If you are a regular on Facebook or visit the site at times, you may have noticed the odd-ad slipping past your content blocker’s defenses. Even with the most powerful tools out there, uBlock Origin for Firefox comes to mind, it happens that you may see advertisement on Facebook.
This is not a one-time slip-off, but the result of a battle between a small team of developers and Meta’s billions. The cat and mouse game has come to an end according to a new post by the uBlock Origin team on Reddit.
According to the post, the content blocker won’t support Facebook going forward. The reason given is that Facebook is countering any bypasses the uBlock Origin team finds for blocking ads and trackers on the site.
For example, Facebook was changing ad labels and markers frequently on its site to cause content blockers to miss them entirely. While content blockers managed to find ways to block ads anew, Facebook then developed new bypasses to show ads once again on its site.
In the end, the team notes that it is too small and lacks the resources to go against a billion Dollar behemoth like Meta. While ads may be blocked for the time being, it sounds as if the next bypass won’t be countered by the team anymore.
This means that Facebook users with uBlock Origin installed will see ads on the site in the long run. It is probably fair to say that most other content blockers, regardless of whether they are native or installed as extensions, faces the same issue.
There is not much that you can do about it. Maybe other content blockers continue their fight against Meta and work most of the time, but that would mean some testing to see which do and which don’t. It is the first time, to my knowledge, that a major content blocker has lowered the flag.
Personally I’ve never faced Facebook nor even approached it with binoculars. Not only because it is one of those so-called “social websites” I avoid but perhaps as well because I feel deeply uncomfortable with anything from Meta, from top to bottom. To put it mildly. The company’s relentlessness to obsessionally combat anti-advertisement tools on it’s platforms is both pathetic and relevant of mental structures of another age, prehistorical so to say: no lasting good business without flexibility.
When it comes to ‘uBlock Origin’ their decision is easy to understand and admit.
Like with drugs: no demand no market. Avoid Facebook, avoid Meta’s services & products and you’ll be free of the company’s obsessions together with not being an incentive for it to continue its total lack of respect for its users.
Interesting post on Reddit: “About disgusting Facebook devs”:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1vgcjg5/about_disgusting_facebook_devs/]
I’ve solved the Meta problem rather definitively. I don’t use Meta products, haven’t used them for many years, and don’t miss them one bit. Unlike Google and Microsoft, they don’t have anything I need or even want. Just one time wasting and downright annoying app after another.
I use Facebook extensively and have never seen an ad on it. I use a mix of uBlock origin and Facebook Purity. The two together make for a beautiful ad-free experience. Its been that way for years.
This new development however is not dismissing why uBlock is doing (or no longer doing) what its known for with regard to Meta. I get it but this opens the door for other large tech platforms to follow Meta’s strategy and soon, ads galore!
I hope this will be a one off for uBlock and that the combo of Meta’s offensive and the upcoming loss of MV2 will keep uBlock up and running or that they devise new countermeasures to deal with the new reality.