First UK paper bans adblock users

Kermit.de.frog

I see City AM have banned adblock users. Hope this isn't going totally mainstream. Adblock is the greatest thing since that guy fell on the ice in Dublin.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/adblock-firefox-users-banned-city-am-website-uk-publication-protects-revenue-1525036

petrolcan

They don't block uBlock.

Just noticed it's Firefox only. Don't even know why I'm replying, never heard of city am before your post.

gavkeegan

The UTV Ireland Player started doing the same last week, and Channel 4 (and E4 etc) have been doing it for ages now. I think it is inevitabe that most sites will follow suit over time...

OneOfThem

gavkeegan wrote: »

The UTV Ireland Player started doing the same last week, and Channel 4 (and E4 etc) have been doing it for ages now. I think it is inevitabe that most sites will follow suit over time...

Is this gonna be like the way the ISP's banned torrent and streaming sites and so then we all said "oh well, I guess we won't be able to use them anymore" and then totally didn't instantly find a dozen ways to still use them?

Let the games commence!

Standman

Tried to watch a video on the Irish Independent mobile website yesterday - the actual video I wanted to watch wouldn't play, but at least I got to see the trailer for the new blockbuster flop "Pan" 3 times in a row before closing the page and vowing to never visit their stupid ad-ridden website again.

Bulbous Salutation

RTE Player has been doing this for the past few weeks.

I suppose the model of expecting stuff for nothing is one that doesn't work.

hatrickpatrick

This will and should be circumvented. Advertisers and companies have only themselves to blame for this trend.

Why are ads not b!tched about on Boards.ie?
Because they don't
-blare music or other sound unsolicited, when you may be already trying to listen to something else,
-expand to fill the whole screen and block content,
-wait until you're half way through the content and then show up and block you from reading it
-delay thr delivery of content.

I've only ever used adblock on websites which have ads that play sound. No sympathy for them. They're a menace.

KungPao

They're on to us!

I have seen this recently with streaming sites - darkened and not able to go full screen. Saw it on Bild too the other day. The site is locked down with AB enabled.

What's annoying is that you have to disable the program...just adding the site to your 'white list' isn't good enough.

Bastards!

anothernight

I came across something similar last night on a different website. I hope it doesn't become a thing. I'd rather just not visit those sites than have to turn off things on my computer, installed by me, just because they tell me to.

The Backwards Man

You can still read their articles if you run NoScript.

Up yours City AM!

NachoBusiness

More worryingly, PornHub videos won't play unless you disable it.

darkpagandeath

Once they take a hit on business it will become an unthing. Traffic is traffic regardless of watching ads.

KungPao

anothernight wrote: »

I came across something similar last night on a different website. I hope it doesn't become a thing. I'd rather just not visit those sites than have to turn off things on my computer, installed by me, just because they tell me to.

I'd wager that it very much will become a thing.

The Backwards Man

NachoBusiness wrote: »

More worryingly, PornHub videos won't play unless you disable it.

THAT'S NOT TRUE!!!

SEPT 23 1989

When an ad comes up when I play a song on you tube I consciously zone out until the three seconds of ad is over

Remembering nothing

Bulbous Salutation

Ghostery shows Boards as a very busy site when it comes to tracking.

Jayop

Bulbous Salutation wrote: »

RTE Player has been doing this for the past few weeks.

I suppose the model of expecting stuff for nothing is one that doesn't work.

RTE player is a joke anyway. You pay your license fee (at least I do) and you expect a half decent service for their live player. I work when the football tends to be on so I'd like to use their service. Most of the time it's so fuzzy it's unwatchable, then you refresh the page and you have to sit though yet another ad before it works. I normally just go to an illegal streaming site to watch stuff I should be able to watch perfectly legally on our national broadcaster that we all double and triple pay for.

Rayne Wooney

I'm surprised all websites don't do it we
are all hardly going to leave the Internet and venture outside into the blinding sunlight

Jayop

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

I'm surprised all websites don't do it we
are all hardly going to leave the Internet and venture outside into the blinding sunlight

If all websites used it then new websites that don't use it would pop up and we'd all use them instead.

Bulbous Salutation

Jayop wrote: »

If all websites used it then new websites that don't use it would pop up and we'd all use them instead.

There's very few sites that run on good intentions. It's tracking and advertising, or paying for content.

colossus-x

Bulbous Salutation wrote: »

RTE Player has been doing this for the past few weeks.

