The fundamental problem is that these filter lists are maintained by random volunteers, who everyone just assumes are trustworthy.
The browser makers avoid the issues by having ad-blockers be third-party extensions. The extension makers don't make the filter lists either, they just import from EasyList and similar. It's surprising there arent't more cases of corruption and broken trust.
I wish I could get ad-blocking some somebody I can trust. Unfortunately the only way to turn ad-blocking into a business is to charge advertisers to un-block them. That defeats the whole purpose of ad blocking, and is basically blackmail.
I maintain an open source project. It isn't my day job though. Sometimes I accept pull requests right away, sometimes it takes me months to get to them. One advantage commercial projects CAN have is someone paid to do daily work on it. (Can is key, sometimes that person exists, sometimes that person doesn't get time)
I agree with your main point that OSS is underfunded, but Babel also collects donations through Open Collective[1] and Henry Zhu withdraws a monthly maintenance fee (recently $8k/mo).
At least there's clear progress. Things like Patreon are great for reach and engagement. It's a step-up from having to either work at a company directly using the tech, or keeping it as a "side-project" that either eats your life away or lags behind.
projects don't get donations just by existing and being used. They need to actively acquire donors/patrons just like businesses acquire customers. Asking for patrons for an individual is also a whole different thing from asking for patrons for a project.
It seems to me like the potential for abuse is relatively limited. Or maybe I'm just not creative enough.
What's the worst that can happen? If a maintainer starts blocking things that shouldn't be then it's easy to complain publicly (as we see in this GH issue) and get the change reverted. If it becomes obvious that a given maintainer doesn't play by the rules then their list will be dropped.
If a list fails to block some ads then people will complete it or create a new one.
Since as far as I'm aware these block lists can't inject or replace content I can't really imagine how one could take advantage of it in a non-obvious manner.
You could sell a better ad block list. The free ones are very good but could be improved providing bypasses for ad-blocking-blocking. A button to report a website showing ads to have somebody write new rules would be nice too
I have tried that. Every other time I tried to book a flight, hotel or buy something I enter my credit card info and got a blank page or an endless spinner. Now I don't know if I have been charged and whether the purchase has gone through. I do not have time to deal with that. Also I ended up white-listing so much garbage just to do basic browsing that it defeated to whole purpose.
I use a separate browser for one-off purchases for this exact reason. If I do repeated purchases on a certain site, I go through the steps to set the rules on my main browser. Feels like a good enough balance.
Yes the amount of effort to manually whitelist everything needed to make pages work but still not show ads/trackers is too much.
I use uBlock with stock default settings. I also have set my browser to purge cookies, local storage, and history every time I close the browser. That's low effort and cuts the annoying crap from websites by a large amount.
If you're using Firefox, check out the containers extension as well. You can isolate sessions or specific websites without worrying about clearing cookies and history. It's not perfect in terms of usability but is a great advancement for plugging privacy leaks
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Users who refuse to think, work, or pay for quality, are not entitled to personally customized services. That would be an act of charity, which is affordable for the few who are far pooorer or sicker then the mainstream, but isn't sustainable for the masses.
i guess this is an unpopular position for some reason, but i'm inclined to agree. in pretty much every part of life you have to choose between effort and price. i can change my own oil or pay someone else to do it. i can cook myself dinner or pay to go out. why do people expect the internet to be different?
Surely you can see how these are different. The imposition of third party tracking and annoying advertising isn't inherent in the medium of the web; it's been/being altered to be that way.
Now, if in order to change your own vehicle engine-oil third-parties made it impossible without viewing advertising and giving personal information up would that be fine with you because some blind people who could disguise themselves were still able to access the oil without viewing the advertising and getting tracked?
"Well you have to make effort to change your own oil, if you don't want to use a white cane and custom printed dazzle-camouflage prostheses then you should pay for someone else to do it."??
okay you're right, the analogy doesn't fit as well as i thought when i woke up this morning.
at a very high level i do still think there are some similarities. people want to consume a tailored tech experience that costs time and money to put together. they don't want to put in any effort to improve their experience, and they definitely don't want to pay for it. what do we do with/for these people? i say we leave them be and document workarounds for people who are willing to do a little reading.
> people want to consume a tailored tech experience
No, in general I don't "want to consume a tailored tech experience".
When I go to a newspaper or magazine site, for example, I want to read the content I've chosen to look at, just as if I'd picked up the paper in a store. I'll "tailor" my experience by choosing which sites to visit and which links to follow, but I do NOT want the news outlet to "tailor" its content based on having tracked my activity across the web for the past year.
I want to be shown the same content as any other visitor to the site, and to be allowed to explore it on my terms, not have some algorithm looking over my shoulder and deciding what to push at me.
Likewise, when I visit a web store, I want to be offered the same range of products, at the same prices, as any other customer. I don't want the store to analyse my interests, demographic details, past purchasing habits, etc., in order to "tailor" its offerings and prices so as to squeeze the maximum amount of money from me.
If and when a use case arises where I do want a "tailored tech experience", then we can talk about how I might pay for it.
I'm not familiar with it but aren't Apple doing things with built-in adblocking these days?
As an aside (but still relating to your comment) I tend to trust my adblocker based on the "many eyeballs" theory and I think the OP and ensuing discussion here is proof that the system mostly works.
I know Firefox uses Disconnect.me's filter lists, which do have a company backing them.
I trust gorhill to make the right decisions when it comes to uBlock Origin and the filter lists it uses, based on his previous track record, his stance on Adblock's "acceptable ads" and his refusal to take donations from anyone.
I don't necessarily trust the individual list maintainers[1], but I do trust that gorhill will quickly purge any filter lists that try to put in shady changes.
[1] I do trust the maintainer of the DNK list. He's a former colleague of mine, and I know how strictly principled he is in regards to ads and tracking.
He'll work on it for as long as he feels like it. I've made sure to thank him for his work and signal that I appreciate what he does very much indeed. All in the hope that he will continue the good work.
Will the project die at some point? Maybe. Or maybe someone will take over. Maybe another better adblocker will come along. The need is there, as long as ads/trackers exist.
I didn't know Apple blocks something? I know that they developed API which allows third-party apps to block anything including apps (if we're talking about iOS).
The browser makers avoid the issues by having ad-blockers be third-party extensions. The extension makers don't make the filter lists either, they just import from EasyList and similar. It's surprising there arent't more cases of corruption and broken trust.
I wish I could get ad-blocking some somebody I can trust. Unfortunately the only way to turn ad-blocking into a business is to charge advertisers to un-block them. That defeats the whole purpose of ad blocking, and is basically blackmail.