Adblock Fast Returns To Google Play a Week After Being Pulled 53
An anonymous reader writes: A week ago, Google suddenly removed Adblock Fast from its Android app store. Today, the ad blocker has been reinstated, enabling Samsung users to download it once again from Google Play. Late last month, the browser preinstalled on Samsung's Android phones gained support for content-blocking plugins, and the first plugin to support the functionality was a free and open-source solution called Adblock Fast. Rocketship Apps, the maker of Adblock Fast, uploaded the Android plugin on January 29, but Google rejected an app update on February 1. The app hit Google Play's top spot for free, new productivity apps on February 2, and was pulled by Google on the same day.
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Re:Stop with the crappy proxies (Score:4, Informative)
I use Firefox on Android with adblock plus, searchonymous, and google redirects fixer installed. Clunky browser overall but it's better than dealing with the usual shit that most websites (slashdot included) have. I used the Ghostery addon before, but after seeing how much better privacy badger is (or rather, how it doesn't break websites like most privacy addons do) I just use that on desktop and hope they might make it available for Android. For now, I mostly just rely on the setting to make third party cookies be session only.
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I tried to like Firefox but it fails on one simple test: It doesn't zoom pages to the right width automatically. On a phone I want to click a link and be done with it, not have to resize every individual page to make it readable. In this regard even Samsung's shitty browser has it beat.
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It fails on more than that. Sometimes, for no apparent reason at all, the whole screen will go blank and you can't do anything until you force stop the app. Also text editing not only has a shitload of bugs, but the selection of text within an editor is also horribly designed.
But again, because the web itself is overall so fucking broken by design without browser addons, you don't have to deal with the usual shit that websites send your way.
You need an adblocker (Score:3)
Just to load the androidheadlines.com page... even on a full computer it takes forever to load.
Anyway, Google is free to ban, pull, push, whatever any app they want... it's their store...
Google might not be free to do whatever (Score:2)
Who knows what is in their contracts with Samsung? Not I, said the little red hen.
Samsung might have something in the contract akin to "By virtue of thy revenue that thou dost receive from the users of Our own devices, thou, O Google, shalt let Us distribute whatever We shall want in thy Play Store. Buhahahaha."
Contracts between behemoths are generally closely held secrets.
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Google IS currently free to do what they want. But should they be?
I'd like to see alternate app stores become available, giving users a real choice. Yes, I know Amazon and Samsung have their own stores, but they are available only to users of their own branded devices. Of course, you can side-load apps, but then you open the door to all kinds of security issues. What I want is alternative stores that are completely integrated. THAT would give us some true competition, and maybe some better rates for d
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Anyone can download the Amazon app store. Also try F-Droid. There are a lot of alternative stores, just not sure which are all that good.
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The Amazon App Store is only available on Amazon-branded devices.
From TechCrunch: "Google doesn’t allow competing app stores in the Play Store"
http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/... [techcrunch.com]
what? (Score:2)
Amazon's app store can be downloaded on any Android device (I just installed it on my Nexus 5X). And of course other stores aren't on Google Play That would be like Walmat allowing a Bestbuy to setup inside its walls -- but you most certainly can _use_ other stores.
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You had to side-load it, right? That's the point, you can't install another App Store without side-loading, which is riskier than third-party app stores.
And of course other stores aren't on Google Play That would be like Walmat allowing a Bestbuy to setup inside its walls
The problem with you analogy is that Walmart (Google Play in your analogy) is the only store where you can "legally" shop. Every other store is considered "under the table" and "use at your own risk"--kind of like buying from the guy on the street corner in front of Walmart.
A better analogy for what I would like Google Play to be, is a shopping mall. Lot
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I agree more choice is good but I dont think it's fair to hold Google responsible for not providing their competition to you. And saying other stores are not available is just incorrect. I'm actually straining to think of some example where a store gives access to other stores (other than your ideal mall analogy). Apple has the same type of warning even on the desktop now. As long as the option is there I think it's fine. If they ever took that away though, it'd be time for pitchforks and torches.
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The problem with you analogy is that Walmart (Google Play in your analogy) is the only store where you can "legally" shop. Every other store is considered "under the table" and "use at your own risk"--kind of like buying from the guy on the street corner in front of Walmart.
A better analogy for what I would like Google Play to be, is a shopping mall. Lots of stores under one roof.
That would make it impossible for Google to provide a safe space where users can download without having to be concerned about malware, unless Google were also vetting/managing the contents of all of those other stores... in which case, what's the point, since they'd all just be subsets of Google Play?
In addition, as others have pointed out, there's a competitive element here. Google Play doesn't exist just because Google wants to provide a safe app store for Android (though Google does want that), it's a
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Google IS currently free to do what they want. But should they be?
