81–90 of 116 posts
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Well, it is AdBlock, not TrackingBlock. There are other extensions out there to help with that problem. Popular ones are NoScript (which improves the web in many more ways, as well) and Ghostery.
From as often as I hear people complaining on forums like HN and reddit that a linked site doesn't work due to NoScript, I would question how many people would agree that it improves the web.
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I also walk around town completely uncamouflaged, voluntarily displaying my uniquely identifiable face and whatnot, and yet somehow most businesses can still restrain themselves and do not follow me around, colluding to enable each other to videotape my every step for analytics purpose. Sure, there's some technical steps that can be taken but there's also a social or cultural dimension to what behavior is popularly a…
Do you wear an ID around your neck? Do you walk into an establishment, introduce yourself, tell the keeper where you came from, when was the last time you visited, check in with an inter-business tracking device, and then ask them to forget all that? This is what a browser with (or more appropriately, on) DNT is doing. Long way from camouflage. And offline, we should also employ techniques like randomizing MAC addres…
The browser shows where you are coming from, similar to you walking from one store that sent you to a second store. The browser's identifying marks are more like the color and type of your vehicle. The ID around your neck? That really is more like a company that would use facial recognition, or tagging your phone and tracking that.
What websites do is exactly what the parent described, like to a T. Often stores track you inside the premises though for marketing and display purpsoes, or so I've been told.
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It's not "doesn't work due to noscript", it's "doesn't work because it requires javascript". The blame is on javascript, which degrades the web most of the time.
It IS "doesn't work due to noscript". Browsers come with Javascript. Websites use Javascript. The owner of the site wrote the site using Javascript because browsers support Javascript by default. You specifically turned off Javascript, even though it's a default part of the web. You broke your experience. If you turn off your car's engine and the brakes and steering stop working, that's not the engine's fault, it's y…
The general point being the most websites I visit I am just reading text. Yet, I usually have to allow a few secondary domains (that serve JS and data), before the text gets into a form better than soup.
I recently switched from Adblock Plus to HTTP Switchboard[0]. I find it gives you much better control over what gets blocked, and it properly blocks what you have told it to, not just hide them. I have it set up in quite a restrictive way so by default a site level scope is created and only image/css is allowed. It means I have to take anywhere from a couple of seconds to a few minutes to enable things a site needs t…
The company opted to ignore the Do Not Track setting on Web browsers ... other Internet behemoths, including Google and Yahoo, have publicly confirmed that they also ignore Do Not Track Am I the only one bothered by the silliness of "Do Not Track"? Or even worse, the EU cookie law? You have a browser that leaks all kinds of info[1] about itself, tells everyone where you came from (sends referral), takes cookies from…
In the end, I think the way forward should be to do our best to prevent our browsers from leaking such information, but also to punish people who, against our explicit wishes, take advantage of any small mistakes we make when we protect ourselves.
By analogy, it's probably not smart to go into a bad neighborhood at night alone with no protection, a large amount of cash and a flashy suit, but that doesn't mean that it's a silly thing to try and deter robberies and assaults on a societal level (either with social strategies like shaming and shunning or with violent strategies like law enforcement or retributive violence) - to the extent that it's cost-effective to do so.
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It's not "doesn't work due to noscript", it's "doesn't work because it requires javascript". The blame is on javascript, which degrades the web most of the time.
It IS "doesn't work due to noscript". Browsers come with Javascript. Websites use Javascript. The owner of the site wrote the site using Javascript because browsers support Javascript by default. You specifically turned off Javascript, even though it's a default part of the web. You broke your experience. If you turn off your car's engine and the brakes and steering stop working, that's not the engine's fault, it's y…
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And if more people were willing to use NoScript, forcing web designers to not make javascript a mandatory part of their content delivery, we'd all get a much more secure and private internet. But since those web designers probably monetize their content through the same ad networks we're trying to block it seems like a catch 22.
And if we were willing to block HTML, we wouldn't need color monitors. Welcome to 2014.
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true. but as long as site owners use ad-providers that track me, I don't really care. I will gladly reconsider my blocking ads if and when ad-providers are used that don't do this. maybe site-owners should pressure ad-providers to provide a track-free service ?
The lower targeting potential reduces the value of the ad site as it is sold down the chain, so if the site owners are using the ads to fund themselves they are unlikely to as for this en-mass as it would reduce their income. Of course you could argue the moral and inconvenience cases as sites make these judgements when choosing advert networks already but "a bit of tracking" does not have the same moral weight to mo…
Without the latter the ads being compulsory is just enforcing advertising on your users without knowing if they even want it.
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I was seriously considering to make a browser plugin which would scrape pages for Google Analytics unique IDs, make a local database of them and randomly mix them up. Like this: 0. [page visited] 1. Does the page contain GA tracking ID? no: do nothing yes: add it to the database and replace it with another randomly chosen ID from the database
IDs are tightly coupled with domains, no?
I use Adblock and love it dearly. I don't have to watch annoying ads on youtube or deal with intrusive banner ads suggesting I a guide on how to make $5000/day at home in an instant.
I do sometimes want to see ads, and that's when I google something and I want to actually see the advertisements. This is a good sign for google although overall, adblock will slowly cannibalize their ads