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

#621

Post by Vinnl » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 9:40 AM UTC

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…

> I think people need to understand what the purpose of Facebook is in terms of its function and constituent parts

Given how many people do not yet use adblockers, I don't have much reason to believe that this will lead to significant amounts of people suddenly seeing this.

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

#622

Post by matheusmoreira » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 9:42 AM UTC

snickerer wrote: post #549

Ads are an attack, aimed at your brain. They try to inject malware into your thinking, manipulating your worldview and your actions. That's horrible, worse than attacking a machine with malware, damaging persons and societies. Decades of ad propaganda have tricked people into seeing them as something 'normal'. But we shouldn't accept being under constant attack of brain worms. I propose a sane rule for all humans: if…

Ads are mind rape.

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

#623

Post by matheusmoreira » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 9:43 AM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #572

snickerer wrote: post #549

Ads are an attack, aimed at your brain. They try to inject malware into your thinking, manipulating your worldview and your actions. That's horrible, worse than attacking a machine with malware, damaging persons and societies. Decades of ad propaganda have tricked people into seeing them as something 'normal'. But we shouldn't accept being under constant attack of brain worms. I propose a sane rule for all humans: if…

See also: What if we made advertising illegal? (simone.org) 1975 points by smnrg on April 5, 2025 | 1409 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269

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

#624

Post by matheusmoreira » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 9:44 AM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #585

snickerer wrote: post #549

Ads are an attack, aimed at your brain. They try to inject malware into your thinking, manipulating your worldview and your actions. That's horrible, worse than attacking a machine with malware, damaging persons and societies. Decades of ad propaganda have tricked people into seeing them as something 'normal'. But we shouldn't accept being under constant attack of brain worms. I propose a sane rule for all humans: if…

Skill issue? Some people are clearly more vulnerable than others. You can occasionally get useful information from ads.

You are not immune to propaganda.

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

#625

Post by pipe2devnull » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 9:45 AM UTC

plutokras wrote: post #534

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 would be a killer feature for AR glasses. Imagine no billboards, no political posters, no neon storefront clutter.

That’s mostly what Vermont is like

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

#626

Post by FeepingCreature » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 9:53 AM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #403

zero_shift wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I can't wrap my head around is, businesses are run by people, and all these entrepreneurs are making explicit decisions to abuse their fellow human beings This is a thought I want to pull on I have a view that organisations, with their network of misaligned incentives, mean that companies act something like an alien lifeform. Something with a decentralised brain, unable to plan beyond immediate stimuli Compani…

I remember recently they polled workers about AI pressure: "the AI doesn't work very well, but my boss wants to see me using it." They polled the boss: "I didn't say they had to use it, they're choosing to use it and this'll look good to the executive". The executive: "well this costs a bunch but it'll look good to shareholders and we should encourage more use so it'll look even better." The shareholders: "do we look…

Out of all of them, I'd assume the shareholders to be wrong.

Look at the state of the world. Yes, you do look like you give a shit.

Also there's an effect here where if just 10% of shareholders care about this it still makes sense to go for it if you think you can be faster than your competition.

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

#627

Post by croes » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 9:54 AM UTC

At every FB developer working on that:

You are definitely the baddies.

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

#628

Post by wolvoleo » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 9:56 AM UTC

Parae wrote: post #565

bkaae wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should also normalize paying for content at the same time then.

You think Meta would spy less on us and show us less ads if we payed to access their services ? They would just keep doing what they've been doing for ages and they would have even more money to keep their enshitification going. We are already paying too much for all the services with subscription. Like Spotify, Netflix and others...

They stop showing ads if you pay for Instagram in the EU.

However they do not stop tracking you.

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

#629

Post by Gareth321 » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 9:57 AM UTC

meerita wrote: post #580

Question for everyone: I'm building two browsers: a terminal browser ( https://github.com/meerita/puma-browser ) and a new GUI browser. For the GUI one, I'm focusing on privacy and reliability, and I was wondering if having a built-in ad blocker would be a good feature. Why don't the major browsers have one? Have they had legal problems with ad blocking, or do they simply not want to kill the goose that lays the gold…

There are many browsers which come with native ad-blocking. See Brave, Vivaldi, Opera.

Most browsers are built on Chromium, and that has certain ad-block limitations now. See Manifest V3.

Many people care a lot about ad-blocking, but still, most of the world does not use an ad-blockers. So it's a cost/market reach equation. What's your target demo? If it's tech enthusiasts, we'll appreciate the ad-blocking built in, but we can also easily install one ourselves if it's built on Chromium.

You are unlikely to face legal issues. There have been a few test cases around the world, with most siding with the user. The argument is usually that no one should be forced to download or render something they do not wish to download or render.

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

#630

Post by specproc » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 10:05 AM UTC

bkaae wrote: post #555

snickerer wrote: post #549

Ads are an attack, aimed at your brain. They try to inject malware into your thinking, manipulating your worldview and your actions. That's horrible, worse than attacking a machine with malware, damaging persons and societies. Decades of ad propaganda have tricked people into seeing them as something 'normal'. But we shouldn't accept being under constant attack of brain worms. I propose a sane rule for all humans: if…

We should also normalize paying for content at the same time then.

I pay for content: gig and cinema tickets, merch and digital albums from artists I like or know. I buy loads of books, magazines, digital and physical games, art I can hang on my wall. I've even started a bit of a CD collection.

At times I've had Spotify, Netflix and Mubi subscriptions. As a UK-resident with a TV, I pay for the BBC.

I feel I more than adequately contribute to cultural production.

In some ways, the current situation suits me fine. I take the free stuff where I'm technically capable. I'll block the ads, pirate to my hearts content, use yt-dlp, BPC, userscripts.

I'm not not paying for stuff, but I've enough financial pressures already, thank you very much. I don't see why I should send all my money to (mostly) US corporations, who've farmed and resold user-generated content.