AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks • Hacker News Board

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#31

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Thu, May 30, 2019, 10:18 AM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #23

bad_user wrote: post #19

This extension apparently simulates clicks on blocked ads. I'm not comfortable doing that. First of all I don't see the point. I don't click on ads, so there is no profile that advertisers can extract from that. Having an extension that simulates clicks would only link to my supposed profile shit that I don't want, plus in my experience from when I worked in the ads industry, the user profile often gets compiled from…

> extensions that will inevitably get banned (due to this being essentially fraud) AdNauseam has been up on Firefox Add-ons for a while and it is not banned and I don't believe it will get banned. Explain why you think differently please.

Not OP, but Google can enforce whatever policies they like in their own marketplace. Considering their main business is selling ads and click fraud is against their TOS, I'm not surprised they'd ban this extension.

Personally I think that if people hate ads so much they should just block them (I do). This attitude of "sticking it to the man" by "screwing with their data" seems petty and potentially counterproductive.

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#32

Post by throwaway7919 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 10:37 AM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #19

This extension apparently simulates clicks on blocked ads. I'm not comfortable doing that. First of all I don't see the point. I don't click on ads, so there is no profile that advertisers can extract from that. Having an extension that simulates clicks would only link to my supposed profile shit that I don't want, plus in my experience from when I worked in the ads industry, the user profile often gets compiled from…

> If you hate the direction of this industry, consider paying for shit that you consume

I work at a very large bank. We make money by through account fees and interest charges, but we still do all the sleazy tracking and analytics that you would expect from a company with a you-are-the-product business model. We work closely with ad networks so that we can get demographic data about who our users are. And in return, we share/leak our customers' (anonymized and bracketed) income.

This is now done through first-party tracking, so you won't see it if you look in the network tab in DevTools.

Why do we do this? Because it helps us target our marketing to an individual's demographics. Yes we make money through other ways, but this helps us make even more money. That's how businesses operate, and I don't think that companies like mine are uncommon.

Thinking that paying for shit will let you avoid tracking is like thinking that paying for cable TV will let you avoid ads. Companies will do whatever they can to make an extra buck on top of the money they're already taking from you.

Ad/tracker blockers are useless. Short of creating legislation to stop it, the only way to stop this tracking is to fuck with the data enough that it's no longer worth mining.

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#33

Post by tempguy9999 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 10:42 AM UTC

ubercow13 wrote: post #30

bad_user wrote: post #19

This extension apparently simulates clicks on blocked ads. I'm not comfortable doing that. First of all I don't see the point. I don't click on ads, so there is no profile that advertisers can extract from that. Having an extension that simulates clicks would only link to my supposed profile shit that I don't want, plus in my experience from when I worked in the ads industry, the user profile often gets compiled from…

What makes you think paying for things would stop you being tracked?

Very good point, I'd never considered that!

OK, if you don't pay then money has to be found somewhere for the web to still work[1] which advertising seems to be the only source of. Payment provides that cash thus squelching the need for ads.

If they don't advertise then they don't need to track AFAICS.

If they do start advertising as well as accepting payments for non-advertising, they are going to get spanked by users withdrawing payments, and installing ad-blockers.

I'd prefer to pay, anonymously, but as people clearly won't cos they want free stuff at any cost, advertising will persist. It's a social problem not a technical one.

Anyway, I block all 3rd party ads, which is 99% of them and 100% of the bad crap, and block all JS, with a VM for the rare cases I need it on. Not totally safe but pretty close without actually unplugging.

People complain about ads presumably because they see them, but they are so damn easy to block why don't they? I just don't get the perennial complaints. Just do it, find a minimum 10X speedup... but no, it doesn't seem to happen, and they keep discovering that Free Stuff Costs.

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#34

Post by Yetanfou » Thu, May 30, 2019, 10:45 AM UTC

pizzazzaro wrote: post #20

abc-xyz wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before anyone feels bad about this: the extension will, by default, not click on non-tracking ads. I've used it for over a year (also on $XXXX estimated cost figures on 3 different devices) with several thousands of ads clicked. My ad vault contains everything from porn, electronics, job boards, ads in languages I do not understand, gambling, gaming, and all sorts of crap I have zero interest in. I pretty much never…

When an ad slips through? You might wanna update/augment those filter lists. That was the best thing about some of the addons to the old adblock plus addon - you could keep your own list, and the average user was entirely unaware of the extent that they were doing so.

