Not asking for tech support here, just wondering if in theory it would be possible to create a plug-in or even a complete browser that blocks ads in a way that’s impossible to detect. One model that comes to mind is a quarantined / containerized non-blocking virtual browser which queries the web server directly, then the UX filters the content from that container and presents it to the user ad-free. As far as the web server can tell, the containerized browser is just vanilla Chromium.
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The way you’ve described it is basically how it would have to work.
Various ad-blocking detection technologies basically boil down to loading some element on the page and then querying for it during/after rendering to see if it’s still there. This could be combined with an AJAX call to load the actual content, which is how all those annoying sites work that pop a nag up in your face if you’re running uBlock or whatever. And even then you don’t get the content even if you subsequently block the nag notice.
A truly undetectable adblocker would still have to pull down and load all the ad content and render it somewhere (invisibly in the background, presumably) and then serve a second cut down version of that page with the ad elements not rendered.
Edit to add: This would be somewhat detrimental to the user, because it would by necessity not stop the types of tracking that are typically built into served ads. Current adblockers (like uBlock Origin) also by default also block various advertisers’ nonsense like cross-site tracking cookies and tracking pixels, etc.
Well, yes and no. The shadow browser could randomize its signature and purge temp files in each load, or something like that. Or maybe even reverse-engineer the expected payload structure from major advertisers and send garbage back to them.
Thanks, this is the sort of info I was looking for.
The problem isn’t so much blocking the ads on a page, that’s a solved problem, it’s doing so without incurring side effects. The main problem usually comes in two ways.
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Ads are now being pre-baked into the content delivery itself in which there is no easy way to rip it out without destroying the content in some way. Twitch is notorious for this on streams where the ad portion completely replaces the video feed before your browser ever sees what was originally there. You may never recover what was there, but if you try to block the ad playing you trigger problem 2.
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There are departments dedicated to developing ever changing anti-adblock scripts and detectors that enforce ad placements and detect tampering. In some cases this results in punishing the user by refusing to deliver content until the ads load, blocking or kicking the user off the page, throttling connections or access, or in Twitch’s egregious case, more invasive ad interruptions. This has become a never ending arms race with ad blockers to keep up with minefield of invasive scrips monitoring what you do with their website.
TLDR: Ad blockers like UBlock Origin are already filtering how you’re asking for bur advertisers are attacking the plugins themselves and have their own arms race of scripts to punish those who interfere.
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If the site tries really hard, they can control serverside how many seconds of ad you watched to decide if you can access any content whatsoever. Something like this is already present on Twitch iirc. So in the endgame the only universal detection-proof solution I can imagine is AI/GPU based adblocker that will visually detect ads on your screen and overwrite them with something else without actually skipping.
