Why I don’t like ad blockers
As the comments to the articles show, there is an audience on Habré who loves advertising blockers quite strongly. In this article, I will express my opinion, for which you can strongly not love them.
Block ads without ever touching on everything else is impossible. In many cases this is possible, but not done because of the poor quality of the blocker. Also, often the functionality is generally implemented crookedly, which only aggravates the situation. But this is not the claim. It is clear that developers are not gods, and can not fix everything by magic. But you need to warn the user about this feature?
Let me explain: some users really understand that a blocker can break a site or part of its functionality, and when something is wrong, automatically pull behind a button at the top to pause the blocker. It's good. But some users can not even think that it is the fault of the blocker. They will either leave such a site, or they will be left without the services they need. When installing, an honest blocker should display a big bright warning about such an important feature that there are no users who did not know about it. The absence of a warning is the concealment of information and misleading, which means that the blocker is not honest. Of course, a dishonest blocker owes nothing to anyone, but this article describes exactly why I don’t like blockers because of their dishonesty.
As the creator of the site, I want the site to work correctly even for users who decide to block ads. But in reality, on a regular basis, something can break, which is why I 1) suffer losses from the outflow of users, 2) bear reputational losses. To fix this, I have to do the work that dishonest blockers are laying on me, or accept losses. At the same time, the performance of this work does not bring any benefit to the society: blockers in general are not good and impede the development of websites, i.e. I have to do work that does not benefit the society. This reason is the second reason for the condemnation of blockers.
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Worse happens when correction is impossible in principle. Yes, it happens (to be described below). And this is the third reason - even if you are willing to spend on efforts to support, it is often impossible to correct incorrect work in principle (yes, yes, it happens!).
And the fourth reason is not enough to test the site once. It can break at any time without any warning. And sometimes none of the users will even tell you about this (for example, because the site does not work for him at all). Yes, you can put 10 blockers and regularly check the site, but it will not save from the 11th blocker, it will not save from the lack of a warning, and it will not save from the fact that you can just not notice something.
Of course, not only advertising websites are broken, but even websites on which there is no advertising at all. The point of view "well, everything broke down, probably because the whole site was littered with advertising" is fundamentally wrong. Among my projects, problems with websites with advertising appeared more often, but not by much, than with projects without advertising in general.
It should also be noted that some blockers contain a disclaimer in which it is written that they can break the functionality or sites, but usually this disclaimer is hidden very far and is not easy to find - it is very different from the idea of “outputting large text immediately after installation”.
If you want to make an honest blocker, then you just need to display a big warning right after installation that the blocker can lead sites to work with errors, break some of the functionality or sites completely. Then, when the user knows about this feature, he can make a choice by himself: either he disables the blocker on this page, because he understands that the blocker is not working correctly, or he punishes the site with his care for the fact that its developers have not spent their time for testing, and if spent, then did not check the work again (unless of course it was possible at all). Website developers, on the other hand, decide which blockers need to be supported, and if at all. Everyone has a choice, and he clearly understands what he is doing.
As a website developer, you can display a warning in the spirit of “The functionality is not guaranteed when ad blockers are enabled and in browsers up to IE 11, Chrome 4.0, FF 4.0”. Of course, this is not always possible (due to the fact that the site no longer works for the user at all, or there is simply nowhere to display such a warning). Also, a part of the user may not understand this correctly, because users are sure that the authors of the sites are trying to defend their advertising with all their might, and not that the blockers themselves may not work correctly - it turns out that reputational losses again, even if the problems have not yet begun.
You can have an official blog or forum - if there is something wrong with the site, users will know where to turn. Otherwise, you may never even know about the problems.
There are also other reasons for condemning blockers:
Can the blockers fix the situation? Of course they can, after all, just a few warnings are enough for the user to understand that this is not the site doing tricks or just buggy, but the blocker is not perfect, and in order to fix the situation, you need to disable the blocker on this page (if the user is satisfied). Do blockers do this now? Not.
One of the many real cases: the user comes to us, complains about the white screen. We see from the screenshot that he has a blocker, and we say that he does not work correctly. The user understands that if you turn off the blocker, then everything will work, but I am sure that we specifically did this so that if he blocks the advertisement, then that would not work for him. Or, we struggled with advertising, struggled, and now the blocker blocked us altogether, in short, we ourselves are to blame, and instead of correcting or removing all the advertising at all, we say to disable the blocker.
In fact, due to the blocker's negligence, we were slandered. This is very unpleasant. At the same time, it is impossible to fix the problem - the white screen cannot be fixed technically.
Site breakdown is not uncommon. The fact is that it is absolutely incorrect to use the statement “I almost never meet broken sites”. Suppose you found 1 broken site out of 500. But what does this really mean?
As a result: even if you come across one site for many years, the actual number of broken sites you visited may be even more than half. It is impossible to estimate the number of broken sites according to the judgment “since I have not noticed this for 20 years, then this does not happen”.
Most users expect the ad blocker to block ads. And in fact, everything is not so. This is what the user should be warned about. Such deception is unpleasant to many.
What are the claims?
