Adblock Plus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adblock Plus
Developer(s)Eyeo GmbH[1][2][3]
Current CTO:
Felix H. Dahlke[4]
Former lead developers:

Wladimir Palant,
Henrik Aasted Sørensen,
Michael McDonald
Initial releaseOctober 23, 2005; 18 years ago (2005-10-23)[5]
Stable release(s) [±]
Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera3.21 / November 9, 2023; 4 months ago (2023-11-09)[6]
Safari2.2.3 / February 28, 2023; 12 months ago (2023-02-28)[7]
Internet Explorer1.6 / January 3, 2017; 7 years ago (2017-01-03)[8]
Android1.3 / March 3, 2015; 9 years ago (2015-03-03)[9]
Samsung Internet1.2.0 / March 5, 2019; 5 years ago (2019-03-05)[10]
Preview release(s) [±]
Written inJavaScript, XUL, CSS
TypeMozilla extension
mobile app
LicenseGPLv3
Websiteadblockplus.org Edit this on Wikidata

Adblock Plus (ABP) is a free and open-source[11][12] browser extension for content-filtering and ad blocking. It is developed by Eyeo GmbH, a German software company. The extension has been released for Mozilla Firefox (including mobile),[13] Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge (Chromium based version), Opera, Safari, Yandex Browser, and Android.

In 2011, Adblock Plus and Eyeo attracted considerable controversy over its "Acceptable Ads"[14] program to "allow certain non-intrusive ads" (such as Google Ads) to be allowed under the extension's default settings. While participation in the whitelisting process was free for small websites, large advertising companies were required to pay a fee in order for their ads to be whitelisted.[15][16]

Background[edit]

The original version of Adblock (0.1) was written as a side project for Firefox by Danish software developer Henrik Aasted Sørensen, a university student at the time, in 2002.[17][18] It hid image ads through user-defined filters from the page but did not prevent them from being downloaded.[18] Sørensen maintained the open-source project until Adblock 0.3 after which the project changed hands. Since Adblock 0.3, Adblock no longer officially offers "stable releases" but instead offers "development builds" or "nightly builds"; Adblock 0.3 is the last official stable release of Adblock.[19][17]

Starting with Adblock 0.4, in early 2003, the development of AdBlock was taken over by a developer with the pseudonym rue. Adblock 0.4 used XBL to hide the ads and with this objects like Flash or Java could also be blocked. As with prior versions, ads were still downloaded.

AdBlock 0.5, 2004, used content policies for ad blocking which prevented the ads from being downloaded instead of simply hiding them. Background images, scripts and stylesheets could be blocked through this approach as well. XBL support was dropped in this version in favor of content policies. Adblock 0.5 integrated several changes made in a fork of Adblock developed by Wladimir Palant.[17]

Sometime after Adblock 0.5's release, the development of the project stalled. Development stagnated beginning in 2004 and entirely stopped in early 2005. Michael McDonald created a separate enhanced version of AdBlock called AdBlock Plus 0.5 to improve upon the original and add additional features. No update for the original AdBlock was issued even after Firefox 1.5's release in November 2005. An official update supporting 1.5 was released more than a month later. In the meantime, McDonald had released a compatible AdBlock Plus version for Firefox 1.5.[17]

Palant later took over development of Adblock Plus from McDonald and rewrote the codebase, releasing Adblock Plus 0.6 in January 2006, thus making Adblock Plus a separate extension and not simply an enhanced version of Adblock.

