Over the last few days I’ve been testing an experimental content blocker called Crystal, which promises to speed up browsing on iOS. I’ve been particularly impressed by the results and taken aback by how much removing trackers, ads and other scripts makes a difference over a cellular connection.
The content blocker is a major selling point for iOS, in my opinion. On Android, this will always be a hack – third party tools, root, that sort of thing – and never properly integrated into the operating system, even though it should be.
Good move by Apple, and together with a lack of a decent Android headset out right now, it’s pushing me towards an iPhone when my contract renewal is up in October.
While it’s really nice to have a tool to block content (especially ads), this seems to be a move to force companies to use Apple’s program if they want to advertise on iOS. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.
By the way, is there a reason that the Madison threat is locked? If so, can you put it in the main post?
Edited 2015-08-25 13:41 UTC
cfqr,
I didn’t see anything abusive in that thread. I don’t think Thom liked the opinions that were being spoken, since this is his site, he locked it.
Edited 2015-08-25 14:25 UTC
You didn’t see the things I had to delete.
Back on topic, please.
Edited 2015-08-25 14:22 UTC
It also sets a bad precedent towards other browser developers. What would stop Microsoft from doing the same? Or Google? What stops all the Android vendors from rolling their own version of ‘ads blocked unless you pay me’. That would only increase the demand to make adblocking software illegal. Advertisers see it as unfair competition/extortion, and regular businesses surely don’t want to deal with N manufacturers for advertising.
(Note that they may block their own ‘web advertisements’ as well, but I’m pretty sure they won’t block their in-app advertising system. The result is more or less the same.)
Edited 2015-08-25 14:45 UTC
That’s the SJW way. Put up flamebait articles designed to attract clicks, then lock/delete the comments when people start calling you on your hypocrisy and bullshit. I was kinda hoping someone would’ve brought up the Hulk Hogan fiasco on that thread. I don’t remember the outcrying of sympathy for him, like I’m hearing for the cheaters on Ashley Madison.
As the article states, Apple still hasn’t disclosed what kind of policies it’ll put in place with regards to content blocking. Will it allow apps to download the equivalent of a /etc/hosts file daily, or will they have their own blocklist somewhere that all these content-blocking apps would need to use?
Also, why are all these online publications speaking as if there hasn’t been any form of content blocking for iOS before this? Some apps and browsers (eg: WeBlock and Mercury) already offer this in some form or another. Is it because these publications didn’t want users getting into content blocking tools in the past in order to protect their own ad revenue stream, but have no choice to write about it now because Apple’s officially doing it?
Given that you can’t set default apps in iOS, having it baked into the OS browser is huge. It’s not that it’s been impossible before, but the sheer number of people who will likely download it is staggering. (“Hey Mom download this one app once” vs “Hey Mom copy and paste every link someone texts or emails you into this other browser”)
I think the author greatly overstates the impact of IOS change. iPhones are the phones of 1% of 1% of all mobile users. Similarly iPads and the table market. It will be probably hardly noticable if they stop displaying ads.
“1% of 1%”? Are you sure you didn’t see the Blackberry OS numbers instead of iPhone? It’s more like 18% based on current figures:
https://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp
Edited 2015-08-25 14:14 UTC
Market share as already stated is higher than that. You then need to look at mobile browsing stats and you will find iOS is far higher still.
In North America we are seeing 70% of our mobile traffic ( which is 50-60% of all traffic ) coming from iPhones. This is all sorts of different sites with different demographics over several hundred million requests a month.
( Europe is about 40% iPhone on 50% mobile traffic – though we do skew heavily UK. )
If a discernible number of iOS users actually start ad blocking this will have a non trivial impact on lots of companies ( many of which are already struggling to figure out how to make money online ).
K
can you post some links?
all i found were global numbers from 2013, and back then mobile trafic accounted only for 2-3% of total trafic.
I don’t think its overstated, I think its huge. The web is going mobile, more people access the internet from mobile devices than desktop and the numbers of mobile users is growing very fast. This was already a bit of a problem for Google because on mobile devices the web is often accessed via apps and not through browsers so google’s browser centric business model had some issues. In mobile browsing iOS is a big, in some key markets the biggest, segment of platform use. Plus iOS user generally spend more and do more on their devices. The upshot is that Google probably makes as much money from iOS as it does from Android if not more. Now at a stroke Apple is cutting the ground away from that large and lucrative mobile ad segment.
Personally I cannot wait as lots of web sites have become at best very annoying and at worst actually unusable as complex ad serving systems have been bolted on. I think ad blocking will be hugely popular on iOS and will put pressure on Android and on the Google business model.
This is good, and makes me happy I chose an iPhone earlier this year. Even though I’m not 100% enthused with iOS, it’s things like this that make it worth the tradeoffs.
