[izietto]

It has been discontinued too early; from an AdBlock Edge comment, titled "uBlock may be fast, but is rubbish":

> I've been using uBlock now for a while and while it is light and fast, it's is rubbish to use. Exclusions are idiotic, context menu controls don't work, default filters selection is idiotic, it doesn't sync settings like Adblock Edge does, I'm just starting to hate it.

> I'd too like to see AdBlock Edge continue its own development path even if it's not the fastest or lightest. It's still better than all other ad blockers...

[Sir_Cmpwn]

I haven't been seeing those issues with uBlock.

[tobylane]

The one issue I've had with it is it won't hide the share feature on each link of Reddit.

[tim333]

try right clicking on the thing, click uBlock link, paste:

## .post-sharing-button[href="javascript: void 0;"]

into the box (or delete the other text till you get that) and click create

[tobylane]

When I refresh the page none of them are hidden, even the one I used to get to the box. Chrome 44, all other extensions disabled.

[tim333]

Odd. Works for me using Chrome 43.

[bhouston]

And don't forget that uBlock blocks Google Analytics, breaks most popular travel sites if you try to actually purchase, and also error reporters like NewRelix. Most of this is the fault of the default inclusion of EasyPrivacy I believe.

[gpvos]

Blocking Google Analytics is the main point of any blocker I would consider using.

[JohnTHaller]

Many sites rely on Google Analytics to be able to do their own promotions and sponsorships, which is the only way they make money other than ads. By blocking GA, the site doesn't see you as a visitor. So, you use the site resources, don't see ads and don't add to their user/page view numbers. Plus, there's the fact that lots of sites use GA to handle inter-page click tracking so they can see what paths users take to analyze UI/price sensitivity/promos/etc and blocking GA may break your ability to actually use the site at all (many travel sites, for instance).

[click170]

It's not like GA is the only way to gather statistics, there are other vendors and even the access logs for your server itself.

I'm not willing to let Google follow me everywhere on the internet and if that is detrimental to the sites I visit then they are welcome to block me if they detect that I'm blocking GA.

[sbierwagen]

  By blocking GA, the site doesn't see you as a visitor.

Well too bad. Maybe they should take the radical step of actually looking at their server logs.

[jedberg]

When you run a website, you have two choices: spend a bunch of time implementing log analysis and paying for all the storage necessary, or using GA, which already exists and is free. If log analytics isn't my core business, why should I spend time implementing it?

[marrs]

And if you choose GA, you accept that some people will block it, the same way they might block your javascript, your cookies, your css, your images, or anything else they don't want to download.

[gpvos]

No, you should buy something that does log analytics for you without shafting your viewers. The existence of deceptive-but-gratis services like GA means there is almost no market for proper analysis software, which is a scandal.

[TylerE]

Not to mention that GA much more elegantly handles the case of N > 1 webservers behind a front end.

[baddox]

If those are your only two choices, then you'll presumably choose the better of the two, right? So what exactly is the problem?

[junto]

There is a very good reason why GA is free to use. It involves building profiles of your users for Google's benefit. Don't be surprised or upset if some of your users don't want to participate in that privacy shit storm.

[DatBear]

>blocking GA may break your ability to actually use the site at all (many travel sites, for instance).

What? How does that even work? If GA goes down, their site just stops working until it's back up?

[ryan-c]

I used one site which would throw an javascript exception and break because it called part of google analytics from some other function that was needed to make the site work. I ended up opening it up in a private browsing session, and I've got my script blocker disabled there.

Yes, the site would be unusable if GA went down.

[gpvos]

Actually, because of this, I tend to temporarily disable blocking at the moment of payment, because there are too many redirects and reloads happening at that time to reliably use a blocker. It partially defeats blocking, but at least they aren't tracking me during regular browsing.

[bhouston]

The travel sites I saw blocked didn't fail because of GA blocking I believe, but they were depending on various other scripts. I believe they just had messy code that relied on callbacks from third party scripts -- some of which were blocked by uBlock.

[chris_wot]

Might be worthwhile finding a different online travel company, if they can't get this right I can't imagine what else they'll stuff up when you make a booking!

[gpvos]

Too bad for them. They should use same-domain analytics instead. Otherwise they have no chance with me.

[bhouston]

They also block the popular on-domain analystics including piwik, or at least they did.

[gpvos]

That's not so good. I actually don't use general block lists, but build my own from scratch, starting from a block-all situation.

