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Ads chew through half of mobile data

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Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#71
Honestly, just stop using your phone most of the time. You can try to keep up with the adblocking arms race, but it is ultimately a losing battle. It's not actually difficult (in principle) to avoid mobile ads: don't use your phone in the first place, don't browse to web pages, and don't install apps. For anyone who says "but what if I'm out and I need to?" -- that's a fine exception if you're not actually using your phone the other 99% of the time.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#72

Be sure to read my follow up article, "How ads are funding the services you request the other half of your mobile data from, so you can use them without paying except with some mobile data and some pixels on your screen."

Those sites should consider sending surreptitious crypto miners instead, which would be more ethical. Then they'd only be using energy instead of using energy and bandwidth and also spying on and manipulating people.

Users should of course block all malware.

The other obvious thing to consider is that if you're going to write an article to convince people of your opinion, I'm not going to pay you for that. You're the one trying to influence me!

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#73

Be sure to read my follow up article, "How ads are funding the services you request the other half of your mobile data from, so you can use them without paying except with some mobile data and some pixels on your screen."

Does it have an in-frame modal that pops up immediately after page load to beg me for my email address? What about an embedded video window that covers the bottom 2/3rds of the content and follows with scroll? Oh and I hope you've not left out the absolutely mandatory "Read More" button that spawns a user interaction and auto-plays everything on the page. Those are all of my favourite things on the web and I really e…

Popups onmouseout, recaptcha handwritten

Newsletter signup, location permission

Video covering every thing

These are my favorite adtech offsprings

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#74
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try adguard on iOS. It’s an app that you buy as an extension for safari but the block lists are very good and you can enable DoH systemwide as well.

As someone who switched from Iphone to Android, Adguard is very poor compared to uBlock, and it was in fact one major reason (of several) why I switched. But now that Google is killing adblockers, I might just stop browsing the internet entirely.

Firefox on Android supports extensions so I have uBlock running.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#75

Be sure to read my follow up article, "How ads are funding the services you request the other half of your mobile data from, so you can use them without paying except with some mobile data and some pixels on your screen."

Does it have an in-frame modal that pops up immediately after page load to beg me for my email address? What about an embedded video window that covers the bottom 2/3rds of the content and follows with scroll? Oh and I hope you've not left out the absolutely mandatory "Read More" button that spawns a user interaction and auto-plays everything on the page. Those are all of my favourite things on the web and I really e…

I hate intrusive ads as much as the next guy, but denying that ads have benefits and people overwhelmingly choose ad-supported services over paid ones is simply sticking your head in the sand.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#76
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try adguard on iOS. It’s an app that you buy as an extension for safari but the block lists are very good and you can enable DoH systemwide as well.

As someone who switched from Iphone to Android, Adguard is very poor compared to uBlock, and it was in fact one major reason (of several) why I switched. But now that Google is killing adblockers, I might just stop browsing the internet entirely.

Firefox on Android does work and does run uBlock Origin all right.

I only start Chrome if some very stubborn (usually financial) site fails to work with Firefox + ad blocking; this happens maybe 3-4 times a year.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#77
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying with money is better.

People's revealed preferences are very clear, however much they deny it.

“People” are actually more than one entity and can have different opinions about things.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#78
post #57

A solution: AdGuardHome and WireGuard running at home. WireGuard connects on-demand when I leave home. I choose to run it at home because there are cases where services and/or sites block datacenter IPs, and I have complete control over what and how I block, no proxying through any blocking service.

A solution for you and some other tech savvy individuals; not a great solution for the rest of my family. Plus, it ignores the systemic problem in exchange for personal one-off bandaids.

Many homes can run whole their route.

Im curious how much time or money you’d be willing to invest and spend monthly to have this solved simply?

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#79

Honestly, just stop using your phone most of the time. You can try to keep up with the adblocking arms race, but it is ultimately a losing battle. It's not actually difficult (in principle) to avoid mobile ads: don't use your phone in the first place, don't browse to web pages, and don't install apps. For anyone who says "but what if I'm out and I need to?" -- that's a fine exception if you're not actually using your…

Considering we have 25 years of adtech and we presently have multiple effective solutions for adblocking on mobile and desktop, I’d need some additional evidence to be sure that is “ultimately a losing battle”.

Re: Ads chew through half of mobile data

#80
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try adguard on iOS. It’s an app that you buy as an extension for safari but the block lists are very good and you can enable DoH systemwide as well.

As someone who switched from Iphone to Android, Adguard is very poor compared to uBlock, and it was in fact one major reason (of several) why I switched. But now that Google is killing adblockers, I might just stop browsing the internet entirely.

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