[skybrian]

Thanks but a minor correction:

re: "Adblock Plus plainly acknowledge that those aren't "acceptable ads"

That link goes to Adblock's page, not Adblock Plus.

Their explanation of why they can't block it ("whitelists always override blacklists") is purely technical and is of course something that could be changed in the code - but maybe their contacts with advertisers say otherwise?

I don't see anything particularly wrong with Adblock or Adblock Plus making millions of dollars, but customers who aren't satisfied with this should of course switch to something else.

[shpx]

Adblock Plus is not Adblock's independently acting "friendly rival". Adblock was sold to a "mystery buyer" in 2015[0]. The first thing that buyer did was turn on "acceptable ads". Come on. It's the same people.

I call "Adblock" "Adblock Plus" to avoid ambiguity with ad blockers in general.

I'm not making value judgments, I'm explaining why saying Adblock and Adblock Plus "is just a way for advertisers to decide what ads users see and don’t see, depending on how much they’re willing to pay and be held hostage to such extensions" is completely accurate and not "misleading". The site you linked that explains their policy is corporate propaganda.

There's no point in even acknowledging their "technical explanation". It's a <10 line change that calls String.prototype.replace() on instances of "taboola" in the whitelist before enabling it.

There are no "satisfied customers" of Adblock Plus. There are only people who heard about Adblock/Adblock Plus in the news or mentioned somewhere else or because it's the first google search result (the first mention of uBlock Origin for "block ads" is on page 11 and it's an unrelated reddit thread in the uBlock Origin subreddit) and don't know about these practices. If you showed them a screenshot of Taboola ads they would not think those are acceptable. That's is why everyone here recommends uBlock Origin.

[0] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/02/adblock_flogged_off...