41–50 of 54 posts
It sounds like ad blockers need to work on the os level now and not a browser extension. Just block all requests from the machine to the ips.
It sounds like ad blockers need to work on the os level now and not a browser extension. Just block all requests from the machine to the ips.
They’ll just serve the ads from the same ip as the content then, or even embed it right in the same request as the content.
It sounds like ad blockers need to work on the os level now and not a browser extension. Just block all requests from the machine to the ips.
They’ll just serve the ads from the same ip as the content then, or even embed it right in the same request as the content.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blocking ads for non-savvy/elderly users is definitely a security issue. It's reducing the chance that they inadvertently install malware or fall into a social engineering scam because "Microsoft Support" needs their credit card number to secure their computer.
I was not aware of these scams thanks to using ad blockers and not living in a country that is being targeted that much. A good way to educate elders might be by showing them some scam videos [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm22FAXZMw1BaWeFszZxUKw/vid...
Elderly users wouldn't have fared as well.
This goes hand in hand with IRS phone call "you're going to jail if you don't pay your tax debt" scams. I think there needs to be serious legislation to crack down on these scams.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was not aware of these scams thanks to using ad blockers and not living in a country that is being targeted that much. A good way to educate elders might be by showing them some scam videos [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm22FAXZMw1BaWeFszZxUKw/vid...
My mother is in her 50's and is in between savvy and unsavvy. A few years ago she called me after falling briefly for one of these "Microsoft Support" scams. She had clicked on it because it looked like an error message, and right after she clicked on it, her gut told her that it wasn't legitimate and called me to see what she needed to do. Elderly users wouldn't have fared as well. This goes hand in hand with IRS ph…
In the past few months several services I (used to) use, one of them being paid Spotify, started to crack down on adblockers and anti-adblockers killers. I don't feel this is just a coincidence, together with Chrome changes. I'm pretty happy about this as I want the ad companies to start getting desperate and throwing punches. It's like people won't see how bad the situation is until you they get shit almost literall…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But when ads are so user-hostile that they sometimes include malware, that's when I lose sympathy for the ad-supported web.
Ad networks strive to filter these out, so it's not an argument against ads. Otherwise, you could say let's not use, for example, app stores, because sometimes malicious apps can get through the checks.
Your app store example is a non-sequitur, because users want to download apps. Users in the general case do not specifically want ads.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But when ads are so user-hostile that they sometimes include malware, that's when I lose sympathy for the ad-supported web.
Ad networks strive to filter these out, so it's not an argument against ads. Otherwise, you could say let's not use, for example, app stores, because sometimes malicious apps can get through the checks.
If you want to make an analogy with app stores, visiting a website that's hooked up to an ad network is more like opening the Google Play store, entering a random search, and then clicking install on whatever the first result is. Yes, the web has better sandboxing than Android, but that's still a wild thing for any user to consent to.
When I installed the Play Store on my phone, I wasn't agreeing to give every single app it hosts access to my device. But that's what ad networks essentially force me to do.
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I hate Mozilla pushing their own things almost as much as Google (a screenshot service? I have a keybinding for that, thank you) but this will probably be the straw that makes me jump ship. There's always IceCat I guess. Websites get away with loading files from a ridiculous number of third-party servers and it's pretty frightening when you look at the uMatrix tab for it.
I think Mozilla's privacy scandals are much worse than that screenshot service.