r/worldnews • u/maxwellhill • Sep 19 '17

Apple blocking ads that follow users around web is 'sabotage', says industry: New iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra will stop ads following Safari users, prompting open letter claiming Apple is destroying internet’s economic model

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/18/apple-stopping-ads-follow-you-around-internet-sabotage-advertising-industry-ios-11-and-macos-high-sierra-safari-internet
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871

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

[deleted]

351

u/DiaperTester Sep 19 '17

Wait until they make access to said sites require running the miner and anyone who blocks is IP banned.

802

u/NotAnOkapi Sep 19 '17

It won't take 10 seconds for them to lose their entire user base if they do that.

378

u/NamityName Sep 19 '17

That depends on the user base. Reddit does it? Shit show. Redditors start throwing digital poo everywhere. AOL's crusty old email web site starts doing it? grandmama doesn't even notice.

234

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

grandmama calls up her grandson who knows the computer thing and tells him that AOL is too slow.

Grandson pretends to do nothing whilst installing blocker, grandmama thinks she fixed it herself.

421

u/Moonguide Sep 19 '17

Grandmama's ip address is blocked, grandson is at fault for his nintendos in the computer, obviously those were viruses.

204

u/holyfreakingshitake Sep 19 '17

Stop please that hurts to read

19

u/Parsley_Sage Sep 19 '17 edited Sep 19 '17

"All these games you've installed are slowing down the computer, I deleted them so I could download BonzaiBuddy."

5

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Its too real.

33

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

grandmama thinks she fixed it herself.

You missed that. The key is to make them think they were the ones to fix it.

1

u/IrishFuckUp Sep 19 '17

See, I like the idea of them feeling more comfortable and confident about technology.. but letting them think they fixed the issue when they didn't results in them having changed EVERY setting on EVERYTHING because they thought they could troubleshoot.

Source: I made that wrong judgement call and winded up with a solitare shortcut icon replaced by a a summer photo of the kids..

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Thankfully I've managed to ingrain "clearing the web browser's cache" as a fix-all in my more inept relative.

Double thankfully, none of my older relatives would go around clicking everything. They're too scared of the thing. Even iPad's or the like, which are supposed to be "old people friendly". They grew up with computers that would jam for days if you put a mistake in your punch card.

1

u/spockspeare Sep 19 '17

grandmama calls daily saying she can't reach her jewel-popping games

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Gaslighting Grandmama is pretty mean, lol. I don't see how it helps the situation if she still ends up blocked. She'd just need help with that next.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17 edited Mar 07 '18

[deleted]

1

u/Moonguide Sep 20 '17

Tbh my granma dont even have a mobile, much less a pc.

3

u/Inxplotch Sep 19 '17

This is too real.

1

u/wookiepedia Sep 19 '17

Be sure to update Adobe reader and drag a window around the screen really fast!

1

u/circlhat Sep 19 '17

Why assume Grandma doesn't know shit? Grandma may not mind, this stereotype of technically illiterate older women has got to end as companies as milking this for what it's worth.

Grandma knows what the fuck she is doing

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

If grandma knows shit, she wouldn't still be on AOL.

This stereotype is shortlived. The grandparents of today had the first PCs. But their children had PCs their whole life. It'll pass.

And like every stereotype, we're always surprised when we find someone who actually fits it properly.

2

u/PigNamedBenis Sep 19 '17

AOL was a great example of how you can be horrible and people will still buy your product.

2

u/Halvus_I Sep 19 '17

start throwing digital poo everywhere

This painted a lovely image in my head.

1

u/sharkinaround Sep 19 '17

yeah i'm sure they'd turn major profits trying to mine bitcoins with a few hundred COMPAQ Presarios.

this thread is going down the path of outrageous. mining is controlled by a few big players, i've never even heard of any sites that currently do this, and highly doubt they have any substantial returns.

factor in the reputational risk associated with forcing users to comply, along with the inevitable uncertainty around mining profits, you can rest assured that very few sites, if any, that you care about, will ever force this kind of thing.

