adblockers counting up
… 
where there are no ads.
Deactivated a couple of adblocker extensions today, as they were observed to count blocked adverticements on pages/sites that contained absolutely no ads or references to any. Not a very trustworthy behavior in my view, and it does not help that they could not even repeat the same count when revisiting the same page/site. What are adblockers actually counting and blocking when there are no ads?
Why adblockers announce false positives might be interesting to know. Is the software really that flawed and buggy? Are they pushing users to upgrade to “better” versions? Are they trying to demonstrate how “efficient” the software is? Are they competing for my attention? Is all the before mentioned at play at once? This can become seriously complicated seriously fast.
But, in the end it doesn't matter why they fail. Such high numbers of false positives where there should be zero, zilch, null, nothing to react on, just mean these adblock extensions have no justifications for being used here, there, or anywhere. Deactivation is then of course only the first step to remedy the issue at my end.
How do I know there were no ads in the particular pages/sites these adblockers claimed to block huge numbers of ads on? Well, they are my pages/sites, and I am in total control of every piece of code and content in them. The only reason for not observing this issue earlier, is that I usually set adblockers to not act on my own sites since I obviously don't need them there.
browser extensions
Not many extensions in use in my favorite browser, and even fewer from now on.
Most issues with surfing the web are taken care of by the browser itself, but a few extensions come handy. Makes the on-line part of my life so much easier … as long as the software does what it is supposed to,and not more.
Vivaldi comes with built-in adblocker, but out of habit I like to have one of those as extension. uBlock plus seems to fit the bill – with no strange behavior, and I hope that lasts. Not the time to sort out more browser extensions.
complaining?
When something like this is observed, there is no point in complaining to anyone. It is not like a crappy browser extension ruins the day or cause any major problems, it is just so very irritating when software doesn't live up to expectation.
Writing a note about the failures for future reference, and carry on without the implicated pieces of software, will
do just fine in most cases.
This is such a note.
sincerely 
Hageland 17.sep.2020
last rev: 17.sep.2020