在这篇文章中，我们将了解用户如何使用广告拦截器来拦截广告，网站所有者如何使用工具来检测使用Anti-AdBlockers 的(Anti-AdBlockers)Adblock脚本，以及一些网络冲浪者使用其他软件使用脚本禁用器来拦截(Script)Adblock检测。这场冲突将走向何方？我们今天所知的免费互联网(Internet)模式是否已经准备好向新模式转变？正如我们今天所知， AdBlock的威胁非常真实，很可能会改变免费互联网。(Internet)
免费上网的价格
这个星球上没有什么是免费的。我们中的许多人认为互联网(Internet)是免费的信息来源。真的免费吗？它真的可以存在于乌托邦式的自由状态吗？在今天的生活中，人们无法摆脱广告——无论是在报纸、电视、户外还是网络上。您可能会忽略报纸广告，在电视广告一闪而过时去吃点心，或者对点缀在Urbania的大型广告牌视而不见。广告就在那里，您可以选择忽略它们——但它们仍然存在，但请不要误会！
来自 AdBlocker 的威胁
在网络世界中，为了支持他们的存在，网站会放置广告。不管你喜不喜欢，在线广告(Online Advertising)通过鼓励网站管理员、博主和作家创作内容，间接地为互联网(Internet)的发展提供了资金。他的内容越好，他的流量和收入就越高。
有些是放置得当的广告，有些广告是侵入性的。非侵入式广告(nonintrusive ads)通常是静态的，并显示在文章的两侧、开头或结尾。
当您登陆一些流行的大流量网站的网页时，还有其他类似弹出窗口或整页广告会阻止您。您可能必须手动关闭这些广告，其中一些广告被编程为在您单击“关闭”(Close)按钮时再次打开相关窗口。此类广告是侵入性广告(intrusive ads)。你必须离开你正在做的事情，才能关闭这些广告。这些广告费用很高，可能会非常烦人，并且被专注于赚钱的网站使用，而不是为您提供优质内容。微软研究院表示，此类侵入性和烦人的广告的成本可能非常高。
冲浪者 vs.在线广告商(Online Advertisers)vs. 广告拦截器 vs.出版商之战(Publishers War)
网站发布者的论点(The argument for Website Publishers)
维护网站需要钱。虽然有时网站的主要目的是赚钱，但有许多博主只是为了激情和传播信息而这样做。无论哪种情况，一旦网站变得流行并且流量增加，就会产生维护成本——如果没有的话，首先是域名和托管成本。然后是作者费用、搜索引擎优化、软件费用、免费软件开发费用、CDN费用、Web防火墙和防病毒费用等等。这份清单可能是无穷无尽的。当然，其中许多都可以在互联网上免费获得，例如WordPress博客平台，但其他需要钱。因此，网站收入有助于支持网站、所有者及其家人。现在如果一个用户访问一个网站并免费阅读内容，有人说这可以比作在电影院看电影而不买票(seeing a movie in a theater without buying a ticket)！
互联网冲浪者的论据(The argument for Internet Surfers)
网络冲浪者并不关心这些事情。He/she只想要免费的信息，没有任何混乱。他的论点通常是出现在我的桌面上的东西是我的事，我不是来这里看你的蹩脚广告 (What appears on my desktop is my business, and I am not here to see your crappy ads )——没有意识到他正在阅读的信息需要花钱才能生成和展示。有些人想要信息并出于某种目的使用互联网(Internet)。从学生到教师，再到研究人员，再到寻求解决包括Windows 在内的不同问题的解决方案的人们——(Windows –)每个人都在不同的博客和网站上搜索信息。
广告拦截社区(The Ad Blocking community)
通过修改Hosts(Hosts)文件来阻止广告的古老方法并不是每个人都能做到的。当各种广告拦截软件、插件和插件作为免费下载发布时，情况发生了变化。他们开始流行起来。例如，浏览器Adblock的下载量超过 2 亿次，其开发商Eyeo.com表示，每天的下载量为 170,000 次。
PageFair.com最近的一份报告称，广告拦截以每年 43% 的速度增长，到 2018 年，100% 的网络冲浪者很可能安装了某种广告拦截软件。这个数字看起来确实太难了消化，特别是因为 PageFair.com是一家帮助网站确定他们因广告屏蔽而损失了多少钱的公司，所以他们可能夸大其词是可以理解的，但这是一个表明网络方向的迹象移动。WordPress 用户(plugin for WordPress users)还有一个免费插件 ，可以告诉他们有多少百分比的用户(how many percent of their users)使用某种广告拦截器。
超过 20% 的一般兴趣网站访问者会屏蔽广告。受影响最严重的网站是那些针对更精通技术的受众的网站，例如像这样的游戏和技术网站。这些网站超过 30% 的访问者会屏蔽广告。
But ad blocking is expected to cross 50% soon.
