Be sure to whitelist MeFi when using iOS 9 content blockers September 20, 2015 8:11 AM Subscribe
Just a friendly reminder: if you're using one or more iOS devices, have upgraded to iOS 9 and have jumped on the new content blocking functionality bandwagon, remember to add your favorite sites to the whitelist(s) of the blocker(s) of your choice. I added MeFi and other frequently visited faves of mine, seeing that ads served here by The Deck are high quality and unintrusive, and no doubt important for keeping the site going.
MetaFilter will be on all my white lists should I enable iOS ad-blocking. I've been quite satisfied with MetaFilter's unobtrusive but well-chosen ads from The Deck (it's been ages since I browsed the site without logging in, so AdSense is a mystery these days). Really, though, iOS content blocking isn't about denying all ads—it's a response to the insane amount of tracking data, intrusive "commercial breaks", and all the excess garbage data that goes along with all that. Surfing the NYT, Slate, or Laughging Squid is so slow these days because of this phenomenon, coming back to the slim and trim MeFi feels like switching from a dial-up connection to a fiber-optic one.
Meantime, please let us know should MeFi need another round of fundraising if the blocking wars hit the site's revenue as collateral damage.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:48 AM on September 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Meantime, please let us know should MeFi need another round of fundraising if the blocking wars hit the site's revenue as collateral damage.
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:48 AM on September 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Really, though, iOS content blocking isn't about denying all ads—it's a response to the insane amount of tracking data, intrusive "commercial breaks", and all the excess garbage data that goes along with all that.
Yeah, that's one of the interesting things about it, because as someone who has stubbornly declined to use any kind of adblocking stuff over the years out of a maybe perverse purist desire to see the web as it exists I'm finding it increasingly hard to do what I've normally done, which is just not read sites whose ad setups are a sufficient turn off. Because at this point even some of my short list of reliable standbys, sites I really like and am willing to roll my eyes at the occasional obnoxious ad spread on, will make a not-particularly-old laptop start to hiccup distractingly. Just the sheer bogginess of a lot of the ad content being served, even setting aside the data mining stuff tied to it, is blech.
And but so, yes: whether or not the new content blocking API hooks in iOS9 Safari are about denying ads as a whole, I am skeptical about most folks installing a content blocker regularly wanting/caring to specifically say "oh, but not all ads". Dropping something in place that Just Gets Rid Of Ads seems like a pretty understandable approach, basically, even if it's only the worst kinds of ads that end up driving a person to choose to take action in the first place.
Which is a total "ruining it for everyone" sort of situation, of course, from a low-impact-ad-running site's perspective. Because it's that especially gross, heavy, bulky, invasive stuff that pushes folks over the limit, but an ad is an ad and once you're past you're limit and clamping down, why wouldn't you clamp down? Nobody's writing love songs to the merely lightweight impact of google-spawned text ad units, it's not exactly the stuff of poems, however much from my view the distinction between those and flash-driven autoplaying video is stark.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:00 AM on September 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
Yeah, that's one of the interesting things about it, because as someone who has stubbornly declined to use any kind of adblocking stuff over the years out of a maybe perverse purist desire to see the web as it exists I'm finding it increasingly hard to do what I've normally done, which is just not read sites whose ad setups are a sufficient turn off. Because at this point even some of my short list of reliable standbys, sites I really like and am willing to roll my eyes at the occasional obnoxious ad spread on, will make a not-particularly-old laptop start to hiccup distractingly. Just the sheer bogginess of a lot of the ad content being served, even setting aside the data mining stuff tied to it, is blech.
And but so, yes: whether or not the new content blocking API hooks in iOS9 Safari are about denying ads as a whole, I am skeptical about most folks installing a content blocker regularly wanting/caring to specifically say "oh, but not all ads". Dropping something in place that Just Gets Rid Of Ads seems like a pretty understandable approach, basically, even if it's only the worst kinds of ads that end up driving a person to choose to take action in the first place.
