Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

standard.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 445 posts

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

#81

Post by bogwog »

autoexec wrote: post #40
bogwog wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use adnauseam ( https://adnauseam.io/ ), which is built on top of ublock origin, and it works pretty well. The generic nuclear option to hide terrible web design, bypass (some) paywalls, and improve performance 1000x is to disable javascript. ublock and adnauseam both have a button to disable all javascript on a page, which is handy when reading articles on sites filled with garbage.

adnauseam is seriously a terrible idea. It's actually dangerous. The idea that you can somehow trick advertisers by polluting your dossier and making it useless to them after filling it with random data is fundamentally flawed. Every scrap of data collected about you will be used against you. It doesn't matter if it's accurate or not, nobody cares if they data they have about you is accurate, data brokers will happil…

All I care about is hiding/obfuscating my personal information. I just don’t like the idea of giving that away for free, even if it’s actually harmless.

I don’t care if I get wrongly labeled/categorized due to this. It’s not like my profile was an accurate representation of who I am before I turned on ad nauseam. If someone gets dragged into a court room for clicking ads, that would be funny, and I doubt they would have a hard time finding support from orgs like the EFF, gofundme, etc.

One long term benefit of this is that if a lot of people use it, advertisers will start seeing diminishing returns on their investment in internet ads. This will lead to reduced spending and less ads overall.

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

#82

Post by comprev »

poglet wrote: post #78
madars wrote: post #71

Or, in other words, FBI now recommends using Android :-) It's baffling how much better uBlock Origin + Firefox experience on Android is compared to any iOS ad blocker I have tried. They kind-of work but let half of the ads through.

Not comparable but NextDNS has been working well for me on iOS.

NextDNS works for 95% of the web I visit. AdGuard iOS plugin works on Facebook's mobile web app for when I rarely use it.

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

#83

Post by mlindner »

madars wrote: post #71

Or, in other words, FBI now recommends using Android :-) It's baffling how much better uBlock Origin + Firefox experience on Android is compared to any iOS ad blocker I have tried. They kind-of work but let half of the ads through.

Do all the people who use computers to browse the internet (the majority of people on the internet) suddenly no longer exist?

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

#84

Post by contravariant »

mlindner wrote: post #83
madars wrote: post #71

Or, in other words, FBI now recommends using Android :-) It's baffling how much better uBlock Origin + Firefox experience on Android is compared to any iOS ad blocker I have tried. They kind-of work but let half of the ads through.

Do all the people who use computers to browse the internet (the majority of people on the internet) suddenly no longer exist?

I'm wondering if those still are the majority, worldwide. Smart-phones have done a lot to democratize computing power (now if only they weren't used to put >90% of their users in corporate controlled walled gardens...)

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

#85

Post by LinuxBender »

mlindner wrote: post #83
madars wrote: post #71

Or, in other words, FBI now recommends using Android :-) It's baffling how much better uBlock Origin + Firefox experience on Android is compared to any iOS ad blocker I have tried. They kind-of work but let half of the ads through.

Do all the people who use computers to browse the internet (the majority of people on the internet) suddenly no longer exist?

I'm still here. I've used a browser on my phone exactly once to register my phone. With exception to that one time I only use Firefox on Linux on an old PC.

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

#86

Post by hailwren »

madars wrote: post #71

Or, in other words, FBI now recommends using Android :-) It's baffling how much better uBlock Origin + Firefox experience on Android is compared to any iOS ad blocker I have tried. They kind-of work but let half of the ads through.

Yeah, android trades browser ads for system wide tracking. I’m not really sure that’s a good deal.

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

#87

Post by kmlx »

dcdc123 wrote: post #80
madars wrote: post #71

Or, in other words, FBI now recommends using Android :-) It's baffling how much better uBlock Origin + Firefox experience on Android is compared to any iOS ad blocker I have tried. They kind-of work but let half of the ads through.

Brave browser on iOS has good blocking, but the browser experience itself is a bit of a mixed bag.

i’ve used this one for years:

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/wipr/id1030595027

no issues, works great.

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

#88

Post by autoexec »

bogwog wrote: post #81
autoexec wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

adnauseam is seriously a terrible idea. It's actually dangerous. The idea that you can somehow trick advertisers by polluting your dossier and making it useless to them after filling it with random data is fundamentally flawed. Every scrap of data collected about you will be used against you. It doesn't matter if it's accurate or not, nobody cares if they data they have about you is accurate, data brokers will happil…

All I care about is hiding/obfuscating my personal information. I just don’t like the idea of giving that away for free, even if it’s actually harmless. I don’t care if I get wrongly labeled/categorized due to this. It’s not like my profile was an accurate representation of who I am before I turned on ad nauseam. If someone gets dragged into a court room for clicking ads, that would be funny, and I doubt they would h…

> All I care about is hiding/obfuscating my personal information.

adnauseam does not do this. It only adds to your personal information. It doesn't hide anything.

> I don’t care if I get wrongly labeled/categorized due to this.

Then you must not care when you suffer the consequences of having been wrongly labeled/categorized. Nobody can make you care about yourself, your money, your safety, or your time if you refuse to.

> It’s not like my profile was an accurate representation of who I am before I turned on ad nauseam.

Again, nobody cares about how accurate it is or not. It's about quantity, not quality. Accurate or not, that data will increasingly impact your life in very real ways. The more data they have, the worse it will be for you.

> One long term benefit of this is that if a lot of people use it, advertisers will start seeing diminishing returns on their investment in internet ads.

this isn't actually true, because advertisers don't care. That's why the world is still and increasingly filled with ads that aren't laser focused on you as an individual. We have more and more ads on network TV, on billboards, on radio etc. None of them were stopped because they sometimes showed an ad to someone who doesn't care about it. Seriously, they don't care. You clicked, that's good enough for them. Sales aren't even always the goal. Being seen (or the appearance of being seen) is often all they need.

You're honestly only hurting yourself.

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

#89

Post by jstx1 »

contravariant wrote: post #84
mlindner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do all the people who use computers to browse the internet (the majority of people on the internet) suddenly no longer exist?

I'm wondering if those still are the majority, worldwide. Smart-phones have done a lot to democratize computing power (now if only they weren't used to put >90% of their users in corporate controlled walled gardens...)

I bet they're still the majority - the people who only use their phone do it through apps, not through their mobile browser.

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

#90

Post by ajsnigrutin »

mlindner wrote: post #83
madars wrote: post #71

Or, in other words, FBI now recommends using Android :-) It's baffling how much better uBlock Origin + Firefox experience on Android is compared to any iOS ad blocker I have tried. They kind-of work but let half of the ads through.

Do all the people who use computers to browse the internet (the majority of people on the internet) suddenly no longer exist?

Those who used them 10 years ago still use them... but billions who didn't use them then, use smartphones now.
Post reply on HN