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I Block Ads

coryd.dev

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Re: I Block Ads

#31

Post by ltbarcly3 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #11
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #6

Advertising based 'free' things cost you far more than a subscription ever would. This is because Advertising Works and it works on you too . You are being manipulated into buying things you wouldn't buy, manipulated into making poor decisions you wouldn't otherwise make. Generations of people lost decades with relatives from smoking and drinking that would not have happened but for advertising. Advertising makes peo…

That depends on the cost of the subscription, the things being advertised, and the audience's will power.

I see what you are saying, but you are not correct on any of these points.

'depends on cost': It can't actually depend, on average. Advertisers keep spending money because they make more back overall than they spend on advertising. Only a small fraction of that increase in income is paid in fees to the platform that is funded by the advertising. To make the same amount of money, the platform would only have to charge you a small fraction of what advertisers are making off of those same users.

Advertising isn't a battle of wills, it is leveraging psychology to manipulate you in ways you aren't even aware of. It works on you just as well as it works on everyone else, if you don't think so it probably works better than average.

Re: I Block Ads

#32

Post by bee_rider »

chasebank wrote: post #3

Advertising is so completely intertwined with everyday life, it’s impossible to block them. The worst kind of ads, IMO, are the non-intrusive, organic looking articles / news stories placed there by PR. The ultimate brainwash. Most of HN and Reddit content is advertisement whether you realize or not. Front page CNN, outside of weather events and sports, it’s closing in on 100%.

What do you mean by “HN and Reddit content?” I think most of the people here are real (not ad bots) and most of the comments are just their opinions. I mean you can sometimes see folks who are clearly either super-fans or actual paid shills, but if they were the majority, I think people would give up on the sites.

Re: I Block Ads

#33

Post by judge2020 »

ra1n wrote: post #25

How do you automatically remove UTM tracking parts of the URLs by default ? Is there a browser extension ?

UTM tracking is probably the least of your concerns - all it does is aid in campaign analytics for the website you're visiting, it would do nothing to the third-party behavior and activity trackers that you're likely trying to avoid.

Re: I Block Ads

#34

Post by cdme »

morning-coffee wrote: post #28
rexreed wrote: post #12

Good list. Is there anything not included on this list that should be?

Would love to see links to information on how to block some of the particular avenues mentioned. Some I haven't heard of yet. I use a pi-hole and uBlock Origin, but am always up to learn more...

I debated linking solutions I use but didn’t want the post, in that way, to advertise anything.

Re: I Block Ads

#35

Post by judge2020 »

mgbmtl wrote: post #18
gaudat wrote: post #2

If you ever heard your friends complaining about the amount of ads they get on their phones and computers, gladly spend a while to help them install something like Ublock Origin. Let the less techy public know there is a way out.

Yep (and be pragmatic/emphatic, a lot of this stuff can seem obscure to non-techies). My partner/wife is a long-time iPhone fan. I never tried to convert her, but she is on the point of switching to Android because she can't use Firefox on iOS. It's completely absurd too - to discard a perfectly fine device otherwise, just because it cannot block ads, or at least, cannot run uBlock Origin (for blocking cookie-banners…

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-private-safe-browser/i... ?

Or is it not "can't use Firefox on iOS" but "doesn't have x feature from Firefox on Desktop"?

Re: I Block Ads

#36

Post by ltbarcly3 »

chasebank wrote: post #3

Advertising is so completely intertwined with everyday life, it’s impossible to block them. The worst kind of ads, IMO, are the non-intrusive, organic looking articles / news stories placed there by PR. The ultimate brainwash. Most of HN and Reddit content is advertisement whether you realize or not. Front page CNN, outside of weather events and sports, it’s closing in on 100%.

I find product placement and 'organic' ads annoying, but I don't think they are as effective as regular old advertisements. If they were, the fraction of the advertising budget would be heavily shifted towards 'product placement' and away from '30 second pre-roll ads' and banner ads.

Re: I Block Ads

#37

Post by Nextgrid »

judge2020 wrote: post #24
aidenn0 wrote: post #19

I don't block adds, I only block tracking cookies, and yet I am told repeatedly by websites that I am blocking ads on a daily basis, and that they will go out of business if I don't disable my "ad blocker." Meanwhile I am quite content with pages that show me full-width banner ads without tracking me.

How do you block tracking but not ads? As in, do you let adsense ads show up, which track you? If not, why do you think the site wouldn't think you are blocking ads?

This is a complaint that virtually every single ad out there is actually spyware that tracks you, with the "ad" part being almost like an afterthought.

Re: I Block Ads

#38

Post by tbassetto »

mgbmtl wrote: post #18
gaudat wrote: post #2

If you ever heard your friends complaining about the amount of ads they get on their phones and computers, gladly spend a while to help them install something like Ublock Origin. Let the less techy public know there is a way out.

Yep (and be pragmatic/emphatic, a lot of this stuff can seem obscure to non-techies). My partner/wife is a long-time iPhone fan. I never tried to convert her, but she is on the point of switching to Android because she can't use Firefox on iOS. It's completely absurd too - to discard a perfectly fine device otherwise, just because it cannot block ads, or at least, cannot run uBlock Origin (for blocking cookie-banners…

How about installing an ad-blocker on her iPhone? Do you really believe that all iPhone users browse the web with ads?

Re: I Block Ads

#39

Post by Nextgrid »

judge2020 wrote: post #33
ra1n wrote: post #25

How do you automatically remove UTM tracking parts of the URLs by default ? Is there a browser extension ?

UTM tracking is probably the least of your concerns - all it does is aid in campaign analytics for the website you're visiting, it would do nothing to the third-party behavior and activity trackers that you're likely trying to avoid.

UTM is Google Analytics and also helps Google do ad targeting even if they don't want to admit it.

Re: I Block Ads

#40

Post by waboremo »

Short simple and to the point (unlike my comment, but alas).

I recently tried a little experiment, where I would use the internet without adblocker (or similar like DNS filtering, extensions to remove annoyances, etc). I thought to myself I was in my little sheltered bubble a bit too long having access to these things that make browsing seamless, even enjoyable. I wasn't shocked by what I found, but I was disturbed by how universally unusable it has become. No wonder people stick to their containment zones on Reddit or Instagram.

You search something up, you get a bunch of ads to scroll through. Fine for me, I know what link to look for, but most don't. Huge issue.

You visit the website, you're bombarded with a video ad in the corner, banner ads on the side, a notification banner up top, a chat bubble in the other corner, and a cookie banner in the middle with garbage defaults. You get through all of that miraculously on your phone, but the article disappears to show a giant ad as a background, before reappearing again if you keep scrolling. Again, I know these horrible patterns I can navigate through them, but how does somebody's grandma?

The internet is so frustrating because so much of it has been horribly tainted by the ad industry. Every single aspect, every single feature, gets misused by the ad industry. You thought deeper GPU access would mean fully fledged games in the browser? Nah we're just using it to profile you better. We're spending billions of dollars on developing a new social app, oh but it's not to improve communication, no we just want you to get hooked on it to see more ads.

Block all the ads and annoyances you want. Until we get thorough data privacy laws, it's your duty to block them. Go on, I know how it impacts me directly/indirectly, as I'm a web developer who spends far too much time persuading clients not to load up their sites with this BS. You should still block them.

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