A new filter for adblockers like Adblock Plus bypasses the this week announced anti-adblock solution from Facebook. The move appears to be a new step in the cat and mouse game in the adblocking industry.
Earlier this week Facebook announced to counter adblockers on their site. The social network thought it had found a solution to bypass most of the current ad-blocking software. To compensate for that, the company announced it would no longer show disruptive ads and provide users more control over their advertisements.
Today's new filter makes it possible again for Facebook users with an adblocker to block advertisements on the world's largest social network.
Ben Williams from Eyeo previously already announced the company would participate in an arms race. In a blog about Facebook's adblock countermeasures he wrote, "This is an unfortunate move, because it takes a dark path against user choice. But it’s also no reason to overreact: cat-and-mouse games in tech have been around as long as spammers have tried to circumvent spam filters."
Adblockers work with filters that contain rules to block advertisements based on e.g. the URL from which the advertisement loads or the content or size of the ad. By updating the filters users can get new rules that block new ads. Adblock Plus has released such a new filter which it calls FB Reblock. The new filter can be received using the adblocker's update feature or by manually adding a rule that can be found here.
It's likely adblock software will soon have to release another new filter. It's expected that Facebook will soon come with a new countermeasure that will counter adblock software again. Which means the cat and mouse game will continue as adblock software developers already have announced they will counter Facebook's measures again. For now the FB Reblock code means Facebook lost this round.
