Anti-Adblock Killer removes website ad-blocking protections
Advertisement blockers are a controversial topic for many webmasters. I can see why some users use them as there are sites out there that throw that many ads at you, banner, flash, animated, with sounds, or popup, that it becomes a burden to navigate those websites properly.
What I do not like on the other hand are users who block ads on websites that do not implement these annoying types of ads, especially if they visit those websites regularly and like what they read. Why? Because a site like Ghacks would not exist in its current form, or maybe not at all, if it would not generate enough revenue through advertisement.
Some website owners try to protect their websites against users who run ad-blockers by locking them out. They run scripts on their sites that prevent access to contents if they recognize an ad-blocking extension or script.
To counter this, browser extensions have been created that make these anti-adblock solutions useles.. It is a cat and mouse game more or less. The adblock detection and blocking scripts get updated regularly with new technologies so that they block adblockers temporarily. The developers of extensions that make anti-adblock scripts useless find new solutions to bypass these new protections, and the cycle repeats itself.
I do not encounter anti-adblock scripts regularly, but that is likely because I'm using NoScript and no traditional adblocking extension. Even if that would be the case, I'm pretty certain that there are not that many sites that have implemented anti-adblocking scripts.
Anti-Adblock Killer was mentioned in the comment section of yesterday's no pic ads review. It is a userscript that you can install in your web browser to bypass certain anti-adblocking solutions. According to the profile website, it works with Antiblock.org Script V2 and V3, RTK Anti Adblock Script, and Anti Ad Buster Script.
More than one hundred websites are listed here as well that implement one of the anti-adblocking solutions. The userscript works best in Firefox, and only partially in other browsers such as Chrome, Safari or Opera. Firefox users need to install Greasemonkey or a comparable solution to run the script, Chrome users need Tampermonkey, and Opera 12.x users Violentmonkey.
All extensions needed to run the script are linked on the script's website. Once you have installed the script it works automatically if it detects an anti-adblocker script on a website.
Note that it is likely that you will experience periods where the script does not work, which is usually the case when a site has updated its anti-adblock script or changed its implementation completely. You can report those to the developer of the script.
Verdict
If you hang out on sites that use anti-adblocking scripts to protect their contents, then you may want to give this a try to bypass the protection on those sites.
Advertisement
I don’t see the point of visiting a site that resorts to this kind of intrusion… What I see on my computer and what my browser displays is my business.
I completely agree.
Agreed. If a website blocks me because I block its ads, then so be it. The site was built for my visits, but I wasn’t built for the site. It’s the site owners loss, not mine; and no skin off my nose, in any case.
___________________________
Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com
How is it the site owner’s loss? You want to force him/her to incur server costs to keep you entertained/informed/whatever, but you’re not willing to permit this individual to recoup the costs of your visit.
Sounds to me like you’re kind of a freeloader. So, again, how is this the website’s loss?
Correct. The seller/advertiser is looking for YOUR money and “the customer is always right” in terms of his/her needs and wants. Furthermore, it is the CONSUMER’s MONEY until it is spent! This fact makes the new term “Ad blocking theft” a TOTALLY ABSURD piece of corporate propaganda. It is INDEED the advertiser’s loss when one runs off his potential clients with a deluge of unwelcome pictures, vids, and ploys for $ that may not have ANYTHING to do with his website!
Haven’t heard of this one, thanks, Martin! I actually ran into one (national news) site quite a while ago that blocked a video until I disabled BluHell. Damned if I can remember what site that was! LOL!
There’s one thing I feel like to share. I always white list websites like ghacks which don’t have intrusive ads or those notorious popups. So just yesterday when I was browsing ghacks, I noticed a google ad specifically for a shirt on an estore which I have bookmarked an hour before. It’s that sort of tracking that pisses me off which made me install ghostery despite it’s slowing down my browsing speed. My brother on other hand just doesn’t bother with white listing.
Yes, I agree… we should definitely whitelist sites like this one. It’s just the right thing to do.
___________________________
Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com
If people keeps blocking all ads is because of how messed up internet advertisement in general is.
You can expect less people whitelisting ghacks or similar sites, because every other site out there using ads is either malware or spying on you. Because, if your ad server is a third party, chances are that, eventually, either due to incompetency or malice, it’s gonna try to serve malware or spy on you. We have seen this in very popular, non-underground sites such as NY Times, it doesn’t need to be insane.porn.site.sk anymore to get evil ads.
Besides, not to mention online ads are the absolute worst of all forms of advertisement media. TV ads? Audiovisual, with jingles, catchy, flashy, at times memorable, at times fun. Online ads? Click here for free iPad! Annoying flashing gif! Click on the face for INSTANT REWARDS. See the difference in intent? While TV ads might want to beautify a product, and they might lie, but always within certain constraints, online ads are pure lies, deception, hoping for some sucker to click on it. No art, no flashy, no catchy. Also the fact that despite all datamining, online ads never show anything you want to buy (because trying to sell you stuff you already purchased is pretty much a no-go), and I want no god damn server space. Google keeps trying to sell me server space, I am not even a webmaster, wtf!. Although the day I see Google ads offering kitchenware it’s when I realize they datamined too much.