Development of the original Adblock stopped with version 0.5 and the project was abandoned in late 2006.[17][20]

History and statistics[edit]

Michael McDonald created Adblock Plus 0.5, which improved on the original Adblock by incorporating the following features:

  • whitelisting
  • support for blocking background images
  • subscription to filters with a fixed address and automatic updates
  • the ability to hide HTML elements, allowing a greater range of images to be blocked
  • the ability to hide ads on a per-site basis, instead of globally
  • memory leak fixes
  • improvements to the user interface

McDonald discontinued development and transferred the name to Wladimir Palant, who released Adblock Plus 0.6 with a rewritten codebase in January 2006.[21] PC World chose Adblock Plus as one of the 100 best products of 2007, featuring in at 95.[22] AdBlock Plus was initially written around Mozilla's extension API. The extension supported not just Firefox, but less popular applications like SeaMonkey, K-Meleon, Fennec, Prism, and even the Songbird media player because they each included Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine. Palant expressed reluctance to support popular but technologically unrelated browsers and stated, "I am not going to maintain two unrelated projects."[23]

In 2010, AdBlock Plus acquired the existing AdThwart extension for Chrome.[24] Palant used this as a base to build Adblock Plus for Google Chrome. It has been available since December 2010 and has over 10 million users.[25] After Firefox and Microsoft Edge adopted Google's Web Extensions API, the Chrome version became the basis for those browsers as well. Ad Block Plus became the most popular extension for Firefox, with around 14 million users as of December 2017.[26]

In 2011, Palant, Till Faida and Tim Schumacher incorporated Adblock Plus as Eyeo GmbH, stylized eyeo.

Adblock Plus was released as an app for Android devices in November 2012. On March 3, 2013, the Android app was removed from the Google Play Store along with similar ad-blocking apps.[27] Some apps remain in the Play Store with the caveat that they require root access in order to function.[citation needed] Adblock Plus, while not in the Play Store, is still available on the app's website. Users can download the .Apk file directly and install it as a third-party app if they allow "Unknown Sources" in Android settings. The application page as of December 2017 features the Adblock Browser for Android instead of the original app.[28]

Adblock Plus was made available for Internet Explorer in August 2013,[29] Safari since January 2014,[30] and Yandex Browser since December 2014.[31]

An Adblock Plus browser beta version was made available in May 2015, called the "Adblock Browser".[32] Adblock Browser 1.0 was released on September 7, 2015, based on Firefox for mobile.[33]

Adblock Plus has created an independent board to review what is an acceptable ad and what is not.[34][35]

Operation[edit]

Like Mozilla's built-in image blocker, Adblock Plus blocks HTTP and HTTPS requests according to their source address and additional context information and can block iframes, scripts, and Flash. It also uses automatically generated user stylesheets to hide elements such as text ads on a page as they load instead of blocking them, known as element hiding.[36]

Android[edit]

On rooted devices, the Android app blocks ads on all web traffic including mobile networks. For non-rooted devices, ads are only blocked through a Wi-Fi connection and requires the user to set up a local proxy server for each network in order for the app to function.[37] The app uses a local proxy server to intercept web traffic and remove ads before showing content to the user. Most of the content that users are trying to block will be removed, though some content is missed, and the app is not as reliable at blocking ads as the browser versions. The app can be configured to auto-start every time the device reboots, minimizing the action required by the user.

Filters[edit]

Basic filter rules can include wildcards represented by asterisks (*). Sites and objects can be whitelisted with filters that start with two at signs (@@). Regular expressions delimited by slashes (/) can be used by advanced users. Adblock Plus also supports a more-sophisticated syntax that gives fine-grain control over filters.[38] An example of the sophisticated filtering would be wikipedia.org##div#centralNotice, which will hide the centralNotice element used by Wikipedia to display donation requests. The first part of the filter is the domain name, followed by two pound signs, and a CSS selector. This type of filtering is called cosmetic filtering, as it hides parts of the website after it has loaded. Both uBlock Origin and AdGuard's browser extension and apps also support this type of filtering.

