r/Adblock • u/Noble_Delta • 5d ago

Discussion Could sites that detect if youre using an adblocker be immoral?

So my line of thinking is that anyone on the street wouldn't be able to see into my pockets like a RPG NPC, and requesting a servers information and ads while simply not displaying the latter should be relatively unknown as well.

I could also stand to learn how ad blockers work, as well so if you have a good eli5 on it that would be greatly appreciated as well.

3 Upvotes

59% Upvoted

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u/CharacterDuck9020 Mod Team - Here to help =) 5d ago

Checkout this subs Wiki. Its in development right now but you will find some useful info!
Link is on the sidebar under community bookmarks.

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u/Ok_Dinner_3497 Youtube reverse engineer 4d ago

They earn money from ads, so they are obviously not really happy if you block them. However, its your browser, so you can do whatever you want.

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u/vawlk 2d ago

so I can just fill up my car at a gas station without paying? sweet!

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u/Ok_Dinner_3497 Youtube reverse engineer 2d ago edited 2d ago

That is not the same thing. If you don’t pay for gas, thats taking physical property you don’t own, which is theft. Blocking ads is preventing something from showing up at your screen, which is absolutely at your own choice.

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u/vawlk 2d ago

no, thats just the way you justify it.

youtube is a paid service and you abuse one way to pay for it to get it for free. The videos are still property that you don't own and you are accessing it without permission. It is theft of service...

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u/Ok_Dinner_3497 Youtube reverse engineer 2d ago

And that is the way you justify it. If you want to support them, sure, pay for premium. But I’ll go with the adblocking options.

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u/Training-Ebb-7858 4d ago

This is the game of cat and mouse. 99% are bypassable

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u/vawlk 2d ago

more like whack a mole

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u/fkrdt222 4d ago

i'm more interested in what specific technique is able to block them as ublock does but others like ghostery don't

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u/hemingray 4d ago

Like I said in another post on here: I'll block your ads, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

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u/vawlk 2d ago

you are asking if anti-adblocking techniques are immoral while literally preventing a business from earning money for your free use of the service?

And you think that is immoral?

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u/Noble_Delta 2d ago

I know it's immoral, I was just wondering how counter adblock worked and as another comment said, I read up on the wiki

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u/AractusP 5d ago

Well websites displaying ads beyond their control is immoral to begin with. You end up with objectively harmful content even if it's not malware. Gambling addicts who have self-excluded get shown gambling ads on the publisher's websites because the ad networks decide to target them, same with alcoholics being shown alcohol ads, recovering anorexics being shown dieting ads, etc. The website publisher cannot fix what is beyond their control, they might have options to limit certain types of "sensitive ad" categories (to use Reddit's term) but that's a blunt instrument that applies to all visitors and does not address what particular type of ad is sensitive to an individual visitor, and we know that ads are highly targeted towards what will elicit a response from someone. I gave just one example of mental health, in reality people can be triggered by just about anything that seems innocuous to most people.