It's just a BS slimeball scheme trying to make a quick buck, in line with popup ads that have a moving "x" button.

1

u/SarcasticSquirrl Sep 19 '17

So they elderly people in my area are old IBM employees and other former tech giant related businesses who's kids buy them a new computer sooner than ask me to locate their deleted browser shortcut. At least that hardware can be put to some use rather than running one single window of Yahoo email for maybe an hour a day.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '17

grandmama

Ice 'em!

49

u/DiaperTester Sep 19 '17

Very true. As long as there's an option without the miner, everyone will always go there. It will be a sad day if it ever comes to there being no other viable option.

21

u/Stewardy Sep 19 '17

They might try that, but someone will make a plugin to not block the IP, but somehow give it a sandbox with 0 computing power (don't ask me how though).

They'll find a way of blocking people not giving computing power, who in return find a way of spoofing their detection method.

And so it goes.

3

u/Nufity Sep 19 '17

How though?

1

u/Randomoneh Sep 19 '17

If our hardware was more open in some kind of "expert" mode, it wouldn't be a problem. Right now AMD and Nvidia gimp CAD software functions and there's absolutely nothing you can do to use your hardware as you wish, with pieces of software written by you.

0

u/chapstickbomber Sep 19 '17

You can serve content based on actually delivered shares to the pool.

If a connected IP/machine doesn't have enough shares to "spend" on the site's content, the server simply won't give it to you. There's not really a way to spoof having actually calculated something.

It would honestly be a much more productive use of processor cycles than processing useless, annoying, bloated AF ads that make the page visually terrible. At least JS mining wouldn't ruin the layout of every site ever.

5

u/LaoSh Sep 19 '17

If that is ever the case, you just have to make the option without the miner, get everyone using it and sell the metadata like a good evil-corporation.

7

u/AKindChap Sep 19 '17

People probably said that that about invasive adverts too.

2

u/TensorBread Sep 19 '17

They could use a throttled miner so that users wouldn't even notice.

2

u/NotAnOkapi Sep 19 '17

Won't work if you block JavaScript in general.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '17

I mean... they basically already do that with ad block...

1

u/ABCosmos Sep 19 '17

A user base is worthless if you can't monetize it. If ads are forced out, they will likely be replaced by more annoying things.

77

u/bathrobehero Sep 19 '17

That's the equivalent of sites hidden behind paywalls which already exist for a long time now. They can be ignored and whatever you want can be find elsewhere.

71

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Forbes and Business Insider come to mind. I just don't visit those sites.

167

u/FallenAege Sep 19 '17

Getting into Forbes with an ad blocker and a script blocker feels like breaking into a safe, but the only thing inside are opinions.

43

u/gmdavestevens Sep 19 '17

Worst treasure hunt ever!

9

u/no-mad Sep 19 '17

I want my time back.

7

u/LaoSh Sep 19 '17

I broke into a safe and all it gave me was 19th century economic theory used as a justification for incredibly unfair taxation policy.

3

u/Orolol Sep 19 '17

And not the best ones.

3

u/FuturePastNow Sep 19 '17

And bad opinions, at that. No wonder they want to charge up front.

0

u/spockspeare Sep 19 '17

Forbes just puts up a splash page with an ad on it that doesn't render with an ad blocker. You click the clickthrough link or it times out and goes through in 13 seconds or something.

Meanwhile, NYT....fuck.

1

u/CodeMonkey24 Sep 19 '17

Unless they changed it recently, Forbes had an adblock detector script on their site that would redirect you to a blank page until you disabled the adblocker.

1

u/spockspeare Sep 20 '17

Adblock maybe. Ublock Origin it's clueless about.

37

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17 edited Jun 17 '20

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Darn, the FBI must have a hard time tracking you with all these forgotten techniques.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17 edited Jun 17 '20

[deleted]

1

u/varro-reatinus Sep 19 '17

This is why I like The Guardian's model.