Filter subscriptions[edit]

Users can add external filtersets. Adblock Plus includes the ability to use one or more external filter subscriptions that are automatically updated. Filterset.G is incompatible with this system (and Adblock Plus specifically recommends against using Filterset.G for other reasons as well), but other filtersets can be added by typing their addresses. A list of known Adblock Plus subscriptions is maintained on the Adblock Plus official website.[39]

EasyList[40] was the most popular Adblock Plus filter list as of August 2011, with over 12 million subscribers.[41] Created by Rick Petnel,[42] it became officially recommended by the Adblock Plus program, and filter lists for other languages were built on top of it. Petnel died in 2009[43][44] following which Palant placed a user named "Ares2" as the new maintainer.[45] The filter lists EasyList and EasyPrivacy are both subscribed by default in uBlock Origin but not in Adblock Plus itself. Both of these filter lists will also be used by Google Chrome starting February 15, 2018, on sites not complying with the Better Ads Standards.[46]

In May 2013, the former second most popular Adblock Plus filter list, Fanboy's List, was merged with EasyList.[47]

Legal challenges[edit]

In December 2014, it was reported that Zeit Online and Handelsblatt had brought suit against Eyeo GmbH in the Landgericht Hamburg [de].[48][49][50] In April 2015 the court rejected the suit.[51][52][53] Axel Springer SE has filed a court order for the removal of the Adblock Plus post[54] though there is a redacted version[55] and people have posted videos and posts on how to get around the Axel Springer wall.[56][better source needed] However, in April 2018, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court found in favour of Eyeo and ruled that Adblock Plus did not violate any laws.[57]

In August 2017, the Admiral advertising company sent a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice to EasyList to remove the domain functionalclam.com from the blacklist. Admiral argues that the domain is part of its access control technology of its advertising platform, and therefore the blacklisting is an attempt to circumvent a technical protection measure, which is forbidden under the DMCA section 1201.[58]

Detection[edit]

Some webmasters have used JavaScript to detect the effects of the popular Adblock Plus filters.[59][60] This is done by generating a honeypot-like URL, verifying its delivery, and DOM verification after the web page is rendered by the web browser, to ensure the expected advertising elements are present. Detection is simplified since the extension is not yet capable of replacing content; Loopback proxies provide this additional functionality.

These methods do not detect the presence of the Adblock Plus extension directly, only the effects of the filters. They are vulnerable to continued filter updates, and whitelist-filtering web scripts with extensions such as NoScript.

An attempt was made to detect the plug-in itself, but that detection method was rendered unusable by the 0.7.5.2 update of Adblock Plus.[61]

Google Chrome had a defect in Content Security Policy that allowed the detection of any installed extension, including Adblock Plus for Google Chrome.[62] The solution for this issue arrived in Google Chrome 18, and required each developer to make changes to their extensions.[63] Adblock Plus for Google Chrome fixed this in version 1.3.[64]

Security[edit]

Starting with Adblock Plus 3.2 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera,[65] the Adblock Plus filter syntax allowed filter lists to execute arbitrary code in the context of certain kinds of web pages via the $rewrite filter option.[66] This feature could be used by list maintainers to fix bugs in web pages caused by ad blocking or to circumvent ad blocker detection, but also could be abused by malicious filter rules.[67] This issue was not unique to Adblock Plus and affected all extensions that offered such functionality. By contrast, uBlock Origin did not support this functionality and required all such scripts to pass a manual verification by the uBlock Origin maintainers. The issue was fixed in Adblock Plus 3.5.2 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera.[68]

Reception[edit]

Ad filtering, ad whitelisting, and "acceptable ads"[edit]

The owners of some websites which use third-party hosted online advertising to fund the hosting of their websites have argued that the use of ad-blocking software such as Adblock Plus risks cutting off their revenue stream.[69][70] While some websites such as The New York Times and The Daily Telegraph have successfully implemented subscription and membership-based paywall systems for revenue,[71] many websites today rely on third-party hosted online advertising to function.

