Adblock Plus Research Articles

Computer Power Consumption while using Ad-Blocker on a System with AI Accelerators

This study investigates the impact of ad-blockers on system power consumption in a computing environment equipped with an AI accelerator. The increasing prevalence of online advertisements has raised concerns about system performance and energy efficiency, prompting many users to turn to ad-blockers. However, the effectiveness of ad-blockers on power consumption, especially in systems equipped with specialized AI accelerators, remains underexplored. In this research, we evaluate the power usage, GPU utilization, and memory consumption of computers running ad-blockers on both Windows and Ubuntu operating systems. The study compared traditional CPU/GPU methods with AI-accelerated scenarios, using popular ad-blockers such as AdBlock, Adblock Plus, uBlock, uBlock Origin, and uBlock Origin Lite. Results indicate that uBlock Origin and uBlock Origin Lite were the most efficient, significantly reducing power consumption and memory usage compared to other ad-blockers. However, multimedia-heavy websites presented challenges, with increased resource usage observed. The findings emphasize the importance of choosing appropriate ad-blockers to enhance energy efficiency, optimize system resources, and contribute to sustainable computing.

Impact of Ad Blockers on Computer Power Consumption while Web Browsing: A Comparative Analysis

This study explores the impact of various ad blockers on power consumption during web browsing, focusing on different types of online content. By analyzing power use across ten popular websites, the study assesses the performance of five widely utilized ad blockers: AdBlock, AdBlock Plus, uBlock, uBlock Origin, and uBlock Origin Lite. Power consumption was measured under controlled conditions, comparing scenarios with and without ad blockers to gain insight into their efficiency. The findings indicate substantial differences in power savings, with some ad blockers significantly reducing power usage, particularly on media-heavy sites, while others unexpectedly increased consumption under certain conditions. The study underscores the potential of ad blockers to enhance power efficiency in digital environments, highlighting the importance of optimizing ad-blocking techniques to reduce the environmental impact of online activities. Through comprehensive analysis and comparison, this research offers insights into selecting effective ad blockers to minimize power consumption, promoting more sustainable web browsing practices.

Dominant Position of an ‘Adblock Plus’ Supplier

Dominant Position of an ‘Adblock Plus’ Supplier

On the Market Dominance of the Provider of Ad Blocker Software on an Asymmetrical Two-Sided Market – Also a Discussion of the German Federal Supreme Court’s Decision of 8 October 2019, KZR 73/17 ‒ Ad Blocker III

Abstract The German Federal Supreme Court has once again ruled in the matter of advertisement blockers. It is the Court’s third decision concerning the use of ad blocking services, this time from the perspective of competition law. Of particular importance was the clarification of the market definition and market dominance in a two-sided market, where the substitution possibilities and ad blocker software countermeasures are of greater importance. The Court also developed guidelines for the balancing of interests in the context of the examination of an abusive exploitation of a possibly market dominant position by an ad blocking business model. The resolution of this dispute will provide a benchmark for the assessment of acceptable behaviour of intermediaries under competition law. It will be of considerable importance here that the company behind ‘Adblock Plus’ software is operating on an ‘asymmetrical’ or significantly imbalanced two-sided market. In this market the benefits of the software are almost one-sided on the part of the internet users, but the financing is mainly covered by website operators who themselves experience significant disadvantages from the use of the ad blocker.

Diffusion of User Tracking Data in the Online Advertising Ecosystem

AbstractAdvertising and Analytics (A&A) companies have started collaborating more closely with one another due to the shift in the online advertising industry towards Real Time Bidding (RTB). One natural way to understand how user tracking data moves through this interconnected advertising ecosystem is by modeling it as a graph. In this paper, we introduce a novel graph representation, called anInclusiongraph, to model the impact of RTB on the diffusion of user tracking data in the advertising ecosystem. Through simulations on theInclusiongraph, we provide upper and lower estimates on the tracking information observed by A&A companies. We find that 52 A&A companies observe at least 91% of an average user’s browsing history under reasonable assumptions about information sharing within RTB auctions. We also evaluate the effectiveness of blocking strategies (e.g., AdBlock Plus), and find that major A&A companies still observe 40–90% of user impressions, depending on the blocking strategy.

An Automated Approach for Complementing Ad Blockers’ Blacklists

Abstract Privacy in the Web has become a major concern resulting in the popular use of various tools for blocking tracking services. Most of these tools rely on manually maintained blacklists, which need to be kept up-to-date to protect Web users’ privacy efficiently. It is challenging to keep pace with today’s quickly evolving advertisement and analytics landscape. In order to support blacklist maintainers with this task, we identify a set of Web traffic features for identifying privacyintrusive services. Based on these features, we develop an automatic approach that learns the properties of advertisement and analytics services listed by existing blacklists and proposes new services for inclusion on blacklists. We evaluate our technique on real traffic traces of a campus network and find in the order of 200 new privacy-intrusive Web services that are not listed by the most popular Firefox plug-in Adblock Plus. The proposed Web traffic features are easy to derive, allowing a distributed implementation of our approach.