Why Opera wouldn’t include an AdBlock feature in the browser
Published July 12th, 2006 12:23 AM EDT By Daniel GoldmanLast week Opera asked me to solicit feature requests for the next version(s) of the Opera browser from the Opera community. At this time there are more than 600 comments to that post, thanks to Slashdot, Digg, Ars Technica, and other sites that picked it up.
One of the notable feature requests that were made over and over by many users was for Opera to include an ad blocker. So many asked for this, that I felt it warranted a response in a post on the main page rather than in the comments.
It would make no sense for Opera or any other browser vender to officially include a feature which blocks ads.
Think about it. If the Opera browser were to block ads, many ad-supported sites would actively block Opera visitors. These sites need the revenue from its ads to stay afloat. Here on Opera Watch a single ad is displayed on each post page to cover the hosting fees.
Sites would lose lots of money, should browsers block those ads. They would have no choice but to block visitors of browsers, which actively block their ads.
Though it’s possible to block ads entirely in Firefox, it’s not done directly by Firefox, but rather through an extension (called AdBlock). AdBlock would probably never be included in the core browser either.
In Opera 9 a feature was added which effectively can be used to block ads, though it operates differently than AdBlock. Opera was careful not to call it an ad blocker, but rather ‘content blocker’. With Opera’s content blocker, you have the ability to block content, be it images, ads, or anything else, by a URL.
The downside to Opera’s content blocker is that you must train it first before it will block most ads. It doesn’t come pre-trained. Opera has no other choice.
So there you have it. Don’t expect for Opera to include an ad blocker, ever.
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My first thought is that this would be an insane overreaction. After all, few sites block browsers that have pop-up blockers, they just try to find ways around them.
Then I remember that there’s precedent.
Back when Opera included ads in the UI, there was some group of websites that actively blocked Opera visitors because Opera’s ads would supposedly draw attention from their site’s own ads. They made a big deal over how they were only blocking all Opera visitors because they couldn’t tell whether the visitor had paid for it or was using it in ad-supported mode, with the usual bogus super-villain logic about how Opera was forcing them to do this. The one I remember was some sort of chemistry reference site. I recall a thread on the forums to try to
This is, of course, an even more insane reaction. But I suppose one must remember that there are no limits to insanity on the web.
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I disagree. Opera should indeed incorporate adblocking with an Opera-maintained filter list, yet keep it off by default. There is a small risk of sites getting angry and banning Opera, but I do not think this is nearly significant enough to invalidate the idea of inbuilt ad blocking. Here are some examples showing how ad blocking does not lead to general hostility amongst webmasters:
1. Doesn’t adblock add “Adblock” to the end of the Firefox user agent string? There have been very little examples of sites blocking Firefox with Adblock.
2. Isn’t it easy to identify browsers that block popup windows by default, simply using their version numbers? I haven’t seen Opera 7+, IE6 SP2, Netscape or Firefox get blocked for that reason, and up until recently this was the most profitable advertising method on the web.
3. The example brought up by poster #1 was a controversy I remember, however how many times have you actually encountered a site that blocks Opera because of its “distracting ads”?
People didn’t care then and won’t care now. In fact, the only other commercial browser from a small company, Omniweb, has come with inbuilt ad-blocking for a long time and is improving it with each newever version. There’s been no backlash against the feature, only lots of satisfied users. So why not include a similar feature that everyone is clamouring for, Opera?
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Users block ads because they’re damn annoying. Everyone agrees except those stupid marketoids who put fullscreen flash ads.
How many years passed since “banner blindness” effect is known? Why do sites still use banners?
Sites/advertisers should come up with less intrusive, more useful ads which users don’t want to block.
I used to like google adsense and didn’t block it until “after the jump” term came up and adsense started to be crammed everywhere.
Ads are price to pay for content. If price is too high, users don’t want to pay it.
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There is a considerable amount of websites that offer free content and cover the costs with ads. Don’t you know any such website that you like? If many browsers are to incorporate adblocking features active by default, such websites would have to find other ways of funding (i.e., probably somehow you will pay for that content) or they will dissapear. I wouldn’t like that.