在线广告商(Online Advertisers)
谷歌(Google)及其产品AdWords和AdSense是迄今为止最强大的在线广告公司。谷歌(Google)市值约 3000 亿美元，仅次于埃克森美孚(Exxon)和苹果公司(Apple)，位居第三。2012 年，它通过在线广告赚取了大约 440 亿美元，其中 68% 来自谷歌(Google)自己的网站，27% 来自其广告网络，5% 来自其他来源。因此，谷歌(Google)的赌注很高。它不能看到在线广告业务萎缩或死亡——不可能！我在这里提到谷歌(Google)，因为它是最大的在线广告网络。
战争开始(The war begins)
AdBlockers、Anti-AdBlocker(Anti-AdBlockers)和Anti-AdBlocker脚本禁用程序
为了对抗 广告拦截(Ad Blockers)器，一些网站想出了对使用广告拦截器的访问者屏蔽内容(blocking content to visitors who use ad blockers)的想法。也就是说，如果网站检测到浏览器正在使用任何类型的广告拦截器，它将发出一条消息，要求用户禁用广告拦截器，以便他们可以查看内容。许多这样的 Anti-Adblock 脚本(Anti-Adblock scripts)都可以在网上免费获得，包括一个免费的 WordPress 插件来阻止 Adblock 用户(free WordPress plugin to block Adblock users)。有几种技术可以阻止您网站上的 Adblock 用户。
一段时间前， Arstechnica(Arstechnica)通过阻止安装了广告拦截器的用户进行了 12 个小时的试验。约会网站OKCupid曾经要求广告屏蔽用户捐赠 5 美元来支持该网站。我不知道他们是否还在这样做，但这只是几个例子。Reddit也是，我相信它的用户只需支付少量月费即可获得无广告体验。
这能为订阅模式(subscription model)铺平道路吗？已经有一些新闻网站和博客要求您付费，以便能够阅读超过第一段或第二段的内容。
Facebook现在已经主动采取措施绕过广告拦截器并展示广告，尽管用户使用它们。
The game continues!
为了解决这个问题，现在可以免费下载Firefox和Chrome浏览器的(Chrome)Anti-AdBlocker 脚本禁用(Anti-AdBlocker script disablers)程序。这些浏览器插件会禁用此类网站使用的反广告拦截器脚本，并允许他们查看内容。
一位前 Google 员工创建了SourcePoint.com，该网站承诺与 AdBlockers 作斗争。
谷歌于 2013 年 3 月从 Android 商店中删除了 Adblock。AdBlock 的开发人员表示，这对用户增长产生了重大影响。(Google, in March 2013, removed Adblock from the Android Store. This has had a significant impact on user growth says the developers of AdBlock.)
The bombshell!