And we’ll likely never see official support from Google for ad blocking, given their obvious stake in Internet advertising. With Windows 10 revealed as an open pipe of your personal data back to Microsoft (and I can’t foresee the mobile version being less of a pipe), there’s pretty much only one smartphone platform left that has the right combination of utility, privacy, and security. The only thing more secure and private would be a dumbphone, or for the really paranoid, a one-way pager.
I think its a dangerous precedent for Apple to decide who can advertise to you and how. This is exactly the kind of thing the EU have been coming down hard on for being anti-competitive.
The browser is there is display content provided by the developer of the site. It is not there to redefine its functionality. Couple this change with the fact you cant Change the browser, its a big fine waiting to happen.
> The browser is there is display content provided by the developer of the site. It is not there to redefine its functionality.
Blow it out your ass. The web browser exists to display websites in the manner that the web browser’s user wants. This entitled attitude only pushes more people to ad blocking.
Where are people getting this Apple get decide who can market to you idea from?
Any developer can write an ad blocking extension.
Anyone can install an app on their own iPhone, non jailbroken, so you can write your own or install an open source extension. If you can’t yet, not sure if it an iOS9 change or active now, you will be able to when the ad blocking feature becomes available.
But you cannot set it as the default browser that, for example, opens a link in an email, so Apple have an unfair advantage in that case.
These are extensions to Safari, not separate browsers. So tapping the link in mail will open Safari and ads will be blocked. Not allowing other browsers is a separate discussion.
Built into to the new ad blocking behaviour is a feature that means that if you reload the page you can see all the ads. That’s a system level feature from Apple.
So relax – you can get Safari to load pages super slowly, and litter and obscure the actual content with ads, anytime you want
This kind of policies are only possible when your business model is based on selling real products (and not ads or user-data like Google).
I think Apple found the strongest marketing argument against Google/Android: user privacy and content control.
Amazing eh…companies using information that they have on their users to better serve them ads. Things like knowing how much money their users have in their bank accounts so that they can provide them with ads according to what they can afford. Shame on Goo…oh wait…
Yeap, you have a point, the situation is really horrible and I think Apple will use this argument against Google every day (even if they do exactly the same as Google, I’m not talking about ethics here, I’m talking about marketing).
Apple will repeat the mantra: “hey, we just sell great products at sky-high prices, We screw you with prices We don’t need to spy you”. It’s a rock solid argument.
So far, this is the only REAL weak point of Google as a company… and I think Google will split their business units to keep Android separated from all the other services… they began to look too creepy and omnipotent… like Monsanto or Microsoft in the 90s. Not cool anymore.
You mean other than the fact that Google has not come up with single new money making product in fifteen years to supplement the single money making product it has always totally depended on?
At least for browsing:
– Install Firefox for Android
– Install favorite extensions
– Content blocked
Why would I want to give greater power and control to the OS vendor ?
Edited 2015-08-25 16:31 UTC
Yeah, there are also several other browsers on Android I haven’t tried that supposedly support ad blocking. Some of these are:
– Lightning browser
– Atlas browser
– Mercury browser
– Naked Browser
Even Dolphin on iOS has a built-in setting to block ads, so this isn’t anything new.
Exactly, I’ve been using adblock extensions on Firefox for Android almost since the beginning and suddenly Thom thinks that Apple did a breakthrough.
Seriously Thom do you have any idea what you are talking about or just copy/pasting articles ?
But ask yourself how many Android users actually install a different browser that gives them the functionality you describe?
My guess is that very few bog-standard users would even know that blocking ads is possible.
Making this the OOTB behaviour is as Thom says, a positive step.
There are some sites that are just unusable on a small screen because of the adverts. Let them die a horrible death with no revenue.
Like most readers of this and other tech sites we let reasonable ads through on our preferred sites so that they get some revenue.
And Opera Mini has a fantastic compression system that lets me browse the web non-stop without using up my extremely limited data limit.
The tradeoff being every website you visit is piped through their servers to be processed and compressed on its way back to you. That’s a huge privacy hole.
Sorry, this has long been a hackneyed irrelevant remark, ’cause do you really trust your ISP? And all other ISPs (as well as CIA, NSA and various other agencies) in between you and your destination host.
Nowadays you’re slightly more protected by using HTTPS, but not entirely.
Edited 2015-08-25 22:29 UTC
You’re right, but how does that make what I said at all incorrect or misleading? Opera can see every site you visit because it is piped through their servers in order for the compression to work. That’s a fact that they readily state[1] (not to mention common sense).
[1] “Opera Mini is a web browsing service relying on web pages being pre-rendered on Opera Mini servers and then sent to the Opera Mini client on your device…Opera Mini servers logs in addition to the web addresses (not content of the web pages), IP-addresses, the end-user device make and model, any campaign reference for the Opera Mini client and a randomly generated identifier for the Opera Mini client.” – http://www.opera.com/privacy#mini
I believe Apple only wants to control itself which content get’s through to a device and that cannot be blocked by the user of the device. Companies will pay Apple to have the privilege to be on a whitelist.