I'd like to see alternate app stores become available, giving users a real choice. Yes, I know Amazon and Samsung have their own stores, but they are available only to users of their own branded devices. Of course, you can side-load apps, but then you open the door to all kinds of security issues. What I want is alternative stores that are completely integrated. THAT would give us some true competition, and maybe some better rates for developers.
So you want the security of a Walled Garden and the ability to load Apps from every back-alley website, too?
Sorry, doesn't work that way in REAL life.
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Do you buy products from every back-alley Web site that offers merchandise for sale? No, probably not. You learn which ones can be trusted. Are there shady sites that try to scam you? Of course. Should we have only one Store where you buy things, to make sure you stay safe? Hardly.
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Do you buy products from every back-alley Web site that offers merchandise for sale? No, probably not. You learn which ones can be trusted. Are there shady sites that try to scam you? Of course. Should we have only one Store where you buy things, to make sure you stay safe? Hardly.
Mobile devices are an exception to the rule, and for very good reason.
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" if Google did not act, we faced a Draconian future, a future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice. So if you believe in openness, if you believe in choice, if you believe in innovation from everyone, then welcome to Android. Now let's get started"
Andy Rubin......
How to measure ad traffic? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's widely believed that ads have taken over (from porn ;-) as the main traffic on the Web. This is rather significant if even close to true, it's likely one of the main reasons that our handy little portable gadgets (that many of us hardly ever actually use as phones) run so slowly and eat up so much bandwidth.
But a problem with even discussing this is that, as far as I've found, there's no reliable app available to actually measure our bandwidth use, classify it, and tell us what's eating it up. I do know that my android gadget is often running warm, eating batter and bandwidth, when it's just sitting "idle" in my pocket.
Yeah, I know; part of that is the tracking software. ;-) But whatever; I can't really say with any authority what's causing its activity. The one thing I can actually see is apps that stay running in the background, and the gadget's power usage app does report that "innocent" apps like mail/message readers and web browsers are using battery when "nothing is happening". Investigating does often show that some of their windows contain video ads that are running. The power-usage app does let me kill apps, but that's not very useful in measuring the source of the power/bandwidth usage.
So is there a good way to actually measure the traffic, classify it, etc., so we can actually determine what's really eating up the battery and bandwidth? Are there good google keywords to learn about it? There are a few good unix/linux tools for examining network traffic, but I haven't found them for android, ios, etc. Anyone know what they might be, and how we might verify that they're not just trojans?
(And yes, I'm also aware that the marketers are going to read this and be major sources of replies that try to reassure us without answering anything. Maybe we can moderate them down? ;-)
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How do you categorize the porn ads?
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How do you categorize the porn ads?
Well, to my knowledge, I don't actually have any porn on my android gadget. (My Macbook has a much larger screen. ;-) But I'd expect that those who do, would find it interesting and useful to know how much of their porn apps' traffic and battery usage is from the ads. The marketers do have a way on inserting their stuff into all sorts of places where it isn't welcome. They're probably even worse than the porn vendors that way.
In any case, the question is general: How do we reliably find out what stu
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It's widely believed that ads have taken over (from porn ;-) as the main traffic on the Web.
I think it's pretty well-established that the majority of traffic on the Internet is from streaming video. Netflix and YouTube together comprise a huge majority of traffic. Maybe you're considering that traffic to be "Internet", not "Web", even though it's reached/triggered largely through web sites? That seems like a difficult distinction to draw in a non-arbitrary way. I suppose you could say the web is anything retrieved by an HTTP request, and video uses different protocols once the player has been retr
you just could keepup (Score:1)
Now that our advertisers have reviewed it... (Score:2)
Additional ads may now be implanted into your program.
We appreciate your addition to our revenue!
I'm sure Samsung+Google had interesting phone call (Score:2)
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From the summary:
Late last month, the browser preinstalled on Samsung's Android phones gained support for content-blocking plugins, and the first plugin to support the functionality was a free and open-source solution called Adblock Fast.
End of the Personal Computer (Score:1, Interesting)
We are witnessing the transition into a new era, made possible by the saturated of "walled garden" platforms and corporate curated software markets.
If nothing is done, in 5 years time the vast majority of users will be unable to even install ab-blockers, let alone use them. In 10 years time, ad blockers may be de-facto banned across the vast majority of the web anyway, with sites refusing access to browsers detected to have ad blocking software installed. This is already happening across some sites even now
Re: End of the Personal Computer (Score:1)
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Tablets are already on a downward trend.
Only because of the rise of large screen smart phones.
. People want computers with power, or they don't want computers much at all.
True to a point, but the bulk of the web isn't aimed for them, its aimed for...
The latter wants an appliance anyway and your argument is moot for them.
The bulk of the web is aimed at them, if the bulk of the web can get them locked down enough, it doesn't need to lock down the open PC, it can just block them out unless they run an approved ad-friendly app to connect. Because the web can ignore the PC if its the minority... and like or not, the people who need computers and not just appliances are in the minority.
There will b
More information about Google's decision (Score:3)