Earlier quoted context omitted.
Electronic engineers face a similar problem, everyday:finding the optimal components to build stuff with. And at least in the case of standard components, they do that via parametric search tools(poring over many details), combined with vendors exposing a lot of details about products. And it works very well. I wish we had that in more fields. Would provide huge value, but it's a hard problem. But i suppose if with t…
Parametric search tools are great for Digikey, but they're very hard to implement elsewhere. They're much less useful when you only have a small number of options. They're bad at quantifying qualitative properties like fit and finish or ease-of-use. And you can only compare closely related parts, because until you drill down to the level of, say, a parametric search for exclusively PMIC-Voltage Regulators-DC-DC-Switc…
Insane state of today's advertising part 3
381–390 of 435 posts
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#382Awesome to see that subject #1 on HN. At my startup Confiant [1], we block bad ads in stream on behalf of publishers. Cedato aka Algovid aka TLVMedia is one of our prime targets, we block millions of their ad impressions daily. They are essentially buying cheap display ad placements to resell them as fake video preroll ad placements. They sell on video exchanges like AOL's AdapTV and others. To maximize their yield,…
The only good ad is a dead one. With very few exceptions, especially in the consumer space, you won't need advertising if you actually need something. You'll search it out or your friends will tell you what to buy. Advertising serves as a way for the capitalist class to exert veto power over other aspects of society by yanking funding at opportune moments (see the current Google snafu or Bill O'Reilly's departure fro…
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll just add Brave to the list here. The blochchain related browser by former firefox founder. Out of all the actors in this space its the only one I know of that sees the bigger picture and news flash google its not gonna be "higher quality" ads :)
>the only one I know of that sees the bigger picture Could you elaborate?
Brave's idea (AFAIK) is for the browser to pay the owners of the pages viewed directly for time spent on it (or some other metric). How they do this I don't yet know. A bit like flattr etc. but without user intervention.
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd recommend uMatrix, it can be used to block add, but it can also do so much more. It really helps if you want to disable most JavaScript where you don't need it too. Really great addon.
uMatrix is very powerful, but I feel like its interface might be a bit complicated for less sophisticated users. In the wrong hands, it can really "break" the web.
The trouble is that selectively blocking scripts gives the greatest benefits to the user (removes ads, annoying videos, popups, trackers, practically every nuisance) but usually requires user intervention to enable only the minimum to get the page to function.
Hopefully the more user-friendly options can work out how to do this en mass.
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#385I didn't see any ad blocker recommendations in the comments, so I searched and came across a list on Tom's Hardware of the best ad blockers of 2017. The funny part is that Tom's Hardware was FILLED with these exact kind of ads from algovid and adaptv. Even worse, the list is in a carousel / slideshow format so you have to keep clicking if you didn't GTFO like I did.
If you are willing to do some extra work, I highly recommend blocking javascript, e.g. with Firefox's NoScript extension. Enable only the javascript you need, when you need it. No harm in using ublock origin and privacy badger on top of it.
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
> adverts count as negative points towards the product > i use adverts to tell me what not to buy These sorts of attitudes seem odd. What products do thses people buy, since pretty much everything being sold in the west is advertised in some way? It seems like the sort of think someone would say as a sort of virtue signalling, but I can't believe its a policy anyone could stick to.
I didn't say anywhere in my post that if I see an advert, the product is instantly blacklisted -- only that it counts as a negative. So, if I had to choose between two otherwise equal products, I would choose the one with the least (or least annoying/intrusive) advertisement. I also perhaps should have said web adverts. I don't much pay attention to TV/radio/magazine/newspaper/billboard adverts, so I imagine I buy ma…
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#387In related news, uBlock Origin has finally (today) been converted to a WebExtension and is now fully compatible with Firefox 57 and beyond. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin
I’ve switched to Ghostery, and it seems to work fine. Should I go back to uBlock Origin?
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#388My takeaway is that DCMA is a powerful weapon to use against ad blocking. It'll be interesting to see how this aspect of the industry plays out.
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#389I would love to be able to block JS files individually based on energy usage.
That would be fine until jquery-1.9.1-min.js: 3,389 hours of battery usage would refuse to budge from the absolute top of the "probably the best to block" list. The heuristics would be tricky to implement here...
Re: Insane state of today's advertising part 3
#390I didn't see any ad blocker recommendations in the comments, so I searched and came across a list on Tom's Hardware of the best ad blockers of 2017. The funny part is that Tom's Hardware was FILLED with these exact kind of ads from algovid and adaptv. Even worse, the list is in a carousel / slideshow format so you have to keep clicking if you didn't GTFO like I did.
If you are willing to do some extra work, I highly recommend blocking javascript, e.g. with Firefox's NoScript extension. Enable only the javascript you need, when you need it. No harm in using ublock origin and privacy badger on top of it.