Ad Fraud Scheme Drained Users’ Batteries By Running Hidden Video Ads In Android

Post by tyingq » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 2:57 PM UTC

blntechie wrote: post #218

penagwin wrote: post #181

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Just check (3/22/19) and yup sure enough https://i.imgur.com/6SMBjDa.png . I find this is pretty common with many software websites that have ads, I'm really surprised paint.net doesn't switch to carbon or something. EDIT: There's another one at the bottom of the page too. And they're randomized, some make it clear you aren't downloading Paint.net (such as the "Free Mac PDF Reader") but others aren't at all.

Why don't developers put a thick border with 'Advertisement' in bold around the ad space so that ads displayed doesn't look like they are native elements?

Post by fhood » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 3:10 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #155

netsharc wrote: post #148

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Even responsible journalistic websites like Der Spiegel (insert comment about Relotius here) run ads like these, where the ads appear like "related articles" underneath serious articles... And people ask me why I block ads.

I block, but some still get through. Ive got them blocked by a firewall and dns but parts go out of date. What do you use?

Post by tremon » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 3:18 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #104

dkersten wrote: post #85

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> Google, in particular, collapses. ... Facebook probably goes as well. You say this as if it’s a bad thing. In my personal opinion, both of these companies have ultimately done more harm than good. Maybe Facebook more so than Google, and some Google products have pushed various tech forward, but at the expense of being tracked and watched and having garbage we don’t want or need constantly punch us in the face for o…

>More people seem to be suffering from anxiety and depression and I personally think these companies are a major part of the cause. That trend pre-dates Google or Facebook. Before them and Snapchat and instagram, it was text messaging. The basic ability to send messages to your friends in real-time is the problem. Individual services can make it incrementally better or worse, but it's the behaviour that's the actual…

Post by rchaud » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #185

Kalium wrote: post #172

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Have you ever tried to convince someone to pay for something they believe they can get for free? The number of people who will pay monthly for user-respecting basic fundamentals like email is shockingly small. How much do you pay for your email?

Why would anyone pay for email when arguably the best in breed email service is free? Why pay more for a worse product?

Post by rchaud » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

ndnxhs wrote: post #61

roenxi wrote: post #56

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Voters are also usually not responsible enough to handle democracy either, and yet here we are. 1) If you don't tell people about your product, they won't know about it and probably won't use it. Word of mouth is ok, but it is surprising how many people are left uncertain and in the dark about what their options are if they aren't directly told what their options are. 2) Without advertising, the internet collapses. G…

The internet existed before advertising and it could continue to exist without it. People still desire instant communication and they would pay for it if a free option did not exist. A lot of garbage like Facebook would fall and real social networks would take place with real interactions not algorithms trying to drive fake engagement.