Adblock Plus is still able to block Facebook ads

The cat and mouse battle between the social network giant and open source ad-blocking community began when Facebook announced that it had found a way to circumvent ad blockers, which made them the biggest and one of the most aggressive companies to champion the war against ad blockers. It stands to reason, because ads is how Facebook makes money.

 

To circumvent ad blockers, Facebook removed code that explicitly identified ads, making them appear as Facebook posts but still with the ‘sponsored’ disclosure.

 

However, just two days later, Adblock Plus, which is owned by German software developer Eyeo, has found a way to identify the non-standard identifies Facebook used for their ads and block them.

 

In a response, Facebook stated: “We’re disappointed that ad-blocking companies are punishing people on Facebook, as these new attempts don’t just block ads but also posts from friends and Pages.”

 

Ben Williams, Communications Manager at Adblock Plus did not comment on Facebook’s statement. Nevertheless, he said that if the ads were classified as normal content, then the problem is on Facebook’s side.

 

“This sort of back-and-forth battle between the open source ad-blocking community and circumvention has been going on since ad blocking was invented. So it’s very possible that Facebook will write some code that will render the filter useless — at any time,” wrote Williams.