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uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

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Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#211
post #164

I know this is probably a very naive question, but what is the end goal putting so much effort into getting past ad blockers? Surely, someone with an ad blocker installed is not going to click on their ads and buy the advertised products anyway. I don't really know what I am talking about, but I guess it's all about ad impressions that generate money, but doesn't this strategy end up making less money, because the mo…

You don't actually need to click on an ad or purchase something from an ad site in order for Facebook to make money selling ad space. The moment these ads are loaded on the page, real time auction occurs, where advertisers place bids algorithmically and automatically, based on your profile. Facebook makes it's money by selling this ad space. It doesn't particularly care whether you click on them or not. But if they d…

and thats why you lock down your privacy, so they get nothing other than "generic privacy enthusiast #1000101010101"

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still do that. The only thing I'm proposing is to do the filtering on graphical data (what the user actually sees) rather than on the DOM (which can be obfuscated; and which may change every week).

Are you saying you would get the image, detect the ad in the image, then regenerate the HTML without the ad based on where it was located in the image?

You don’t need to regenerate, insert a DOM element to obscure it.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a better approach is to convert the page to an image, run OCR over it, use an LLM to remove the ads, present the result to the user.

How would you comment or watch a video if you did that?

That sounds like an upside.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#215

I know this is gonna be unpopular take but for modern social media to function, they need showing ads to pay creator many people livelihood depends on it, creator make content in turn of revenue sharing that user get for free

I'd pay a few dollars a month to use a service without ads and without surveillance. Services don't offer this and creators are staying on those services, so fuck them.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#217
post #207

How long until someone invents a fully-integrated local video and audio adblock filter running on a passthrough VR headset or smart glasses? The progress on this front is taking a while. I wouldn't mind if the audio filter is white noise and a portion of what I see is blurred out. Maybe to make it more efficient, only scan near the places I'm looking at via foveated rendering.

How about we just get on with it and delegalize ads already? They’re a net negative in every form, subsidizing disgusting companies that shouldn’t exist, infringing on everyone’s privacy (including your children! think of the children!!!!!), and making us jump through all kinds of ridiculous hoops to minimize our exposure to them. I don’t think the solution is more hoops.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#218
Controversial opinion:

This entire thread reads like a game of cat-and-mouse. People trying to block intrusive ads, and FB reaching into the depths of code and making it nearly impossible for anyone to do so en masse.

I've been there. Tried to uncheck all the boxes on their ad platform; used all manners of ad blockers, etc; used incognito mode; used Tor; etc. etc. etc.

At some point, you realize that the only way to not get served ads on Facebook -- and thereby not benefit the company itself -- is to get rid of it completely. Delete your account, get off that blasted site, and enjoy some moments of peace IRL.

Having been a very early adopter of FB (since ~2004), I deleted my account and am clean + sober + much happier since 2016.

(Not to say that I'm completely out of the FB ecosystem. Unfortunately, my fam is still on WhatsApp... and I've been trying to convince them to migrate to Signal...)

YMMV

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#219

I'm more surprised by the fact that people still use Facebook

Those childish comments are so funny. 3 billion people use Facebook regularly, and there are folks that deem themselves superior to all others who claim "I know nobody who uses Facebook". XD

Christ, pipe down little buddy. These “aha gotcha!” responses belong on reddit—but since you’re craving for one too, I’ll bite:

“It’s not a childish comment in the slightest, and most definitely not a claim of superiority in any way either. It’s simply a fact. I, too, know a grand total of 0 persons who use Facebook. Three billion people may use it regularly but all the people I know are in the other, let’s say >vast majority<, of FIVE billion people who don’t even care about Zuckerberg’s billboard.”

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