On December 5, 2011, Wladimir Palant announced that certain "acceptable" ads would be whitelisted in upcoming builds of the Adblock Plus software, with the option to remove whitelisted ads by using a custom setting in the software. According to Palant, only static advertisements with a maximum of one script will be permitted as "acceptable", with a preference towards text-only content. The announcement generated controversy both on Adblock Plus's website and on social media sites like Reddit.[72][failed verification]

Starting with version 2.0, Adblock Plus started allowing "acceptable ads" by default,[73] with acceptable ad standards being set by The Acceptable Ads Committee.[74] They charge large institutions fees to become whitelisted and marked as "acceptable", stating "[Adblock Plus] only charge large entities a license fee so that we can offer the same whitelisting services to everyone and maintain our resources to develop the best software for our users." on their about page.[75]

In 2012, Adblock Plus's managing director Till Faida told the Swiss newspaper Thurgauer Zeitung that the "strategic partners" on Adblock Plus's whitelist would not be named, but that the partnership is part of the company's "Acceptable Ads" whitelist project.[76] In February 2013, an anonymous source accused Palant of offering to add his site's advertisements to the whitelist in return for one-third of the advertisement revenue.[77] In June 2013, blogger Sascha Pallenberg accused the developers of Adblock Plus of maintaining business connections to "strategic partners in the advertising industry", and called ABP a "mafia-like advertising network".[78] He alleged that Adblock Plus whitelisted all ads coming from "friendly" sites and subsidiaries, and promoted their product using fake reviews and pornography.[79] Faida responded to Pallenberg's accusations, stating that "a large part of the information concerning the collaboration with our partners is correct", but that the company did not see these industry connections as a conflict of interest. He said that the company is convinced that the "acceptable ads" business model will be successful and says that the whitelisting criteria are "completely transparent".[78] He also stated that "We have an initiative called Acceptable Ads to support websites with unobtrusive ads. Every website can participate. The [Pallenberg] article on purpose just slanders our good name".[79]

Attacks were made in 2016 against ad-blocking with paid whitelists—though Adblock Plus was not mentioned by name—by content providers who provide content free of charge to users, deriving revenue from advertisements, and by industry and government sources who criticise the "unsavoury" business model, which has been described as a "modern-day protection racket".[80]