Which is a total "ruining it for everyone" sort of situation, of course, from a low-impact-ad-running site's perspective. Because it's that especially gross, heavy, bulky, invasive stuff that pushes folks over the limit, but an ad is an ad and once you're past you're limit and clamping down, why wouldn't you clamp down? Nobody's writing love songs to the merely lightweight impact of google-spawned text ad units, it's not exactly the stuff of poems, however much from my view the distinction between those and flash-driven autoplaying video is stark.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:00 AM on September 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
If, like me, you've forgotten how to unhide the Deck ads, it's one of the session cookie settings. You have to log out, then log back in.
posted by zamboni at 9:44 AM on September 20, 2015
posted by zamboni at 9:44 AM on September 20, 2015
I rather continue donate $10 every month than disable ad blocking and randomly clicking ads (I'm assuming that Deck ad revenues are based on clicks and not just impressions).
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:04 AM on September 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:04 AM on September 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
iOS has a relatively small share of web traffic anyway...
posted by Nevin at 10:05 AM on September 20, 2015
posted by Nevin at 10:05 AM on September 20, 2015
I'm blocking Google ads everywhere, including here, just on principle, but the Deck ads are showing here. Would it make any real-world difference to revenue if I unblocked Google ads here? Bear in mind that I wouldn't be clicking Google ads, ever.
posted by Solomon at 10:55 AM on September 20, 2015
posted by Solomon at 10:55 AM on September 20, 2015
Please don't tell me what to do.
posted by subbes at 10:56 AM on September 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by subbes at 10:56 AM on September 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
I'm assuming that Deck ad revenues are based on clicks and not just impressions.
I'm actually pretty sure this is wrong. The Deck doesn't track incoming clicks at all.
You can read how their model works here.
Basically they have a finite set of sites and a finite number of advertisers. They charge a set amount for an ad. So click all you want, it amounts for no more or less money for metafilter.
I could be wrong.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:11 AM on September 20, 2015
I'm actually pretty sure this is wrong. The Deck doesn't track incoming clicks at all.
You can read how their model works here.
Basically they have a finite set of sites and a finite number of advertisers. They charge a set amount for an ad. So click all you want, it amounts for no more or less money for metafilter.
I could be wrong.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:11 AM on September 20, 2015
Would it make any real-world difference to revenue if I unblocked Google ads here
Not really; if you're reading logged in you wouldn't be seeing AdSense units in any case.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:29 AM on September 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Not really; if you're reading logged in you wouldn't be seeing AdSense units in any case.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:29 AM on September 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I always read the site logged out and click on all the relevant ads. If you do any less, you want Metafilter to go out of business.
posted by michaelh at 2:33 PM on September 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by michaelh at 2:33 PM on September 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Meantime, please let us know should MeFi need another round of fundraising if the blocking wars hit the site's revenue as collateral damage.
This. Please, this. At the first sign of hinkiness.
posted by kimberussell at 2:33 PM on September 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
This. Please, this. At the first sign of hinkiness.
posted by kimberussell at 2:33 PM on September 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
zamboni: If, like me, you've forgotten how to unhide the Deck ads, it's one of the session cookie settings
T H A N K Y O U !
Srsly, thank you. I had no idea why I was not seeing them.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:57 PM on September 20, 2015
T H A N K Y O U !
Srsly, thank you. I had no idea why I was not seeing them.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:57 PM on September 20, 2015
This. Please, this. At the first sign of hinkiness.
Believe me, I feel strongly about keeping communicative about how the site's doing on that front. No big long Oh No droughts without a peep in the future, I guarantee. As of now, stuff is pretty good and I'm not (crystal ball, knock wood, etc) really expecting any iOS9 admageddon to come rushing in on us, but I'll be watching it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:59 PM on September 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
Believe me, I feel strongly about keeping communicative about how the site's doing on that front. No big long Oh No droughts without a peep in the future, I guarantee. As of now, stuff is pretty good and I'm not (crystal ball, knock wood, etc) really expecting any iOS9 admageddon to come rushing in on us, but I'll be watching it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:59 PM on September 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
No big long Oh No droughts without a peep in the future, I guarantee.
I love this site for many reasons, this New Transparency is one of the big ones lately. Still blocking ads because I gave at the office, but thanks for letting us know what's up.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 4:06 PM on September 20, 2015 [10 favorites]
I love this site for many reasons, this New Transparency is one of the big ones lately. Still blocking ads because I gave at the office, but thanks for letting us know what's up.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 4:06 PM on September 20, 2015 [10 favorites]
If you do any less, you want Metafilter to go out of business.
