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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

#651

Post by dspillett »

Gigachad wrote: post #490
deepsun wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've migrated my fam by just refusing to use it at some point "sorry folks no facebook apps on my phone". It was kinda hard when I needed something from them, but once they needed something from me they had to install my preferred communications channel.

Your family members don't have a phone number you can call?

For a lot of people these days actually calling is for emergencies or other time sensitive comms. Even sending a text is seen that way by some, who have no notifications enabled for other messaging apps & similar but do allow their device to buzz them when an SMS/equivalent arrives.

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

#652

Post by conmod278 »

x______________ wrote: post #564
Frieren wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ads are an attack, aimed at your brain. Ads are an attack aimed at your computer too. They download malicious code to spy on you and gather intelligence data about everything you like, you visit, you buy,... it is malicious software hacking into your computer. The fact that some of the richest companies in the world are the criminals does not make it less of a crime. The propaganda part is, of course, also totally…

On your resources too! Your electricity, processing power and network bandwidth are all being abused without any incentives to cover the costs.

But Zuck has to put high-quality beef on his table which involves raising Wagyu and Angus cattle on a diet of macadamia nut meal and local beer. Zuck is not gonna do charity.

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

#653

Post by wvh »

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…

It's insane to think how much brain power, computing power, electricity and component lifecycle wear have been wasted through the years, yelling random stuff at me; or even worse than random; often stuff that is directly harmful to me.

As somebody who – not entirely willingly – is working mostly remote, the only interruption in the day I have from the outside world is the sudden loud inane noises of commercials.

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

#654

Post by underlines »

Hyperpersonalized code to its rescue. With the qwen3.8-27b release tomorrow and the advent of vibe coding and the improvements into proper agentic engineering we are moving towards hyperpersonalized software.

This means we don't need a centralized maintainer for smaller tools. the facebook ad blocking cat and mouse game is something I cna very well imagine to just be something my computer would solve in real time, updating the uBlock filter/userscript to adapt to any fb changes in near real-time.

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

#655

Post by mh- »

dolphenstein wrote: post #640
bkaae wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There is a large cohort of people who will complain about ads but also don't want to pay. My little microSaaS is monetised with ads but I offer option to pay if you don't like the ads. Still get plenty of complaints about the ads.

Yes. Anyone who has ever shipped a free mobile app can tell you that a $1 "remove all ads for life" offer will convert very poorly, even on sticky apps that people use every day.

(Disclosure: my employer owns an ad network. Opinions my own.)

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

#657

Post by aembleton »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #536
plutokras wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 would be a killer feature for AR glasses. Imagine no billboards, no political posters, no neon storefront clutter. ...people invisible to you by wrapping themselves in a banner-ad cape... (Actual plot device in a science fiction book.)

Or even someone wearing a Nike branded baseball cap, hoodie, trousers and trainers.

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

#658

Post by ghm2199 »

The futility of getting your loved ones off facebook's feed toxicity became apparent to me in my face, years ago, when I tried for a week on my dad's iPad(perfect delivery system for this drug cause if allows no extensions on browsers) to "cleanup" his feed be following and liking a bunch of sane content and actively down voting really shitty content with ads. I tried turning off politically sensitive content and trying to tell the ad engine what ads were scammy or I did not like.

Within a few days it was undone. Soft porn(ish) mixed with violent videos and of course all the scam like ads resurfaced. Part of it is the person who is addicted to this stuff and part of it is this shitty product called Facebook that loves to show horrible things to my dad.

I asked why he watches all of it, "Masala"(hindi for spice) is the word he uses to describe his addiction.

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

#659

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#660

Post by aembleton »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #617
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've been saying this for a while: the ad-based business model is dying. It is only a matter of time until local AI models can "see" your screen and identify any sort of ads and remove/hide them. This also includes messages in "sponsored content", paid articles, etc.

Most people don't run adblockers, even though they're pretty effective against 98% of ads. I doubt they're all going to rush for a local AI model.
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