I dont surf the net without adblock, sponsor block, and pihole. Its garbage out there

Haven't noticed anything unusual as a uBlock + Librewolf user, but I wouldn't be surprised. What exactly happens when you don't use strict mode? Are some ads still getting through?

It's all a vicious cycle fuelled by greed I'd say. I probably wouldn't be using a full-fledged ad-blocker if the web were still simple HTML pages with a couple narrow columns of static (maybe GIF at the top and bottom banners) ads on either side. A pop-up blocker would suffice. But pages got heavier, more bandwidth was needed, more profit was desired, more visitors blocked ads outright, and so on.

The other day I was playing around in Chromium without ublock and happened upon a pcworld . com link. The site was so bloated and putrefied that my computer came to a crawl in a matter of seconds. I don't understand how anyone is supposed to go through their site without an adblocker.

I wouldn't know. Couldn't remember seeing an ad in the last decades (online that is) 😁

Except unlockable silly guerilla marketing. But that's always so blunt and obvious that I can safely ad it to the boycott-this-list.

Yes, but depends on your perspective. The advertisers would say it is getting more aggressive.

We as consumers….