9% of Popular Websites Use Anti-Adblock Scripts

[LASER_oneXM]

Around 9% of today's most popular websites deployed or are deploying anti-adblock scripts in an effort to maintain advertising revenues and fight off the rise in the adoption of ad-blocking extensions.

The percentage comes from a research project carried out by academics from the University of Iowa and University of California-Riverside that reviewed the use of anti-adblock scripts in the past five years.

Researchers looked for two of the most popular anti-adblock solutions, namely Anti-Adblock Killer List and the Combined EasyList (Adblock Warning Removal List + Anti-Adblock sections in EasyList).

These are scripts that are loaded on a website that try to detect if the user is employing an ad-blocking extension and allows sites to show a notification through which they ask the user to allow ads on the site by disabling the ad blocker or by whitelisting the site.

5.2% of Alexa Top 100,000 sites using anti-adblock scripts
For their project, researchers scanned cached website copies stored in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine for today's Alexa Top 5,000 Websites, looking for the two anti-adblock scripts named above.
Around 9% of today's most popular websites deployed or are deploying anti-adblock scripts in an effort to maintain advertising revenues and fight off the rise in the adoption of ad-blocking extensions.

The percentage comes from a research project carried out by academics from the University of Iowa and University of California-Riverside that reviewed the use of anti-adblock scripts in the past five years.

Researchers looked for two of the most popular anti-adblock solutions, namely Anti-Adblock Killer List and the Combined EasyList (Adblock Warning Removal List + Anti-Adblock sections in EasyList).

These are scripts that are loaded on a website that try to detect if the user is employing an ad-blocking extension and allows sites to show a notification through which they ask the user to allow ads on the site by disabling the ad blocker or by whitelisting the site.

5.2% of Alexa Top 100,000 sites using anti-adblock scripts
For their project, researchers scanned cached website copies stored in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine for today's Alexa Top 5,000 Websites, looking for the two anti-adblock scripts named above.

 

[Tsiehshi]

Most anti-adblock scripts I've come across detect the value of a certain variable assigned based on whether the ad elements on the site exist or not. If they're warded off, the variable's value remains undefined, triggering the script.

Still, there are more clever pieces of code like this one I saw yesterday (BTW ContentBlockHelper successfully circumvents it where uBlock Origin fails):

<div id="overlayxxx" style="color: white; background-color: grey; text-align:center;border:1px solid red"><br><h1 style="color: white;">Important Note:</h1><h2 style="color: white;">We have detected you use Adblock. Please disable Adblock and reload the webpage.</h2><h2 style="color: white;">We only use a small Ad banner to support this site.</h2><h2 style="color: white;">Thanks for your support.</h2></div>

<script type="text/javascript">

function adBlockNotDetected() {
}
function adBlockDetected() {
       document.getElementById("overlayxxx").style.display = "block";
}

        var importFAB = document.createElement('script');
        importFAB.onload = function() {
       };
        importFAB.onerror = function() {
               adBlockDetected();
        };
        importFAB.setAttribute('async', true);
       importFAB.src = 'https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js';
       document.head.appendChild(importFAB);

</script>

 

[Windows Defender Shill]

This war is heating up big time

Ublock is holding it's ground but other ad blockers are not.

 

[TairikuOkami]

Detect Adblock - Most effective way to detect ad blockers

Content Filtering Proxy Detection - AdBlock Detection, TOR Detection, Proxomitron & Privoxy Detection - BrowserLeaks.com

 

[Sunshine-boy]

Content Filtering Proxy Detection - AdBlock Detection, TOR Detection, Proxomitron & Privoxy Detection - BrowserLeaks.com

added this link to my bookmarks! many thanks.

 

[mlnevese]

In the next years we'll see an arms race between adblockers and publicity companies... The problem is that publicity companies have way more money for research and development than adblocker developers...

 

[dinosaur07]

Detect Adblock - Most effective way to detect ad blockers

Content Filtering Proxy Detection - AdBlock Detection, TOR Detection, Proxomitron & Privoxy Detection - BrowserLeaks.com

Same here. Good find. Many thanks,

 

[Entreri]

That is unfortunate.

Advertising has become so annoying (e.g. full page ones that you must close to view page), that I now use a blocker again. There is also the risk of malware.

 

[oneeye]

There are many ANTI- anti-adblocking extensions now. Grease monkey comes to mind, but a quick search in Firefox turns up several.

The best way around those on Android, is a global adblocker, like Blokada, DNS66, or Netguard, from GitHub page.

 

[Sunshine-boy]

PC Gamer This website detect my Adgaurd:/ whats the solution?

 

[motox781]

I might be completely wrong about this, but I think website revenue will be generated in the near future by cryptocurrency mining. Ads use to be a good source of income, but mining is much easier...

Of course, all this depends on the cryptocurrency bubble, stability, or price.

 

[Faybert]

In the next years we'll see an arms race between adblockers and publicity companies... The problem is that publicity companies have way more money for research and development than adblocker developers...

This is already happening.

 

[Faybert]

PC Gamer This website detect my Adgaurd:/ whats the solution?

I tested here with uBlock Origin and the site does not detect without any warning..

 

[Tsiehshi]

I've made a rule-based (no lists) Tampermonkey script disabling inline adblock detection scripts, but it doesn't work for linked scripts with src attribute.

 

[Nightwalker]

PC Gamer This website detect my Adgaurd:/ whats the solution?

Cant reproduce here, I am using AdGuard 6.2 (windows client).

Try to enable the "Annoyance" filter and see if it fix the problem.

 

[Prorootect]

PC Gamer This website detect my Adgaurd:/ whats the solution?

EASY: have your YesScript2 on red position (=block all scripts) to block ads - so no more adblock detection! - or another script blocker on "block all scripts" position...
To test try too thewindowsclub.com: TheWindowsClub and click on articles... scroll slightly ...if you see "Uh Oh...Adblocker detected!.." - try my solution.

Uh Oh...Adblocker detected!..

 

[Tsiehshi]

Finally uploaded an anti-detection extension to Chrome Webstore I've been working on for a few days. It was working well in my own tests, so I'll give the link if/when it's officially published.

 

[Prorootect]

Hello Tsiehshi, VERY Good, let's make your extension!
I look forward to trying it!

In the meantime, you have a small example of extension that works on some websites (only 3, Danish):
Adblock Unblock: Adblock Unblock
- very good name, but for three websites only... pity...

- example of this Danish website to unblock (videos blurred...): TV3 SPORT »
- another website example to unblock: News: India News, Latest Bollywood News, Sports News, Business & Political News, National & International News | Times of India

Another extensions working (maybe...) on some websites only:

AdBlock Companion: AdBlock Companion

IsraBlock (works on more websites): IsraBlock

Indian News Anti Anti-AdBlock: Indian News Anti Anti-AdBlock

____________________________

Nano Defender (An anti-adblock defuser for Nano Adblocker and uBlock Origin only): Nano Defender
___________________________

Anti-Adblock Killer | Reek: Anti-Adblock Killer | Reek for Greasemonkey
Then: Use AdBlock without being detected

 

[Tsiehshi]

There's one more blocking only 3 domains: Adblock Helper

 

[Prorootect]

And this one:
Nano Defender (An anti-adblock defuser for Nano Adblocker and uBlock Origin only): Nano Defender


- I've made new topic about:
Nano Adblocker with Nano Defender: Nano Adblocker with Nano Defender