用户相信广告拦截器可以拦截所有广告和其他非必要的花里胡哨，如社交分享栏、跟踪代码等。但鲜为人知的是，一些广告拦截软件公司已经开始接受(ad blocker software companies have started accepting fees for white-listing ads)精选的白名单广告费用公司？
一个焦点案例是非常流行的Adblock Plus。通过引入“可接受广告(Acceptable Ads)”的概念，它现在可以决定谁看到广告、什么样的广告和谁的广告！在进行的一项调查中，它发现只有 25% 的Adblock Plus用户严格反对任何广告。因此似乎诞生了 Acceptable Ads的想法。 平心而论，Adblock 为将广告列入白名单制定了一些严格的条件。(In all fairness, Adblock has laid down some strict conditions for getting the ads whitelisted.)而且，必须要意识到，广告拦截器也有费用要支付，你想过吗？那么他们从哪里赚钱呢？从使用他们拥有的唯一工具！Adblock Plus表示，这笔费用是为了帮助它维护其过滤器列表。
有报道称，谷歌(Google)、亚马逊(Amazon)、微软(Microsoft)、Taboola付费让广告通过Adblock Plus。
谷歌(Google)和其他一些公司已经开始为 AdBlock Plus 提供部分资金(have started funding)。通过向Adblock(Adblock)支付费用，他们可以在 Acceptable Ads白名单中允许他们的广告。这引发了黑客新闻(Hacker News)的激烈讨论。根据白名单，某些公司的广告是允许的，但不是全部。其中包括来自Google、Amazon、SmartSearch、gmx.fr、livestrong.com、fusionads.com、banner.t-online.de、gutefrage.net 等的网站。
Two problems here as I see!
使用此广告拦截软件的网络冲浪者的信任正在受到损害。有些人可能会觉得 AdBlock 已经开始(Some may feel that AdBlock has started selling)通过兑现他们的信任来出卖他们。此类广告拦截器现在将决定其用户将看到哪些广告。
这可能会在在线广告界滋生不公平和垄断的做法。一家强大的公司可以支付足够的费用来“维护”此类广告拦截器的白名单，以允许其自己的广告并阻止其竞争对手的广告。谁知道可接受广告(Acceptable Ads)本身的定义会随着时间而改变！
Ad blockers could well acquire immense power in the future!
更多的广告拦截器将进入游戏。有些人可能一开始有独立的崇高想法，但他们可能很快就会被一些在线广告商所吸引。
可能的解决方案(Possible solutions)
必须有一个更好的机制来满足所有相关人员，即。内容发布者、网站用户、在线广告商和广告拦截器。
我们可以看到的第一种方法是选择加入广告(opt-in advertising)。这些网站可以为用户提供选择他们想要看到的广告类型的功能。虽然互联网(Internet)营销机构和社交网站已经在互联网(Internet)上不断跟踪您以跟踪您的兴趣，但为了向您提供相关的广告，允许用户选择他们想看的广告类型的过程将消除很多混乱. 您在Facebook 上部分实施了这样的做法(Facebook). 如果您不喜欢某个特定广告，可以关闭它并指定您感兴趣的内容。这种方法只需要改进，由网站实施并呈现给广告拦截器，以便他们可以检查他们的数据库来决定是否拦截广告。在这种情况下，广告网络有责任/义务维护用户及其兴趣的数据库，以便他们可以显示选择加入的广告。它必须是网站和广告网络之间的合作，以根据她/他选择的内容来识别用户的兴趣。
第二种方法也需要一点研究。浏览器广告拦截器(Browser Ad Blockers)可以调查用户经常访问的网站。根据访问频率(frequency of visits)，广告拦截(Blockers)器可以选择允许在网站上投放广告。这样，它将帮助网站发布者和网站用户。前者仍然可以赚钱，而后者知道他/她喜欢内容，进而允许加载广告。
在线 URL 扫描程序(Online URL scanners)监控网站并报告它们是否不安全访问。广告拦截社区能否扫描网站并(scan sites and block ads)仅拦截那些使用过多广告、弹出窗口等的广告——而放弃其他显示合理数量的非侵入性广告的人。这可能吗？
更新(UPDATE)：谷歌推出了一个贡献者计划，让用户屏蔽广告。
如果这种情况继续下去，如果我们看到从我们今天所知的免费广告支持的互联网(Internet)转变为由精选优质网站主导的封闭式付费内容平台，我不会感到惊讶。
直到找到另一种模式或商业战略来资助或维持“免费”互联网，在线广告将继续存在。网站将做广告，广告拦截器将阻止，网站可能会阻止广告拦截器用户，然后用户将使用现在可用的反广告拦截器插件，在线广告商将向广告拦截器付费以将其广告列入白名单，等等。(Till an alternative model or business strategy to finance or sustain the “free” Internet is found, online advertising is here to stay. Websites will advertise, adblockers will block, websites may block ad-blocker users, users will then use the anti-ad-blocker add-ons now available, online advertisers will pay adblockers to get their ads whitelisted, and so on.)
