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maurycyz.com

371–380 of 388 posts

Re: No adblocker detected

#371
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidentally almost all my trips are already by bicycle, with on foot and with public transport numbers 2 and 3. Unfortunately, since almost everybody uses these modes of transportation here, there actually are ads everywhere still. (Besides the idea of me having to adjust my route to -for now- not see ads being somewhat offensive to me too.)

Do you live here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-TuGAHR78w

I do live in that country, and I have cycled (and walked and trained through) there yes :)

Re: No adblocker detected

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't consider myself/users responsible for solving the broken business model of a big part of the modern web. The problem of ads is not just "I do not like ads", which is also a valid reason imo concerning how intrusive and distracting they are blinking and yelling around and making everything slower, but a matter of privacy and safety. There is no social contract that accepts this. Moreover, I have no way to actu…

> I would not mind if a website detects my adblocker and not serving me the content either. How do you feel about ad blockers continually trying to evade detection, though? Or guides about how to avoid things that block access to users of ad blockers? I think the "you're free to block me for using an ad blocker!" argument doesn't mean much when said ad blockers do their best to not let that happen in the first place.

I believe that if websites actually cared, if adblockers was a big issue for them, they would get to detect when a user uses one, eg by looking at specific parts of the webpage that are not loaded. There are some that do it. Even if it turned out to be an arm's race, it is a socially beneficial one imo, because it could reduce the appeal of the tracking-advertising model, by increasing the cost of keeping it up. But that's not what is going on here.

Personally I don't just block ads, but as much of any third party js/requests I can without breaking a website. Websites do not load any third party js etc by default except from some whitelisted domains. This takes care of a big part of the most annoying things out there. If you do not want to serve me the website if I block this stuff, don't do so, I don't care.

Re: No adblocker detected

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The websites are in their right to try to detect adblockers, and the adblockers are equally in their right to avoid detection. If a website really cares, they can try harder. The goal of an adblocker is not just to block ads, but to block anything that isn't the content the user wishes to see. This includes calls to action, consent banners (despite websites wishing otherwise, the default answer is still "no"), and of…

If you had a switch you could turn on that makes your browser send a header that states you use an ad blocker, and that the website could reliably use to decide to show you nothing (including no ads, obviously), would you use it?

If the websites had a similar switch to make it easy for me to decline being tracked, sure. But why should I care about making it "easy for them" if they do not make it easy for me? So that they make more $$$ more easily?

Re: No adblocker detected

#374
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SomethingAwful forums have this for ages but also newspapers do, too. As do streaming services. Turns out youth don't have much to spend (nor to people generally outside of West), and it stops sockpuppets somewhat.

Those are websites you have to pay, not websites that pay you to use them.

Yep, my bad I misread.

That existed in past. It was a program you had to run, and it would force you to watch ads (while browsing?). IIRC it embedded MSIE. I was still in high school, and my classmate who had cable internet would run this almost 24/7. It made him earn a couple of hundreds of dollars (end of 90s). There were also all kind of hacks to make it not so annoying (because you had to watch it all the time). Eventually, they quit paying.

There's also a TV you can get for free (it being worth 600 EUR?), but it has a camera and watches your living room 24/7 (if the TV is in your living room?). It also has very strict ToS.

Re: No adblocker detected

#375
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence why I qualified that it depends on the details and the jurisdiction. I didn't say it is insider trading, just that you need to be careful to avoid that. > There's no insider trading angle at all Such a blanket statement would definitely be wrong in the UK for example. Insider trading is defined at Section 52(1) of the Criminal Justice act 1993 as: "(1)An individual who has information as an insider is guilty of…

IMO you don't need to be particularly careful to avoid insider trading if you were never at risk of doing it. It's pretty obvious when you have a duty of confidentiality and when you don't (again, in the US). The hypothetical scenario upthread just doesn't have any of the elements. > As an example, if you were an employee of a listed company (not such an unlikely scenario given the capital requirements to pull this o…

Realistically, the vast majority of people don't have a "few million" lying around that they can just casually risk on a huge gamble like this. It's likely you have at least several tens of millions but more likely hundreds of millions before the risk/reward would even come close to making sense (because you wouldn't want to commit most of your resources). The most plausible scenario is therefore something like a hedge fund.

You're reading "you" to mean the reader (highly implausible), I'm reading it as the generic/impersonal "you" (as in "one could spend...").

So sure, there are a tiny percentage of people who might consider doing this themselves and they don't need to worry about insider trading (although we're still pretty close to market manipulation where the sole purpose of the adverts is to crash the share price and profit from that). A much larger percentage of people who might consider such a thing would need to at least examine whether they might trigger insider trading laws.