Adding new blocking rules to uBlock (et al) is part and parcel of how to use these extensions, I don't see any difference here compared to adblock+. If you see something you wish to avoid you either right-click it and select 'block element' or you launch the element picker from the toolbar or through a key combination. Use ctrl-click in the picker to create more generic rules on specific class or ID names.

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#35

Post by SanderSantema » Thu, May 30, 2019, 10:53 AM UTC

0xADEADBEE wrote: post #22

0xADEADBEE wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of quick points: - Your ad profile will be built based on pages you visit as you indeed note, not just things that you click. Any noise you can introduce surely has to be a win for obfuscation? Would be interested in your thoughts here because you have more experience than I do! - I'm not certain that paying for content makes any difference from a data mining perspective. Loading a NYT article causes uBlock…

Also I upvoted you - I'm not sure why you're being downvoted without explanation since you've axiomatically added an interesting viewpoint to the discussion.

A quick heads up: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

From the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#36

Post by sanxiyn » Thu, May 30, 2019, 11:05 AM UTC

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #31

sanxiyn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> extensions that will inevitably get banned (due to this being essentially fraud) AdNauseam has been up on Firefox Add-ons for a while and it is not banned and I don't believe it will get banned. Explain why you think differently please.

Not OP, but Google can enforce whatever policies they like in their own marketplace. Considering their main business is selling ads and click fraud is against their TOS, I'm not surprised they'd ban this extension. Personally I think that if people hate ads so much they should just block them (I do). This attitude of "sticking it to the man" by "screwing with their data" seems petty and potentially counterproductive.

How is it counterproductive? Any concrete scenario?

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#37

Post by sanxiyn » Thu, May 30, 2019, 11:07 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #28

chaz6 wrote: post #15

Apart from actual malware, this is the only browser extension I know of to have been blacklisted by Google. If you want to use it in Chrome you have to jump through hoops. For the record, I approve of AdNauseam. I have every right to browse the internet how I choose. My computer, my control. I am firmly against the corporization of the internet.

> If you want to use it in Chrome you have to jump through hoops. Why would a potential AdNauseam user even use Chrome?

Maybe their internal website is Chrome-only and broken on Firefox. Such things exist. (I actually have such personal experience.)

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#38

Post by locknumber110 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 11:26 AM UTC

Yetanfou wrote: post #34

pizzazzaro wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When an ad slips through? You might wanna update/augment those filter lists. That was the best thing about some of the addons to the old adblock plus addon - you could keep your own list, and the average user was entirely unaware of the extent that they were doing so.

Adding new blocking rules to uBlock (et al) is part and parcel of how to use these extensions, I don't see any difference here compared to adblock+. If you see something you wish to avoid you either right-click it and select 'block element' or you launch the element picker from the toolbar or through a key combination. Use ctrl-click in the picker to create more generic rules on specific class or ID names.

uBO-style element pickers are a brilliantly user-friendly alternative to manually writing filters. Every content-filter extension on every browser should have one. Even my 80-year-old grandfather is now able to excise ads that slip through the usual filters with precision.

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#39

Post by antpls » Thu, May 30, 2019, 11:38 AM UTC

- Blocking ads had the nice argument of being more "green" because of less internet requests, less CPU and data usage.

- How do I make sure this extension will not download and run a javascript exploit from fake ads ?

Security, ecology, business threat : they are valid arguments to Google for banning it

Re: AdNauseam: Browser extension to fight back against tracking by ad networks

#40

Post by teh_klev » Thu, May 30, 2019, 11:53 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #28

chaz6 wrote: post #15

Apart from actual malware, this is the only browser extension I know of to have been blacklisted by Google. If you want to use it in Chrome you have to jump through hoops. For the record, I approve of AdNauseam. I have every right to browse the internet how I choose. My computer, my control. I am firmly against the corporization of the internet.

> If you want to use it in Chrome you have to jump through hoops. Why would a potential AdNauseam user even use Chrome?

Multiple and fully isolated user profiles - hugely important for the work I do. I know Firefox has containers, but they're not really feature complete compared to Chrome's, and the UI experience leaves a lot to be desired, there's just to many friction points.

edit: forgot to also mention, I'm also aware FF has profiles as well (about:profiles) but the implementation has too many speedbumps. As I mentioned in another post on HN, the profile manager needs to be an upfront and first class UI citizen, something hidden away with a fairly poor UIX.