Anon, I agree 100% with your post. These ad’s on every site has gotten out of hand and gone beyond annoying to intrusive. Some sites want to load up flashing commercials.ad’s and pop-ups before they will load up the site and that has caused my computer to freeze up more than once then I have to go to task manager to stop process and start over again,which is a time waster. It’s even worse when ad-blocker is on and the ad’s try to load up anyway. It’s a case of you are going to watch these ad’s or else. I do turn off ad-blocker for sites that are not crazy with ad’s like g-hacks. When I go to a site that I have turned off ad-blocker and I have to wait for a commercial video to play because it starts up right away I don’t use that site anymore, I say screw them because I can go else where for the same info.I now boycott sites that want to ‘sell’ me things instead of letting me use their site. I have unblocked ad-blocker on many sites because they don’t abuse it. Too bad more people are not like you about this and just sit there and get bombarded by ad’s,I guess they click on to them,me for me however I will not get distracted by a dancing tampon or singing can of dog food.
One of the main reasons I use AdBlock Plus & NoScript is that in the day job (one of my many hats is internet ‘police’) we have at least one instance a week (~2500 users) of malware being inserted into third-party advertising. About half of them use Java exploits, with the rest using Flash and anything else they can try. We have even seen zero-day exploits injected through the ads.
Some of the biggest sites suffer from this, and it costs us real dollars to clean that junk up.
Third-party ads are like sex, you are in bed with all the people the advertisers are in bed with, and some of the advertisers pals have very nasty diseases.
I guess I started using adblockers a few years ago when my favorite website at that time started making heavy use of annoying ads.
It´s always a surprise when I surf the net at a friends computer who doesn`t use adblockers.
It takes ages because of all those annoying ads till you get to the usefull articles.
Especially annoying are those (flash?) ads with music/videos and the like.
Or ads in the middle of an article
Visualise yourself reading an oldschool book wich online lets you turn the page after you acknoledge the latest adv to womens hygiene pruducts ;-)
I can live with unobstusive ads let`s say at the end or beside an article but unfortunately only few websides keep to that.
I think adblockers should whitelist everything by default — with obvious animated .gif screen stealing obnoxious type stuff blacklisted, but all else is allowed. Then, if you find a site that’s particularly bad, with flash windows or screamers or whatever, you tick them off on the naughty list and block their ads.
The way it works now is they just block everything, which is kind of bad for webmasters. Kind of really bad.
Come to think of it, what if we all replaced our adblockers with tracking-blockers and flashblock?
That way, we’d get the privacy and security (no tracking cookies, no flash), without blocking ads.
Am I missing something, or would that be much better for all?
One of my daily must-reads– physorg.com– complained about my use of AdBlock, explaining the effect it has, and offering a very low cost subscription model of a few dollars a month. I jumped at the chance. This works for me and for them.
I just tried to enable ads on this site and to do so requires enabling scripts from several 3rd parties including doubleclick. Couldn’t bring myself to do it!
That said, the argument that no matter how many ads I see, I won’t click on them because I don’t buy online, and therefore I am not costing you any real revenue, well, that’s a somewhat valid argument.
How about blocking anti-adblock messages by their provider (e.g. CPALead, Adfocus) in order to trim down the supported websites list because some sites use a single anti-adblock provider?
I use adblocking on every single website I go on, and I get other people to do the same, with no exceptions. This whole “oh well site x needs the money” well that’s not my problem, and its also retarded to think that one website lives in some sort of special vacuum that is unaffected by the real world. Ads are crap because they are overdone to the extreme so people are sick of them, and no amount of begging will change peoples minds when 99% of the internet is riddled with the crap, often advertising nothing useful other than crap to other sites. “cheap blank CDs” yeah I can search for them if I want them. Some sad webmasters are crying because reposting other peoples articles is no longer a viable way to make money, and that “we have a right to earn money” attitude just stinks and drives people even further away. Simply put, adverts are a dying empire, shame you are trying to earn of something that is almost over and was never really wanted anyway.
@Davids
What do you do for a living?
There is a high probability that the company you work for advertise, have a sales division or use PR to generate income.
Have you ever had one of these moments: “Wow, that was cool, I want one of those!”.
Well since you do not respond to marketing, there is a good chance someone in PR presented this idead to some journalist.
So you prophesy that advertising is a thing of the past? Care to predict when it will disapear?