In May 2016, Adblock Plus's parent company Eyeo began a collaboration with the online donation service Flattr to create a service that would allow users to automatically donate money to online publishers based on their engagement. The service was conceived as a way for users to automatically support online publishers as an alternative to advertising; Eyeo would acquire Flattr outright the following year, seeking to expand upon this model as Flattr's main service.[81][82] In September 2016, Eyeo announced that it would launch a "marketplace" for ads that meet its acceptability criteria.[83]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Palant, Wladimir. "Introducing Eyeo GmbH, the company behind Adblock Plus". Adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on August 14, 2018. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
  2. ^ Hern, Alex (October 14, 2013). "Adblock Plus: the tiny plugin threatening the internet's business model". Theguardian.com. Archived from the original on July 31, 2018. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
  3. ^ Sartoros, Alkimos; Dernbach, Christoph (July 3, 2013). "Adblock Plus: Erpresser-Vorwürfe gegen umstrittenen Werbeblocker (German)". Der Spiegel. Spiegel.de. Archived from the original on May 7, 2016. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
  4. ^ "New role | Adblock Plus and (A little) more". Archived from the original on October 23, 2022. Retrieved October 23, 2022.
  5. ^ Palant, Wladimir (September 10, 2006). "Adblock Plus and (a little) more: Adblock - the evolution". adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on July 9, 2018. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  6. ^ Thomas Greiner (November 9, 2023). "Adblock Plus 3.21 for Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Opera". Adblock Plus. Retrieved November 9, 2023.
  7. ^ "Adblock Plus for Safari ABP on the Mac App Store". Retrieved March 3, 2023.
  8. ^ Oleksandr Paraska (January 3, 2017). "Adblock Plus 1.6 for IE released". Adblock Plus. Retrieved January 3, 2017.
  9. ^ René Jeschke (March 3, 2015). "Adblock Plus 1.3 for Android released". Adblock Plus. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
  10. ^ Mario König (March 5, 2019). "Adblock Plus for Samsung Internet 1.2.0 released". Adblock Plus. Retrieved October 30, 2019.
  11. ^ Adblock Plus. "Adblock Plus : About". Adblock Plus. Archived from the original on November 3, 2011. Retrieved June 20, 2012.
  12. ^ Adblock Plus. "Adblock Plus : Source Code". Adblock Plus. Archived from the original on June 10, 2012. Retrieved June 20, 2012.
  13. ^ Mozilla. "Adblock Plus :: Add-ons for Mozilla". Mozilla. Archived from the original on October 16, 2011. Retrieved July 10, 2011.
  14. ^ "Reach new audiences with Acceptable Ads". acceptableads.com. Archived from the original on May 4, 2019. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  15. ^ Cookson, Robert (February 2015). "Google, Microsoft and Amazon pay to get around ad blocking tool". Financial Times. Archived from the original on December 11, 2022. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  16. ^ Jones, Rhett (September 15, 2017). "Chrome Will Soon Block Autoplay Videos With Sound—Here's Why You Should Be Worried". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on February 28, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
  17. ^ a b c d e Palant, Wladimir. "Adblock Plus: A not so short history of Adblock". adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on November 9, 2006. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  18. ^ a b O'Reilly, Lara (July 14, 2015). "The inventor of Adblock tells us he wrote the code as a 'procrastination project' at university — and he's never made money from it". Business Insider. Archived from the original on February 9, 2019. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  19. ^ Palant, Wladimir (September 10, 2006). "Adblock Plus and (a little) more: Adblock - the evolution". adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on July 9, 2018. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  20. ^ "mozdev.org - adblock: index". adblock.mozdev.org. Archived from the original on January 25, 2019. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  21. ^ "About Adblock Plus". Adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on July 8, 2013. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
  22. ^ Dahl, Eric, ed. (May 21, 2007). "PC World - The 100 Best Products of 2007". PC World. Archived from the original on July 29, 2008. Retrieved August 19, 2007.
  23. ^ Palant, Wladimir (February 11, 2022). "How are supported applications chosen for Adblock Plus?". Adblock Plus and (a little) more. eyeo GmbH. Archived from the original on August 29, 2022. Retrieved September 2, 2022.
  24. ^ "Good News, Adblock Plus Fans – Soon, There Will be a Google Chrome Extension". December 15, 2010.
  25. ^ adblockplus.org. "Adblock Plus - Chrome Web Store". chrome.google.com. Archived from the original on March 1, 2013. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  26. ^ "Statistics for Adblock Plus". addons.mozilla.org. Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
