An adblocker in this day and time is must for internet usage.
Or offload them at the DNS so they dont even get to the device in the first instance.
I do so love my Pihole. I forget how many ads are all over websites until I load up some site on a machine outside of my network.
I need to get a new modem/router. My arris that came with my fiber internet screws up my ability to remote connect to Plex and it won't let me set up a pihole.
dns-based solutions don't get them all.
Probably worth having multiple layers of defense
One thing I like about this particular layer of defense is that it gives you more insight into the activities of the software and operating systems you're using. The statistics they provide (I use Adguard Home) have proven very useful to me on several occasions .
No solution is perfect but could a DNS based solution with a privacy browser is as good as I can get on mobile devices without not connecting to the internet at all.
I use(and recommend) both for the best user experience.UBlock origin's element zapper feature has changed my life.
and there is currently no defense against it.
Don't load ads. There, problem solved.
I swear 90% of the world not aware of adblocker.
And then 9% out of that remaining 10% just can't be bothered to install them for some insane reason.
"I don't mind the ads..."
"WHY THE FUCK NOT, ARE YOU EVEN HUMAN?"
There is no defense?
Imagine a world without Adblocker, haha!
There is no defence they will tell you about. No ADs for you means less money for them
The FBI recommends using an ad blocker for precisely this reason.
And then companies like YouTube force you to unblock them.
What? YouTube can't force me to do shit.
They have blocked users in the past from seeing any videos until their adblocker it removed
You still have the option of closing the tab and moving on with life, or digging in to see if there's another way around it.
Closing the tab and moving on with life is what I do when a Twitter login prompt or paywall appears. I've often thought it would be better for me to unblock ads, at least on timewasting sites like Youtube, just so that I get pissed off by the ads and close the tab, making it easier to stop wasting time.
Are we back in 1995? This should be common knowledge.
Blocking ads to avoid their malware was the #1 reason to have adblocker.
Defense against it
But if corporate media reported on ways to block ads, it'd eat into their own bottom line, so I can understand their choice to skirt the whole "ads are blockable with some level of effort" conversation.
I've been blocking online ads for nearly the entirety of my multi-decade usage of the internet, to the point where seeing them now is actually quite jarring. The fact that they're now a prime vector for malware and spyware/capitalist surveillance just one-ups the decision to block them just for the annoyance factor.
Yea, that's not new. Malware in ads has been around for like a decade. None of the major ad providers have given zero fucks about it so an ad blocker is mandatory and with Google trying to make ad blocking harder to impossible it's only a matter of time until some major issues with this malware happens.
~~This is using some vulnerability in iOS. I'm an Android and Linux guy, but let's hope Apple quickly finds the bug and fixes it.~~ And fuck that agency for not alerting Apple and instead profiting from it. And fuck the Israeli government for enabling them.
Edit: I misread, supposedly this is miraculously able to target every device.
Even better: Thanks to ad tracking you can show specific malware to a specific cohort of people. Want to get spyware on every computer in DC? Just sign up for our ad program!
This sort of creepitude isn't even specific to online ads.
You know postal junk mail? The "direct marketing" companies that enable it will cheerfully sell you a list of the home addresses of people meeting any demographic characteristics you want.
Do you have reason to want a list of 18-25-year-old gay men in the Boston area, widowed Asians in San Francisco, or military veterans in Oklahoma City? With their names, ages, and their home addresses?
They can sell you one, perfectly legally, and it's not even that expensive.
From the article:
What sets Insanet’s Sherlock apart from Pegasus is its exploitation of ad networks rather than vulnerabilities in phones. A Sherlock user creates an ad campaign that narrowly focuses on the target’s demographic and location, and places a spyware-laden ad with an ad exchange. Once the ad is served to a web page that the target views, the spyware is secretly installed on the target’s phone or computer.
If they're using ads on a web page to install spyware, then they're most definitely exploiting vulnerabilities—unless they're showing the user a 'do you want to install XYZ?', in which case this isn't newsworthy at all. Ads aren't some magical thing that can just go around installing shit silently, so I don't know wtf the article is going on about, but it doesn't make sense.
Edit: The Register seems to have a more sensible take on it: https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/16/insanet_spyware/
And still websites are pissed that I block ads. Websites, the adblocker is not there to annoy you, it is there to protect me from your foolishness and lazyness when it comes to weed out bad actors.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
