So I came up with a way to defeat adblock...

Soldato
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Completely, unequivocally and finally. I wasn't looking for it particularly, I use adblock all the time, but basically if you installed this piece of software on your server, its game over for adblock.

So, the question is, what do I do with the idea? I'm not usually a man for money, but if I open up and tell everyone the idea, (which I have pretty much confirmed works), then all the companies will start using it, and people like "us" don't benefit any more. So, 2 questions :

a) If a lame-o like me can think of it, anyone can. That means, it uses only standard web technologies. If anyone can think of it, it means it is inevitable.

b) If it is inevitable, then I might as well make some cash from these companies before everyone knows about it and adblock becomes totally useless. But does it make me scum to make money from something like this? There are no benefits to open source if I just publish it, I might as well tax the people who would benefit.

Of course, the biggest dilemna is that of course, everyone will get spammed with adverts all over again... including me. I thought of implementing a white list in it, either by IP or something, to not show adverts to those people but then, how do you decide who sees them and who doesn't?

/discuss
 
afaik adblock has people coming up with ways around it all the time, hence the filter g updater so we can stay up to date with these?

good luck with it remember the rules are to spread the wealth with the first person to reply in any thread asking for help :)
 
I don't see why not - the simplest ideas are often the greatest. And just because you can't physically package something, it doesn't mean you shouldn't be rewarded for your work and creativity. Personally I'm all for a way to beat ad block as a lot of hard working website maintainers rely on money from ads to stay afloat.
 
as said people are already doing this, I've been on sites which literally moan at you because we use adblocker (or similar). They soon get a workaround though.

Personally I'd milk it while you can.
 
Completely, unequivocally and finally. I wasn't looking for it particularly, I use adblock all the time, but basically if you installed this piece of software on your server, its game over for adblock.

So, the question is, what do I do with the idea? I'm not usually a man for money, but if I open up and tell everyone the idea, (which I have pretty much confirmed works), then all the companies will start using it, and people like "us" don't benefit any more. So, 2 questions :

a) If a lame-o like me can think of it, anyone can. That means, it uses only standard web technologies. If anyone can think of it, it means it is inevitable.

b) If it is inevitable, then I might as well make some cash from these companies before everyone knows about it and adblock becomes totally useless. But does it make me scum to make money from something like this? There are no benefits to open source if I just publish it, I might as well tax the people who would benefit.

Of course, the biggest dilemna is that of course, everyone will get spammed with adverts all over again... including me. I thought of implementing a white list in it, either by IP or something, to not show adverts to those people but then, how do you decide who sees them and who doesn't?

/discuss

I've seen more and more websites displaying a little messages stating that you have Adblock enabled, and how the adverts help them run their free service etc etc. so there is a 'way' that's already out there.

However, surely if the workaround is using Javascript or similar then Adblock can just release an update that will counter that?
 
However, surely if the workaround is using Javascript or similar then Adblock can just release an update that will counter that?

which is what happens all the time isn't it? i was uinder the impression that peopl are always trying to get around it, then as soon as they do someone then is trying to get it to work again. just like spam/viruses/all niasty things, people exploit one way, someone fixes that, then exploit another, someone fixes that and it keeps going and forever will be updated.
 
I a presume piece of php/javascript/whatever that cashed the advert locally and thus it's location was http:www.thesiteyourelookingat.com/images/advert.jpg is what you're thinking of. The ads would have to be stored in a generic image folder otherwise you could just block the specific ads folder. The problem is that at some point the companies running the ads are going to need to track that click-through - and without some obfuscation you'll be able to see that - at which point you track it back to the banner picture and block that.
 
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I a presume piece of php/javascript/whatever that cashed the advert locally and thus it's location was http:www.thesiteyourelookingat.com/images/advert.jpg is what you're thinking of. The ads would have to be stored in a generic image folder otherwise you could just block the specific ads folder. The problem is that at some point the companies running the ads are going to need to track that click-through - and without some obfuscation you'll be able to see that - at which point you track it back to the banner picture and block that.
You mean cached, and no; you're not talking any sense. All adblock does is block URL patterns - so, just get around the patterns. You can randomize filenames, use a PHP file to generate banner images on-the-fly, and so on.


(Also, the Latin in your sig is wrong.)
 
Yes I meant cached - I'm not exactly concentrating tonight.

I'm not sure how you think I'm not making sense though. My point is that whilst you can get around the issue of the location of the files - which is the major value that adblock uses in working out whether to block it, you'll always need to have some way for the image, when clicked on, to send information to the company running the ads (be it google, yahoo, adbright etc) telling them that a click has occurred so that the website owner can actually be paid for the ads. It wouldn't take any work at all to, in addition to monitoring where the image is coming from, start monitoring the outgoing link and block the image based on that. At some point that click will need to be registered - with CPC there's no getting around that. The amount of sites that sell adverts direct and have a decent another trust with their advertisers to agree that one or the other monitors click-rate are few and far between - certainly few enough to have specific rules for (as you tend to at the moment in any case).

In regards to my sig, if you mean it's spelt wrong or grammatically incorrect I'd disagree with you. If you mean that you disagree with it, then that's your opinion, which I'll respectfully pay no attention to at all :)
 
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Oh, I see what you are saying now. We were pretty much talking about the same thing, but your first post didn't make that clear to me!

With regards to your sig; it is grammatically wrong. It is "sonatur", not "viditur" - sona = sound/hear, vidi = see/watch. The quote is "Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound", not "Whatever is said in Latin looks profound"! I guess you could use "viditur" in that way (to mean "appears"). The use of viditur here is the result of someone's bad use of a Latin dictionary.

Ciao
 
if I was using adblock and an advertisement popped up... I'd boycott the fact that the company had attempted to force me to see the advert... So what difference does it make? are there proven figures that say forcing a user to see your advert after being adblocked increases clickthrough?
 
With regards to your sig; it is grammatically wrong. It is "sonatur", not "viditur" - sona = sound/hear, vidi = see/watch. The quote is "Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound", not "Whatever is said in Latin looks profound"! I guess you could use "viditur" in that way (to mean "appears").

That's exactly what it's supposed to be though, "appears". The quote is about things seeming to be profound when they are not rather than the specific sound of the words, surely?
 
just use curl to fetch your adverts and parse them as part of the same page. Trick is as old as the hills.

But this will show in the advert companies logs as your webserver hitting it, like you are just using a script to generate traffic.
Even so, the image (or link) would still link to an external site, so you'd have to redirect it using a script too.
 
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