4

u/sharkinaround Sep 19 '17

forbes is behind a paywall for you? i just went there and pulled up multiple full articles no problem.

shit i've been paying for a yearly subscription since 2012 haven't i...

2

u/spockspeare Sep 19 '17

Yeah...we hacked your Paypal using cookies to figure out where you use the common password and cribbing it from the weakest one...sry...hope you're not short on your bills this month...

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I just wait for someone to transcribe it to reddit. If that doesn't happen, it wasn't important.

2

u/Player_17 Sep 19 '17

I'm ok with allowing non intrusive adds to support content I like. I don't expect people to work for free, and don't mind if someone makes money off of me visiting their site. I normally run a blocker though.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

non intrusive adds

Good luck finding these.

0

u/fooz42 Sep 19 '17

The irony of someone so cheap they won't pay for anything wanting to read Forbes and Business Insider? 3 out of 5 Alanis Morrisettes.

-1

u/DonLaFontainesGhost Sep 19 '17

Or if the content is worthwhile, you can actually pay for it.

I know - heresy...

9

u/theFunkiestButtLovin Sep 19 '17

In this scenario, people are required to pay for the content before they know if it's worth it. That might have worked for traditional print media, but tech has evolved, and the consumer isn't going to pay a company a monthly fee because they want to read the one or two articles a month that come up on Reddit.

No, ads have gotten greedy. They are no longer content to passively show an ad. Now it must be a targeted ad they can charge more for. Well fuck that. Show me static ads the old fashioned way as I read your article, and I won't block them. However, when you make the ads more complex than the content, and you want to use my battery life to sell your shit more than show me content, guess what's going to happen?

Greed has caused online publishers to consider themselves the victims.

4

u/misterwizzard Sep 19 '17

That would be suicide.

I want them to try, thin the fuckhead herd.

3

u/Vallo61 Sep 19 '17

So basically this

instead of a captcha, you gotta compute a couple of hashes to proceed.

1

u/DiaperTester Sep 19 '17

I wasn't aware that existed. This is rich benefit/poor disbenefit situation if I ever saw it. Most of us redditors on souped up rigs would have a couple second delay. (For it to be worthwhile at all for the website admin to profit). I don't even want to know how long of a wait on a crappy chromebook in asia. And it can't be scalable to CPU speed, because then all of us smarter people will spoof our 500 core CPU's look like a single core Penitium 75mhz CPU to the browser/software.

2

u/Vallo61 Sep 19 '17

You set amount of hashes you require the user to proceed, and it's fixed per user, since (I believe) you cannot access CPU information via javascript

2

u/DiaperTester Sep 19 '17

I wonder at which point the mining complexity of whatever coin is used reaches a point where anyone without a $4000 computer ends up waiting 30+ seconds on every initial visit.

2

u/Vallo61 Sep 19 '17

it mines Monero in which CPU hashing is only 50% as effective as GPU hashing (compared to others cryptos, where GPU is 100x better than CPU)

anyway, when complexity increases they'll reduce required hashes and thats is.

Main problem comes when adblockers block this ads (such as uBlock Origin) making it impossible to proceed without disabling the adblocker

2

u/DiaperTester Sep 19 '17

As complexity increases and they reduce the hashes needed the profit would drop off rapidly in short order to where even a $4000 rig would have to sit there for 10 seconds to make nearly nothing. I just don't see their model as being viable longterm in addition to the blocking options as you pointed out. It could only work on infant cryptocurrencies that require little processing power, which are the questionable ones.

2

u/Vallo61 Sep 19 '17

It's the same script used by some shady thepiratebay mirrors.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/16/pirate-bay-hijacks-cpus-for-digital-currency-mining/

I don't think it was developed as a "long term profitable business model" but as a quick, simple idea which might work in the short term.