[deleted a whole mess of very much less polite stuff that would get my comment deleted (probably)]
some of us pay.
posted by juv3nal at 4:56 PM on September 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
[deleted a whole mess of very much less polite stuff that would get my comment deleted (probably)]
some of us pay.
posted by juv3nal at 4:56 PM on September 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Happy to pay my $5/month in return for guilt-free ad-blocking. And yes, if shit starts to get real, the community is here to help, not hinder.
posted by adrianhon at 5:04 PM on September 20, 2015
posted by adrianhon at 5:04 PM on September 20, 2015
For what it's worth, I'm certain michaelh was making a joke, even if I'm not wholly confident of my parsing of it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:19 PM on September 20, 2015
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:19 PM on September 20, 2015
Yes, just a joke. I only click on the irrelevant ads. Actually, I am conservative about clicking any Adsense ads on sites I like because at one point, Google seemed very aggressive about suspending accounts suspected of click fraud and more than a few blogs had their livelihood threatened by well-meaning supporters. Maybe that's changed or Metafilter is big enough to be above that, but the habit's stayed - not that I ever browse the site while logged out.
I'm a long-time fan of The Deck and don't understand how it's still such a rare ad model. I've seen some verticals, but nothing that's become too popular. It seems like it would be especially effective on a collection of well-designed, free, native mobile apps. Or maybe everything should just show a Patreon badge.
posted by michaelh at 6:10 PM on September 20, 2015
I'm a long-time fan of The Deck and don't understand how it's still such a rare ad model. I've seen some verticals, but nothing that's become too popular. It seems like it would be especially effective on a collection of well-designed, free, native mobile apps. Or maybe everything should just show a Patreon badge.
posted by michaelh at 6:10 PM on September 20, 2015
Peace pulled - Just doesn't feel good.
Like...okay, but...counterpoint.
posted by juv3nal at 9:17 PM on September 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
Like...okay, but...counterpoint.
posted by juv3nal at 9:17 PM on September 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
I thought the $5 I paid 12 years ago entitled me to an eternity of reading the site ad free, and telling everyone how to do their jobs? I mean that's $6.58 adjusted for inflation!
posted by blue_beetle at 9:36 PM on September 20, 2015
posted by blue_beetle at 9:36 PM on September 20, 2015
I'm a long-time fan of The Deck and don't understand how it's still such a rare ad model. I've seen some verticals, but nothing that's become too popular.
Oh this is killing me, because I'm literally days away from publicly announcing and trying to promote a new project I've been working on that seems totally relevant to this topic but is actually probably kinda tangential and I'm super excited about it squeeee.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:54 PM on September 20, 2015
Oh this is killing me, because I'm literally days away from publicly announcing and trying to promote a new project I've been working on that seems totally relevant to this topic but is actually probably kinda tangential and I'm super excited about it squeeee.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:54 PM on September 20, 2015
Or, better, donate. You put more money in MeFi's hands and it's easier than click fraud.
posted by indubitable at 6:15 AM on September 21, 2015
posted by indubitable at 6:15 AM on September 21, 2015
Honestly, I think the Deck is a rare model because it doesn't scale, or have the granularity that the adverstisers want.
Tracking is where the value is. With Facebook, Airbnb can go and say "Hey, I've got $100k to spend, I'm looking to target conservative 18-22 year old males living in New York with a partner who has an income of over 50k, has a graduate degree, and hasn't traveled within the last 38 weeks."
With The Deck, the relationship is reversed. The Deck is saying "We've curated fifty sites on the web, that we are pretty sure are visited by higher-earners who are interested in design, sign up here if you're interested".
They could expand to curate 50 other sites that are focused on fitness, or parenting etc, but it's indexing the web by hand, and too bad if you've got a personal site that you want to make few cents off.
I picture two shifts happening if ad blocking becomes more mainstream (It's one thing being built in, it's another thing being used in any real numbers)
Advertisers are going to migrate to Facebook, Twitter, Apple or other gated communities that serve ads in-house-- they're much harder to block and can silently pull the tracking/demographic information desired to add value, removing money from the wider-web and then in turn maybe causing a larger migration of publishers to hosting on Facebook, Apple News etc.
