Some unnamed websites have joined forces to block all Firefox users because of the Ad Block Plus plug-in. Here’s what they have to say about Firefox and its users:
The Mozilla Foundation and its Commercial arm, the Mozilla Corporation, has allowed and endorsed Ad Block Plus, a plug-in that blocks advertisement on web sites and also prevents site owners from blocking people using it. Software that blocks all advertisement is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers. Numerous web sites exist in order to provide quality content in exchange for displaying ads. Accessing the content while blocking the ads, therefore would be no less than stealing. Millions of hard working people are being robbed of their time and effort by this type of software. Many site owners therefore install scripts that prevent people using ad blocking software from accessing their site. That is their right as the site owner to insist that the use of their resources accompanies the presence of the ads.
While blanket ad blocking in general is still theft, the real problem is Ad Block Plus‘s unwillingness to allow individual site owners the freedom to block people using their plug-in. Blocking FireFox is the only alternative.
This was the same debate the TV broadcasters raised with TIVO. Do viewers have legal duty to watch advertisements? Should we be arrested because we look the other way or go to the bathroom? I’m hoping blind people are exempt from all this, because they’ve been avoiding banner ads since the web was started!
Update: The site has been changed a bit, with a whole lot of backpedaling.
No where do we assert that “since Firefox users have the ability to block ads, they must be thieves and must be blocked.”
You can read the quotes from above and judge for yourself as to what they said. (I think you know my opinion on the matter!)
well if they don’t want me as a firefox user on their site, well I guess I will not go to them. and if they are a site that sells things, well I am sure I can find another site that would be willing to sell to me.
Also would they block people that don’t install flash (I avoid allot of ads that way now, don’t even need the ad-blocker add-in, since most of the annoying adds are flash)
I’ve got a hosts file that blocks a helluva lot of ad sites too. Are they going to require inspection of your hosts file too?
What I find funny is that site would even render in my Firefox. I get a blank page. And that was even after I allowed it’s JavaScript to execute.
OK, that’s real weird. I can’t find any Javascript, but NoScript keeps sayting that it’s there. But if I cut and paste the source into a file, and Firefox loads it, then I can read it. I think it’s a NoScript issue. 😯
#35 – you just beat me to it. HOSTS files have been around LONG before the glorious, revenue-providing WWW. Are the adware-blocking HOSTS files now to be outlawed along with their maintainers?
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
I feel bad about commenting without reading the whole paper but..
Just exactly, who is mad?
What, no liberals vs. conservatives post?? You people are slipping.
Bottom of the line, advertising on a website is EXACTLY like the advertising in a magazine. The ads sponsor the publication. HOWEVER, just like with a magazine, if you choose never to look at and ad, that is your choice – it can’t be “theft”. Nobody forces you to read the ads in a magazine, it’s not a crime to ‘cut them out’ if it’s your magazine.
-Michael Schuetz
Great, just great, now I’ll be banned from subscribing to Scientific American and Astronomy magazines just because I want to turn the page without reading the adverts.
Perhaps these morans are candidates for the BRDDA for this week. Good Grief!!
I’ll be the first to admit I’m a FF user. I’ll martyr myself and go quietly. I will never give up my ad block for anyone. I also use IE set up to block most crap. Really who gives shit what some dweeb thinks but I had to post something because it falls into the absurd catergory again……When will people wake up to the fact that not everyone is gonna make a ton of money just because you have a web presence. It just ain’t gonna happen……
Heres the complete whois info on this clown. Even a email addy for those that may care. Don’t know if it works yet. but he might like to recieve a few hundred thousand or so emails…….LMAO……
Registrant:
Danny Carlton
19724 E Pine St
Suite #149
Catoosa, Oklahoma 75015
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: WHYFIREFOXISBLOCKED.COM
Created on: 06-Aug-07
Expires on: 06-Aug-08
Last Updated on: 06-Aug-07
Administrative Contact:
Carlton, Danny godaddy@DannyCarlton.net
19724 E Pine St
Suite #149
Catoosa, Oklahoma 75015
United States
(918) 697-4039 Fax —
Technical Contact:
Carlton, Danny godaddy@DannyCarlton.net
19724 E Pine St
Suite #149
Catoosa, Oklahoma 75015
United States
(918) 697-4039 Fax —
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.FAMILYNETHOME.COM
NS2.FAMILYNETHOME.COM
What I wanna know is who’s that girl in the picture?
It seems like no-one bothered to go to the DannyCarlton.net web page. If someone did go, sorry I missed it as I skimmed through all the irate posts.
I did go there with Firefox with AdBlock and NoScript turned on and I had no problem with access to that page or any of the other pages on the many domains he lists as owning.
They seem like a mild-mannered, unfortunately religious family but pretty much harmless people.
Since he doesn’t block Firefox himself, I’d say someone must have taken advantage of this poor guy.
Now who would benefit from such a thing? I’d guess it was the same friendly people who like to hit you with trojans, drive-by and other spyware and can’t do it if you’re using Firefox, especially with Linux.
Never underestimate these scumbag azzholes. I’ve been fighting with these fraud artists since there’s been a graphical web.
I am a long time Firefox user, and while I don’t use AdBlock, I can achieve pretty much the same trash blocking with the Privoxy proxy. With the Quick Proxy extension I can easily turn it on and off as necessary. I don’t think Privoxy is detectable by web page scripts.
http://www.privoxy.org/
47. Good idea. You can also simply use a host file with all of the known ad servers blocked. Apparantly, editing your host file is also stealing.
http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html
#46- Jägermeister,
Yeah, you’re right, I should have looked at the .com version too. He sure has a whole hell of a whack of domain names.
