Frictions between Google and Adblock Plus?

Lucas Malor · Post by **Lucas Malor** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 10:17 am

The question is: As more and more people install AdBlock Plus, which is officially recommended by Mozilla, will Google continue to fund the browser?
[...]
it might be easier for Google to break off its relationship with Mozilla, leaving the foundation struggling for revenue.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/12 ... lock_plus/

I also visited the mentioned site in the article against Adblock Plus:

http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/

the hilarious thing is both Adblock Plus and Noscript blocks them advertises without any problem ]X-D

ultravioletu · Post by **ultravioletu** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 1:16 pm

Let's read the article, shall we?

After smoking something, the The Reg hack wrote:(...) AdBlock, a free download developed by an independent German programmer named Wladimir Palant.

Congrats, Wlad, you've got citizenship! I still have to wait a couple of more years...

The said hack went to the pub and then wrote:(...) Danny Carlton has succeeded in rejecting any user who visits his sites with AdBlock Plus installed

Pity it doesn't say for how long did he succeed...

Still dizzy after being hit uselessly with a clue stick, the author wrote:(...) a Mozilla competitor that doesn't block quite so many ads. Opera comes to mind.

Hem, hem, my Opera instalation blocks the same amount of ads, because I use the same filters. Hold on, it blocks even MORE, as it doesn't support whitelisting.

Trying to be funny, the author wrote:Palant and his cohorts, Carlton says, shouldn't be allowed to block AdBlock blocking.

For reference, the masterpiece is "That young girl is one of the least benightedly unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting". Hitchhiker's Guide To Galaxy, anyone?

I quite like the Reg and The Inq, especially the tongue-in-cheek approach. And the nicknames they give. But I can't help but notice that sometimes they're sooo able to publish, quite unnecessarily, loads of crap...

ultravioletu · Post by **ultravioletu** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 1:26 pm

The funny thing is that the article actually opened the can of worms. There are 91 comments (now), most of them pro-adblocking...

Lucas Malor · Post by **Lucas Malor** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:15 pm

Well, I'm not very interested in the article. It's full of errors and commonplaces. I'm interested in this:

Last week, The New York York Times questioned whether the growing popularity of a Firefox extension called AdBlock Plus poses a threat to the ad-driven business models of entertainment, media, and search sites across the web. If enough people install the extension and other ad-killing browser gizmos, The Times asked, could they chip away at the bottom line of companies like CNN, Microsoft, and Google?

It seems New York York Times want to arouse Google's suspicions. In your opinion, Google can cause some trouble to Mozilla Foudation and / or to Palant?

ultravioletu · Post by **ultravioletu** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:33 pm

I don't think so. At least, not as long as the Adblock Plus is not bundled. We have to keep in mind that the user must explicitely install the extension AND add some filters.

The situation would be totally different if the functionality was bundled, or, even worse, deeply integrated into browser, so that removing it would have been a pain in the arse.

Lucas Malor · Post by **Lucas Malor** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:43 pm

ultravioletu wrote:I don't think so. At least, not as long as the Adblock Plus is not bundled. We have to keep in mind that the user must explicitely install the extension AND add some filters.

But the fact is Adblock Plus is on of THE extensions. It's on the top of most popular extensions in Firefox extension page. It's often suggested to newbies to install it. I think the percent of Firefox users that don't use Adblock Plus is very few...

If I'm a Google manager, I'll be a bit angry... ^____^''

Wladimir Palant · Post by **Wladimir Palant** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 3:04 pm

http://adblockplus.org/blog/mozilla-hur ... block-plus - nothing has changed since then.

Lucas Malor · Post by **Lucas Malor** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 3:15 pm

Google ads are mostly on-topic and often prove useful to users. They are also meant to be non-distractive, plain text ads as they should be. That’s why I personally don’t block Google ads, and I know many do the same. So Google is the one who is least likely to suffer from Adblock Plus, it might rather get a competitive advantage out of it. That’s because they made an effort to improve the user experience and I think they deserve it.

A good remark

I completely agree.

jamieplucinski · Post by **jamieplucinski** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:39 pm

... it's "The Register" they're not a serious news outlet and are more likely to publish an "article" about a flying vampire boy in the British Countryside than they are anything serious.

No wonder the company won't grant us an interview.

They won't grant an interview since nobody takes them seriously, and Google have too much money and mainstream interest to waste time on the register.

chewey · Post by **chewey** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 2:30 am

ultravioletu wrote:For reference, the masterpiece is "That young girl is one of the least benightedly unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting". Hitchhiker's Guide To Galaxy, anyone?

More applicable to our case here would be that one:

"For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen."

It's a real pity DNA had to die so young.