Block ads without ever touching on everything else is impossible. In many cases this is possible, but not done because of the poor quality of the blocker. Also, often the functionality is generally implemented crookedly, which only aggravates the situation. But this is not the claim. It is clear that developers are not gods, and can not fix everything by magic. But you need to warn the user about this feature?
Let me explain: some users really understand that a blocker can break a site or part of its functionality, and when something is wrong, automatically pull behind a button at the top to pause the blocker. It's good. But some users can not even think that it is the fault of the blocker. They will either leave such a site, or they will be left without the services they need. When installing, an honest blocker should display a big bright warning about such an important feature that there are no users who did not know about it. The absence of a warning is the concealment of information and misleading, which means that the blocker is not honest. Of course, a dishonest blocker owes nothing to anyone, but this article describes exactly why I don’t like blockers because of their dishonesty.
As the creator of the site, I want the site to work correctly even for users who decide to block ads. But in reality, on a regular basis, something can break, which is why I 1) suffer losses from the outflow of users, 2) bear reputational losses. To fix this, I have to do the work that dishonest blockers are laying on me, or accept losses. At the same time, the performance of this work does not bring any benefit to the society: blockers in general are not good and impede the development of websites, i.e. I have to do work that does not benefit the society. This reason is the second reason for the condemnation of blockers.
')
Worse happens when correction is impossible in principle. Yes, it happens (to be described below). And this is the third reason - even if you are willing to spend on efforts to support, it is often impossible to correct incorrect work in principle (yes, yes, it happens!).
And the fourth reason is not enough to test the site once. It can break at any time without any warning. And sometimes none of the users will even tell you about this (for example, because the site does not work for him at all). Yes, you can put 10 blockers and regularly check the site, but it will not save from the 11th blocker, it will not save from the lack of a warning, and it will not save from the fact that you can just not notice something.
Wherein
Of course, not only advertising websites are broken, but even websites on which there is no advertising at all. The point of view "well, everything broke down, probably because the whole site was littered with advertising" is fundamentally wrong. Among my projects, problems with websites with advertising appeared more often, but not by much, than with projects without advertising in general.
It should also be noted that some blockers contain a disclaimer in which it is written that they can break the functionality or sites, but usually this disclaimer is hidden very far and is not easy to find - it is very different from the idea of “outputting large text immediately after installation”.
When does a blocker work incorrectly?
- When instead of using specific rules for a particular site, common rules are used for all sites. It is unlikely that the container with advertising will be called “this-is-container-for-ads”, which means that the rules can easily affect even websites where there is no advertising at all. Developers may not always add specific names to the rules, for example, there are cases in which applications became completely inoperative simply because some critical query contained a random value starting with "ad98b ...". This is the “ad” that the blocker initially responded to.
- When a rule is added for a specific site, but this is done in a hurry. Often, blocker developers do not even conduct minimal testing after adding a rule.
- When the blocker itself does not work correctly. For example, there are blockers with the ability to block advertising with a mouse, but instead of advertising, they block the whole iframe so much so that it does not even begin to load. To bypass such a lock is no longer possible in principle, at least if the iframe is not yours (and more often it is not yours). To the user, this looks like a white screen. 99.99% of users, seeing the white screen, will think that the site is not loaded, and only 0.01% will check it from another browser, and see that everything is normal with another browser, which means something is wrong with the browser.
- When there is a lock function with the mouse. If the rules are created by the administrator of the blocker, he can test the rules. But users understand very little in technology (or rather, they do not understand anything), so even if the site completely ceased to work after that, even in this case not everyone would guess that it was the fault of the virtual rule they created incorrectly. What to say about if the site has lost only part of its functionality and in the beginning it is imperceptible. The site administrator can no longer test, because each user can cut the elements in different ways, and it will not be possible to put 40 blockers to check the work. You can try to ensure the work when cutting out any element (with a progressive loss of functionality), but this is not always possible, or it can be expensive. At the same time, the solution to the problem is actually very simple: when the user selects an element with the mouse, he should see a warning that it can break the site, and after performing the action in the add-on menu, he should be able to quickly cancel the rules added in this way. But do current blockers display warnings? If they do not, then why?
What can be done?
If you want to make an honest blocker, then you just need to display a big warning right after installation that the blocker can lead sites to work with errors, break some of the functionality or sites completely. Then, when the user knows about this feature, he can make a choice by himself: either he disables the blocker on this page, because he understands that the blocker is not working correctly, or he punishes the site with his care for the fact that its developers have not spent their time for testing, and if spent, then did not check the work again (unless of course it was possible at all). Website developers, on the other hand, decide which blockers need to be supported, and if at all. Everyone has a choice, and he clearly understands what he is doing.
As a website developer, you can display a warning in the spirit of “The functionality is not guaranteed when ad blockers are enabled and in browsers up to IE 11, Chrome 4.0, FF 4.0”. Of course, this is not always possible (due to the fact that the site no longer works for the user at all, or there is simply nowhere to display such a warning). Also, a part of the user may not understand this correctly, because users are sure that the authors of the sites are trying to defend their advertising with all their might, and not that the blockers themselves may not work correctly - it turns out that reputational losses again, even if the problems have not yet begun.