[Too]

Many sites? I've been blocking GA through ghostery for years and haven't had any problem ever. Only problem with Ghostery i've noticed is blocking Adobe Typekit and some other UI-framework i can't remember the name of, and that is extreeemly rare. Besides, as many others have said, if a site is stupid enough to rely on a third party server for analytics that is their problem, not mine, there are plenty of good analytics alternatives that can be hosted by yourself easily, and there are plenty of good websites out there that i can visit instead if one is not working without GA.

[bcg1]

Sounds like those sites need a better architecture if those things are so strategic to their business.

[pikzen]

>which is the only way they make money other than ads.

Yeah.

> So, you use the site resources

Yeah.

>don't see ads

Yeah.

> don't add to their user/page view numbers.

Yeah.

>Plus, there's the fact that lots of sites use GA to handle inter-page click tracking so they can see what paths users take to analyze UI/price sensitivity/promos/etc

Yeah.

Well you know what ? I wouldn't be doing this if ads provider didn't abuse my trust and displayed popup ads. I wouldn't be doing this if ads were actually targeted (lol jk). Early ads providers fucked it up for everyone. Not only do I hate the very principle of ads, I go out of my way to avoid them.

And most of all, I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't Google Analytics. Use piwik, use whatever you want as long as it's selfhosted and doesn't report to <gigantic database of users> and I will allow it. After all, I have no way of knowing if you're selling my data back anyways. It's my computer, I pick what I want to display and which code I want to execute. You want stats ? Use your own server.

[Doctor_Fegg]

I agree absolutely. That's why I use piwik on my sites.

Unfortunately, uBlock blocks piwik all the same.

[VieElm]

> uBlock blocks piwik all the same

Good. I don't want to contribute to your analytics. I don't want ads. I just want to browse the web without being tracked. I don't care if that means you can't pay for your site, other sites will spring up that can without annoying users with ads and without tracking them.

[sbierwagen]

What? How?

If Piwik just analyzes server logs, there should be no way for uBlock to touch it.

But if by "uBlock blocks piwik" you mean "uBlock blocks the piwik javascript file" then that sounds like mission fuckin accomplished to me.

[untog]

It's my computer, I pick what I want to display and which code I want to execute.

If you really wanted to take a principled stand you just wouldn't use those web sites. Ad blockers are just lazy activism.

[DanWaterworth]

> Ad blockers are just lazy activism.

Activism for the lazy; sounds like a good deal.

[marrs]

What has choosing what you download got to do with making a principled stand? It's like some people think that blocking ads is bad manners. I don't get it.

[gpvos]

The sites are being lazy and/or cheap by using GA. They can use piwik instead. As long as they are lazy, I have an equal right to be lazy.

[blumkvist]

More like hypocricy and self-entitlement.

[andybak]

Would you block any analytics tracker - even one that didn't share data with 3rd parties? (i.e. a tracker that was purely to enable to site owners to gain insight into their visitors)

[gpvos]

No, I'm mostly concerned about cross-site sharing of data.

[sp332]

Me too. If I'm visiting a website, I don't mind the operator of the site knowing about my visit or getting some basic stats about usage. It's when they compare notes to make a larger map of my visits across the web that I start getting nervous. And when they use that data to target advertising to me, I start blocking them.

[_ZeD_]

yes.

I keep analytics only for websites that are not-functioning. Still, I despise them.

[wkw3]

Radio Shack had that promise as well, until they went under.

[bcg1]

Yes

[pmontra]

You can also use NoScript for that.

[amalcon]

Why is blocking Google Analytics bad? Isn't blocking spyware like GA the main purpose of ad blocking software?

[JohnTHaller]

The vast majority of people use ad blockers to block ads. That's why almost no ad blockers block GA, etc by default. Plus, from my other comment: "Many sites rely on Google Analytics to be able to do their own promotions and sponsorships, which is the only way they make money other than ads. By blocking GA, the site doesn't see you as a visitor. So, you use the site resources, don't see ads and don't add to their user/page view numbers. Plus, there's the fact that lots of sites use GA to handle inter-page click tracking so they can see what paths users take to analyze UI/price sensitivity/promos/etc and blocking GA may break your ability to actually use the site at all (many travel sites, for instance)."

[glesica]

> By blocking GA, the site doesn't see you as a visitor.

They can still use server analytics to see me as a visitor. I even show up on Cloudflare. I don't want them tracking what I do on their site, it should be enough to know I showed up and asked for a specific page. If their business model relies on knowing more, then they chose a lousy business model.

Why is there so much sympathy for ad-supported sites on HN but when other industries with obsolete business models are brought up (like record companies) it's all about "disrupting" them? Have we given up on finding better ways to support content online?

[jhead]

> If their business model relies on knowing more, then they chose a lousy business model.

I must disagree. I certainly understand a desire for privacy and it's definitely within your right to block GA if you feel so inclined, but to assume that sites using GA to track visitors is some sort of shady business model is simply not true.