问题(Questions)
1) 如果广告拦截软件公司接受金钱并允许“可接受的广告”，他们是否会从事道德行为？
2）作为用户，您是否会自愿禁用某些网站的广告拦截器或将某些网站列入白名单，比如这个(this one)？
如果您决定将TheWindowsClub.com 列入白名单并支持我们，我们将不胜感激。
3）有一天，像谷歌(Google)这样的公司会购买像AdBlock这样流行的广告拦截器吗？选择性地只允许他们自己的广告并扼杀竞争，这将是谷(Google)歌手中的有力武器。
It’s too early to speculate, and we will have to wait for Time to unravel events!
到那时，请在使用（或不使用）广告拦截器的案例中(The case for using (or not using) an Ad Blocker)欣赏这部漫画《欢乐科技》(Tech Of Joy)。
更新于 2019 年 9 月 15 日。
来自 Arun Kumar 的投入(With inputs from Arun Kumar)
Surfers vs Website owners vs Ad blockers vs Anti Ad Blockers War
In this post wе will ѕee how uѕers use Ad Blockerѕ to block ads, website ownеrs use tools to detect Adblock scripts using Anti-AdBlockers, and some web sυrfers use other ѕoftware to blоck Adblock detection υsing Script disablers. Where is this conflict heading towаrds? Is the free Internet model as we know today, poised for а shift, to a nеw model? The threat of AdBlock is very real and could well change the free Internet, as we know it todаy.
The price for a free Internet
Nothing on this planet is free. Many of us assume that the Internet is a free source of information. Is it really free? Can it really exist in the utopian free state? In today’s life, one cannot do away with ads – whether it’s in the newspapers, the television, the outdoors or the web. You may ignore the newspaper ads, go for a snack when the TV ads are flashed or go blind to the large billboards which dot Urbania. The ads are there, and you may choose to ignore them – but they are still there, none the less, make no mistake!
Threat from AdBlockers
In the online world, to support their existence, websites place ads. Like it or not, Online Advertising has indirectly funded the growth of the Internet by encouraging webmasters, bloggers and writers to generate content. The better his content was, the more his traffic and consequently his revenue.
Some are well-placed ads, and some ads are intrusive. The nonintrusive ads are usually static and displayed towards the sides, beginning or end of articles.
And there are others like the pop-ups or the full-page ads which block you when you land on web pages of some popular large-traffic websites. You may have to manually close these ads, and some of them are programmed to again open a related window even as you click on the Close button. Such advertisements are intrusive ads. You have to leave what you were doing, to close these ads. These ads, which pay a lot, can be very irritating and are used by websites whose focus making more money, rather than providing you with quality content. The cost of such intrusive and annoying ads can be very high, says Microsoft Research.
Surfers vs. Online Advertisers vs. Ad blockers vs. Publishers War
The argument for Website Publishers
Maintaining websites needs money. While sometimes the main aim of a website is to make money, there are many bloggers who do it just for passion and dissemination of information. In either case, once the sites become popular and traffic increases, there are maintenance costs – if not anything, the domain name and hosting costs, to begin with. Then come Authors fees, SEO, software costs, freeware development fees, CDN expenses, Web firewall & antivirus costs and so on. The list could be endless. Of course, many of these are available free on the internet, like the WordPress blogging platform, but others require money. The website income thus helps support the website, the owner as well as his family. Now if a user visits a website and reads the content for free, some say that this could well be compared to seeing a movie in a theater without buying a ticket!
