Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I'm not sure that I like this. I know it's not really like Adblock or whatever it's called.

I never notice advertisements, and I am surprised more people aren't the same. You've been doing the same thing for years -- it's so easy to tell what's content and who's not.

I so occasionally get caught by the very clever ones - and so what? If you're big on privacy, I guess you would care more tun I would

As I'm growing older I don't mind donating small amounts of monies to good websites and projects. I just wish more people were like me in that regards -- it'd definitely be more profitable IMO. Has anyone got any experience in this (a/b testing maybe?!). I think this behaviour came from the ease of buying from Google Play or the App store... It's almost like, "I just spent $35 on apps last night?"

Some corporate advertisements really are stupid. I just imagine someone's crated the perfect advert and the client goes, "make it pop!!!". Those are the ones I would not mind vanishing - but if it's helping the website then I'm all for it -- my continued visits are purely based on their content and ease of use.




This is an ad. http://ad-assets.nytimes.com/paidpost/dell/will-millennials-... The entire article is an ad - you're saying you wouldn't notice this? The whole point of native advertising is that it's not easy anymore to tell what's advertising and what isn't. Only 41% of visitors realized that native ads were advertising at all. http://www.iab.net/about_the_iab/recent_press_releases/press...


Also read http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html for some more examples of how hard it is distinguish "ads" from other "real" content and news.


Thank you heaps for your comment! I'm not quite sure why I am being down-voted though. To clarify my browsing habits are at the point where if I do see an intrusive advertisement or something that is just words rather than a coherent bit of content I'm looking for.

I clicked your link and immediately closed it. Then opened, looked closely, and my eyes did not catch on to anything so I closed it again.

Your second link was very informative, interesting stuff though.

The rest of you can't tell me your browsing habits have not evolved enough to know what is which and this is that?


How would you even know? I can say that mine have not. Ars Technica started cross-posting articles from Wired, which I would rather avoid. But for weeks, I would only realize that I had clicked one when I got to the bottom of the article. It's just exhausting to check all the bylines all the time.


Tried your link and got:

Your request for http://ad-assets.nytimes.com/paidpost/dell/will-millennials-... was blocked. Block reason: Host matches generic block pattern.

Yep, definitely noticed it was an ad. One more reason to install Privoxy.



Thanks, didn't mean to request another. You can bypass Privoxy's filters with a click, but it's nice to know I have a huge warning page when I reach an ad article like that.


Ah, I don't really know anything about privoxy. I'm guessing the ad-assets domain is pretty easy to block at any rate.


Honesty, journalistic integrity, understanding an author's known biases are some of the reasons I want to identify an ad.


Surely a quick glance at a website and the content will let you know immediately whether it's worth the time to read it?

What you've said is interesting too -- isn't that what Ssvbtle tried to create? A network of honesty, journalistic integrity etc...


Would you mind clarifying what the problem with Ad Detector is? It's not meant to increase privacy or to turn people away from advertisements, but rather call attention to the fact that a given piece of content is actually an ad.


My apologies mate, I sort of went off on a tangent. My main point was really that advertisements are (as evolved from my Internet usage) that most are completely invisible to me.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: