Hello,
I agree with demands that Adblock Plus should not be enabled by default
on Debian Wheezy, for many reasons :
- It must be the user decision only. Whatever everyone thinks of ads,
it's not an Internet provider or Operating System which has to force us.
I personnally do not like ads, too, especially intrusive ones (flash,
videos, with sound...) nor tracking, and use the fork Adblock Edge -
https://bitbucket.org/adstomper/adblockedge/ - with my own whitelists on
sites where I can not buy a Premium account (if not proposed) and are
very reasonable with ads. But it is my wish.
It is not just like the default browser, text writer, music or video
player choice that a distribution makes, here Adblock has a negative
effect of sites / blogs income and numeric economy. Lots of online
medias (French high-tech site PC INpact, german newspapers, US like Ars
Technica also...) explain they have financial difficulties, coming inter
alia from adblocking.
https://www.pcinpact.com/news/79546-retour-sur-10-ans-dinpactitude-et-sur-notre-avenir-incertain.htm
https://www.pcinpact.com/news/79695-adblock-plus-presse-allemande-senerve-mais-a-t-elle-raison.htm
For example, here is the screenshot of one of the wellknown Debian
developers site : http://i.imgur.com/abtYQUt.png
He contributes a lot to Debian in addition to his job. On his blog, he
choosed to ask for some donations to help him (Flattr and Paypal both
proposed) with transparency on amount received, he sells his books, and
he has small square ads on the right side (from Google and Amazon).
These ones are hidden on Debian 7 by default, is it normal ?
Moreover, lots of sites complaining about Adblock could also now
associate Debian to their problems. This would be negative for Debian's
reputation, and not only, because it is a worldwide reference both for
opensource and Linux...
- I tried on Debian 7 Gnome LiveCD, I was very surprised to see ABP
pre-activated. Sometimes I had the Easylist installed -
http://i.imgur.com/g0pMEaX.png - and others (with the same CD) the
Fanboy one - http://i.imgur.com/mYt3GIX.png
Does it mean that the filters are not present on Debian Iso and not
installed but randomly loaded at the first connection through a
pre-defined list ? Or is there another source ?
- Adblock can not be normally uninstalled :
Not in Iceweasel like other addons - http://i.imgur.com/t2h6K1V.png
Neither via Synaptic, or it also removes... Gnome !
http://i.imgur.com/jroQ61l.png
ABP is closely related to Gnome dependency :
http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/gnome - but why this choice ? ABP is
absolutely not essential for Gnome nor Debian to work, please let the
user remove it if he wants.
So here not only Adblock is pre-installed and pre-activated, but I can
not completely suppress it from my computer !
- Of course it is legal and opensource, we can disable ABP - but for
that, even if we are informed on Iceweasel first launch, we have to
manually and voluntary go to "Tools - Addons - Extensions - Disable", or
go to the ABB logo on the bottom left of browser, click and select
"Disable everywhere", but it remains present and grayed on the addon
bar... And morally for some people it is questionable...
I don't know how decisions are taken in Debian, but this choice seems to
be assumed and "politic" :
http://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2012/09/msg01241.html
Is it Debian role ?
- Adblock behavior regarding their "non-intrusive list" and ads
companies is not clear :
http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/adblock-plus-accused-of-shaking-down-websites/
If this information is true, for me ABP team is as reprehensible as
publishers. I do not think that Debian indirectly supports this in any way ?
- Regarding debian-legal rules, only strict free and opensource code or
material can be officially included in the distribution (ex. Iceweasel
fork), even if there are after deposits available for proprietary
softwares. So what should we think of these (future ?) trademarks from
Eyeo (ABP commercial company) for Adblock and logo :
http://trademarks.justia.com/owners/eyeo-gmbh-2504986/
Regarding all this, IMHO solution should be, both in Debian 7.0.1 and 8 :
- Pre-install xul-ext-adblock-plus in the default packages, but no
dependency with Gnome, in order it can be safely and individually removed
- Let it present but inactive in Iceweasel : at the first browser
launch, put the same screen informing of Adblock, filters, preferences,
and telling user he can activate ABP in "Tools - Addons"
Thanks in advance. Best regards,
Xavier Guillot
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