On the other hand, I like the possibility to tune my browser for blocking some agressive ads. Since most users do not tune their browsers in any way, this is no threat for ad powered web content.
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@ Kelson : Btw, this reminds of me a tussle I had with an insane webmaster previously who was blocking Opera as it was supposedly a browser aimed at doing evil :p
Back to the topic : I remember havard stating categoricaly in the forums that Opera wont ever include a adblocker. If browsers start including ad blocker then it will soon kill the web!! That is one of the reasons why I dislike Maxthon.
@ Daniel consider installing Paged Comments addon for Wordpress. It makes things easier.
http://www.keyvan.net/code/paged-comments/
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Those who don´t know about the “chemistry site incident”, go over the Opera forums and search for the relevant threads.
Even though the webmaster of the site tried to back up his actions with fallacies and twisted logic he actively blocked Opera and was not only proud but very vocal about it.
Yes, this was an exotic case, he blocked Opera due to his (mis)understanding of copyright law but the point is that he also blocked other browsers if adblock was detected though a script (Ad muncher, Firewall, Adblock, you name it).
These people exist and run sites on the net; as Kelson points out, never underestimate the level of insanity in the web.
You could argue about ablocking and counter-methods used by sites all day long: is it useful for sites?; does it make any sense to block a visitor even though he is not going to click on the ads anyway?; aren’t you pissing off potential visitors that block ads but could whitelist your site if the content is interesting and they want to support you?; is it legal to block a browser via its UA string - or send it broken code - if your site is a public IP(this is a non issue to small sites but a problem to portals and big sites (remember Opera bork and MSN))?.
Also, Opera already has battle to fight: crappy sniffers, weird JS hacks and so on. Providing a filter list by default opens the door to yet another “my favorite site doesn´t work with Opera, how can you develop such a poor quality browser?”.
P.S The “Pop-up windows fest” was a different beast, pop-ups highjacked your browser and made it almost unusable.
Adblock is an extension and Filterset updater is another one, you need to download two extensions to make it work, that’s quite different from providing a list built-in. Sometimes you even have to create your own complex rule using RegExp because sites are learning and they place the ads/images in the same directory where the regular images or content is placed.
So a filter list is not a panacea; how many FF users have Adblock(plus) and Filterset installed,anyway?
People ask for too much, the current method is quite good, just create a few general rules and most ads are done, you don´t need to click on every frikin’ ad on the web to ad it to urlfilter.ini. Heck, my urlfilter.ini file is 5k and I don´t see ads…
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I don’t think that ad blocking is the most notable request. After all there are ways to block ads in Opera with content blocker or 3d party tools and we all understand that Opera folks do not need problems with advertizers and their sites.
There are much more notable requests in that thread that would be great to see comments on. I was surprised to learn how many people wanted the same changes in Opera as me. For example, forms autocompletion. It is Opera 9 already, we have got BitTorrent, widgets, mail, RSS and so on, but no autocompletion, it’s weird.
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Most ads don’t bother me much, I think I’ve gotten quite immune to most of them, but there are still some I block. Like those horrible ads that pop up when you hover special keywords. So, thanks to Opera’s niftly contentblocker, I’m now blocking those ads, as well as Google Adwords. Google Adwords are placed like friggin everywhere!
Anyway, I understand Opera when they don’t do the same as the Adblock extension. We would go right back to the Opera 6/7-days when there was several sites blocking Opera. I don’t want that again.
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I don’t see problems with Opera 9 Content Blocker, except its buggy interface that should be polished.
I would like to see regular expressions working in Content Blocker, but can live without it too.
I used 3rd party software such Opera Ad Filter with Opera 7 and 8.
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I kind of agree with this. I dont suppose any browser should include a adblocker built in. Not only will it be difficult for the browser but for webpages too.
Thanks for clearly it out.
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My sentiments exactly. I personally don’t mind text ads (such as similar to Google). But banners annoy the hell out of me.
But I doubt even with this post the requests will slow down. Back at Mozillazine Forums we still deal with people who request for Adblockers built-in.
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Good for Opera! I’m glad they have decided not to make it even easier for people to prevent websites from making any money. I’m seeing a lot of ad block rage going on with user styles (both for Firefox and Opera) and it’s a little sad.
