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Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

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Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#72
post #49

Ads are inherently psychologically abusive, targeting your insecurities and exploiting sex and basic instinct to move product. There needs to be a fundamental shift from the old tv and radio model of advertisers targeting everyone through inescapable ham fisted and manipulative ads, to a system that is all but dormant until I query it for a service. Show me nothing, nothing at all, until I make the effort to ask the…

'Show me nothing, nothing at all, until I make the effort to ask the question "what products are available for $need?"'

Isn't that basically Google (at least before they bought DoubleClick)?

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#73

I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. Maybe if (1) fewer ads pumped up CPU and memory usage for a page, and (2) companies didn't give their non-technical asshole free reign over placing scripts on the page, then maybe many of these sites wouldn't be so bad to visit without an ad blocker.

(3) Seniors click on preditory links served by Google AdSense

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#74
When I worked as an intrusion analyst, I worked on a lot of content to detect domain generation algorithms (DGA) that are sometimes used by botnets and other malware for more robust command and control. Over the last couple of years this has become increasingly frustrated by a lot of websites using algorithmically generated domain names in order to evade adblocker blocklists. Domains like "djbvueiabjqkna.com" are increasingly just some major news website delivering their banner ads.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#75

I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. Maybe if (1) fewer ads pumped up CPU and memory usage for a page, and (2) companies didn't give their non-technical asshole free reign over placing scripts on the page, then maybe many of these sites wouldn't be so bad to visit without an ad blocker.

"I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable"

What sites are unusable? Aside from some click-bait destinations like BuzzFeed I've found the web without ad blockers works well enough.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#76

I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. Maybe if (1) fewer ads pumped up CPU and memory usage for a page, and (2) companies didn't give their non-technical asshole free reign over placing scripts on the page, then maybe many of these sites wouldn't be so bad to visit without an ad blocker.

>I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable.

This is extremely hyperbolic. Why not just, you know, not visit those websites if their business model is so abhorrent to you?

Do you feel entitled to something for nothing?

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#77

I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. Maybe if (1) fewer ads pumped up CPU and memory usage for a page, and (2) companies didn't give their non-technical asshole free reign over placing scripts on the page, then maybe many of these sites wouldn't be so bad to visit without an ad blocker.

It wasn't that it was slow for me; I got i9 with 64 ram and things speed up tremendously from my last i7... the huge problem is insecurity!

Lots of website have no control over what ads are popping up! Drudge Report is probably the most frightening! All the time popups of "outdated" Adobe Flash (that I dont have at all), installation of recent updates of Windows 7 (even tho Im on Win 10)... recently I had some sort of ajax script that actually literally installed extension in Chrome (!!) I believe somehow my mouse was hijacked to perform a click action. Unbelievable!

Im fine with Ads so long as someone is properly vetting!!

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#78
post #49

Ads are inherently psychologically abusive, targeting your insecurities and exploiting sex and basic instinct to move product. There needs to be a fundamental shift from the old tv and radio model of advertisers targeting everyone through inescapable ham fisted and manipulative ads, to a system that is all but dormant until I query it for a service. Show me nothing, nothing at all, until I make the effort to ask the…

> Ads are inherently psychologically abusive, targeting your insecurities and exploiting sex and basic instinct to move product. This is a pretty wild claim. Most ads I see are relatively tame (like the “Build on AWS” and iPhone X ads I see around San Francisco), and I don’t see them “exploiting sex or basic instinct.”

Ads targeted at women almost universally target their vulnerabilities in subtle ways, many of which are culturally cultivated and manipulated by marketers. Consider how the food industry plays on weight anxiety: "light", "guilt free" (why should anyone feel guilt over eating?), "sinful", "temptation", "fear X". All the foods are "out to kill you" or at least make you "fat and undesirable". It's all manufactured, alarmist fear-mongering designed to sell stuff. It works. Very few people see through this game.

This then extends to other industries. Chocolate is heavily marketed to women as a "decadent" "indulgence" for those times you want to let loose the strictures of life. So the diamond industry cooks up a way to sell crap brown diamonds specifically to women as a way to treat themselves with "chocolate" ice. No man required so you can express your feminism in full force. Go girl power!

This changes the very language we use. Decadent no longer has its original meaning of severe depravity any more because advertisers co-opted it in the mid-70's to apply whenever you eat a candy bar. Now it's just a bon mot women's pulp lit. sprinkles in every few paragraphs regardless of the topic.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=decadent+choco...

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#79
I've started noticing this from Google, among others. Tracking scripts are no longer explicitly named as such, or they're prefixed with some slug or GUID alongside the legitimate "functional" scripts.

It's getting to a point where you need to actively monitor every network request the site makes. It's despicable and I have nothing but ill will for the data scientists, software engineers, and product managers who participate in this.

Re: Many major websites are taking silent anti-ad-blocking measures

#80

I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. Maybe if (1) fewer ads pumped up CPU and memory usage for a page, and (2) companies didn't give their non-technical asshole free reign over placing scripts on the page, then maybe many of these sites wouldn't be so bad to visit without an ad blocker.

"I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable" What sites are unusable? Aside from some click-bait destinations like BuzzFeed I've found the web without ad blockers works well enough.

Do you read news at their websites frequently? at least I enable adblock to stop their autoplay videos. It's pretty bad sometimes.
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