Two days ago, Facebook introduced ads touted as impossible to block. However, it turns out that they weren’t so hard to block after all – as Adblock Plus has already found a way to remove them.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Facebook revealed that it will “begin showing ads on Facebook desktop for people who currently use ad-blocking software.” It’s an understandable move, given that Facebook is heavily reliant on advertising revenue – but Adblock Plus has announced a solution for its users…
Adblock Plus’ Ben Williams has just publicly posted code with which the software’s users can manually add a new filter. Putting this filter in place means that Facebook’s ads will once again be gone when Adblock Plus is enabled for a desktop browser through which the Facebook website is displayed.
However, Williams warned of a continuing “cat-and-mouse game”, noting the possibility that “Facebook will write some code that will render the filter useless — at any time. If that happens, the ad-blocking community will likely find another workaround, then Facebook might circumvent again, etc.”
He added that the new filter has not gone through heavy testing, and so it could yet prove unexpectedly lacking in its effectiveness. If there are any weaknesses in this filter, it’s certainly not beyond probability that Facebook will discover and exploit it before too long.