Adblock Plus

Adblock Plus ( English for " advertising lock plus" ) is a commercial tool for the suppression of advertising on websites ( ad blocker ). It allows the user to hide online advertising and not advertising elements only download from the Web. In addition to graphics can Adblock Plus also inline frames, Java applets, flash advertising, and pure text ads removed.

Adblock Plus is an extension for different browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Firefox Mobile, Google Chrome, Opera, K -Meleon ), the Internet suite Seamonkey, Internet Explorer and the e -mail client Mozilla Thunderbird is available. Since November 2012 Adblock Plus is also available as a free app for Android devices.

Application

There are several ways to block graphic, flash advertisement, or an inline frame:

• About a clickable text in the status bar shows Adblock Plus a list of available elements that can be block. You can select the appropriate link and so prevent the display.
• If it is graphics or inline frames, offers in addition the possibility rechtszuklicken to this object and select the appropriate entry (eg " iframe Adblock " or " Adblock Image ").
• If it is flash advertising, Adblock can a button attached to each Flash object with which you can block the URL of the corresponding object. This option needs to be in the settings (" obj - tabs" ) are activated.
• Using the Element Hiding Helper can individual elements with the mouse and select block. The new rules are simply stored in a separate filter.
• In the settings of Adblock any time can be added or removed old update.

In order not to have to block each URL, Adblock offers the possibility of " wild card" in the form of asterisks (*) to use. Here, this character stands for any content.

An example:

In addition to this method, there is the possibility of using regular expressions. They offer a greatly expanded syntax and allow to explicitly specify which URLs should be cleaned up, and yet to keep the list short. This is especially important for large lists as Filterset.G as more entries Adblock slow down. Adblock interprets all filter that begin with a slash and stop as regular expressions.

Adblock Plus

Since the development of Adblock stagnated since 2004, was created with Adblock Plus a fork of Adblock, offers the following additional features:

• Subscribe pre-made filter lists, which are also updated automatically on request. This automatically block a large part of advertising.
• Creating a White List, contained on this site are not filtered.
• Hide unwanted HTML elements
• Displays the total number of hits of each filter
• Faster algorithm

Criticism

Sites with ad-blocking detection

Meanwhile, some website operators have started to recognize the use of Adblock and to take countermeasures. How to hide some sites a warning that point to the concept of advertising revenue. In turn, users have programmed (eg using the Greasemonkey Firefox extension ) scripts that bypass the ad blocker detection on these sites, so that the site is usable despite ad blocker.

Acceptable Ads

Since version 2.0, Adblock Plus is configured by default to block that individual, evaluated as unobtrusive advertisements (literally "acceptable ads" ) is not. For this, a special whitelist is employed. Using this ( turn-off ) function is said to be positively influence the development of the web as a whole. The function has been controversial before its introduction in late 2011, and it was met with parts of the user with strong opposition. An entry in the whitelist is free of charge for small websites and blogs ..

The controversy over the " Acceptable - Ads " feature was revived, according to research by Sascha Pallenberg end of June 2013. The individuals behind Adblock Plus confirmed the search for the most part, but the business model to justify the claim that the criteria to participate in " Acceptable Ads " are the same for all. On July 1, 2013 reply from Till Faida, the partially contradicted the accusations and accused of lying Pallenberg followed .. In response to this practice, the alternative project Adblock Edge was born.

In October 2013, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority Google accused of abuse of power in relation to AdBlock Plus. Thus, Google will make payments to the developers in order to escape with their own advertising by Acceptaple Ads of filtering.

In early February 2014, the conflict between Eyeo and various online marketers worsened again after Sascha Pallenberg had risen again serious allegations against the business methods of the Adblock Plus operator. Various marketers, including Axel Springer Media Impact and IP Germany, the marketer of the RTL Group, to have joined together according to media reports, to act together against the Eyeo GmbH. Also, the ProSiebenSat.1 Media marketer SevenOne Media could be involved again, although he had withdrawn an injunction against Adblock Plus only in the fall of 2013. Another measure, which should be planned, is the basic blocking of content for users with enabled adblocker.

Software with similar functionality

The most similar to Adblock Plus ad blocking - but without the " Acceptable Ads " - are Adblock Edge, AdBlock and Adblock Lite ( which is now no longer being developed ). Since the extension Adblock Plus versions prior to 2.0 was ( still without the " Acceptable Ads " ) are very popular, but available only for certain browsers, there are several projects with the aim to provide similar functionality in other browsers available. For example, there is one that stands on the other codebase independent extension for Safari.

The French Internet provider Free has released a firmware update for one of their routers in early 2013, which advertising can already block in the router. This implementation of an internet filter still contains some errors and can be disabled by the user, but is enabled by default.