Sure, some sites do take the advertising too far, and in those cases I don’t have a problem with blocking or hiding *some* of the ads. However, people need to realize that it takes a lot of time, money, and effort to build a good website. If you’re enjoying a site enough to bother with blocking its ads, shouldn’t you give back a little?
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Personally, I agree with Megan.
Anyway, it might be interesting to note that Opera only dared to set ‘prevent unwanted popups’ as default after Firefox had come around, around the time IE6 with SP2 gained a popupblocker as well.
It is rather easy for acrimonious webmasters to “punish” a small browser. Refusing visitors from IE is something else…
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Pallab, thanks for the idea. Yes, the comments on that post are way too many. I’ll look into it.
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I feel the debate about the morality of blocking ads is a bit irrelevant. Surely this step was taken when popups started to get blocked by browsers? How can you qualify inline text\graphic ads as “less annoying” to a user? There’s a clear demand for this sort of feature and much like the browser vendors responded to people demanding popup blockers, the same should be done for annoying inline ads - even if it’s just optional at first.
I didn’t know the history of the default setting for popup blocking, Rijk, that’s interesting to know.
I still feel that including a “block ads” checkbox in the preferences that’s off by default would be a fine idea. As I mentioned, Omniweb already has had this a long time and has not been attacked for it. And maybe once Firefox incorporates Adblock by default, Opera can make its blocker default too?
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See http://www.opera.com/support/mastering/kiosk/#url-filter and http://www.schrode.net/opera/url_filtering/index.html to learn about the Opera´s URL Filtering.
Then go to http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?hostformat=operafilter&showintro=0 for an often updated Ad servers list!
Very easy!
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@SuitCase: No, Adblock doesn’t add itself to the UA string. It may be detectable through scripting interfaces, though, and I in the worst case you could work it out via heuristics. If the browser grabs the HTML, CSS, JavaScript and some images, but not the ads, then you can assume it’s running an ad-blocker.
@Pallab: Wow… that was certainly an *ahem* educational read. I have to wonder what planet that guy was living on. Aside from the fanatical rantings about “leech browsers,” I wanted to tear down his nonsensical ravings about “standards-compliant gray” (I take it he’d never seen the CSS Zen Garden) and complete lack of comprehension as to what it means to “compensate” for bad code.
@Not a Racoon: I wasn’t sure the threads were still there, because I couldn’t turn anything up when I searched last night. Fortunately, Pallab’s post reminded me of the site name, and I was able to turn up the relevant threads, in case anyone’s interested. (For the record, they stopped blocking Opera when 8.5 came out and eliminated the adbar.)
Back on the subject of blocking ads… we seem to be seeing two approaches. One is to try to block all ads, which sounds tempting, but yes, if widespread it will force webmasters who rely on ads to find a new business model. (I don’t think it’ll “destroy the web” any more than skipping commercials will destroy passive video entertainment. The business model and the medium aren’t the same thing.)
The other is to accept some ads and just block the ones that are annoying, as Megan suggested. If it takes over my browser, starts blaring sound, makes my system slow to a crawl, flashes seizure-inducing colors, or makes it impossible to read/view/etc. the content—which is, after all, the reason I’m on the page—then I’ll either go somewhere else or block the ad. If it’s just a banner, I can glance at it, make up my mind whether I’m interested, and move on.
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The only ads that bother me are popups and ads that flash.
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I would like a more flexible Content Blocker but the one we have it’s still quite nice.
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Regarding the chemistry site, this thread was very illustrative:
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=94999
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Useless article. Opera already uses a content blocker. And an ad is a content. So it’s a ad blocker too.
And Opera can identy itself as Mozilla or IE (”Mask Opera as Mozilla” etc), “Opera” string doesn’t appear anymore in the UA.
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yeah, who would use an “ad blocker”
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hmm yes, who would (trys a 2nd time)
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I’m all for not including an ad blocker into Opera. Most users don’t hate ads virulently enough and can do their daily surfing just fine in spite of ads, and those ads do help support the sites that display them.