Along those same lines, I can picture some smart ad company building a server-side service that essentially back-routes the demographics/tracking information on a server-to-server basis. E.g. when you're clicking around Metafilter, even with every ad and tracker blocked, your visits are getting stores on Metafilter's access logs (assuming they keep any)-- those access logs could sync'd essentially real-time with remote ad service services from the server side to build/query the tracking/demographic profiles, so instead of Metafilter pulling adverts from The Decks's servers, they instead run a Deck service on their servers and then serve internally to the user.
In that case, the users are no longer seeing the trackers loading/doing their thing, but it's still happening so the advertisers still get their sweet, sweet data.
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:25 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Tracking is where the value is. With Facebook, Airbnb can go and say "Hey, I've got $100k to spend, I'm looking to target conservative 18-22 year old males living in New York with a partner who has an income of over 50k, has a graduate degree, and hasn't traveled within the last 38 weeks."
With The Deck, the relationship is reversed. The Deck is saying "We've curated fifty sites on the web, that we are pretty sure are visited by higher-earners who are interested in design, sign up here if you're interested".
They could expand to curate 50 other sites that are focused on fitness, or parenting etc, but it's indexing the web by hand, and too bad if you've got a personal site that you want to make few cents off.
I picture two shifts happening if ad blocking becomes more mainstream (It's one thing being built in, it's another thing being used in any real numbers)
Advertisers are going to migrate to Facebook, Twitter, Apple or other gated communities that serve ads in-house-- they're much harder to block and can silently pull the tracking/demographic information desired to add value, removing money from the wider-web and then in turn maybe causing a larger migration of publishers to hosting on Facebook, Apple News etc.
Along those same lines, I can picture some smart ad company building a server-side service that essentially back-routes the demographics/tracking information on a server-to-server basis. E.g. when you're clicking around Metafilter, even with every ad and tracker blocked, your visits are getting stores on Metafilter's access logs (assuming they keep any)-- those access logs could sync'd essentially real-time with remote ad service services from the server side to build/query the tracking/demographic profiles, so instead of Metafilter pulling adverts from The Decks's servers, they instead run a Deck service on their servers and then serve internally to the user.
In that case, the users are no longer seeing the trackers loading/doing their thing, but it's still happening so the advertisers still get their sweet, sweet data.
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:25 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
> not every iOS user will move quickly to iOS9
Fastest iOS Adoption Ever with iOS 9
posted by cjorgensen at 8:00 AM on September 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Fastest iOS Adoption Ever with iOS 9
posted by cjorgensen at 8:00 AM on September 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
And about 1/3 of all web traffic is coming from mobile with 50-60% of that coming from iOS. Depending on the site there's a good chance that at least 15% of the page views will soon be coming from Safari on iOS 9.
@cortex -- out of curiousity what is the browser breakdown for Metafilter?
posted by nathan_teske at 8:43 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
@cortex -- out of curiousity what is the browser breakdown for Metafilter?
posted by nathan_teske at 8:43 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
It'll be easier for me to dig up the details there when I'm not on my laptop, but on the mobile side at least I can say offhand that iOS is about half of the mobile volume we see in terms of AdSense revenue specifically, and that mobile as a whole is a large minority share of the AdSense total. Digging out iOS Safari vs. other browsers would take a little more digging, though as the default browser it's safe to assume it's gonna represent a big chunk of iOS traffic.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:02 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:02 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Along those same lines, I can picture some smart ad company building a server-side service that essentially back-routes the demographics/tracking information on a server-to-server basis. E.g. when you're clicking around Metafilter, even with every ad and tracker blocked, your visits are getting stores on Metafilter's access logs (assuming they keep any)-- those access logs could sync'd essentially real-time with remote ad service services from the server side to build/query the tracking/demographic profiles, so instead of Metafilter pulling adverts from The Decks's servers, they instead run a Deck service on their servers and then serve internally to the user.This is an interesting point and largely true, but it also misses something fundamental about how tracking works:
If site A (say, Facebook) serves ads from a third-party server and site B (say, your favorite forum) does the same, the third-party knows you are the same person across both sites. You can be tracked almost perfectly across any set of sites.