Blanket statements don't work here.

Re: No adblocker detected

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paid YouTube still shows some ads, so no, it's just a way to give Google some money.

Not ones run by YouTube.

Not sure this is correct. For example: https://vanced.to/posts/youtube-premium-shows-ads-users-conc...

There's also this email from YouTube support: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1gnaetv/paying_to_...

It reads:

> While YouTube Premium provides an ad-free experience for most content, promotional ads can sometimes appear for specific partnerships or limited-time offers. These promotions are often targeted based on various factors, including your location, viewing history, and account settings.

Re: No adblocker detected

#377
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> modern ad networks Ad networks have been that invasive since the early 2000s. They now only support more channels. It is a stone old business and literal the source of Google finances for a very long time.

The first wave of ad blockers are a feature built in to all browsers, and nobody thinks twice about: pop-up blockers.

You are so right. I forgot the old times.

Re: No adblocker detected

#378
post #36

I am extremely insulated from ads online and have been for about a decade. Once in a while I have to browse on a device that does not have an ad blocker or most of the times does not even let you install one. Seeing a website that is SEoptimised and heavily ad supported feels like walking into a crack den. That this is the normal experience for the vast majority of users is sad.

Whenever I open Google's Play Store on Android I get this feeling of walking into some dystopic shopping mall. I hardly ever come there (F-Droid covers all utilities for me, so Google's own app store is really only for official apps from banks, public transport, etc.), so its user hostile design always hits me like a wall of visual noise and clutter. At these moments that feeling that for most people getting bombarde…

I've been using NextDNS since I've seen it mentioned here a month ago or so and it's working amazingly well. Like Pihole but no hassle setting it up.

Re: No adblocker detected

#379
post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Insider trading is about breaching your duty of confidentiality to some other party who owns the information (your employer, some other business you have an NDA with, etc). The owner of the non-public information is fully allowed to trade on it. Pump and dumps are fraud because you lie about the target stock in order to achieve the pump. The lying is a crucial element to make it fraudulent.

> Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company.[1] In many countries, some kinds of trading based on insider information are illegal. The rationale for this prohibition of insider trading differs between countries and regions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading

The context of this thread[1], which you replied to, is specifically the US law. You are wrong on the US law. Wikipedia's general statements about what some countries do is not authoritative or specific to the US.

US law does not generally prohibit insiders from trading. It prohibits doing so only in breach of some obligation to keep that information private[2] ("in breach of a fiduciary duty or other relationship of trust and confidence").

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45178318

[2]: https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-ba...

Re: No adblocker detected

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wanting everyone to play by your rules is selfish and doesn't acknowledge the needs of others. I'm not wanting anything, I'm telling you literally they are playing by my rules. They are requesting to run scripts on my computer. It is my computer. If I say no, then the answer is no. This is merely a request from them. I can abide, and I often will, but I have absolutely no moral, technical, or legal obligation to do…

>No, because that's illegal. But why is it illegal if it's physically possible for you to take it? By your line of reasoning it shouldn't be illegal in the first place. >You are REQUESTING to run advertisement scripts on my computer. That's an implementation detail of how the webpage works and does not matter. You are focusing too much on the way it's implemented and not the high level picture of how it works. If you…

> That's an implementation detail of how the webpage works and does not matter.

Lol, not bending over and letting whoever the fuck run whatever the fuck programs on my computer is an "implementation detail".

> You should just accept that you are being greedy and you will block ads because you don't care if creators make money from ads and want to prioritize having an ad free experience.

This is so, so obviously wrong it's actually frustrating I have to reply to this level of rhetoric.

Once again, I am not your accountant. It is not my responsibility to make sure your business model makes sense.

I don't have the time to babysit and hand hold every corporation in my life and make sure their business model makes sense. I just don't, and it's not my responsibility.

If your business model relies solely on me allowing you to run potential malware on my computer, then that is YOUR problem. Not mine. Figure it out, or don't. Youre always allowed to go bankrupt. Not every business model is viable.

You are not entitled to a viable business model. You are not God. If your business model doesn't work, then you lose. Too bad, so sad, not my fucking problem.

And on the topic of money: running ads on my computer is a computer system security problem.

The FBI recommends running an aggressive ad blocker. The reality is most ads are basically malware and often literally malware. They can be phishing, linking to malicious sites. They can be deceptive. They can be spyware, collecting information about my computer, identity, or web browsing activity.

Google, Meta, et. all have demonstrated they simply do not take adequate steps to prevent malicious advertisement payloads.

You do not have a god-given right to run software on my computer, but you CERTAINLY don't have a god-given right to run malware on my computer.

If you disagree, take it up with the FBI, I don't care.

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