I trust ad-blocking and privacy software more if it’s done by an independent third-party and not integrated into the OS.
It doesn’t need to be integrated with the OS, only with the browser.
Which brings the question: Any good browser + browser adblocker for Android.
you do realize that apple isn’t really been a good neighbor with the content block, right? The idea is to force web content into app content, specially the new “news app”.
So content that can be freely accessed and distributed right now, will be forced into the apple ecosystem, with all its control over content, monetization, fees and so on…
It’s no different than the reasons behind lack of proper support for modern web technologies on mobile safari. anything that can deliver app-like experiences to and it’s not through Apple’s AppStore, gets blocked.
This is precisely the reason that I have been using Firefox on android since release. It’s ability to have adblock plugins since the early days has made it a pleasure.
The performance and user experience have been slowly improving although I think they are still overly focused on the desktop. There are still pages that I can go to on mobile that will crash the browser repeatedly. However the list is getting smaller.
This is precisely the reason that I have been using Firefox on android since release. It’s ability to have adblock plugins since the early days has made it a pleasure.
The performance and user experience have been slowly improving although I think they are still overly focused on the desktop. There are still pages that I can go to on mobile that will crash the browser repeatedly. However the list is getting smaller.
[quote]and together with a lack of a decent Android headset out right now[/quote]
There have never been as many great Android headsets available as there are right now. I don’t know what kind of requirements you are having that wouldn’t be filled by any Android headset right now
(I am assuming that you meant Android handset, or simply a smartphone)
This is a war. It started with popups, then blockers.
Some sites only are viable with ads. If iOS leeches (gets content without paying – the pay is currently via ads), then they will be banned, have a paywall, or whatever blocking technology will have some form of bypassing. For example, an ad-proxy server (to keep sites honest) so it would be from ads.osnews.com complete with the javascript which without the site will not function nor present content.
A subscription micropayment would help – I might pay a few pennies for this page (once, not if I have to refresh), and if I could buy in bulk to see an ad-javascript-TRACKING free version, I would.
“On Android, this will always be a hack – third party tools”
Spoken like a true fanboy, applying this logic, one can conclude that every app you download from the Apple store is a hack. Android has never been for the technically challenged, it is for free thinkers who want to control it themselves.
“when my contract renewal is up in October”
I thought that was an american thing us europeans don’t have to put up with. Why do you have a contract and why does it have to be renewed?
A good % of people here in the UK have phone contracts with their carriers.
A lot of people want the latest shiny tech be it Android or iPhone but baulk at paying out for it upfront.
Contracts is a form of Hire Purchase (or the Never-never as it used to be called here) make it simple.
Sure the more enlightened of us gave up on contracts years ago. Well contracts that include the phone that is.
I have a SIM only contract. It is a rolling 1 month deal. i.e. I have to give 1 month’s notice if I want to move networks. At the cost is only £10.65/month this is no great hardship. (500mins/500 texts/1Gb data and calls made in places like the US,Oz,NZ and many parts of Europe come out of my allowance)
So the term ‘contract’ can have different meanings but I guess that Thom was referring to the older type that includes a phone.
To achieve the same result on Android one can simply use Firefox for Android with tracking protection enabled, see here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-android-tracking-protec…
(disclaimer: I work for Mozilla)
can i ask you a question about mozilla-interna?
who came up with the caching in firefox where it shows you the cached site when you start it with an internet-connection, but shows you only an error-message when started without an internet-connection?
and why wasn’t he slapped in the face?
I like reading the news articles on Kokatu gaming web site, but they have so many ad’s on their site not only does it take a long while to load but pages will suddenly go white because the iPhone just cannot handle any more crap.
Either as a way to attract consumers, or a means to bolster their own in-app advertising products, this seems like a clever move by Apple.
Given Google seem to command over 80% share of Web advertising (http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/advertising/all) I’m surprised they don’t offer a subscription service to allow people to remove all Google ads across the Web. This would sidestep the lack of any sensible micropayment system for sites to be paid individually.
This would be great for both users and site owners, although maybe not so great for advertisers. I know I’d want to sign up.
FYI there is a GHOSTERY browser for android. And an ADBLOCK one. Both are based on Firefox for Android and have various blocking technologies enabled by default.
You can also install Fennec from F-Droid to avoid even Mozilla’s spying. And since Firefox/Fennec for Android supports extensions, you can install one of the common adblockers THAT way too. I forget which addon worked for me, but I tried one, and it was probably either Adblock or uBlock.
I’ve been using the beta Adblock browser for Android — it’s based on Firefox and so far the experience has been seamless.