It appears his so-called ‘blocking software’ isn’t very effective, is it? I wandered around all over the place and he didn’t block me on any of his pages. I’m still using Linux Firefox, Adblock Plus and NoScript.
Is anyone else actually getting blocked, I wonder?
49. “isn’t very effective, is it?”
Agreed. So I can’t help but wonder if this is just a publicity stunt.
#48 – Jerk-Face
Installing PeerGuardian 2 and installing the “ads” list works fine as well. On top of that, you can set up your own lists and block IP ranges (such as countries) etc. that you don’t want to connect to your machine. So it’s kind of an easy to administrate firewall.
#49 – Cinaedh
Danny Carlton also goes under the name of Jack Lewis.
#52 – Jägermeister
The code is more effective than I first thought, although I still can’t figure out the reasoning of leaving his own sites unaffected by this abortion.
I switched my User-Agent header to IE7 Vista and then, although it clearly doesn’t, the page told me it required Javascript to be turned on.
I would never visit such a page in the normal course of my surfing, since that often means they want to surreptitiously install spyware on the visitor’s computer.
I tell my clients using Windows (almost all my clients) to avoid such sites like the plague.
#53 – Cinaedh
I experienced the same thing. Well, his first defense is a server side check on the User Agent… okay, let’s change it to IE 7… Okay, he insist on you having JavaScript enabled… so let’s enable it… whoops… blocked. Okay, let’s read his client side code…
[script]
if(!document.all){window.location=’http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/’;}
[noscript]
[/noscript]
“document.all” is used to determine if the user is using Firefox or not. Firefox has no support for this. And he’s using a meta redirect… nice… let’s shut off JavaScript and disable meta redirects in the Web Developers toolbar… Voilà… Open Sesame.
#54 – Myself
It should have been:
[script]
if(!document.all){window.location=’http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/’;}
[/script]
[noscript]
[meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”1;URL=/nojs.htm”]
[/noscript]
I wish this site could escape less and greater than signs.
Danny Carlton is rapidly becoming one legendary fool on the internet. I do not revel in that fact I see it as a crying shame that people have tried reasoning with the man but he refuses to listen. I think people have a duty not to drive this man underground. He is a true idiot that much is in no doubt but I believe he will find it hard to accept his newfound status as global village idiot. The man is unreasonably unsound and as such deserves merely to be put in obscurity.
I and others have tried to reason with him that his tirade of accusations and slander against adblock are unfounded and what does the most damage to adsense is a good javascript blocker such as noscript and others. It is not the designers of these wares that block the scripts the user must opt in to all scripts – it is non discriminatory. Also it is not aimed at advertising but all scripts whether good or bad or neutral. To me that is empowering the user against malware – but to idiots who worry more about money than security well how benificial is that to society – one that loves money more than security – money money money – always money – never peace of mind and choice
56. “I see it as a crying shame that people have tried reasoning with the man but he refuses to listen. “
So you’re saying this guy is really Mister Mustard?!
#57 – Jerk-Face
LOL
>>LOL
Very humorous. I’m glad to see I have your attention.
Now, would you like to explain to me what’s up with this guy? I looked at his web site(s), and he seems to be a harmless, if somewhat deluded proselytizer for His Brand Of God. WTF is up with that twist he’s got his panties in a bunch over wrt to Firefox? I can’t use it all the time, because every other update seems not to render the Wall St. Journal (and some other sites), and that nonsense with the background tab doing “something” and crashing all instances of the program is pretty much unacceptable, but who gives a fuck about the ads? Does anybody even look at them? The only one I can remember from all my time on DU is the one to sign up for Ann Coulter’s screeching by e-mail, and I ignored that, just like I ignore all the other ones. The flash shit is bad, but who doesn’t block that these days?
Wanna know who else is against AdBlocking and FireFox in general ? Mr. Leo Laporte… he’s recenly started a campaign against firefox. He argues that ‘it crashes a lot on him’, rising suspicion among its fellow hosts, altought in older postcasts he had said he doesn’t like FireFox because people can AdBlock sites.
In my opinion this kind of people are all idiots.
I hope Mr. Dvorak could bring this topic the next time he’s taping TWiT… I’d love to hear what Leo has to say about this.
Jägermeister – You can use the greater than and less than signs. <snicker>. Just use the HTML names for them.
& g t ; and & l t ; without the spaces.
#61 – hhopper
That’s how it goes when you assume something. Shame on me. 😉 Thanks, hhopper. 🙂
63,
ITS CHOICE…
and knowledge.
Out of the 60% of the USA that USE computers, and 80% of those that USE the net..
99% dont know there IS a CHOICE.
And adverts take advantage OF IE and WINDOWS.
If I could get an advert WITHOUT getting 16 others, and 1:10 end up putting CRAP on my machine, trackers, virus, bots, and so forth…
I wouldnt mind.
I wouldnt mind someone making money OFF the sites and the advertisers.
BUT, Iv had some bad times fixing computers, with BOTS and Virus, and so forth.. And MOSt of it, is back doors STILL available thru IE.
Reinstall a computer.
Which will take you BACK to the original V4 IE… YOU GET HAMMERED…. But you need the NET to install your protections, and updates… UNLESs you gathered then BEFORE, and Burned them to CD/DVD…but you still need the updates to windows, from the net to protect and update IE.
Its not that the OLd stuff goes away, ITS ALL out there. Floating around waiting.
AND backing up windows and a FULL systme takes ALOT of room, and space. THEn being able to reinstall it AFTER, is a PAIN in the Postiuer (how ever you wish to spell it.)
WhAt’S WiTh ThE CaPiTaLiZaTiOn, ECA?