I suppose the model of expecting stuff for nothing is one that doesn't work.

I find that obnoxious given that even if you don't use terrestrial TV you are required to pay a TV licences if watching over the web as is the case with me atm as I have technical problems putting up a ariel and dish in the apartment complex I live in , but I watch content on my tv hooked up to my Laptop. Not that I'm blaming you : )

KungPao

Jayop wrote: »

RTE player is a joke anyway. You pay your license fee (at least I do) and you expect a half decent service for their live player. I work when the football tends to be on so I'd like to use their service. Most of the time it's so fuzzy it's unwatchable, then you refresh the page and you have to sit though yet another ad before it works. I normally just go to an illegal streaming site to watch stuff I should be able to watch perfectly legally on our national broadcaster that we all double and triple pay for.

It really pisses me off when I want to watch something live. Imagine the scene: You have heard Ireland are in a penalty shootout in the playoffs of Euro 2016 against Bosnia, you rush to RTE player and miss most of it because you are stuck watching ads for toilet paper, rashers, and Cillet Bang. Gah! It should be ad-free for some live stuff like that.

The 3 player is even worse i think...was watching the rugger on a bus trip last week and I lost connection a few times....had to sit through ads again after every reconnection. Bloody annoying.

degsie

Raspberry Pi-hole ftw.

uptherebels

Jayop wrote: »

If all websites used it then new websites that don't use it would pop up and we'd all use them instead.

Yes but the problem arises when sites only source of revenue is ads. "Free" websites aren't free

I have no sympathy for the likes of rte with their crap player, always have problems using it but never have any problem seeing the ads.

You want me to use your site without an ad blocker then don't use obtrusive ads. Simple.

You force me shut down ads with sound or those x's that move then i don't use your site

karma_

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

When an ad comes up when I play a song on you tube I consciously zone out until the three seconds of ad is over

Remembering nothing

adblock software improves the youtube experience by an infinite amount. I honestly have no idea why people are not using these extensions, it's bliss.

Bulbous Salutation

It's long being touted, but a quick and secure micropayment service would seem to make sense. Slip a few cents to a site for access to content.

I've been visiting a site called damninteresting.com for years. They come up with fascinating and well-written articles that are always worth a read. Great podcast as well. I'd love to be able to read an article on the site and make a payment of 50 cent, a euro etc for that, instead of having to go to paypal and go through the rigmarole of making a donation. They don't have any advertising on the site as it's the "the misappropriation of attention for third-party profit".

Jayop

Bulbous Salutation wrote: »

There's very few sites that run on good intentions. It's tracking and advertising, or paying for content.

I knwo they do but many a massive website have started with a no ad policy to build their user base before introducing ads. If they get big enough then the people who don't use adblock will also come over and they get the revenue from them

As was said above, most people wouldn't use adblock if the ads we unobtrusive and weren't for things like Russian mail order brides. We pay for RTE 3 times already so they can piss off with ads on their player too.

KungPao wrote: »

It really pisses me off when I want to watch something live. Imagine the scene: You have heard Ireland are in a penalty shootout in the playoffs of Euro 2016 against Bosnia, you rush to RTE player and miss most of it because you are stuck watching ads for toilet paper, rashers, and Cillet Bang. Gah! It should be ad-free for some live stuff like that.

The 3 player is even worse i think...was watching the rugger on a bus trip last week and I lost connection a few times....had to sit through ads again after every reconnection. Bloody annoying.

3 player I don't mind so much because it's only funded by ads but RTE has the license fee, direct government funding and ads. The least they should be able to do is match the quality of the illegal streaming sites.

KungPao

karma_ wrote: »

adblock software improves the youtube experience by an infinite amount. I honestly have no idea why people are not using these extensions, it's bliss.

Easy peasy on PCs but is it so easy on tablets and phone apps? Plus in work/college usually you can't install nothing without the magic fingers of the administrator.

Jayop

Bulbous Salutation wrote: »

It's long being touted, but a quick and secure micropayment service would seem to make sense. Slip a few cents to a site for access to content.

I've been visiting a site called damninteresting.com for years. They come up with fascinating and well-written articles that are always worth a read. Great podcast as well. I'd love to be able to read an article on the site and make a payment of 50 cent, a euro etc for that, instead of having to go to paypal and go through the rigmarole of making a donation.

