This is 100% the fault of shitty advertisers spamming us with literal scams, malware, and spyware.
I get that ads pay for a free internet. But that doesn't mean that 60% of my screen needs to be malware to read a local news article.
Until advertisers act in good faith, I block as much as possible.
Or those scummy click bait ads disguised as related articles? They make my blood boil with how they prey on the vulnerable.
That's all Google discover is on my phone... Ai generated articles that are just click bait.
is a new episode of RandomShow airing tonight?
Star Trek 31 confirmed to feature major tng character (from today)
blah.
Google is so bad for this, plus the fact that they were the ones who started rewarding clickbait articles.
In my mind though, MSN will never be dethroned from having the shittiest content.
I've been seeing clips from Ready Player One recently and this reminded me of the main bad guy's philosophy on advertising in the OASIS.
we estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures
Can't help but feeling there's some parallels there.
Seems unrealistic. In reality, they'd be asking how often the seizures occur and would figure out if the increased ad revenue from going to 90% would offset any potential lawsuits.
Used to be if I found the site of a newspaper I thought I liked, I'd turn off my ad blocker to see how it goes.
I don't even try any more. Again and again and again, every time I turn it off the page gets so cluttered that following the article becomes a chore and takes up so many resources that even scrolling slows to a crawl. Ludicrous nonsense.
Don't forget those annoying floating ads and the tiny X that doesn't actually close the ad
And the fucking videos that auto play in the bottom corner with audio. I think the old people that recently found out about internet are trying to turn it into regular TV.
Some folks still raw dog the net? Wrap that shit up
tbh it feels like most people I know use chrome or even edge without any extensions
Most Firefox users have never used extensions either. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/extensions-addons/heres-whats-going-on-in-the-world-of-extensions/
The main problem is 3rd party advertising. If the New York Times ran ads on their website like they did with the physical newspaper, we would not have this problem.
Publishers need to take direct responsibility for every ad on their platform.
Plausible deniability. Oh, a mildly sexual ad has shown to you? Someone probably approved it on the third-party site. Oh, you didn't want to see it? Sorry, we got nothing to do with it.
Also scams and other grey-area shit.
I am surprised the reason for blocking ads doessn't include making sites somewhat readable. I guess faster loading could be it? But generally it's more of a layout problem than a bandwidth one.
I tend to not use adblockers, or when I do it's on a black list system for worst offenders rather than by default. However, I absolutely refuse tracking, and if it's the only option I go to firefox reader mode immediately.
The usual false dichotomy of "personalised ads or you're killing us!" is not acceptable.
Ad tech IS the tracking, so if you're not blocking ads, you're not actually refusing said tracking. I think you might be conflating cookies with being tracking (they are), but that's only a part of it.
I wonder why ad tech can‘t be „Let‘s show ads that correspond to what‘s being talked about on that website.“ Kinda like what Google suggested with Topics but without following me through the internet.
There is no real technical challenge in displaying ads that are based on the page content. But ads based on tracking users is much more profitable. Plus they can sell the data collected to anyone else that is interested.
I dislike the fact that "ads" can also include crapware being injected into my computer (viruses, tracking cookies, mysterious scripts, etc).
I don't think I could use the internet if I didn't have an adblocker. Ads genuinely anger me. I think it's just from the early days with pop-overs and unders, blinking, non-collapsible and the like holding content hostage. Intrusive or not, I'll do everything I can to not see an ad.
Many parts of the Internet has become functionally unusable without one. And given online advertising's history as a vector for malware, as blockers are just the sensible choice.
The internet is unusable without an adblocker.. I recommend uBlock Origin and Pihole.
I've been using an ad blocking DNS for years and would not consider using the internet without it. Since it's a DNS it works everywhere on mobile or Wi-Fi. I just figured that an ad blocker of some sort is basically a digital condom and must be used. When I see people who don't use one, I think they are crazy.
I thought the text said "stop AIDS" but practically the same thing.
I used to not run an ad block. I figured the ads didn't bother me so why bother?
Then I encountered a banner ad that screamed "HELLOOOOOOOOOO" anytime the mouse went over it and I couldn't download an ad blocker fast enough.
Advertising companies will do anything they can to annoy the shit out of you, then act like people running ad blockers are the problem.
Does anyone ever actually click on an ad? Like "hey thats cool I wanna check it out/buy it right here right now"?
I have adblockers active everywhere and only disable then somtimes for specific sites that really don't work otherwise, but even if the unlikely case would come up that something is interesting I would just look it up separately? Mostly I just turn a blind eye on them anyway, but just wondering, some people gotta really click/buy from these ads? It just seems so surreal to me..
The only obvious ad I've ever clicked on was for a "free" IQ test. I figured I'd never done one cause they're fake, but I had time to kill, so I clicked through. After 20 mins or so answering questions, it ended on a transaction page. The only way to see your "results" was by paying $20. I obviously didn't pay, and instead tried to report the ad, only to discover that Google Ads has zero mechanism to even report scams to Google. After some research, it turned out that this blatant bait and switch scam had been operating via Google Ads for like 5 or 7 years. Google doesn't give a fuck if scammers use it's ad tech to scam your grandma or inject your system with malware, as long as they get paid for the privilege.
I've always used an ad blocker, but the whole experience reinforced how anti-consumer and pro-criminal surveillance capitalism is. Permanent absolute ad block — without exceptions — is how everyone should operate, because none of these companies deserve any trust whatsoever. Even if you trust the site you're visiting, you can't trust any ad company they utilize.
The only obvious ad I’ve ever clicked on was for a “free” IQ test. I figured I’d never done one cause they’re fake, but I had time to kill, so I clicked through.
That click should have lead you to a page that says 'you failed'. 😂
I've always thought that the ad supported internet is something people will eventually get sick of and the financial foundation would evolve over time to find models that don't rely on infinite spam. Instead efforts are focussed on forcing us to view them. At this point I'm expecting the next version of Chrome to require the Ludovico technique while browsing.
Yeah, can you take a "Veteran cybersecurity expert" who doesn't generally use an adblocker serious?
The surprise is that apparently 28 percent of "experienced programmers" don't have an ad blocker. I'm not sure how they got the data, but I wonder if their methods are up to the task of sorting out any possible inverse correlation between blocking ads and being willing to respond to polls.
Ads are just pure negative. There was even one study that calculated this as a direct financial negative, although unfortunately in narrow circumstances: it was calculated that for mobile users in the US, paying for the data transferred to display the ad was more expensive than what the site owner got paid for including it on his site.
If the ads are unobtrusive and interesting, and not clearly based on harvested personal data, I wouldn't mind.
Unfoorrrtunately...
Says a company that makes an ad blocker
It is shockingly irresponsible of the Author to not include security concerns of advertisements in their article.
Back in the day, major news sites like the BBC ran ads that were infected with malware that then infected computers. These weren’t shady sites like people expect you to get viruses from.
Installed an ad blocker the day that news broke and never looked back. Ads are potentially harmful to your devices.
It's a necessity. The internet really is unusable without it. Pop-up ads, long unskippable video ads, annoying shovelware scam ads, etc etc.
Yea that shit didn’t have the hold on millennials like it did the chain letter sending dummies of the previous generation.
In my day ads were vectors for viruses AND were dumb and annoying as fuck.
Some would agree they still are.
Highly unlikely, but hopefully one day.
Ad blocker is kind of a sad name for a content/spam filter, a vital security tool, but that's what we got. Especially since browsers naively didn't include filtering and block lists by default and they only became common as add-ons.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
