Our guide to bots

Need to get something done online, but don’t have the time or energy? There could soon be a bot to do the hard work for you, as David Crookes explains

What’s a bot?

Bots are software applications that have been programmed to perform tasks automatically over the internet or to pretend to be a person. The word is short for ‘web robot’ and the idea is that they perform simple, time-consuming and repetitive functions that would otherwise require some form of human involvement. They’ve been around for nearly as long as the internet itself but they’re set to become an even more important part of the way we use the web in the coming months and years.

Ad blockers blamed for ‘breaking the internet’

More of us are now using ad blockers when we browse the web, but new research suggests that such tools could be adversely affecting more than just websites’ ad revenue. Tech firm Oriel (bit.ly/oriel396) tested the 100 most popular sites in the UK, and discovered that ad blockers not only took out pop-ups and advertising but also broke other parts of web pages so the content didn’t display correctly. This included check-in screens for airlines and checkout systems for online shops, the report noted.

Although turning off your ad blocker and reloading the page would fix the problem, it might require you to log in again or navigate back to the problem page. What’s more, it’s not always clear when parts of a page are missing or broken, so it may seem to the visitor as if the site has been poorly designed when in fact it’s the victim of an overreaching blocker. The research tested 24 different ad blockers, and found problems across the range of tools, from breaking parts of pages to removing content that isn’t advertising.