I've used GA and Heap (Analytics) to obtain extremely granular information about how users traverse a website. This information can be invaluable to businesses in order to understand the thought process that people go through on a website. The underlying goal may be more conversions (sales), but simply using and analyzing data from GA or any other analytics platform isn't going to magically force you to purchase my product/service. These types of insights help identify critical issues with your website - issues such as pages with information that isn't as clear as it could be, or other possible barriers preventing users from signing up. This can be purely technical (i.e. a bug on a specific page), or it could be a lack of information/understanding about your product or service, or many other possibilities.

If you don't trust Google or other similar companies with your data, then you're welcome to block them from tracking you. But I personally don't believe that you should equate the use and analysis of such tracking data as evil in every instance, because it's not.

[glesica]

I agree that GA can be useful to site owners for things other than advertising and shady optimizations. The use cases you describe are all totally valid in my mind. However, and it seems that you agree with me here, those use cases don't require that 100%, or even 50% of visitors allow GA to run. All you need is a decent sample size.

Of course the sample won't be representative any more since people who block GA probably have attributes in common. But people who block GA probably aren't who you want your site optimized for anyway, I suppose.

I don't view GA (and similar) as intrinsically harmful. I just don't believe I'm materially hurting anyone doing something legitimate by blocking it.

[gpvos]

This is indeed perfectly fine, as long as nothing is communicated from my browser to a domain that does not belong to the site itself.

[justabystander]

> I personally don't believe that you should equate the use and analysis of such tracking data as evil in every instance, because it's not.

We know it's not evil - it's just business. However, plenty of businesses are built around anti-consumer practices.

I personally don't mind someone tracking me on their own domain. Javascript trackers are terrible for security and performance reasons, though I'd tolerate them. I don't like 3rd-party trackers, though, for many reasons:

1. Part of the selling point of using those third-party trackers is being able to quantify what type of user/consumer I am. That's why they track across multiple sites - to provide their customers the highest value. So that they can charge a higher per-unit price.

2. There's no guarantee that such data is only shared with the sites accessed. Even if it was made at the point of use, they can retroactively change that without contacting the user because its their customer who signs the agreement. Most will just click yes without thinking of their user's privacy.

3. If the business sells, merges, changes leadership or goes bankrupt that data policy is as worthless as your trust in it. Look at RadioShack's attempt to sell customer data despite promises not to. Or any company who changed their TOS after a buyout. They don't wipe data from people who don't agree because that data is part of the "company value".

I admit that GA makes a lot of site maintenance and analysis easy. However, I'm not particularly interested in making your job of selling to people easier at my own expense. Particularly when alternatives exist for people who know what they're doing. Yes, it's not malicious behavior, no, but it is extremely discourteous and occasionally sensitive to disclose interest to a third-party.

Think about it like this. Let's say I go to a dealership to look at cars because I like looking at cars. I love engines and wheels and stuff. I only speak with the sales guy, who really seems like a pretty nice person. But the company contracts with some guy who is watching me the entire time for "analytics". After I leave, he tells my bank, the IRS, my wife, my boss and my cousin who asked me to loan him money (but I sensibly declined because he never pays anyone back) because they know him and this guy can't and won't keep his mouth shut. The next day, my bank preemptively reviews my credit history for a car loan, I'm being contacted for an audit out of suspicions of hiding money, my wife is asking me to buy her something because we've apparently got money, and my cousin is livid that I'm somehow filthy rich but I won't give him $10K to invest in a critical MLM deal. It's his big ticket and he'll have it back to me in 3 weeks. Well, 2 months, tops.

Your intentions don't matter at all with 3rd-party analytics because that 3rd party will never respect those intentions. It's not in their contract and thus not their concern what you intend or promise. Plus, their lawyers regularly update it when the company finds new business models to exploit. Not only that, you don't care enough about me to actively review your vendor contracts to make sure your "good intentions" are being followed by your contractors. You're only using the service because it makes your job easier. Why would you go out of your way to do extra work? You don't have any bad intentions, after all.

It doesn't have to be evil or malicious to be exploitative. It's not like third-world factories with terrible labor conditions exist because the owner likes to kick puppies. It's about money, at the end, and businesses will do as much as they can get away with for money.

[piyush_soni]

Yes, ads remain the major e-business model till date (and will probably remain for a long time to come). I guess one of the problems is, everyone needs money to maintain a website and to make a profit, but not everyone has content (or products) that could sell. It's a difficult problem to solve in theory. I think simple text based (or even small images based) ads should be fine .. it's the flashy ones or the ones that delay my workflow that I hate to the core.

