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FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022)

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Re: FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022)

#171

Post by juanani »

hunter2_ wrote: post #91
tyleregeto wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use one either. I actually think ads are a good system for supporting content, and I do want to support the creators of the content I consume. I also have a low threshold for obnoxious sites, and will just bail and not return if I get annoyed.

Do you ever make a purchase due to having seen an ad, ideally by clicking on the ad? If not, then in some sense you're still getting something without paying for it. (You're paying with your time, but that's not valuable to anyone unless it ultimately results in paying with money.) But better to screw the people pushing ads than the content creators!

I personally have a long list of products not to buy. If you somehow repeat the same ad and I remember your product, I stop buying said product. If youre wasting your money on spamming ads, your product sure as shit isnt better than competitors', since they waste less on ads, more on product. I dont use ad blockers, they make it harder for me to find out who has the poorer product.

Re: FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022)

#172

Post by RajT88 »

nobody9999 wrote: post #170
RajT88 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I knew that but with enough effort you can block that too. I was being precise.

>Yeah, I knew that but with enough effort you can block that too. Can you? As of 2021, there were more than 500 registered data brokers in the US alone. And those brokers don't just use your Facebook profile (shadow or otherwise). Rather they source data from thousands of retailers, insurance companies, credit "rating" agencies, banks, etc., etc., etc. How exactly do you (because I certainly don't know how to do so)…

I was only speaking of Facebook off-site tracking.

Re: FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022)

#173

Post by bryant »

eh_why_not wrote: post #59

No-JS user here. A disturbing trend noticed in the past two months: can't login anymore to some financial/health services sites (bank/insurance/etc) without disabling all of NoScript - no amount of selective enabling of websites satisfies them, and those websites are using known infractors like Adobe. In other words, there is code in the backend checking that all tracking/-ware has run on the browser, and refusing to…

Do you have a list of offenders by any chance?

Re: FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022)

#174

Post by noirbot »

ranger_danger wrote: post #154
noirbot wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that I'm generally willing to watch some ads for youtube or such. I get that it's expensive to host that and I get my time/money's worth. But then I load a random recipe site or code docs site and get the page 40% covered by shitty ads for near-pornographic content and I install an ad blocker. So many sites just cramming ads into every single square inch of their sites ruins it for almost everyone else.…

but why are you ok with watching video ads on youtube, but static images on doc sites go too far?

A. Most of the ads on sites aren't static and many are full video embeds now.

B. Because I get that the cost to deliver me a 30 minute video is fairly expensive even for Google. Most text websites, the cost in bandwidth to deliver the ads is orders of magnitude more than the site itself. I host text based websites and they cost literally a dollar a month. The overhead of my single visit to a text/image site is a tiny fraction of the cost of me watching even a 5 minute YT video.

If you build a blog or generally text-first site in a sensible way, the cost of a single visitor is ~free. Making me see and load 4-5 ads at any time is just abusive. As was said elsewhere, if you think your content is good enough to cost money, then try charging for it, but there really just aren't that many people talented enough to successfully demand living income for writing or recipes or other mundane stuff people put on the internet.

We could wish for a world where it's easier to frictionlessly give someone a penny or such for reading their site and let that add up for those who get the views, but that's just not a thing right now.

The ability to have a total stranger see your work even once is the outlier that the modern era as brought. People have jumped from that to "and thus I deserve to live off of this" and that just doesn't follow. Even making a pittance is unlikely and that's still better than any of us was likely to get even 20 years ago.

Re: FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022)

#175

Post by ethanol-brain »

ranger_danger wrote: post #153
ethanol-brain wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is an unwritten social contract here. There isn't, no matter how many times you say there is. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

this has to be a troll account, they keep flip-flopping between advocating both for and against adblockers in every other comment.

[flagged]

Re: FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022)

#176

Post by tyleregeto »

hunter2_ wrote: post #91
tyleregeto wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use one either. I actually think ads are a good system for supporting content, and I do want to support the creators of the content I consume. I also have a low threshold for obnoxious sites, and will just bail and not return if I get annoyed.

Do you ever make a purchase due to having seen an ad, ideally by clicking on the ad? If not, then in some sense you're still getting something without paying for it. (You're paying with your time, but that's not valuable to anyone unless it ultimately results in paying with money.) But better to screw the people pushing ads than the content creators!

I would say not very often, but yes, very recently even. I've been researching new backpacking gear this summer, looking on sites that are known to me, so I've been seeing lots of ads for that type of stuff naturally.

One store kept popping up that I was not familiar with. So I clicked eventually, and did some online searching about the company to make sure they are legit.

Turns out they are a local independent store. I've made two purchases from them since, and price compared against them for other purchases. Their ads are more likely to catch my eye in the future now.

Re: FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022)

#177

Post by ls612 »

slowhadoken wrote: post #65

The FBI also suggests using VPNs.

People shit on the FBI (for good reason) for being a tool of the ruling class, but their cybersecurity recommendations are consistently solid. They were amongst the first to suggest disabling Flash and Java in the browser for instance back in 2012.

Re: FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022)

#178

Post by ls612 »

ryukoposting wrote: post #72
dopadelic wrote: post #56

Adblock would break most websites nowadays. It's commonplace to detect adblock and disable the website if adblock is detected.

I have uBO, a pihole, and noscript between me and the web nowadays. I'd say I run into a website that intentionally bricks itself once every 3-6 months. It's an uncommon practice in my experience, and it's easy to understand why. 90+% of websites nowadays are click farms - their content is totally interchangeable with, if not plagiarized from, hundreds of other sites. The one site that implements an anti-adblocker me…

Even just pure uBO is good enough to stop the vast majority of anti-adblock efforts without any custom tweaking.

Re: FBI recommends using an ad blocker (2022)

#180

Post by ClickedUp »

tyleregeto wrote: post #176
hunter2_ wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever make a purchase due to having seen an ad, ideally by clicking on the ad? If not, then in some sense you're still getting something without paying for it. (You're paying with your time, but that's not valuable to anyone unless it ultimately results in paying with money.) But better to screw the people pushing ads than the content creators!

I would say not very often, but yes, very recently even. I've been researching new backpacking gear this summer, looking on sites that are known to me, so I've been seeing lots of ads for that type of stuff naturally. One store kept popping up that I was not familiar with. So I clicked eventually, and did some online searching about the company to make sure they are legit. Turns out they are a local independent store…

> I've been researching new backpacking gear this summer, looking on sites that are known to me, so I've been seeing lots of ads for that type of stuff naturally.

"naturally"

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