Potentially “Undefeatable” Ad Blocker Looks at Content, Not Code

[Megalith]

Princeton and Stanford Researchers have designed an ad blocker that does its work through computer vision rather than source code. The aptly named Chrome extension, Perceptual Ad Blocker, analyzes words and pictures rather than HTML markup and tags to filter out advertisements. The team claims that the ad blocker remained undetected on all of the sites they tested it on.

Existing blockers scour a webpage's source code for signs that they are ads, but those can easily be disguised by anti ad-blocking sites. Narayanan's team designed Perceptual to ignore hidden HTML markup (or tags) and look instead at the actual content (i.e., words and pictures on the page). Narayanan and Princeton undergraduate Grant Storey already released a Facebook-specific version of its ad-highlighting extension in November, after the social network announced it would make its ads look like regular posts to thwart blockers. That extension already supports several thousand users, said Narayanan. Today's release extends that ability to the rest of the Internet, targeting AdChoice displays.

 

[Dekoth-E-]

Interesting, though it seems that it is primarily aimed at facebook which I don't even use. I'll definitely be giving this a look when it removes ads completely and gives me the control to whitelist sites like this one as I see fit.

 

[KarsusTG]

Awesome. The world is definitely a better place with ad blocker.

 

[Kalabalana]

Works good, nice find!

 

[0neTwo]

Only a matter of time before skynet is self aware.

I, for one, welcome our new A.I. overlords.

 

[Mong00se]

Interesting, though it seems that it is primarily aimed at facebook which I don't even use. I'll definitely be giving this a look when it removes ads completely and gives me the control to whitelist sites like this one as I see fit.

A year-ish ago the guy who runs guru3d wrote about declining revenue due to addblocker and the next month thanked everyone for white listing him.

Made me feel douchy for spreading the glory of adblocking to the stupids in my life without teaching them that letting adds through sometimes means a livelihood for a person providing content you consume.

 

[0neTwo]

I hope it can also eventually figure out how to stop stupid autoplay videos too.

 

[realdeadman]

using ADnauseam, plus Script defender, plus HTML5 autoplay, plus Https everywhere, plus Ghostery, plus popup blocker for Chrome, pretty much blocks everything, including 90% of autoplay videos.

OF course, it breaks all most all sites til you white list them...............

 

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

but visual is in your face and pop ups. how does it solve stuff like cookies that snoop where you visit and stuff? seems only gorhil+ ublock is able to force block before anything gets loaded onto your browser unless you green light it.

 

[Ididar]

I hope it can also eventually figure out how to stop stupid autoplay videos too.

I'll be frank, I never stopped blocking ads until they started adding audio auto-playing. Seeing an ad doesn't really bother me and I understand that's how they pay for the site. But, the second they started auto-playing videos and audio I enabled ad blocker. The major asses who go overboard with advertisements are the ones that ruin it for everyone.

 

[DukenukemX]

I'll be frank, I never stopped blocking ads until they started adding audio auto-playing. Seeing an ad doesn't really bother me and I understand that's how they pay for the site. But, the second they started auto-playing videos and audio I enabled ad blocker. The major asses who go overboard with advertisements are the ones that ruin it for everyone.

This wouldn't be such a problem if there was a unified method of advertising. Like a group that regulates how many and of what kind of advertising is considered appropriate. So long as your website meets these standards, you'll get a seal of approval.

The current situation with advertising is that some websites got greedy, and as we all know when you get too greedy you tend to lose it all. Some websites don't abuse advertising and shouldn't be punished because of a few bad apples, but like everyone else I'm too lazy to disable adblocker just for that one website. YouTube seems to be getting better at it, cause now they limit their advertisements time, where as before the video sometimes had to play for a full 30 seconds.

 

[wizzi01]

I'll be frank, I never stopped blocking ads until they started adding audio auto-playing. Seeing an ad doesn't really bother me and I understand that's how they pay for the site. But, the second they started auto-playing videos and audio I enabled ad blocker. The major asses who go overboard with advertisements are the ones that ruin it for everyone.

It seems like those auto ads are at full volume +50decibels too.

 

[Darunion]

Yea I don't mind a few advertisements, but when 50% of your screen is consumed with ads and you have tabs being created by them or videos it is too much. Blocking ads should not give a massive improvement to your web experience, if it does that means your ads are likely doing you more harm than good.

Sites that block adblockers, just need to die in a fire.

isn't there already too much advertising in our daily lives?

 

[Armenius]

Yea I don't mind a few advertisements, but when 50% of your screen is consumed with ads and you have tabs being created by them or videos it is too much. Blocking ads should not give a massive improvement to your web experience, if it does that means your ads are likely doing you more harm than good.

Sites that block adblockers, just need to die in a fire.

isn't there already too much advertising in our daily lives?

So much this. Some sites I need an ad blocker just to prevent my web browser from crashing.

 

[xorbe]

I hope it can also eventually figure out how to stop stupid autoplay videos too.

This recently drove me away from the AutoBlog site. Scroll their front page and 3-4 autoplay videos.

 

[Uvaman2]

Yeah maybe it can overlay pictures of cats.

 

[exiled350]

This recently drove me away from the AutoBlog site. Scroll their front page and 3-4 autoplay videos.

I stopped going there because of how god awful it is on mobile. You only get one line of text visible and the rest is banner nonsense, top and bottom; even when you request desktop site.

 

[Nanogrip]

Because internet speed is so bad here, ads that pop up are just images or banners, the vids don't even play. Sometimes a new window opens but loads nothing. When I go overseas, I forget how much ad there is on the internets.