<story><title>German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/german-judges-explain-why-adblock-plus-is-legal/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TheAceOfHearts</author><text>Since this submission relates to blocking ads and trackers, I think it&amp;#x27;s worth bringing up that uBlock Origin [0] is better than Adblock Plus in (all?) ways (see the README for more details). I migrated to it a few years ago and overall I&amp;#x27;ve been very happy with the outcome.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m opposed to all tracking that isn&amp;#x27;t opt-in by default. I haven&amp;#x27;t thought about the topic at great lengths, so there may be cases which I&amp;#x27;m failing to consider, but I&amp;#x27;ve generally found &amp;quot;opt-out by default&amp;quot; to be highly hostile to users. e.g. In the US you&amp;#x27;re only allowed to digitally opt-out of credit card prescreening [1] for five years unless you&amp;#x27;re willing to mail something out. This considerably raises the burden on the user, even though I&amp;#x27;d conjecture most people are not interested in receiving this kind of mail, and they&amp;#x27;d largely consider it spam. I make a point of blacklisting any service that mails me spam, and I encourage others to do the same.&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I&amp;#x27;m also opposed to ads because I&amp;#x27;ve found they&amp;#x27;re generally against the user&amp;#x27;s best interests. Humans are more important than companies.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;gorhill&amp;#x2F;uBlock&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;gorhill&amp;#x2F;uBlock&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.optoutprescreen.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.optoutprescreen.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>morgante</author><text>&amp;gt; is better than Adblock Plus in (all?) ways (see the README for more details)&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s only if people agree with your ideology. Instead of making blanket statements which are inherently subjective, just explain why you prefer Adblock Plus.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I vastly prefer Adblock Plus. I have no ideological objection to advertising or tracking in general, I just don&amp;#x27;t want intrusive ads. ABP does an excellent job of filtering out intrusive ads while still allowing me to support the sites I like where advertising is minimal.&lt;p&gt;I love the ad-supported web and strongly disagree with the notion that it&amp;#x27;s against users&amp;#x27; interests. Getting free content and services in a competitive marketplace without switching costs is invaluable.</text></comment>
<story><title>German judges explain their decision that ad-blocking software is legal</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/german-judges-explain-why-adblock-plus-is-legal/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TheAceOfHearts</author><text>Since this submission relates to blocking ads and trackers, I think it&amp;#x27;s worth bringing up that uBlock Origin [0] is better than Adblock Plus in (all?) ways (see the README for more details). I migrated to it a few years ago and overall I&amp;#x27;ve been very happy with the outcome.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m opposed to all tracking that isn&amp;#x27;t opt-in by default. I haven&amp;#x27;t thought about the topic at great lengths, so there may be cases which I&amp;#x27;m failing to consider, but I&amp;#x27;ve generally found &amp;quot;opt-out by default&amp;quot; to be highly hostile to users. e.g. In the US you&amp;#x27;re only allowed to digitally opt-out of credit card prescreening [1] for five years unless you&amp;#x27;re willing to mail something out. This considerably raises the burden on the user, even though I&amp;#x27;d conjecture most people are not interested in receiving this kind of mail, and they&amp;#x27;d largely consider it spam. I make a point of blacklisting any service that mails me spam, and I encourage others to do the same.&lt;p&gt;Additionally, I&amp;#x27;m also opposed to ads because I&amp;#x27;ve found they&amp;#x27;re generally against the user&amp;#x27;s best interests. Humans are more important than companies.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;gorhill&amp;#x2F;uBlock&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;gorhill&amp;#x2F;uBlock&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.optoutprescreen.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.optoutprescreen.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ryuuchin</author><text>The only reason for still using ABP is because you haven&amp;#x27;t heard of uBlock.</text></comment>