Google Now Censoring Android Apps!

Why are you guys mad? This is capitalism. A corporation will destroy and even kill people who try to take away from their profits.

Ab block blocks Ad sense = less money for google

This has nothing to do with defending the small time developers, they do not care, people will keep making free apps regardless and they know that.

reply to post by winofiend


Alternatives, Apple for (OS/Browser/Phone), Microsoft for (OS/Browser/Phone/Search Engine). Firefox for (Browser/Phone), Ubuntu for (OS/Think for the Phone also) and as far as search engines there are dozens.





Also as someone already said your phone had to be rooted in the first place to use any ad blocker, I've looked into it myself but do not want to void my warranty. So for the people into all that stuff already know where to go, this takes nothing away from a regular user.

i "google" stuff i need, but i use firefox.
chrome kills my pc. granted, it is an old one, but still. and everyone says it's so fast. not for me.
firefox+adblock=love on my pc.

i dont own a smartphone, but i see this move by google a low, dirty move. this is a way for some companies to lose customers, but they don't see it this way. :/

Originally posted by SilentKoala

Google Takes the Dark Path, Censors AdBlock Plus on Android

In a shocking move, Google has recently deleted AdBlock Plus from the Android Play Store. This is hugely disappointing because it demonstrates that Google is willing to censor software and abandon its support for open platforms as soon as there's an ad-related business reason for doing so.

Until now, the Internet and software development communities have relied on Google to be safely on their side when it comes to building open platforms, encouraging innovation, and giving users maximum choice about how their computers will function. But with today's news, that commitment to openness suddenly looks much, much weaker.

Read the rest of the article here: www.eff.org...

This is very disturbing news. Personally I rely on a number of privacy apps and add-ons that help to protect my identity online and prevent tracking without my consent. It is my right to control what is and sent sent to and from my computer, since I own my computer; same goes for my smart phone. Privacy software is becoming increasingly important in this day and age.

We are entering a new age of censorship that is based on protecting profits rather than censoring political ideologies, and is being perpetrated by corporations rather than governments, and I think this is a lot more dangerous. You can't trust anyone who bases content censorship decisions on financial motives; these kinds of people are the least trustworthy and in my opinion, the lowest form of scum. They hide behind their same tired argument of "we're a private company so we can do whatever we want" which in their minds, apparently absolves them of any moral responsibility and intellectual integrity. (No doubt the shills will be on here soon to beat that dead horse.)

I'm just glad I have enough of a facility with technology to know how to root devices and install 3rd party apps, so this won't directly affect me, but not everyone is as privy with technology, and I feel a great disservice has been done to Android users who might care about what kind of content is sent to and from their devices.

edit on 14-3-2013 by SilentKoala because: (no reason given)

Well, it seems that your first mistake was in buying a smartphone. If you didn't have one, you wouldn't have to worry about apps being censored.

Originally posted by jcarpenter

Originally posted by SpearMint
I don't think you know what you're talking about. There's a huge competition in the smartphone industry and spyware isn't related to ad blocking. Security is a different issue, and there are plenty of quality apps for that. The market is huge, across at least 4 major platforms, the quality of each is always increasing due to this competition. People want apps for free, it's not nearly as simple as you make it sound, and unobtrusive ads in free software isn't really an issue.

Let's see ... we have apple and android. Who are the other "major" platforms? Educate me please.

Advertising and spyware is about as closely related as it gets. At least according to patents and other info now in the public domain. This relationship is how I can make an anonymous post stating that I liked a certain nature show -- and within 30 minutes I have an advertisement from them in my email. Coincidence? I've never been on their website, period. But I've been receiving ads from them since that day I made the post.

Bury your head in the sand if you wish, but today we have personal microphones that listen to us, cameras and vid cams that capture our environment (not under our control). We even have desktop TV boxes that scan the room for the presence of people. These industries are out-of-control and people that defend this practice are a large part of the problem.

edit on 15-3-2013 by jcarpenter because: (no reason given)

Android, IOS, Blackberry and Windows are the four major ones. Soon there will be Firefox OS and Ubuntu too.