Talking about living in “some sort of special vacuum that is unaffected by the real world”…
Webmasters do actually have a right to earn money. Now if the ads are blocked effectively enough these webmasters will have to find ways to earn their money that are not so easily detected. There are allready a lot of sponsor-paid journalism out there. Are you really telling me you want more of this?
A message to the ad users who use them for their source of income:
I say this, to heck with ALL ads. If you want to make money off those who visit your website, put a donation option somewhere. Better yet, instead of relying on something that WILL drive visitors away instead of doing what is intended, GET A JOB!!!! That will give you plenty of income without driving visitors from your site. A job will give better income and doesn’t rely on other people to generate it.
Alex, this is my job.
*Nod* Then it must also be your job to honestly determine whether the content on your site is a nuisance to those that wish to visit it. You must have forgotten that you get more customers with good webmastering equating to figurative honey than when you try to shove vinegar down their throats for an easy buck. The websites that serve the best with the least headache are the ones that get return visits, in my book.
“What I do not like on the other hand are users who block ads on websites that do not implement these annoying types of ads”
I don’t want to see ANY ads. I never show interest let alone click something that is forced upon me. For the most part, I breathe through my nose and don’t drool. Get over yourself. I haven’t even heard of ghacks until I searched for a way to get rid of these newschool ads that render right on a page rather than pop up in a new window and now I that I’ve read your dumbass philosophy, which provided me with no answers, I am in a bad mood. Once I leave here, I won’t ever intentionally come back. Should I feel bad for you and send you $5 on Paypal? That’s equal to like two-thousand clicks, right? You’re a sell-out, like a whore, but not nearly as fun or interesting.
“Alex, this is my job.”
Wow. must be nice. I have to work for a living. I move shit around with my own two hands and thousands of people depend on that for their own personal luxury, but you have a blog that generates ad revenue by annoying people who would actually read your drivel. I hate your worth ethic because you post nothing of value yet you somehow have a sense of entitlement. I hope ghacks goes under if it comprises of people as useless as you.
Were you even alive during the 2000’s when ads would open a million pop-ups and pop-unders just for closing a browser window (there were no tabs back then). The only site with “non-intrusive ads” was google, and now even they’ve turned to the dark side, why should you get the white-list?
@Ness – “””Alex, this is my job.”
Wow. must be nice. I have to work for a living. I move shit around with my own two hands and thousands of people depend on that for their own personal luxury, but you have a blog that generates ad revenue by annoying people who would actually read your drivel. I hate your worth ethic because you post nothing of value yet you somehow have a sense of entitlement. I hope ghacks goes under if it comprises of people as useless as you.
Were you even alive during the 2000’s when ads would open a million pop-ups and pop-unders just for closing a browser window (there were no tabs back then). The only site with “non-intrusive ads” was google, and now even they’ve turned to the dark side, why should you get the white-list?””
You do know you’re complaining is directed at the guy who generated the article you’re currently reading and is providing and updating the links to this new script… yeah?
Stop drinking KoolAid, bro.
thank you my friend
Hi all,
Here’s the new link Anti Adblock Killer.
https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer
Regards
Reek
Creator of Anti Adblock Killer
Thanks, fixed the link.
it doesn’t work at http://www.exrapidleech.info/ , the site still detects Adblock
Just wondering if this will support SRWare Iron? It supports chrome that’s why I am asking, they are basically the same thing
Its a little hypocritical of you since you have ads on this site!
Care to explain why you believe that this is hypocritical of me? I’m not allowed to review ad-blockers or anti-ad-blockers because I run ads? How is that hypocritical?
I use the Adblock Plus and Ghostery, I have no desire to pick up 3rd party Malware. Little desire to be tracked. Though I do allow some non-intrusive advertising (Adblock) and certain ad vendors(Ghostery) through my tools. I don’t desire to be inundated with boatloads of ads and refuse to be.
If you don’t want to be tracked, you should block google, everything owned by google, every service google offers… and never use google again. (Of course, you should probably block yahoo, bing, and certainly never use any chromium browsers since google proved there was backdoor code for them to exploit.)
Also remember to block facebook, twitter, instagram, reddit, and even amazon.
Sorry, you sold out your freedom a long time ago, enjoy living under the corporate thumb :D
You are funny. How about this, you do your thing and I will do mine. Since you know nothing about me, perhaps you should take a moment and reflect on your ignorance. Sorry, you have no idea what I have done with my freedom, unless I tell you and I have not…
Or use “hosts” file to block advertisment.
This way websites can’t tell if you block ads.
I’ve installed an auto ad bot that clicks on all of the ads. The ad blocker still works and only blocks those ads that are privacy invasive and a general security risk. The publisher gets paid. My privacy and security are better protected and browsing is faster.
It is the next step in the ad vs user war on privacy. Seems a viable compromise to the “What part of you ain’t paying me to sell my info and besiege my bandwidth with possible viruses? (Forbes)” online experience.