Computers & Electronics

Adblock sold to unknown buyer

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  • Oct 5th, 2015 3:27 pm
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Deal Fanatic
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Mar 20, 2009
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Adblock sold to unknown buyer

The popular Adblock browser extension has been in the news before for selling exemptions to companies that want to bypass their blocking. Now they have apparently been sold to an undisclosed new buyer.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/02/adbl ... sion-sold/

"creator Michael Gundlach posted a note in an update to his Adblock Chrome Extension saying that he was selling the company, with his "long-time managing director" taking over the role of working with that new company. It seems that Gundlach is no longer working with Adblock at all

The update itself turned on the "acceptable ads" feature; Adblock will now show "useful ads" by default, with more aggressive and annoying ads getting blocked. "
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Deal Fanatic
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Sep 10, 2005
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There's an important distinction to be made here. In your first sentence, you're actually referring to the Adblock Plus add-on. They are the ones who started the "Acceptable Ads" initiative.

This Adblock is a different adblock add-on entirely who are now doing the same thing.
Deal Fanatic
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Didn't realize they were different, thanks.
Deal Addict
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Jan 25, 2011
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Just use uBlock Origin, it's the most efficient adblocker (not uBlock, get uBlock Origin).
Deal Fanatic
Jan 13, 2005
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I bet you Google bought it so we have to watching commercials on YouTube again.
Deal Fanatic
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Acceptable ads is and has always been optional anyway.
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Jun 8, 2015
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funkland
ToNIX wrote: Just use uBlock Origin, it's the most efficient adblocker (not uBlock, get uBlock Origin).
Ublock origin and Privacy badger are my two go-to mods.
Deal Fanatic
Aug 3, 2014
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nano wrote: I bet you Google bought it so we have to watching commercials on YouTube again.
uBlock (no uBlock Origin for Safari :( ) + hosts file, updated weekly
Deal Guru
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Jul 15, 2008
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+1 uBlock Origin for Firefox and Chrome.
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ToNIX wrote: Just use uBlock Origin, it's the most efficient adblocker (not uBlock, get uBlock Origin).
What's the difference between the two? Never heard of the origin one.
Deal Guru
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shmogt wrote: What's the difference between the two? Never heard of the origin one.
The creator of uBlock transfered ownership to some other guy. The said new person started asking for donations, creator didn't like it. The owner rebranded his own project and added Origin to it.

The reddit TL;DR.
- gorhill got tired of dozens of "my facebook isnt working plz help" issues.
- he handed the repository to chrismatic while maintaining control of the extension in the Chrome webstore (by forking chrismatic's version back to himself).
- chrismatic promptly added donate buttons and a "made with love by Chris" note.
- gorhill took exception to this and asked chrismatic to change the name so people didn't confuse uBlock (the original, now called uBlock Origin) and uBlock (chrismatic's version).
- Google took down gorhill's extension. Apparently this was because of the naming issue (since technically chrismatic has control of the repo).
- gorhill renamed and rebranded his version of ublock to uBlock Origin.
Deal Addict
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Jul 19, 2010
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Alpha Centauri
nano wrote: I bet you Google bought it so we have to watching commercials on YouTube again.
Google has the means to buy the other blockers too unless some law prevents it.
Deal Expert
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Oct 26, 2003
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it's no longer unknown, reddit user found it was bought by an online ad company doubleclick, although i have not yet verified by a separate source. Either way I have switched to ublock origin.
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divx wrote: it's no longer unknown, reddit user found it was bought by an online ad company doubleclick, although i have not yet verified by a separate source. Either way I have switched to ublock origin.
This is why noscript is the best, sure it's annoying when you initially install it because you have to set settings for every site you visit but it's worth it.
I have to say though doubleclick is the one iIsee on every single site when setting noscript settings. Popular, unpopular sites have them. They are very dirty.
Thanks for letting us know. ABE was very good but that dev also stopped supporting it.
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Personally I use the Ghostery add-on to block ads and trackers in my browsers, and it seems to work pretty well.
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If you already use an adblocker then I don't see the point in addons like ghostery, privacy badger, etc. If you enable or add privacy filters in adblock then it does the same thing.
Deal Fanatic
Aug 3, 2014
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divx wrote: it's no longer unknown, reddit user found it was bought by an online ad company doubleclick, although i have not yet verified by a separate source. Either way I have switched to ublock origin.
"an online ad company doubleclick" :lol:
DoubleClick is Google.

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