The argument for Internet Surfers
The web surfer does not care about these things. He/she just wants information free and without any clutter. His argument typically is What appears on my desktop is my business, and I am not here to see your crappy ads – not realizing that the information he is reading has cost money to someone to generate and display. There are people who want information and use the Internet for a purpose. From students to teachers to researchers to people looking to find solutions to different problems including Windows – everyone searches for information on different blogs and websites.
The Ad Blocking community
The age-old method of blocking ads by modifying the Hosts file was not something everyone could do. Things changed when various ad-blocking software, add-ons, and plugins were released as free downloads. They started becoming popular. For instance Adblock for browsers, with more than 200 million downloads, is being downloaded 170,000 times a day, says its developers Eyeo.com.
A recent report by PageFair.com said that ad blocking was growing at the rate of 43% every year and that 100% of web surfers could well be having some sort of an ad-blocking software installed by 2018. This figure does look too hard to digest, especially since PageFair.com is a company that helps websites identify how much money they are losing due to ad-blocking, so it is understandable that they may exaggerate, but it is a sign showing the direction in which web could well be moving. There is also a free plugin for WordPress users that can tell them how many percent of their users use some sort of ad blocker.
Over 20% of visitors to general interest websites are blocking ads. The worst affected sites are those that target more technically savvy audiences, such as games and technology sites like this one. More than 30% of the visitors to these sites block advertising.
But ad blocking is expected to cross 50% soon.
Online Advertisers
Google with its products AdWords & AdSense is by far the most powerful online advertising company. Google with a market capitalization of around $ 300 billion, comes 3rd after Exxon and Apple. In 2012, it made around $44 billion from online advertising, 68% of which came from Google’s own sites, 27% from its ad network and 5% from other sources. The stakes are thus high for Google. It cannot see the online advertising business shrink or die – no way! I am mentioning Google here since it is the largest online advertising network.
The war begins
AdBlockers, Anti-AdBlockers & Anti-AdBlocker script disablers
To counter Ad Blockers, some websites came up with the idea of blocking content to visitors who use ad blockers. That is, if a website detects that the browser is using an ad blocker of any type, it will give a message asking the users to disable the ad blocker so that they can view the content. Many such Anti-Adblock scripts are freely available on the net, including a free WordPress plugin to block Adblock users. There are several techniques to block Adblock users on your website.
Arstechnica some time back, experimented for 12 hours by blocking users who had ad blockers installed. Dating site OKCupid used to ask ad-block users to donate $5 to support the site. I do not know if they are still doing it, but these are just a few examples. Reddit too, I believe offers its users an ad-free experience for a small monthly fee.
Could this pave the way for a subscription model then? There are already some news sites and blogs who ask you to pay, to be able to read beyond the first paragraph or two.
Facebook has now pro-actively taken steps to circumvent ad blockers and show ads, despite users using them.
The game continues!
To counter this, Anti-AdBlocker script disablers are now available as free downloads for Firefox and Chrome browsers. These browser plugins disable the anti-adblocker scripts which such websites use and allow them to view the content.
A former Googler has started SourcePoint.com that promises to fight AdBlockers.
Google, in March 2013, removed Adblock from the Android Store. This has had a significant impact on user growth says the developers of AdBlock.
The bombshell!
Users trust ad-blockers to block all advertising and other non-essential bells and whistles like the social sharing bars, tracking codes, etc. But what is little known that some ad blocker software companies have started accepting fees for white-listing ads from select companies?
A case in focus is the very popular Adblock Plus. By introducing the concept of “Acceptable Ads“, it will now be in a position to decide who sees ads, what kind of ads and whose ads! In a survey carried out, it found that only 25% of Adblock Plus users were strictly against any advertising. Thus seems to have born the idea of Acceptable Ads. In all fairness, Adblock has laid down some strict conditions for getting the ads whitelisted. Moreover, one has to realize, ad blockers too have expenses to pay, have you thought of that? So where do they make money from? From using the only tool they have! Adblock Plus says this fee is about helping it to maintain its filter list.