With so much free content I'd imagine you're very much in the minority in being willing to pay for stuff online.

petrolcan

karma_ wrote: »

adblock software improves the youtube experience by an infinite amount. I honestly have no idea why people are not using these extensions, it's bliss.

I never understood the complaints about ads on youtube until I had to use someone else's PC the other week.

I *heart* adblocking software.

smash

Bulbous Salutation wrote: »

RTE Player has been doing this for the past few weeks.

Utter bollox isn't it considering we fcuking pay for it!

Skylinehead

Anti-adblock stuff is usually an overlay on the content. F12 -> delete element. Contents back!

Jayop

smash wrote: »

Utter bollox isn't it considering we fcuking pay for it!

This is a screenshot I took during the Germany game on the RTE player. It's like this most of the time for me during football. Strangely during the adbreaks it runs super smooth.

http://www.unitedreds.net/attachments/untitled-png.1567/

KungPao

Jayop wrote: »

This is a screenshot I took during the Germany game on the RTE player. It's like this most of the time for me during football. Strangely during the adbreaks it runs super smooth.

http://www.unitedreds.net/attachments/untitled-png.1567/

Not working bro. Need to be a member.

NachoBusiness

The Backwards Man wrote: »

THAT'S NOT TRUE!!!

FECKIN WAS TRUE! Last week anyway. AdBlock may have altered it to prevented them blocking the streams.

They have this message instead now.

Not that I ever watch the stuff you understand, pure filth. I just use it to create a certain ambiance in the room to help me fall off to sleep of a night.

Bulbous Salutation

The reality is that sites you love to visit don't run on hot air, fake outrage, and good intentions.

Pay or get away.

anothernight

Bulbous Salutation wrote: »

The reality is that sites you love to visit don't run on hot air, fake outrage, and good intentions.

Pay or get away.

There's actually several ways to monetise a site; advertising is only one of them.

You can have good ads and bad ads. For example, there's a sewing website I like whose ads are genuinely useful to the site's users (such as myself) because they point to high quality, trustworthy vendors. None of them are animated, play sounds, flash, or do anything that annoys me. Indeed, some of them are the type where you get a discount if you click through them instead of going to the vendor's site directly. I never block ads like those, but the vast majority of website ads aren't like that at all.

I'm the admin of a website with reasonably high traffic for its niche. I'd never in a million years consider charging for access to the content because as soon as I did that, people would get similar content elsewhere, or find ways around paying. There's very few types of online content that I'd consider paying for. Simple access to a website isn't one of them.

Besides, you already pay for your internet connection. If you want to pay for access to content on top of your ISP charges, would you not be better off just buying a book or something?

Shield

I've disabled cookies and turned on privacy settings for 'do not track' and it seems to have done the trick.

KomradeBishop

This will just mean adblockers become completely undetectable pretty soon.

You can't stop ad-blockers and the like, you can only create a futile 'arms-race' type situation, where the low-manpower websites paying devs to create detections for ad-blockers, can't compete with the unlimited-manpower free/open-source devs, improving the ad-blockers (where the more the ad-blocker-detection efforts succeed, the more annoyed open-source devs there will be, with motivation to plug-up the ad-blockers).

Good luck with that.

Jayop

KungPao wrote: »

Not working bro. Need to be a member.

Sorry it's posted in the admin section of the site. I thought the link might still work.

Basically a completely fuzzy unwatchable image from the Euro qualifiers.

Dan_Solo

Bulbous Salutation wrote: »

RTE Player has been doing this for the past few weeks.

I suppose the model of expecting stuff for nothing is one that doesn't work.

Maybe they should try it first before deciding that, or has the TV license been scrapped without anyone telling me?

osarusan

I just went to the City AM website and had no problem browsing even though I have adblock installed and running.

rainbow kirby

City AM is an awful Tory rag anyway, wouldn't be wasting my time on it.

Zombienosh

I'm on city am now with adblock on and it's not stopping me....

The Randy Riverbeast

osarusan wrote: »

I just went to the City AM website and had no problem browsing even though I have adblock installed and running.

Zombienosh wrote: »

I'm on city am now with adblock on and it's not stopping me....

Its a limited trial atm. I could keep refreshing the page and sometimes it would block part of the article. Dont care enough about some irrelevant website to see if I can work around it.