Personally, though, I never click on ads and I find them extremely disturbing. Usually the ads are the “loudest” part of any site, which I really hate. I only allow them on specific sites that I visit on a regular basis and want to support, in case I get some odd compulsion to click on one of them…
The rest I flush completely using Privoxy. Privoxy is the best choice for ad control and privacy enhancments for any browser, IMHO - it is a separate application you can fine-tune and get working perfectly and then you can upgrade, downgrade, sidegrade or degrade any and all of your installed browsers without losing the privacy and ad filtering info you’ve set up.
Less cruft in the Opera browser - faster browser - non-savvy users see ads and people who don’t want them can just use Privoxy. No worries.
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I will say that the current Content Blocker has become one of my favorite features of the new release.
And, I don’t mind having to train it.
There are some ads (certain blog networks, for example) that I do choose to see.
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I think Opera’s behavior is the correct one. Anyone whose skill is so modest they can manage only the content blocker within Opera can easily block those things that most annoy them. Anyone with a bit more skill can block absolutely anything. For example, one can simply use the HOSTS file. Balance is what is important (as in so many things) and I think in this Opera strikes the right balance.
I choose to allow advertising which is not too intrusive in exchange for valuable content. Sometimes the advertising is even relevant; for these reasons I allow Google ads and in return Google provides me extremely valuable services.
My experience? Online since the mid-80s (FidoNet). There was no advertising then, on that network, and I remember first being on the Internet and then the World Wide Web and the absence of advertising. I don’t really like advertising but, for now, it’s just the way things are. It’s a reasonable trade for content. When it’s unreasonable Opera provides one way to remove it.
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The problem with Opera’s solution is that it accepts wildcards only at the end of urls like http://www.site.com/ad/*. In Firefox */ad/* is possible through CSS selector.
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One thing that bothers me on the present content blocker interactive interface is that I am not able to mark some of the most annoying stuff blocked by clikng on it. Take for example this picture page: http://www.fortframes.cz/english/pictures.phtml?image=storm.jpg&title=design%20storm&width=800&height=540 — it has a nasty flash animation that (on my screen) covers the picture :(. If I start the block-content interface, I am not able to block that ugly animation…
This is a nice example of the Opera content blocker being used not to block ads, but to fix an annoing design. While there might not be place for a “real” ad blocker in Opera, the content blocker is useful and also besides blocking only ads!
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What the content blocker need is the ability to block iframes, like the ads on this site.
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yearoo, why would you want to block the ads on this site? I do need to cover my hosting and other expenses
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I have to disagree with most of the points made. In my opinion it is not only possible to include ad blocking functionality in a browser but it will also happen for most browsers like it did for popup blocking. I posted my argumentation here.
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I won’t switch to Opera until I can import filterset.g into it. Until then I’ll have to use firefox.
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While I definitely want better adblock (it doesn’t have to be in browser, if Opera had a better 3rd party community, who’d care who does the adblocking?), my main problem is the lack of bookmark synchronization. It’s just too much work to copy bookmarks to a flash drive and update them constantly. If Opera had better 3rd party support, this would be a non-issue too.
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post #32 - Your statement makes it sound as if there was a standard for doing this. There isn’t. I’m not going to ignore Firefox because it can’t import my firewall suite’s DNS and adblock lists. Your statement makes no sense.
post #33 - Third party community? Please research before you post.
Bookmark Sync? It sounds as if you want your browser to run on a flash drive and both Opera and Firefox can do that. So if you carry around your browser on a usb stick, what are you syncing?
post #31 - you represent Firefox users well. Good arguments on your site. Obviously this is what has come to pass.
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There is no question that Tomshardware.com is much more enjoyable in Firefox with Adblock+. All those ads and especially the mouse over links are gone. Opera has a lot of nice things but to me this is a killer feature and I would only consider another browser that had it such as Flock.
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Well, freedom of choice I guess. I understand the argument that ads keep pages free. I for one use adblock plus, which gets rid of everything. I really don’t have the time to constantly manually block stuff. I’m just one of those people that hates pretty much all graphical ads. Of course, google text ads still show, and aren’t obtrusive at all. This is the reason that I stick with firefox, and don’t use opera. If opera had an extension like adblock plus, i’d probably use opera, as it has a much smaller memory footprint, and is overall a great browser. (yes I’m posting this from opera, but that’s just cuz i’m testing my website atm)