There are reports that Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Taboola pay to get ads past Adblock Plus.
Google and some other companies have started funding, in part, AdBlock Plus. By paying a fee to Adblock, they can get their advertisements allowed under the Acceptable Ads whitelist. This has triggered an intense discussion on Hacker News. Some and not all, advertisements of some companies are allowed as per the white list. These include those from Google, Amazon, SmartSearch, gmx.fr, livestrong.com, fusionads.com, banner.t-online.de, gutefrage.net, etc.
Two problems here as I see!
The trust of web surfers who use this adblocking software is being compromised. Some may feel that AdBlock has started selling them out, by encashing their trust. Such ad blockers will now decide which advertisements its users will see.
This could breed unfair and monopolistic practices in the online advertising world. A powerful company could pay enough to “maintain” the whitelist of such ad blockers, to allow its own advertisements and block ads from its competitors. Who knows the definition of Acceptable Ads itself could change over time!
Ad blockers could well acquire immense power in the future!
More ad blockers would get into the game. Some may start up with noble ideas on being independent, but they may soon get sucked in by some online advertiser.
Possible solutions
There has to be a better mechanism in place that satisfies all concerned, viz. content publishers, users of websites, online advertisers & ad blockers.
The first method we can see is opt-in advertising. The websites can provide users with a feature to select the kind of ads they would want to see. Though the Internet marketing agencies and social networking sites already keep tracking you on the Internet to track your interests, in order to provide you with relevant ads, the procedure of allowing users to select what types of ads they would like to see will remove much confusion. You have such a practice partially implemented on Facebook. If you do not like a particular ad, you can close it and specify what interests you. This method just needs to be refined, implemented by the websites and presented to the ad blockers, so that they can check against their database to decide whether or not to block ads. In this case, it becomes the duty/obligation of an ad network to maintain a database of users and their interests so that they can display opt-in advertisements. It would have to be a collaboration between the website and ad networks to identify the user interests per what s/he opted in for.
The second method too involves a little research. Browser Ad Blockers can survey which websites a user frequents. Based on the frequency of visits, the Ad Blockers can choose to allow advertisements on websites. That way, it will help both the website publishers and website users. The former can still earn while the latter knows s/he likes the content and in turn, allows adverts to be loaded.
Online URL scanners monitor websites and report if they are unsafe to visit. Could the ad-blocking community scan sites and block ads of only those who use excessive ads, pop-ups, etc. – and let go of the others who display a reasonable amount of nonintrusive ads. Could that be a possibility?
UPDATE: Google has launched a Contributor program that lets users block ads.
If this continues, I will not be surprised if we see a shift away from a free ad-supported Internet as we know it today, to a closed pay-for-the-content platform, dominated by select quality websites.
Till an alternative model or business strategy to finance or sustain the “free” Internet is found, online advertising is here to stay. Websites will advertise, adblockers will block, websites may block ad-blocker users, users will then use the anti-ad-blocker add-ons now available, online advertisers will pay adblockers to get their ads whitelisted, and so on.
Questions
1) Will ad blocking software companies be engaging in ethical behavior if they were to accept money and allow ‘acceptable ads’?
2) Would you as a user, voluntarily disable your ad blocker for some sites or whitelist some sites, like say, this one?
We would be grateful to you if you were to decide to whitelist TheWindowsClub.com and support us.
3) Will a day come when a company like, say, Google buys, say, a popular ad-blocker like AdBlock? It would be a potent weapon in the hands of Google to selectively allow only their own ads and stifle out the competition.
It’s too early to speculate, and we will have to wait for Time to unravel events!
Till then, enjoy this comic Tech Of Joy on The case for using (or not using) an Ad Blocker.
Updated on 15th Sept 2019.
With inputs from Arun Kumar
