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Many internet ventures rely on advertising for their revenue. However, users feel discontent by the presence of ads on the websites they visit, as the data-size of ads is often comparable to that of the actual content. This has an impact…
Recent years have seen a sharp rise in adblocker use, driven by increased web tracking and personalized ads. However, a significant issue for adblocker users is the web breakages they encounter, which worsens their browsing experience and…
Ad blockers allow users to browse websites without viewing ads. Online news providers that rely on advertising revenue tend to perceive users adoption of ad blockers purely as a threat to revenue. Yet, this perception ignores the…
The prevailing wisdom is that more network bandwidth does not matter much and that website performance is primarily limited by network latency. However, as mobile websites become more complex and mobile network performance improves, does…
To protect users' privacy, legislators have regulated the usage of tracking technologies, mandating the acquisition of users' consent before collecting data. Consequently, websites started showing more and more consent management modules --…
The fast growing ad-blocker usage results in large revenue decrease for ad-supported online websites. Facing this problem, many online publishers choose either to cooperate with ad-blocker software companies to show acceptable ads or to…
Advertisements generate huge chunks of revenues for websites and online businesses. Ad-blocker and tracker blocking programs have gained momentum in the last few years with massive debates raging on privacy concerns and improving user…
Websites employ third-party ads and tracking services leveraging cookies and JavaScript code, to deliver ads and track users' behavior, causing privacy concerns. To limit online tracking and block advertisements, several ad-blocking (black)…
One of the Internet's greatest strengths is the degree to which it facilitates access to any of its resources from users anywhere in the world. However, users in the developing world have complained of websites blocking their countries. We…
The rise of ad-blockers is viewed as an economic threat by online publishers, especially those who primarily rely on ad- vertising to support their services. To address this threat, publishers have started retaliating by employing ad-block…
With technical performance being similar for various web browsers, improving user perceived performance is integral to optimizing browser quality. We investigated the importance of priming, which has a well-documented ability to affect…
Most popular web browsers include "reader modes" that improve the user experience by removing un-useful page elements. Reader modes reformat the page to hide elements that are not related to the page's main content. Such page elements…
Ad and tracking blocking extensions are popular tools for improving web performance, privacy and aesthetics. Content blocking extensions typically rely on filter lists to decide whether a web request is associated with tracking or…
In the view of massive content explosion in World Wide Web through diverse sources, it has become mandatory to have content filtering tools. The filtering of contents of the web pages holds greater significance in cases of access by…
The web browser is one of the major channels to access the Internet on mobile devices. Based on the smartphone usage logs from millions of real-world Android users, it is interesting to find that about 38% users have more than one browser…
We investigate adblocking filters and the extent to which websites and advertisers react when their content is impacted by these filters. We collected data daily from the Alexa Top-5000 web sites for 120 days, and from specific sites that…
The quality of experience with the mobile web remains poor, partially as a result of complex websites and design choices that worsen performance, particularly for users in suboptimal networks or devices. Prior proposed solutions have seen…
The tremendous amount of increase in the quantity of information resources available on the web has made the total time that the user spends on a single page very minimal. Users revisiting the same page would be able to fetch the required…
The intrusiveness and the increasing invasiveness of online advertising have, in the last few years, raised serious concerns regarding user privacy and Web usability. As a reaction to these concerns, we have witnessed the emergence of a…
Web browsers have been used widely by users to conduct various online activities, such as information seeking or online shopping. To improve user experience and extend the functionality of browsers, practitioners provide mechanisms to allow…