If sites served their own ads in a perfect adblock model, all its knowledge is constrained to what you're doing just on that site. When you visit site B, none of your user identity from site A comes with. Now, the sites and ad back-ends can use any information you supply (real name, email address, etc.) to tie you in to a larger profile, but you remain largely in control of what linking information you provide. It would be possible, in this dream world, to interact with Facebook via alice@example.com and interact with your forum as bob@example.com and only your browser (and browsing) fingerprint and IP address could tie the two together. And both of those are possible to mask if that's important to you.
posted by introp at 9:42 AM on September 21, 2015
introp: "If sites served their own ads in a perfect adblock model, all its knowledge is constrained to what you're doing just on that site. When you visit site B, none of your user identity from site A comes with"
You're right that you lose the easy unique fingerprint, but I'd argue that you could build a composite key with pretty good accuracy and gain the vast majority of the information back. The Panopticlick site by the EFF gives you an idea of your uniqueness in the crowd. An iPhone 6, in privacy mode, with an adblocker still identifies me as 1 in 2,932,194 on that site.
Assuming you can trust in those numbers, then that method of building a composite key might be enough to use as a basis of a web-wide tracking program. Not perfect by any means, but certainly valuable if blockers become mainstream.
posted by Static Vagabond at 10:59 AM on September 21, 2015
You're right that you lose the easy unique fingerprint, but I'd argue that you could build a composite key with pretty good accuracy and gain the vast majority of the information back. The Panopticlick site by the EFF gives you an idea of your uniqueness in the crowd. An iPhone 6, in privacy mode, with an adblocker still identifies me as 1 in 2,932,194 on that site.
Assuming you can trust in those numbers, then that method of building a composite key might be enough to use as a basis of a web-wide tracking program. Not perfect by any means, but certainly valuable if blockers become mainstream.
posted by Static Vagabond at 10:59 AM on September 21, 2015
On a tangent - how is the IOS9 update? I've seen a couple of rave reviews from the tech web sites, but the comments are all from people saying "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME", so I don't know whether to upgrade now or wait.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:38 PM on September 21, 2015
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:38 PM on September 21, 2015
EC, what device? It's great on my 5s and feels like 8.5 instead of a full point jump. Same OS, just cleaned up. Transition are laggy on my iPad 4 and I kind regret updating there. Some minor annoyances, but most are just settings.
posted by cjorgensen at 1:55 PM on September 21, 2015
posted by cjorgensen at 1:55 PM on September 21, 2015
iPad mini, purchased in 2013, so I think it's an iPad mini....4?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:02 PM on September 21, 2015
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:02 PM on September 21, 2015
Nope, iPad Mini 4 is the brand new one, 2013 is probably an iPad mini 2
posted by Pendragon at 2:24 PM on September 21, 2015
posted by Pendragon at 2:24 PM on September 21, 2015
Please don't tell me what to do.
Don't tell me not to tell you what to do!
posted by oceanjesse at 2:56 PM on September 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Don't tell me not to tell you what to do!
posted by oceanjesse at 2:56 PM on September 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
Quick question regarding whitelisting - I use Adblock Plus on Chrome. If I have www.metafilter.com whitelisted, does that cover the subsites like Ask MeFi as well or do I need to list them separately?
posted by Telpethoron at 3:29 PM on September 21, 2015
posted by Telpethoron at 3:29 PM on September 21, 2015
Telpethoron, I just took a look through Writing Adblock Plus filters, and I think this is what you would add to your filter list to whitelist all metafilter sites:
My understanding is that this line tells Adblock Plus to add an exception rule for all documents on metafilter.com domains. This worked for me in Chrome 45.0.2454.93 with Adblock 2.39.1.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:49 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
@@||metafilter.com^$documentMy understanding is that this line tells Adblock Plus to add an exception rule for all documents on metafilter.com domains. This worked for me in Chrome 45.0.2454.93 with Adblock 2.39.1.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:49 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
On a tangent - how is the IOS9 update? I've seen a couple of rave reviews from the tech web sites, but the comments are all from people saying "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME", so I don't know whether to upgrade now or wait.
It's good. It actually un-sucked my partners ipad 3 a bit. Usually updates gum up older devices, but this one feels like some serious optimization happened. My 5s is still pretty powerful in the scheme of things(what like 20% off a 6/an A8 device?) but the speedbump was noticeable.