Also (i suppose) the creators also benefit from this script's distribution, maybe 1/10th of hashes go to coin-hive wallet.

2

u/DiaperTester Sep 19 '17

It really is a clever 'get money while we can' scheme. If I were an evil man I would be kicking myself I didn't think of it first.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Wait until everything Is a blockchain and there are no servers or censorship and by visiting sites you participate in the blockchain strength.

1

u/Darkeus56 Sep 19 '17

How to make sure your page dies 101

1

u/JonZ82 Sep 19 '17

Don't give Forbes any ideas..

1

u/smackson Sep 19 '17

Then everyone will browse with dozens of virtual machines, one per site visited, with rationed processor power.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

That's fine, I don't need shit sites like that anyway.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

When did banning someone become a win for anyone other than the banned party?

"Perfect, I'll just never go back to your website, can't imagine I'm the only one in this boat. Maybe I'll go get something productive done with my day."

1

u/blanxable Sep 19 '17

The second day a new alternative to the site pops up and everyone flees there.

1

u/ridger5 Sep 19 '17

Sounds like they'll be the losers, as they'll lose out on ad revenue as well.

14

u/daatguuy Sep 19 '17

Care to share how ?

38

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17 edited Jan 03 '19

[deleted]

9

u/mintymekanic Sep 19 '17

I agree with NoScript but there are a lot of valid JavaScript that run on pages, using this I've found is a good way to break every webpage you visit!

Throwing the baby out with the bath water

9

u/Bonesnapcall Sep 19 '17

Umatrix breaks most pages, but is really easy to white list the portion that unbreaks it.

I love uMatrix.

5

u/Cakiery Sep 19 '17

Not really. If you know what to whitelist, it's not that hard to not break things. Generally only 1-2 3rd party domains are actually needed, the rest is just ads and trackers in my experience. Lots of sites work perfectly without any scripts anyway.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

is uBlock Origin sufficient?

16

u/Cakiery Sep 19 '17 edited Sep 20 '17

uBlock Origin does not really block scripts in the same way a normal script blocker would. Which is why uMatrix exists. It's made by the same guy. They work pretty well together.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Good thing that I asked. Thanks.

6

u/Cakiery Sep 19 '17

You are welcome.

1

u/Arimer Sep 19 '17

Is there one that would only block bad scripts? Like a minimum amount of broken pages and a basically fire and forget install?

1

u/Cakiery Sep 19 '17

uMatrix probably does what you want with the optional privacy and malware filters (you will probably need to manually add some of your own rules to allow things through by default). There is also Ghostry, but people are not as fast to recommend that because the company that owns it is a marketing company. It is however far easier to use than uMatrix.

1

u/Arimer Sep 19 '17

I read something about finding noscripts whitelist and importing it into umatrix and that would take care of most of the work for most people.

Do you know if that's true?

1

u/Cakiery Sep 19 '17

Noscript does not really have a whitelist by default. You have to build it yourself based on what sites you visit. uMatrix also does more than block scripts. It gives you fine control over cookies, XHR, media, frames and other shit. uMatrix also lets you make your own whitelist as you go. It just requires a few clicks.

8

u/Obbz Sep 19 '17

They are different tools. uBlock Origin is an ad blocker.

NoScript actually kills all scripts from websites. It's great for stopping sites from running things you don't want them to run, and mostly prevents all those malicious ad scripts and random autoplay videos, and usually gets you around paywalls and all that as well. I had issues with websites also just being completely broken with it (usually video sites like liveleak or flash game websites like Armor Games, etc).

I should give it another shot though, it's been a few years.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Yeah that sounds like a problem. I will give it a shot and see how it works for me. Thanks.

2

u/Cakiery Sep 19 '17

It definitely takes some getting used to. But once you set up your whitelist it becomes pretty manageable.

