uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by ButlerianJihad » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 1:06 AM UTC

Sophira wrote: post #399

jimrandomh wrote: post #282

Eventually, this arms race ends with a computer vision model that looks at the screen, classifies visual elements as ads, and draws a rectangle over anything that looks like an ad. I am significantly less tolerant of ads than average people seem to be. (I think average people are making a horrible mistake about this, and are badly cognitively damaged by ads in ways they don't realize). If my choices are to look at ad…

> Eventually, this arms race ends with a computer vision model that looks at the screen, classifies visual elements as ads, and draws a rectangle over anything that looks like an ad. That isn't enough for me. I don't just want to not see the ads, I want to stop them being fetched entirely. There are two big problems with ads. * The ad network can build up a very complete profile of what you like, dislike, and general…

Furthermore, ads are a resource drain that should not be taking over our personal systems.

The web started as this proposition: you send a request to remote computer. Request says "Hey... can I read a document named this?" and the computer shows you the document. Now this may have included images and external links and sound, and whatnot.

But today, the web is more of an application delivery system too. So many requests go "Hey... can I have a resource by this name?" and the remote computer may send you a lot of source code that basically demands to run on your machine in order to get that resource.

And advertisements are piggybacking on those resources. They are a "package deal" where they are saying "you wanna read this text? you gotta take all this extra stuff with it."

And is it any surprise that coinminers are unleashed and other unpleasant things come down the pipe? Big fat videos and huge images are hogging resources.

So here's the bottom line: I don't need to use the web for free. I don't intend to freeload anyone's site or resources. But I also don't want them freeloading on me. I'm not going to download their crap; I'm not going to run their programs; I'm not going to occupy my own system's resources to display their ads when I don't want them.

So it seems fair to block "ads" that are asking to use my resources without paying for them. So I would prefer not to transact--at all--with any remote system that wanted to freeload on my resources in exchange for worthless information, like news, or forums.

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

#412

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 1:06 AM UTC

polski-g wrote: post #383

jimrandomh wrote: post #282

Eventually, this arms race ends with a computer vision model that looks at the screen, classifies visual elements as ads, and draws a rectangle over anything that looks like an ad. I am significantly less tolerant of ads than average people seem to be. (I think average people are making a horrible mistake about this, and are badly cognitively damaged by ads in ways they don't realize). If my choices are to look at ad…

I want to support things that are useful. So I whitelist Fandom wiki in my ad blocker... Good God it's like an infected IE browser from the early 2000s with 8 toolbars. How do people use the Internet like this? Why isn't there just a single banner ad at the top, like how Altavista used to look?

Fandom isn't a good thing that is useful. It's internet pollution for money, it's just another SEO slop site wit slightly more useful content. Most of the wikis with actual content moved away years ago, of course Fandom keeps presenting their last versions to try and squeeze some more traffic out of Google.

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

#413

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 1:07 AM UTC

beloch wrote: post #335

dofm wrote: post #310

This is the correct decision, IMO. I only use Facebook in a limited capacity (one phenomenal private group whose usefulness is unfortunately simply unmatched elsewhere, one infrequently updated page and a very locked-down, minimal personal profile). I think people need to understand what the purpose of Facebook is in terms of its function and constituent parts, in the Stafford Beer sense, and I think if enough people…

Where Facebook has gone, I fear other U.S. social media is headed. Reddit recently blocked access to old.reddit.com for users who are not logged in, which suggests they're doubling down on user tracking. On top of that are the increasing privacy, censorship, and disinformation concerns that come with using any U.S.-based social media. There is clearly a need for facebook/reddit alternatives for useful groups like the…

Reddit recently blocked access to anything marked NSFW on old.reddit.com unless you upload your ID to Persona (Thiel's company).

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

#414

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 1:08 AM UTC

freehorse wrote: post #385

dylan604 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of FB users see the unfiltered site, yet they are not leaving contrary to your theory. FB does not seem to be anywhere near the ground or bankruptcy court. These are very strange things you're commenting about one of the largest companies on the planet.

> yet they are not leaving Are you so sure? Anecdotally, I know increasingly more people who either left the platform or stopped using it last years, and this seems to be a pattern if we believe online sources [0]. Of course many stay, but the platform gets worse and worse ime. I visit facebook only for events and some groups that I cannot avoid, so I just enter specific pages there than navigating feeds. But looking…

Are they using Instagram?

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

#415

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 1:08 AM UTC

alex1138 wrote: post #355

dylan604 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of FB users see the unfiltered site, yet they are not leaving contrary to your theory. FB does not seem to be anywhere near the ground or bankruptcy court. These are very strange things you're commenting about one of the largest companies on the planet.

> not leaving It's hard to leave a monopoly, and you can't contact your friends any other way https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433 Anecdotally, someone I know deleted their account, had it reactivated (the site did this) and now they show up on People You May Know. Plenty of other people have tried deleting it and found it nigh impossible

Really? You don't have their phone numbers?

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

#416

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 1:09 AM UTC

TacticalCoder wrote: post #372

aanet wrote: post #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…

> 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. Exactly. Not only do I blocklist every known Meta domain at my DNS (I run the unbound DNS server at home) I also took all the IP blocks from Meta's ASNs and have automatical…

Telegram is much worse for privacy than WhatsApp. Signal is better.

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

#417

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 1:10 AM UTC

sicktriple wrote: post #254

dewey wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. If your ad placements don't perform, people are not going to book them. If ads are loaded or not is also often verified by independent third party trackers that you have to embed on your page next to the ad. There's whole industries built on this stuff and it's not as simple as "we sell the slot and don't care if people see it or click on it".

[flagged]

An AI wrote this comment.

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

#418

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 1:11 AM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #289

sicktriple wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would say, then, that Facebook is perpetrating fraud. They are knowingly defeating ad blockers to sell ad space that they know will not lead to any click-throughs and conversions.

They don't know that, and it probably isn't true.

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

#419

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 1:13 AM UTC

gopher_space wrote: post #268

gh02t wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck. I'd wager that most methods to protect your privacy aren't nearly as effective as we think they are. While I don't think it means that you shouldn't try to protect your information, I typically assume that anything short of very extreme measures is only mildly effective.

One of the biggest problems in software development is that our graph of authoritative personal data is cyclical. You might have heard about how difficult it was for someone erroneously declared dead to change the record, and I'm sure most of us have experienced problems with changing an address. A friend recently went through two name changes and one phone number change, and it took like eight months for the bottom-…

I've tried signing up for bank accounts with deliberate typoes in my name. It worked. Name didn't match the ID they had me scan. The Revolut sign-up form randomly ignores keypresses so that's my plausible deniability. I just intentionally didn't correct them.

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

#420

Post by inigyou » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 1:13 AM UTC

allthetime wrote: post #246

wkjagt wrote: 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…

Ads do a lot more than advertise. They track and collect data about you without you interacting at all. I don’t use an adblocker to not see ads, i use an ad blocker to not load ads or interact with their providers servers at all.

Facebook does that, even when you aren't seeing an ad.