I deal with ads on websites, Google ads in particular. I know exactly what the Google ad code does, and there's nothing malicious about it. Ads and spyware are not related at all, sometimes one might benefit from the other, and you can get ads from malicious programs (ad-ware) but you don't get spyware from ads displayed on websites and in apps.

So google blocks an app that destroys their source of income. Somehow that is evil?

Last time I checked, android was open source. Last time I checked, you can still download an .apk file and install it. Last time I checked, you can install your own OS.

So I'm going to steal an iphone and ipad, apples source of income.

I'm going to go ask apple for the iOS source code (lol!). I'm going to attempt to install an "unauthorized" app, like a tethering app? Then I'm going to install my own OS with one damn hardware button.

Google took something off their own damn website, that they own. Nothing illegal or even immoral. Arguments against this sound like little kids crying they didn't get their way.

reply to post by snowspirit

Originally posted by snowspirit

Originally posted by 123143
Explain something to me if you can. This only happens here at ATS.

A couple of times a day I am redirected by something called "adking" and I end up at the Play Store. It stops the page load completely and I end up at Google.

Is this something I should report to the staff here?

I get that too.
Constantly. Then it opens my iTunes store directly to some game called Candy Crush Saga, which is free, but I still don't want it.
If I catch it happening first, it's preventable, but it's a pain in the butt
It takes ya right out of ats.
That shouldn't be acceptable.

If I was on my computer instead of my phone, I wonder if it would take me to google? It's that same "adking".

edit on 14-3-2013 by snowspirit because: (no reason given)

Norton Antivirus caught a redirector virus on my system that would most likely have caused similar behavior. Apparently it was new enough that NAV didn't catch it when it was downloaded, probably in a drive-by infection.

In my case there was a strange DLL in the "C:\Documents and Settings\MY USER NAME\Local Settings\Application Data\WMTools Downloaded Files\Google" directory. Do a search on your hard drive for "WMTools Downloaded Files" or update your antivirus to the latest version and run a full scan of your drive.

I also noticed that my browser, Firefox, prompted me to install a newer version of Flash because the version I had installed was compromised. I did a quick investigation and it appears that the exploit became active around the time I was out here on ATS. It might be worth the ATS moderators' time to take a quick look to see if any of their advertiser's products have been compromised.

** Sorry for the off topic post, but I thought this might be important **

Dex

This has been going on a while. Just try finding a youtube video downloader on Google play.

reply to post by heyitsok


www.clipconverter.cc... is relatively good and is one of the few that doesn't require Java.

reply to post by SilentKoala


Thanks, I will check that one out. Appreciate it.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Now this is some bad news.

Personally I love Google for all of their products. Being an ex-Firefox user, I switched to Chrome when I found out how awesome it was. If this move hits Google's browser as well, they can be sure that I'll switch back to Firefox, even if I don't want to.

And to think I was planning on getting an Android phone... Sure I can just install ABP third-party, or hack/root the phone and install it, but this news greatly discourages me from getting an Android phone. I guess I'll have to go with Apple. Grrrr, Apple...

please look what they did to youtube...... every other video is a 30 second or more commercial heh,,, f google... they used to be bomb till they dumbed down the search code and got in bed with uncle sam.

That's addressed in the article, as well as my post. The problem is, almost all "end users" get their content from the Play Store, because they effectively have a monopoly. Most people don't even know how to install an app from a 3rd party source, and many aren't even aware they can. It is nearly impossible for an app to gain wide usage without being released on the Play Store.

The Play Store is the only place I know to get apps. You are right, not all end-users are aware that they can get and install apps from 3rd party. This is definitely sad news for app developers because anytime the big G wants to remove the app from their store, they can immediately do so.