  27. ^ "Adblock Plus and (a little) more: Adblock Plus for Android removed from Google Play store". adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on September 17, 2015. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  28. ^ "Install Adblock Plus for Android". adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  29. ^ "Adblock Plus 1.0 for Internet Explorer released". Adblock Plus. Archived from the original on September 28, 2013. Retrieved September 26, 2013.
  30. ^ "Adblock Plus for Safari Beta released". Archived from the original on February 1, 2014. Retrieved January 21, 2014.
  31. ^ Williams, Ben. "Adblock Plus now available on Yandex Browser". Adblock Plus. Archived from the original on January 23, 2015. Retrieved January 23, 2015.
  32. ^ Williams, Ben (May 20, 2015). "Adblock Browser is here". Archived from the original on July 22, 2015. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
  33. ^ "Adblock Browser for Android". Google Play Store. September 7, 2015. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  34. ^ "Adblock Plus creators plan independent board to decide ad acceptability". Archived from the original on October 6, 2015. Retrieved October 5, 2015.
  35. ^ "AdBlock Plus to introduce independent board to oversee Acceptable Ads program". BetaNews. September 30, 2015. Archived from the original on October 6, 2015. Retrieved October 5, 2015.
  36. ^ "FAQ - Adblock Plus internals". Adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on October 26, 2011. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
  37. ^ "About Adblock Plus for Android". adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on July 26, 2015. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  38. ^ "Writing Adblock Plus filters". Adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on November 3, 2011. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
  39. ^ "Known Adblock Plus subscriptions". adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on February 28, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2016.
  40. ^ "The Official EasyList Website". easylist.to. Archived from the original on February 27, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2016.
  41. ^ "EasyList Statistics: August 2011". EasyList. September 1, 2011. Archived from the original on February 28, 2020. Retrieved September 2, 2011./
  42. ^ Whoriskey, Peter (June 25, 2008). "One Man, One Long List, No More Web Ads". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
  43. ^ "Richard J. Petnel Obituary: View Richard Petnel's Obituary by Albany Times Union". Legacy.com. Archived from the original on June 11, 2011. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
  44. ^ "Adblock Plus and (a little) more: Sad news". Adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on February 28, 2020. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
  45. ^ "Adblock Plus and (a little) more: What is going on with EasyList". Adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on February 28, 2020. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
  46. ^ Aleksandersen, Daniel. "Here's how Google Chrome's new ad blocker works". Ctrl blog. Archived from the original on May 5, 2019. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  47. ^ "EasyList merges with Fanboy's List". EasyList. May 17, 2013. Archived from the original on February 28, 2020. Retrieved September 3, 2013.
  48. ^ "Auch Zeit Online klagt gegen Adblock-Plus-Mutter Eyeo" (in German). horizont.net. December 17, 2014. Archived from the original on April 19, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  49. ^ "Prozessauftakt in Köln - Adblock Plus: Axel Springer klagt gegen Eyeo" (in German). Internet World Business. March 11, 2015. Archived from the original on March 14, 2015. Retrieved March 15, 2015.
  50. ^ "Auch Süddeutsche klagt gegen Adblock Plus" (in German). Internet World Business. March 13, 2015. Archived from the original on March 14, 2015. Retrieved March 15, 2015.
  51. ^ Landsgericht Hamburg 16. Kammer für Handelssachen, Urteil vom 21.04.2015, 416 HKO 159/14 Archived November 17, 2015, at the Wayback Machine (Anonymized)
  52. ^ Ben Williams (April 21, 2015). "Restating the obvious: adblocking declared legal". Adblock Plus and (a little) more. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
  53. ^ "Landgericht Hamburg: Adblock Plus darf weiter blocken" (in German). heise online. April 21, 2015. Archived from the original on April 26, 2015. Retrieved April 30, 2015.
  54. ^ "AdBlock Plus accuses Axel Springer of censorship after ad-block move". Digiday. Archived from the original on November 13, 2015. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  55. ^ "Adblock Plus • View topic - bild.de adblock detect unskippable". adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  56. ^ Bild.de AdBlock Sperre umgehen (in German), archived from the original on March 9, 2016, retrieved November 13, 2015
  57. ^ Cooper, Daniel (April 20, 2018). "German court says ad-blocking is legal". Engadget. Archived from the original on April 20, 2018. Retrieved April 20, 2018.