I haven't updated my old ipad mini 1 yet with it's 2011 CPU, which is the oldest device supported, but i expect it to perform decently or at least better than ios 8 does on it.
iOS 7 and 8 sort of felt like windows 8. Huge new interface, performance issues on some systems, some people griped. iOS 9 feels like 8.1 or 10. Some people still gripe, but they really cleaned it up and it seems to perform pretty great on most systems.
It also bricked a friends phone... but she went to the apple store and they went "wow, uh, OOPS" and gave her a new one in like 10 minutes.
posted by emptythought at 5:08 PM on September 21, 2015
It's good. It actually un-sucked my partners ipad 3 a bit. Usually updates gum up older devices, but this one feels like some serious optimization happened. My 5s is still pretty powerful in the scheme of things(what like 20% off a 6/an A8 device?) but the speedbump was noticeable.
I haven't updated my old ipad mini 1 yet with it's 2011 CPU, which is the oldest device supported, but i expect it to perform decently or at least better than ios 8 does on it.
iOS 7 and 8 sort of felt like windows 8. Huge new interface, performance issues on some systems, some people griped. iOS 9 feels like 8.1 or 10. Some people still gripe, but they really cleaned it up and it seems to perform pretty great on most systems.
It also bricked a friends phone... but she went to the apple store and they went "wow, uh, OOPS" and gave her a new one in like 10 minutes.
posted by emptythought at 5:08 PM on September 21, 2015
The Panopticlick site by the EFF gives you an idea of your uniqueness in the crowd. An iPhone 6, in privacy mode, with an adblocker still identifies me as 1 in 2,932,194 on that site.True, but also a function of our current ad and security habits. There are builds of Mozilla's browser out there which provide very little fingerprinting information (sanitizing the UA string, accept headers, etc.). They're just not as common as, say, Firefox, at the moment because there's much lower-hanging fruit for those seeking anonymity. You can't make a perfectly anonymous browser, but we've already shown that it's not terribly hard to make a reasonably anonymous one. Most of us just don't have a reason to make that reach.
Assuming you can trust in those numbers, then that method of building a composite key might be enough to use as a basis of a web-wide tracking program. Not perfect by any means, but certainly valuable if blockers become mainstream.
posted by introp at 7:25 PM on September 21, 2015
I don't think they're awesome, but I do think they're non-sucky enough that I don't mind seeing them, and that in itself is rare. And awesome, because the money to keep this site going needs to come in somehow.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:54 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:54 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've been using Ghostery on both my desktop and IOS devices. I've whitelisted sites I trust on the desktop and use Safari on the IOS devices for the same. Clearly Metafilter is one of the good guys.
Now that IOS 9 is out, I'll likely pop for a content blocker on my iPad. It wasn't the poor ad designs that broke the camel's back for me, I'm pretty well used to ignoring ads on webpages. It's the tracking and the size of the packages sent across the network that really bothers me.
I'll be damned if I'm going to pay through using my download allocation, waste battery and slow things down so they can load their bloated javascript and other useless stuff just so they can try to grab my eyeballs or trick me into an accidental click.
posted by michswiss at 4:00 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Now that IOS 9 is out, I'll likely pop for a content blocker on my iPad. It wasn't the poor ad designs that broke the camel's back for me, I'm pretty well used to ignoring ads on webpages. It's the tracking and the size of the packages sent across the network that really bothers me.
I'll be damned if I'm going to pay through using my download allocation, waste battery and slow things down so they can load their bloated javascript and other useless stuff just so they can try to grab my eyeballs or trick me into an accidental click.
posted by michswiss at 4:00 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's good. It actually un-sucked my partners ipad 3 a bit.
