{"id":11648,"date":"2015-07-12T11:35:19","date_gmt":"2015-07-12T15:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=11648"},"modified":"2016-02-12T14:12:11","modified_gmt":"2016-02-12T19:12:11","slug":"safari-content-blocker-and-web-advertising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/12\/safari-content-blocker-and-web-advertising\/","title":{"rendered":"Safari Content Blocker and Web Advertising"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dean Murphy<\/a>:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

Ok, so the website I decided to try “fixing”, is one that I see linked often, iMore<\/a>. Let me start this by saying I really like the content that iMore provide and enjoy the personas of their staff on their many podcasts (Debug<\/a> is one of my favourites!), but I hate<\/em> the experience of their mobile website as it has several ad’s by many different providers, all tracking me across all different sites. They have super tiny ‘close’ buttons that are near impossible to hit, they follow you as you scroll and there is a slow loading full page interstitial that loads on every page refresh. Urgh!<\/p>\r\n

[…]<\/p>\r\n

With no content blocked, there are 38 3rd party scripts (scripts not hosted on the host domain) running when the homepage is opened, which takes a total of 11 seconds. Some of these scripts are hosted by companies I know, Google, Amazon, Twitter and lots from companies I don’t know. Most of which I assume are used to display adverts or track my activity, as the network activity was still active after a minute of leaving the page dormant. I decided to turn them all off all 3rd party scripts and see what would happen.<\/p>\r\n

After turning off all 3rd party scripts, the homepage took 2 seconds to load, down from 11 seconds. Also, the network activity stopped as soon as the page loaded so it should be less strain on the battery. <\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

Rene Ritchie<\/a>:<\/p>\r\n

I don’t block ads because, as someone who works for a site that has ads, I understand the cost of content and the current realities involved in paying for it at scale. (I don’t skip podcast sponsorships—the ultimate in native, intercept ads—for the same reason).<\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

Both via Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\r\n

His “response” article — which, I should point out, is entirely text-based, unlike a media-heavy review — weighs in at a whopping 14 MB<\/a> with 330 requests.<\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

Rene Ritchie’s response acknowledges the problem, but a web page like that — Rene’s 537-word all-text response — should not weigh 14 MB<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

[…]<\/p>\r\n

With Safari Content Blockers, Apple is poised to allow users to fight back. Apple has zeroed in on what we need: not a way to block ads per se, but a way to block obnoxious JavaScript code. A reckoning is coming.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

Rene Ritchie<\/a> (via John Gruber<\/a>):<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

First, the content size issue. 14MB is infuriating. My guess is that he was getting a video ad on the page that’s no longer being served. We’ve been testing internally and getting consistently under 4MB for that page, which is still hefty.<\/p>\r\n

[…]<\/p>\r\n

While we sell premium ads directly to advertisers, that only fills a small subset of the required “inventory” to support the network. Some 85% of ads we served last month were “programmatic”—provided by ad exchanges like Google Adx<\/a> and Appnexus<\/a>. Those exchanges are pretty much black boxes. We get a tag, we insert it, and ads appear.<\/p>\r\n

[…]<\/p>\r\n

Each ad gets its own iframe, so load is asynchronous and, if one fails, it doesn’t kill the entire site. Unfortunately, that also means each one fires its own trackers, even if those trackers are identical across ads. It’s terribly inefficient.<\/p>\r\n

[…]<\/p>\r\n

We also have no ability to screen ad exchange ads ahead of time; we get what they give us. We can and have set policies, for example, to disallow autoplay video or audio ads. But we get them anyway, even from Google. Whether advertisers make mistakes or try to sneak around the restrictions and don’t get caught, we can’t tell. It happens, though, all the time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

Glenn Fleishman<\/a> (via John Gruber<\/a>):<\/p>\r\n

Advertising, analytics, social media, and other tracking networks use JavaScript, tiny images, and other embedded methods to install tracking IDs on your browser when you visit sites that incorporate their signals. This might be a site that uses Google Analytics, Doubleclick, GeoTrust, or dozens of others—or even dozens on one site.<\/p>\r\n

All legitimate networks offer some kind of opt-out method, but many work poorly, and you have to opt out often for every browser by network, and sometimes only for a limited period of time. And, as with the Do Not Track quibble, opting out of tracking can mean you’re tracked with a promise to not use identifying information.<\/p>\r\n

Because of all this, users have increasingly installed ad-blocking software, which throws the baby out with the filthy bathwater. Poor baby! The baby is the revenue from advertising that allows sites such as Macworld and hundreds of thousands—or maybe millions—of others to pay the bills that make publications go from a part-time self-employed blogging gig to a newsroom of hundreds of reporters.<\/p>\r\n

[…]<\/p>\r\n

I like [Firefox] Tracking Protection because of its integration and seemingly light hand in what it does. But Disconnect (which helped provided the blocklist for the feature), Ghostery, and others offer similar or better features. Ghostery, for instance, shows you a count of how many tracking elements on a site when the page loads, and lets you block whichever you like. Ghostery is focused on privacy, not malice. Disconnect has its feet on both pedestals.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

Previously: Introduction to WebKit Content Blockers<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Update (2015-07-12): Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\r\n

The rise of content and ad blockers has required companies to get creative about how they show us ads. Buzzfeed<\/em> has mastered the art of “native” advertising<\/a> on the web, but that also kinda sucks for readers because it feels deceptive. The short sponsor posts popular among many sites feel more honest, but they’re straddling a fine line between a clearly-marked sponsor post and a native ad.<\/p>\r\n

It’s a hard question: how do you get paid on the internet in a way that feels respectful to readers? Is it as simple as clearly labelling sponsored content as such? Is there a better way?<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

Update (2015-07-22): TJ VanToll<\/a> (via Chris Johnson<\/a>):<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

This article makes for a good showcase of web cruft. All I wanted to do was read about psycopaths, as one does, but before reading I had to sift through a bunch of junk that I don’t care about—like social buttons, the temperature, and a terms-of-service modal — all for an article that’s about 2,000 words. I can’t even see the start of the article on my oversized iPhone 6+.<\/p>\r\n

Loading this article took 200+ HTTP requests and used ~2MB of data. The article took about 3 seconds to load on my WiFi, and web page test<\/a> says it would take about 13 seconds to load on an average mobile network<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

I don’t bring up this example to single out CNN, because, as sad as this is to say, this article is now representative of the average<\/em> web experience. According to the http archive, the average web page surpassed 2MB this May<\/a>, and is now at 2.08MB<\/a>. It’s not hard to find a far worse example<\/a> out there.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

Update (2015-07-29): See also this episode of The Talk Show<\/a> with Jason Snell.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dean Murphy: Ok, so the website I decided to try “fixing”, is one that I see linked often, iMore. Let me start this by saying I really like the content that iMore provide and enjoy the personas of their staff on their many podcasts (Debug is one of my favourites!), but I hate the experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[354,101,279,355,103,96,1275,328],"class_list":["post-11648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-advertising","tag-business","tag-firefox","tag-privacy","tag-safari","tag-web","tag-web-content-blocking","tag-webkit"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11648"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13522,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11648\/revisions\/13522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}