Heads up.
I've already made my positions clear on this in several places, including my blog.
(Just quoting myself from several spots here so I don't have to rewrite all of it.)
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Short story: Adblock Plus 2.0 development branch has added a new “feature” they call “acceptable advertising” and flipped it on by default without asking the user. The default whitelist is so far only including advertising from networks like Google with suspiciously deep pockets, leading me to believe that money has probably changed hands somewhere along the way. You can opt out of this through a rather unwieldy process, but most people won’t. I find “acceptable ads” to be unacceptable because even Google Adwords is well known for profiling the user even if they only use non-Google sites and they’ll let anyone with enough money take out an ad, even if it leads to phishing sites or Windows malware. Most definitely NOT acceptable. (But hey, it’s your computer and if you like XP AntiVirus Super Duper 2012 Edition, I think you’re beyond my help.)
This “acceptable ads” nonsense is no different than if your anti-virus software started allowing “acceptable malware” and claimed that it was because honest hard working Russian malware writers who make non-binding promises to screw you over ever so gently deserve to make money even if most people find what they do dirty and disgusting. Of course what this anti-virus vendor does not say is that the “acceptable malware” vendors are paying them to be delisted from the pattern file rules.
I never buy anything from ads. I do not want to see ads. If I wanted to see ads, then I wouldn’t have block rules that I put there to get rid of them, would I? I don’t want something that claims to block ads opting me into ads that frequently lead to phishing scams and malware, like Google adwords. Adblock Plus has just done this.
Google is probably paying to unblock itself. It’s the only possible explanation for this clearly anti-user malicious “feature”.
This is just as bad as when NoScript attacked Adblock Plus users and started whitelisting sites that the user had blocked, only this time, Adblock Plus is doing it to the user themselves.
It’s a shame to see that Google’s money can corrupt free software into serving them. (Even at the expense of competitors that don’t have Google’s money to give to Wladimir Palant).
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On the other hand, if Michael Larabel manages to pony up the dough for a sufficient bribe to Wladimir Palant, I'm sure Phoronix can once again be overflowing with skyscraper Microsoft ads written in Flash.
I've already made my positions clear on this in several places, including my blog.
(Just quoting myself from several spots here so I don't have to rewrite all of it.)
---
Short story: Adblock Plus 2.0 development branch has added a new “feature” they call “acceptable advertising” and flipped it on by default without asking the user. The default whitelist is so far only including advertising from networks like Google with suspiciously deep pockets, leading me to believe that money has probably changed hands somewhere along the way. You can opt out of this through a rather unwieldy process, but most people won’t. I find “acceptable ads” to be unacceptable because even Google Adwords is well known for profiling the user even if they only use non-Google sites and they’ll let anyone with enough money take out an ad, even if it leads to phishing sites or Windows malware. Most definitely NOT acceptable. (But hey, it’s your computer and if you like XP AntiVirus Super Duper 2012 Edition, I think you’re beyond my help.)
This “acceptable ads” nonsense is no different than if your anti-virus software started allowing “acceptable malware” and claimed that it was because honest hard working Russian malware writers who make non-binding promises to screw you over ever so gently deserve to make money even if most people find what they do dirty and disgusting. Of course what this anti-virus vendor does not say is that the “acceptable malware” vendors are paying them to be delisted from the pattern file rules.
I never buy anything from ads. I do not want to see ads. If I wanted to see ads, then I wouldn’t have block rules that I put there to get rid of them, would I? I don’t want something that claims to block ads opting me into ads that frequently lead to phishing scams and malware, like Google adwords. Adblock Plus has just done this.
Google is probably paying to unblock itself. It’s the only possible explanation for this clearly anti-user malicious “feature”.
This is just as bad as when NoScript attacked Adblock Plus users and started whitelisting sites that the user had blocked, only this time, Adblock Plus is doing it to the user themselves.
It’s a shame to see that Google’s money can corrupt free software into serving them. (Even at the expense of competitors that don’t have Google’s money to give to Wladimir Palant).
-------
On the other hand, if Michael Larabel manages to pony up the dough for a sufficient bribe to Wladimir Palant, I'm sure Phoronix can once again be overflowing with skyscraper Microsoft ads written in Flash.
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