[gpvos]

Micropayments should be a solution, but it's hard to get the cooperation needed for that going.

[Zarel]

"Disrupting" is about replacing an old business model with a _better_ business model. You don't disrupt the old one until _after_ you find a better one.

Ads are not a bad business model. They allow free access to websites, while still allowing websites to pay for hosting costs. They don't discriminate between rich users and poor users. You may be able to afford subscription costs, but children and people in third world countries often can't. Subscriptions _are_ the old business model we're disrupting, anyway. Elsevier wants you to pay $50 to read a paper; Google wants you to have free access to the world's information.

Micropayment systems are hated on mobile games, where they exploit addictive behavior and ruin the experience, and tend not to earn much money if they don't. Donations generate very little money.

Ads are also very easy to set up, which selects for website creators who are passionate about making good sites and other things. Higher-effort business models select for website creators who are passionate about making money.

I will admit that ads are not great. But so far, we've been unable to find anything better.

[glesica]

I realize that someone would have to come up with something better first, and my comment about "disruption" was meant partially as a joke. I do, however, struggle to understand the deference many people on HN seem to have for the ad-based business model. It is to the point that I've seen people who block ads accused of "stealing".

[JohnTHaller]

Many sponsors and partners will not accept log-based self-hosted stats as they can be easily faked. Many will only accept a 3rd party stats site like Google Analytics as they can be provided with a read-only view into it and know that the underlying data isn't faked. It could be gamed, of course, with some effort (botnet of IPs loading pages from the site, etc) but it's much more involved than faking a Piwik report. Of course, many of the blocklists that block GA also block self-hosted Piwik anyway.

There's sympathy for ad-supported sites because that's the vast majority of the internet's content. And micropayments, paid memberships, etc have almost universally failed with the exception of a few very large publishers and a few very specific niche publishers.

[comex]

> Why is there so much sympathy for ad-supported sites on HN but when other industries with obsolete business models are brought up (like record companies) it's all about "disrupting" them? Have we given up on finding better ways to support content online?

Because there are a lot of users here who run websites and see the business model 'from the other side'... and almost none who work for record companies.

There are other reasons, but that's a big one.

[gpvos]

I have no problem with ads per se, only with: 1. any form of tracking across sites, and 2. any unnecessary animation or other movement on the page,[0] and 3. malware. I will do anything to block these things, ruthlessly.

For #2, I actually still have to use ABP, although most are already blocked by RequestPolicy or NoScript, which I use (combined) for #1 and #3 (combined).

[0] In my opinion, even animation necessary for the main content should be click-to-start, but I cannot currently completely achieve this. But disabling GIF animation plus click-to-activate for plugins gives me most of what I want. NoScript also helps.

[sp332]

Some people just use adblockers to reduce the annoyance of looking at ads.

[varjag]

No, its main purpose is blocking ads. Those visibly (and sometimes audibly) annoying flashy things. It's in the name.

[gorhill]

> No, its main purpose is blocking ads

I am well placed to speak about the main purpose of uBlock Origin. Here, from front page of the project:

> uBlock Origin (or uBlock₀) is not an ad blocker; it's a general-purpose blocker [...] Ads, "unintrusive" or not, are just the visible portions of privacy-invading apparatus entering your browser when you visit most sites nowadays. uBlock₀'s main goal is to help users neutralize such privacy-invading apparatus [...]

[varjag]

Well that's what we exactly discuss, no? The adblocker who thinks it is something else.

[mziulu]

But it's not an adblocker. It's a generic blocking plugin that also supports blocking ads.

[ikeboy]

I use it for default browsing, if anything doesn't work I open it in an incognito window. Can't complain.

[mistermann]

An incognito window doesn't use add-ins?

[morganvachon]

You can enable it per extension in Chrome, so if you want an ad blocker to work in an incognito window just go to chrome://extensions and check the box that says "Allow in incognito" (though allowing an ad blocker to work in incognito mode defeats the purpose of using that mode, at least in the context of this discussion).

[ikeboy]

In chrome, no. Firefox does.

[JonLim]

I enjoy how efficient Chrome has become as a result of uBlock, but it has a couple niggling issues. The most prominent of which is that embedded videos on a page (like those made on Reddit comment threads via RES) will display the ads, and there's nothing I can really do about it.

Still spiffy fast, at least.

[onli]

If I remember correctly, EasyPrivacy got removed from the default selection quite a while ago. But it was in it when that addon was first presented here, probably where that memory stems from.

[JohnTHaller]

EasyPrivacy is enabled by default in current installs of uBlock on Firefox.

[path411]

Any script blocker should by default block any third-party script.