Mine too. I had seamless upgrades on my iPhone 5 and my iPad 3 both of which are a lot friendlier with battery life now and seem quicker except for a few funny lags. There are a few changes, one new unhideable lackluster app (news! could be great, is not great) and the "close programs" feature works a bit differently which is about the only thing I'm having trouble getting used to (muscle memory). I suggest people do it.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 10:12 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Mine too. I had seamless upgrades on my iPhone 5 and my iPad 3 both of which are a lot friendlier with battery life now and seem quicker except for a few funny lags. There are a few changes, one new unhideable lackluster app (news! could be great, is not great) and the "close programs" feature works a bit differently which is about the only thing I'm having trouble getting used to (muscle memory). I suggest people do it.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 10:12 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Is Deck the only advertising stream on Metafilter? I ask because Ghostery shows a Quantcast advert script running here, too. Or, is it mis-identifying Quantcast as an advertiser?
posted by Thorzdad at 11:05 AM on September 22, 2015
posted by Thorzdad at 11:05 AM on September 22, 2015
Yep, misidentifying Quantcast. We include a Quantcast tracker to have accurate statistics included in their site rankings.
For logged-out users we run ads from Google AdSense. That and The Deck ads are our only advertising.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:16 AM on September 22, 2015
For logged-out users we run ads from Google AdSense. That and The Deck ads are our only advertising.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:16 AM on September 22, 2015
Yeah, the Quantcast stuff is sort of an off-again, on-again thing we've run over the years, basically at Matt's discretion I think based on whether he was curious about some stats. It's not something we really make active use of at this point, so it's just been idling, out of sight out of mind. pb's gonna turn it off; no reason not to make things slightly more lightweight there if we don't need it. Not impossible we'd turn it back on for some specific purpose in the future, but for now, eh.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:55 AM on September 22, 2015
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:55 AM on September 22, 2015
Segundus: What's your OS and what are you trying to achieve?
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:19 PM on September 22, 2015
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:19 PM on September 22, 2015
Quick question regarding whitelisting - I use Adblock Plus on Chrome. If I have www.metafilter.com whitelisted, does that cover the subsites like Ask MeFi as well or do I need to list them separately?
Pb gave a good answer above, but I wanted to add a tip that works for me when I check to see whether my white-listing settings are working in ABP:
On the white-listed sites, if you look at the ABP icon at the top right-hand corner in your browser toolbar (looks like a red hexagonal U.S. traffic stop sign):
- The icon shows as a red colour on websites where it is active.
- The icon shows as greyed-out on white-listed websites. Try clicking between Ask MeFi and Metafilter. If the filter is set correctly, the ABP icon should display as greyed-out among all the different Metafilter sub-sites.
Hope this helps.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 5:21 PM on September 22, 2015
Pb gave a good answer above, but I wanted to add a tip that works for me when I check to see whether my white-listing settings are working in ABP:
On the white-listed sites, if you look at the ABP icon at the top right-hand corner in your browser toolbar (looks like a red hexagonal U.S. traffic stop sign):
- The icon shows as a red colour on websites where it is active.
- The icon shows as greyed-out on white-listed websites. Try clicking between Ask MeFi and Metafilter. If the filter is set correctly, the ABP icon should display as greyed-out among all the different Metafilter sub-sites.
Hope this helps.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 5:21 PM on September 22, 2015
iOS 9 is super-snappy on my Retina Mini 2.
The Crystal ad blocker really helps to clean up the web swill, turning unusable, ad-and-tracker-heavy sites like The Verge, iMore, Ars Technica, etc., into something more manageable. It's a new way to browse the web.
posted by porn in the woods at 5:26 PM on September 22, 2015
The Crystal ad blocker really helps to clean up the web swill, turning unusable, ad-and-tracker-heavy sites like The Verge, iMore, Ars Technica, etc., into something more manageable. It's a new way to browse the web.
posted by porn in the woods at 5:26 PM on September 22, 2015
I got a few MeFiMails about it, so for anyone else who might be curious, the site for my new project I mentioned upthread is now live, and I've posted to Projects about it.
I imagine hal_c_on won't be interested, though. Heh.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:27 PM on September 22, 2015
I imagine hal_c_on won't be interested, though. Heh.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:27 PM on September 22, 2015
jessamyn - There are a few changes, one new unhideable lackluster app (news! could be great, is not great)
You should be able to get rid of it by turning it off in Settings -> General -> Restrictions. It's a feature designed to protect kiddos but it also works to protect you from meh'ish news aggregators.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:03 PM on September 22, 2015
You should be able to get rid of it by turning it off in Settings -> General -> Restrictions. It's a feature designed to protect kiddos but it also works to protect you from meh'ish news aggregators.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:03 PM on September 22, 2015
it also works to protect you from meh'ish news aggregators.