You can have an official blog or forum - if there is something wrong with the site, users will know where to turn. Otherwise, you may never even know about the problems.
Other reasons for condemning blockers
There are also other reasons for condemning blockers:
- After blocking, the blocker does not notify the owners of the site, so that they themselves check the performance, even if the contacts are clearly indicated at the bottom of the page. Your website may break at any time, and there is no time to fix it, let alone prepare in advance and prevent it.
- It is difficult to contact the support of the blocker: if this is an honest blocker, then communication for site developers should be in the most visible place, and if it is not fair, then this is another reason for condemnation. I'm not saying that it is impossible to appeal at all, but you need to understand that there are many blockers, but many, and it turns out that everyone needs to study. An honest blocker should simplify the task as much as possible.
- Some users even think that site developers are trying to fight with blockers, and therefore does not work, and in spite of leaving the site. This is the most annoying. If the blocker had warned that this is because of it the site may not work correctly, this would not have happened.
Can the blockers fix the situation? Of course they can, after all, just a few warnings are enough for the user to understand that this is not the site doing tricks or just buggy, but the blocker is not perfect, and in order to fix the situation, you need to disable the blocker on this page (if the user is satisfied). Do blockers do this now? Not.
Why is user notification after installation so important?
One of the many real cases: the user comes to us, complains about the white screen. We see from the screenshot that he has a blocker, and we say that he does not work correctly. The user understands that if you turn off the blocker, then everything will work, but I am sure that we specifically did this so that if he blocks the advertisement, then that would not work for him. Or, we struggled with advertising, struggled, and now the blocker blocked us altogether, in short, we ourselves are to blame, and instead of correcting or removing all the advertising at all, we say to disable the blocker.
In fact, due to the blocker's negligence, we were slandered. This is very unpleasant. At the same time, it is impossible to fix the problem - the white screen cannot be fixed technically.
“I have never met broken sites, this is rare”
Site breakdown is not uncommon. The fact is that it is absolutely incorrect to use the statement “I almost never meet broken sites”. Suppose you found 1 broken site out of 500. But what does this really mean?
- First of all, it is likely that you visited the site for the first time or used it for a short time. For example, you use the site for a month, but the site could have existed, for example, for 5 or even 10 years. During this time, the site could break even not 1 time, but 10 times. But it will seem to you that the site is not broken.
To determine the ratio, let's take the breakdown time 1 time in 3 years, the breakdown duration is 1 month, the site’s operating time is 5 years, and the time you use the site is also 1 month. Then the probability that during the first month of operation the site will never be broken - 0.972 (and broken - 0.028). For 3 years, not broken - 0.363, and broken - 0.637. Please note: yes, for 3 years on average the site will break down once, but the probability of breakdown is not 100%, but only 64% is because the site can break down both 0 times and immediately more than 1 time. For 5 years of operation of the site, the probability that it is not broken is 0.184, and it is broken - 0.816.
But you use the site a month, and for you the probability of breakdown is 0.028. This is 29.358974 times less. It turns out that when you see 1 broken site, the total number of broken sites you have visited is approximately 29 times more, because it is unlikely that you visited them every day from the very beginning of the site. - Further, you can hardly use absolutely all the functionality of the site, and if you do not see a breakdown, this does not mean that it does not exist. It depends on the size of the site - there are large sites in which you can not use and 10% of the functional, and there are small, in which if there is a breakdown, it will be noticed with a high probability. I will not strongly increase the coefficient at this point, but take about 2-3 times (take 2 times). The probability to notice a breakdown is reduced by 2 times - it turns out that if you see 1 broken site out of 500, you need to consider this for at least 58.717948 sites out of 500.
- The next item is not a fact that you will even think about a blocker, because not only it can cause incorrect work, but also problems with the server, errors and so on. The probability is especially great when you first open it - you can simply close the site and forget. Many breakdowns may not look like breakdowns from a blocker. I will take a factor of 2 on this point. It turns out that if you see 1 broken site out of 500, you need to consider this as at least 117.435896 sites out of 500.
- Well, the last point - there is not one blocker, but many. The site can be broken only with one blocker out of 20, and most likely it will work for you anyway. I will take factor 5 on this point. It turns out that if you see 1 broken site out of 500, you need to consider this as 587.17948 sites out of 500.
The figure came out more than 100% - this means that we either made a wrong assumption at the very beginning (for example, we may see a maximum of not 1 site out of 500, but only 1 out of 2000), or one of the points above is not refers to you - after all, when calculating, we did not evaluate in any way what the probability was that at some particular point we could not apply it for some reason.
As a result: even if you come across one site for many years, the actual number of broken sites you visited may be even more than half. It is impossible to estimate the number of broken sites according to the judgment “since I have not noticed this for 20 years, then this does not happen”.
Another short explanation
Most users expect the ad blocker to block ads. And in fact, everything is not so. This is what the user should be warned about. Such deception is unpleasant to many.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/349310/
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