  58. ^ Jones, Rhett (August 12, 2017). "A Copyright Claim Was Reportedly Used to Stop Ad Blocking, But It's Complicated". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on August 14, 2017. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  59. ^ Larsen, Dan. "Adblock Detector (v. 1.0) - A JavaScript way of doing ad block detection". adblockdetector.com. Archived from the original on July 1, 2012. Retrieved June 22, 2016. Adblock Detector is a javascript, that can help site owners to detect ad blockers like Adblock Plus. It is not bullet proof, but definitely better than nothing, if you want to make sure your visitor are not blocking your ads!
  60. ^ "Content Filters and Proxy Detection". BrowserLeaks.com. Archived from the original on June 17, 2016. Retrieved June 22, 2016. The set of demos that try to determine Content Filters usage, is the type of applications that operate between the browser and the web page, and are designed to manipulate the connection and content of a visited web pages. Among them are TOR Browser, Privixy, Adblock Detectors.
  61. ^ "Detailed changelog for Adblock Plus 0.7.5.2". Adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on September 29, 2011. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
  62. ^ "Intro to Chrome addons hacking: fingerprinting". The World. According to Koto. February 17, 2012. Archived from the original on July 7, 2016. Retrieved June 22, 2016. Webpages can sometimes interact with Chrome addons and that might be dangerous, more on that later. Meanwhile, a warmup - trick to detect addons you have installed.
  63. ^ "Google Chrome Extensions: Migrate to Manifest V2". Archived from the original on January 21, 2013. Retrieved February 11, 2013.
  64. ^ "Adblock Plus 1.3 for Google Chrome released". Adblockplus.org. Archived from the original on February 3, 2013. Retrieved February 11, 2013.
  65. ^ "Adblock Plus and (a little) more: Adblock Plus 3.2 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera released". adblockplus.org. July 17, 2018. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
  66. ^ "How to write filters". adblockplus.org. April 4, 2020. Archived from the original on April 14, 2020. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
  67. ^ "Adblock Plus filter lists may execute arbitrary code in web pages". armin.dev. April 15, 2019. Archived from the original on April 15, 2019. Retrieved April 15, 2019.
  68. ^ "Adblock Plus and (a little) more: Adblock Plus 3.5.2 for Chrome, Firefox and Opera released". adblockplus.org. April 20, 2019. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
  69. ^ "An Open Letter Regarding AdBlock and Revenue Loss". wordswithmeaning.org. April 19, 2012. Archived from the original on April 27, 2012. Retrieved June 28, 2013.
  70. ^ "Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love". Ars Technica. March 6, 2010. Archived from the original on July 19, 2017. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  71. ^ "Two years in: Reflections on the New York Times paywall". journalism.co.uk. March 28, 2013. Archived from the original on June 4, 2013. Retrieved June 28, 2013.
  72. ^ Palant, Wladimir (December 5, 2011). "Allowing acceptable ads in Adblock Plus". Adblock Plus. Archived from the original on December 13, 2011. Retrieved December 12, 2011.
  73. ^ "What are Acceptable Ads?". Adblock Plus. Archived from the original on October 11, 2023. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  74. ^ "Acceptable Ads Committee". Acceptable Ads. March 24, 2020. Archived from the original on May 4, 2019. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  75. ^ "How is Adblock Plus financed?". Adblock Plus. Archived from the original on July 8, 2013. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  76. ^ "Mit aufdringlicher Werbung übertrieben" (in German). November 20, 2012. Archived from the original on June 29, 2013. Retrieved June 28, 2013.
  77. ^ "Media mafiosos: Is Adblock Plus shaking down websites for cash to let ads through?". Digital Trends. February 21, 2013. Archived from the original on June 26, 2013. Retrieved May 23, 2013.
  78. ^ a b "Serious accusations against Adblock Plus". The H. June 26, 2013. Archived from the original on December 8, 2013.
  79. ^ a b "Adblock Plus denies ad fixing allegations". TechEye. June 27, 2013. Archived from the original on August 6, 2016. Retrieved June 7, 2016.
  80. ^ Mark Sweney (March 9, 2016). "Adblocking 'pretty unsavoury' business model, says Trinity Mirror chief". The Guardian. Archived from the original on March 9, 2016. Retrieved March 9, 2016. They offer software for free [to consumers] and then come to us and say 'your site's OK so if you pay us we will ensure ads on your sites get through'. There is something extremely unhealthy about this business model.
  81. ^ "AdBlock Plus teams up with Flattr to help readers pay publishers". TechCrunch. May 3, 2016. Archived from the original on July 14, 2017. Retrieved April 5, 2017.
  82. ^ "The company behind Adblock Plus is acquiring micropayment service Flattr". TechCrunch. AOL. April 5, 2017. Retrieved April 5, 2017.
  83. ^ "Adblock Plus now sells ads". The Verge. Vox Media. September 13, 2016. Archived from the original on April 6, 2017. Retrieved April 5, 2017.

External links[edit]