can't someone write an adblocker that isn’t detectable? Don't block
the ad, simply download it but don't display it, the web server wouldn't
know the difference!

Why not leave the generation alone, and just print a grey square across
it?
And turn the sound to zero volume, dont try to stop them, just make them
silent/invisible.
That should be quite undetectable.

Agreed. The simplest way to block them is to cover them up, yet
adblockers do stupid things like not downloading the ad at all. I don't
give a **** if a bit of my unlimited bandwidth is used up, but I do care
if the website can see I haven't downloaded the ad, then prevents the
whole page from loading. Adblockers just aren't doing their job properly.

Also I wish that sites would reserve page space for ads and illustrations in
advance of downloading the ad/picture - so the text on the page wouldn't
keep jumping around as successive pictures/videos etc are downloaded.

img width="100" height="100" ...

Don't omit the width/height parameters!

That used to annoy me, but since nowadays I have a fibre connection with a fast processor, pages are loaded in a fraction of a second anyway.