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The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

standard.co.uk

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Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#61

Post by prox »

junon wrote: post #59
VFIT7CTO77TOC wrote: post #39

It is infuriating that Google seems to be doing nothing about scam ads. For years I have been seeing "Click to install iPhone update!!!" ads on YouTube mobile. Easy to have huge profit margins when your company hires no humans to do things like customer support and ad vetting.

I still get ads for Slovenian brides on YouTube. Not only is it incredibly gross and objective to me, Google clearly knows nothing about my demographic.

I still see extreme right wing propaganda on a pristine profile on YouTube’s flipping homepage. I would love to use expletives on the YT management right now, but I refrain.

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#62

Post by giobox »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #36

Here are a few things I do to combat nasty websites: - blacklists entire domains using wildcards (using an "unbound" DNS resolver and forcing all traffic to my DNS resolver, preventing my browser to use DoH -- I can still then use DoH if I want, from unbound) - reject or drop a huge number of known bad actors, regularly updated: they go into gigantic "ip sets" firewall rules - (I came up with this one): use a little…

While these are all good practices, killing DoH conclusively on your home network is more difficult than you've made it seem, as ultimately all you can really do is use domain blacklists at your firewall. It's no longer as straight forward as just control port 53 traffic, not like you can realistically shut down 443... Blocking DoH is largely whack-a-mole and I think is only going to get worse as this and similar techniques spread. There are so many sneaky ways to resolve a hostname an app or device can choose to use now.

You can force traditional port 53 DNS protocol traffic to your own resolver with firewall rules, the same doesn't work for DoH. a DoH request to a domain your firewall blacklist doesn't have looks just like ordinary https/443 traffic and will pass unhindered.

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#64

Post by cld8483 »

anonymousiam wrote: post #12
westcort wrote: post #3

Any recommendations for a good ad blocker and other precautions to take?

Pi-hole ( https://pi-hole.net/ ) is a great ad blocker that requires no changes to your clients.

That's fine if you have no other option, but it is inferior to uBlock Origin since it can't do any cosmetic filtering. Better to use pi-hole on your network for clients that have no other choice, but to then also use uBlock Origin on any client you can.

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#66

Post by NetOpWibby »

cgb223 wrote: post #60
TacticalCoder wrote: post #36

Here are a few things I do to combat nasty websites: - blacklists entire domains using wildcards (using an "unbound" DNS resolver and forcing all traffic to my DNS resolver, preventing my browser to use DoH -- I can still then use DoH if I want, from unbound) - reject or drop a huge number of known bad actors, regularly updated: they go into gigantic "ip sets" firewall rules - (I came up with this one): use a little…

What’s an IDN and what does blocking them help with?

Mainly homoglyphs. Characters that LOOK like Latin characters but aren't. Scammers register domains to make it look like at a glance you're visiting a reputable site.

It's why many browsers started defaulting to showing "xn--" (punycode representation of IDN characters).

It sucks for domains that are emoji but whatevs. Scammers ruining things for everyone, as usual.

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#67

Post by UberFly »

VFIT7CTO77TOC wrote: post #39

It is infuriating that Google seems to be doing nothing about scam ads. For years I have been seeing "Click to install iPhone update!!!" ads on YouTube mobile. Easy to have huge profit margins when your company hires no humans to do things like customer support and ad vetting.

Yea, I think we can all conclude they just don't care if it effects their bottom line. So short-sighted. About a month ago people in the AMD subreddit were complaining about compromised drivers and software appearing as the #1 search results due to these kind of ads.

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#68

Post by buildbot »

cgb223 wrote: post #60
TacticalCoder wrote: post #36

Here are a few things I do to combat nasty websites: - blacklists entire domains using wildcards (using an "unbound" DNS resolver and forcing all traffic to my DNS resolver, preventing my browser to use DoH -- I can still then use DoH if I want, from unbound) - reject or drop a huge number of known bad actors, regularly updated: they go into gigantic "ip sets" firewall rules - (I came up with this one): use a little…

What’s an IDN and what does blocking them help with?

International domain name - blocking them prevents look alike URLs from working. But also, IMO, this is bad advice for anyone who uses not English as a language...

Re: The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the web

#69

Post by lemoncookiechip »

westcort wrote: post #3

Any recommendations for a good ad blocker and other precautions to take?

A combination of uBlock Origin + NoScript + Bypass Paywalls Clean + FastForward + ClearURLs as well as a pop-up blocker of your choice, will make your web browsing experience a bit cleaner. Not all of these might available for Chromium, I personally use Firefox for my daily use, with some Chromium browsers as backup.

NoScript will break pretty much 50% of the web. It'll take you about a day to whitelist all the sites you use daily and then it's smooth sailing.

I would also highly recommend this privacy focused list. https://www.privacytools.io/

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