But it IS a meh-ish news aggregator! But seriously, thanks.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 7:34 PM on September 22, 2015
But it IS a meh-ish news aggregator! But seriously, thanks.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 7:34 PM on September 22, 2015
I'm trying out Crystal right now on my iPad Air 1. So far, so good. It doesn't let you whitelist sites, though, so I'll probably switch to a more flexible app. For now, though, I'm enjoying a snappier mobile Safari.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:44 PM on September 22, 2015
posted by Thorzdad at 7:44 PM on September 22, 2015
If you're still using 10.6.8, be careful with the iOS 9 update. If you use iTunes to update, you will no longer be able to sync to Snow Leopard's version of iTunes (11.4). However, if you allow your phone or iPad to download the over-the-air update and run that, you will still be able to sync with iTunes on Snow Leopard. Thank you, Macintouch.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:10 PM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:10 PM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yeah...I found out the hard way about that little gotcha.
Luckily, I was able to follow these directions and downgrade my iPad back to iOS 8.4.1.
After restoring everything from a backup, I did the wireless update to iOS9. I haven't tried plugging it in to see if iTunes recognizes it yet. It's too late in the day to tempt fate like that.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:44 PM on September 23, 2015
Luckily, I was able to follow these directions and downgrade my iPad back to iOS 8.4.1.
After restoring everything from a backup, I did the wireless update to iOS9. I haven't tried plugging it in to see if iTunes recognizes it yet. It's too late in the day to tempt fate like that.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:44 PM on September 23, 2015
I block ads and trackers because ad networks are a den of scum and villainy when it comes to screening for malware.
posted by zippy at 8:12 PM on September 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by zippy at 8:12 PM on September 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
That's exactly why (or part of exactly why) I'm starting this new business-thing of mine I mentioned upthread. One of things we want to show is that all that privacy-invasive crap isn't necessary and is in fact pointlessly evil, that advertising on the web can be scaled down and dialed back to an ethical place and that if you do it right everybody can be happy and make some money and nobody gets ethically compromised in the process.
A dream, but a dream we're working hard to try to make real.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:24 AM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
A dream, but a dream we're working hard to try to make real.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:24 AM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Crystal, the top-selling iOS adblocker, is going to accept money to whitelist advertisers who conform to the guidelines established by the Acceptable Ads initiative. Is this the kind of thing you're going for, stavros?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:09 AM on September 25, 2015
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:09 AM on September 25, 2015
The exact opposite, pretty much.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:15 PM on September 25, 2015
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:15 PM on September 25, 2015
I guess? I'm not sure what you mean.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:18 PM on September 25, 2015
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:18 PM on September 25, 2015
The Cost of Mobile Ads on 50 News Websites
WTF, boston.com?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:55 PM on October 1, 2015
WTF, boston.com?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:55 PM on October 1, 2015
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
But, so, yes: I will say what we've always said, re: adblocking stuff, which is that this is something that's a personal preference thing, not something we'll ever officially give anyone a hard time for. If you want to block ads, that's your call; we've got a dismissal widget on the Deck ads we feature in the upper right on some parts of the site, and we already hide most ads for logged-in users, so we're obviously not really leaning primarily on the we-own-your-eyeballs thing to begin with. But whitelisting the site on adblocking software if that's your inclination is a nice thing and I appreciate it.
Practically speaking, if we see any kind of impact from the the iOS9 change, it'll be from the much broader, shallower interactions of non-logged-in search traffic. Widespread adoption of adblocking stuff by the masses could show up as a proportional drop in mobile ad revenue, specifically, though based on the napkin math I've done even a fast-developing bad case scenario there would be more of a frustrating dent in income than anything apocalyptic, and that fast-and-bad scenario doesn't seem super likely. (Not every mobile user is on iOS; not every iOS user will move quickly to iOS9; not every iOS9 user will install a content blocker; not every content blocker will universally block the lightweight text AdSense units we primarily serve, etc.)
The tricky bit, of course, is all the stuff that doesn't make it into the napkin math because it's harder to predict, but it's something I'll be watching keenly.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:23 AM on September 20, 2015 [8 favorites]