Blocking Google ads

[Magrathean]

You know, those little rectangles that supposedly (and i emphasize the word 'supposedly') contain "smart" ads based on what the page is about (that "electric sirens" ad that appeared when Siren posted a lot on one thread will always stay in my mind ).


Does anybody know an html/css script/code to block them from a site (and not get the "this page could not be found/loaded" text)?


I don't want to look for ad-blocking software/plugins because

• i keep seeing FireFox plugins and not all of us use FF

• everything is for Windows, as usual

• they only work on my computer (or any computer(s) i install them on) but not for the rest of the people who read that site

While searching for such a code/script this morning, i found countless forums where there were discussions about whether people should block Google ads or not. Reasons not to ranged from how much revenue blocking them would take away from the advertised sites or the sites the ads were on to how Google ads are not annoying to some people because they're text ads, they don't flash or have 443862589678 different colors and they don't make sounds. Well, to me they are annoying, and, as someone on one of those forums said, people who block ads are people who wouldn't click on them (and thus wouldn't bring revenue to anybody) anyway. So please don't start a discussion about that here. I'll make another thread about it if you want.

 

[plintus]

Find a shrink.

 

[rahvin]

I honestly have no idea, but I do believe that blocking them for everyone could go against the policy of the domain owner, if you're talking about a webpage hosted for free on some domain you don't personally own. I'm not taking sides on the ads themselves, just saying you might want to look into that aspect of the question.

 

[Magrathean]

Ok, then an ip-dependent blocking code. I'd add the ips of all the people who read that site, so it would block the ads for them but not for the owners of the site, so they'd never find out. *feels evil all of a sudden*

 

[hyena]

Google pays webmasters to have Google ads. If the webmaster blocked them, Google would retain payments, and could sue. Not to mention that if all webmasters took Google's money and didn't display Google ads at some point Google shares would drop and I would be even more broke than I am now.

 

[Magrathean]

Google pays webmasters to have Google ads. If the webmaster blocked them, Google would retain payments, and could sue.

But Google can't (as far as i know; maybe i'm wrong, in which case somebody please correct me and find me a hiding place quickly) hack into your ip address and view sites with it, not to mention it wouldn't have time to view all websites with all ip addresses just to find blocked ads. My point is: nobody, except for the ip addresses i wrote into the code (mine, obviously, and a few others), would notice that the ads are gone.

 

[hyena]

@uc: it depends on the circumstance. for example, i am behind an open proxy, and this applies to all people who connect through fastweb, an italian internet provider who has a 10 to 15 per cent share of the market for internet connections in the country. if you wrote code able to block google ads for everyone who is behind this (or any other) open proxy, i think that google would notice, sooner or later. and they would probably hold the company responsible, although of course the company would be quick to unload responsibility on the users - google sees the open proxy, but to fastweb i am a LAN terminal. that's only an example, but i suppose that most T1+ connections work this way, eg in universities.

 

[Taliesin]

Im not an expert on the subject, but Google could notice your site asking the visitor "Are you one of those IPs?" and figure out the stunt you're pulling off, no?
I dont know, it just seems like a quite obvious hole in the system and with the huge company Google is and the kind of money at stake, I dont think it would be too wise to try and outsmart Google in computer affairs. Just a thought.

 

[Rayna]

we could pay, it is like $11 for 10000 page views, that will last us ages

 

[Magrathean]

hyena: Again, i was talking about blocking them on one site for a few ips which all connect through different servers on different countries (as opposed to your FastWeb scenario, in which they would be blocked for an entire company's ip list and said company is a relatively-important internet provider). So i don't think they'd notice or even mind a couple of people not viewing their ads on a single page.


Taliesin: They'd have to look at the source code for the site, and if they don't have time to look at all the pages in the world they have even less time to look at all the source codes in the world and find such scripts. I highly doubt they'd ever find out, unless the page became huge and started to be important and have hundreds or thousands of users, which is unlikely to happen in the near future (don't worry, my bad for not mentioning this earlier). Then again,

I dont think it would be too wise to try and outsmart Google in computer affairs.

But who knows.


Rayna: In that case, let's get a paid account. It says it's ad-free, and it has more features than the free one.

 

[Rayna]

Thats what i was meaning, i will check the prices now...

 

[Rayna]

Just looked, its $7 a month.... That is more expensive than the other board servers :/

 

[Magrathean]

We could divide it between all the members and it'd be roughly half a dollar per month per person per board (which would mean like one dollar per month per person). Then again, i doubt many of them would want to pay a dollar a month to remove a stupid Google ad when it would be far easier to just remove it with a script.

 

[Rayna]

We will probably get your board deleted if we did that,

 

[rahvin]

I know you said this is not the scope of this thread, but what did the stupid Google ads ever do to you guys anyway? Am I retarded if I point out that they're really inconspicuous?

 

[Magrathean]

You're not, but, as i mentioned on my first post, they might not annoy many people but they annoy me. I don't know, it's weird for me to be reading a website and see this rectangle with irrelevant stuff written in grey in the middle of all the orange/yellow text.

 

[Taliesin]

They'd have to look at the source code for the site

If you dont have that information from a very safe source, I wouldnt do it.
I mean, it's not hard to write a bot that visits every page with a certain applet on it, you know. And if it only reports unusual replies, that would narrow it down quite drastically. In my opinion, if your IP block changes the Client-Server dialog even a little, you risk exposing your site and risk being sued, and for me personnally, that's not a risk Id want to take over a little ad.

 

[Rayna]

I have used someones script before in a IRC server and it made me say

Cutechick, likes to F*** men every day...
And it said that every 5 seconds, in every room i was in... And i could never kill it... I had to reinstall MIRC, bastred...
(This was like 5 years ago though)

 

[Magrathean]

Tali: Good point, i hadn't thought about Google using bots. Well, there are programs/scripts that screw up (scramble) your code without taking away the function (i honestly don't know how they do it), so i might use one of those too.

This is starting to look like a really big project...

 

[plintus]

I might have a (specific) solution, but - fuck you, I'm rooting for Google here.