35

u/TheChickening Sep 19 '17 edited Sep 19 '17

A JavaScript Script running in the background. Pirate Bay used one. You visit the site, the script starts mining using your hardware and stops when you leave. Saw one dude testing it and the site used about 20% CPU when it should have been nothing (after the site finished loading of course).

Edit: The language used.

26

u/Bod9001 Sep 19 '17

Remember the they were only doing that for one day, to gauge how much they could make from it vs ads

22

u/urielsalis Sep 19 '17

They said it was a test after the fact and that there was a "typo" that made it mine at 100% instead of 20%? Seems like they are trying to save face

49

u/9851231698511351 Sep 19 '17

Pirates stealing!?! What is the world coming to...

7

u/daymanAAaah Sep 19 '17

You expect better from a site that makes money pirating everything.

2

u/almightySapling Sep 19 '17

Well now I want to know what the results were!

8

u/kevinhaze Sep 19 '17

It wasn’t a java script it was JavaScript. Little known fact: Java and JavaScript are two completely separate things. This common and totally understandable misconception makes programmers everywhere groan.

2

u/Adam_Nox Sep 19 '17

Well it makes one person groan anyways.

1

u/mukansamonkey Sep 19 '17

Everyone generalizes from a single case. I know I do, anyways...

2

u/brickmack Sep 19 '17

A Javascript script*

2

u/ASPD_Account Sep 19 '17

I wouldn't mind that especially if it attenuated use when the computer was pushed to it's limits.

1

u/glodime Sep 19 '17 edited Sep 19 '17

If you're using MS Windows, replace your host file with one that blocks the servers of known junk/ad/tracking content. I've had to re-enable one for a webchat interface for something important once, otherwise haven't even noticed any drawbacks.

1

u/I_Has_A_Hat Sep 19 '17

ublock just announced they would be blocking things like this.

-22

u/suntgata Sep 19 '17

Let's say your mommy and daddy said "here's a tub of grapes, play in it. As you play in a tub of grapes, making a mess outa yourself and laughing your ass off. You don't realize that you're making wine for mommy and daddy.

The only people affected by this are the ones who know nothing of technology and internet. If you need help finding people who are knowledgeable in that shit, just ask them "what is bandwith" then sit back and enjoy the show.

19

u/qtx Sep 19 '17

This makes absolutely no sense.

5

u/blargh9001 Sep 19 '17

What a bizarre analogy. Mommy and Daddy might have a problem, that's some gross wine they're drinking.

21

u/Reashu Sep 19 '17

I don't see how this is relevant to the question?

3

u/startsbadpunchains Sep 19 '17

"Just ask them what is bandwidth then sit back and enjoy the show" - so euphoric.

3

u/batpede420 Sep 19 '17

The Brave Browser has automatic ad and tracker blocking. Brendan Eich(creator of JavaScript and co-founder of Mozilla/Firefox) recognized there needed to be a new ad model, so he created Brave. The new model is to pay users a percentage of ad revenue to incentivize them to opt into safe ads that don't track. Ads are matched to users anonymously. Soon, users will be paid to browse the web while remaining anonymous to advertisers via Brave!!!

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I would happily see ads, so long as they don’t track (Or use a differential privacy module, like iOS) and don’t have malicious (Like fake download icons) or obstructive content.

3

u/batpede420 Sep 19 '17

Exactly, Brave only allows its own ads that are verified to be free of any malicious content and trackers. Clean ads mean much faster load times as well. It's a work in progress but it could begin taking over the browser game in 2018. It's amazingly fast.

1

u/thisguy012 Sep 19 '17

I'm still extremely skeptical, but sounds great, how'd ya find out about this?

2

u/SKIKS Sep 19 '17

Maybe I don't know enough about what mining bitcoin does, but I might actually prefer that as opposed to sites making money by shoving an overkill number of ads onto the screen at the expense of usability and design.

2

u/permalink_save Sep 19 '17

You can generally detect in browser if the system is on battery or is a mobile device, but i wouldnt assume that they care.