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Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

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Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#531

Post by denkmoon »

onion2k wrote: post #347
alexb_ wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

95% of users have no idea what any of this is.

Developer wages would crash through the floor and all the way down to the centre of the Earth if ad blockers really took off without users also accepting micropayments or subscriptions for web services at the same time. Maybe we should be a little bit glad that the main thing keeping massive amounts of money in tech is accepted by users. The key thing that most people in tech don't appear to grok very easily is that…

>The end of online advertising is an existential threat for a massive part of the tech industry.

Good. Things would be rough for many of us here but it is the better outcome for wider humanity. Advertising and adtech normalise abusive psychological manipulation.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#532

Post by arcticbull »

Terretta wrote: post #207
Larrikin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The experience is so awful when I browse on my iPad, instead of my Android phone with Firefox+UBlock. I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads. The modern web is so much worse than the pop up ads of the old web.

> The experience is so awful when I browse on my iPad, instead of my Android phone with Firefox+UBlock. I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads. Most people don’t. Most people who use anything for iOS tend to use things like: - 1Blocker - super full featured, including custom script and css rules. business model is paid software, not ‘acceptable ads’ paying them for placement or…

> Most people don’t. Most people who use anything for iOS tend to use things like...

Citation needed.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#533

Post by ignoramous »

monopoliessuck wrote: post #362

GrapheneOS has "Network" as a permission you can disable per app like any other permission. This is such an obvious and purposeful omission in stock Android's permission model. I see NetGuard was mentioned in a comment, but if you have Graphene you can just install an app and never let it call home via the App Info permission menu. I do it for Google Camera and Snapseed, the few non FOSS apps on my phone.

> GrapheneOS has "Network" as a permission you can disable per app

Most Chinese OEMs (OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Realme, Xiaomi, Motorola, Lenovo, Acer) ship with per-app wifi/mobile firewall option too.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#534

Post by Nadya »

sam0x17 wrote: post #444
azemetre wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is some massive hyperbole and really makes me consider if online advertising should be abolished or massively kneecapped. Maybe we should ask users for money because the alternative has become some kafkaesque hellscape where people think it's totally normal to have a dozen ad trackers when attempting to buy shoes. These trackers have an enormous costs and maybe their externalities should be taxed and regulated.…

I think online advertising as we know it will be essentially dead by the end of the decade. Because most businesses are paying for google ads, you're basically paying a highway toll for the organic traffic you would get for free anyway, and advertisers haven't figured out the ruse. This whole idea that people search for A and are going to be willing to instead click on B if you put it at the top is super overblown --…

> And when people _are_ shopping around, they search for things like "best vpn providers 2022"

Which coincidentally a number of VPN "review" sites were purchased and the lists "updated" to recommend a certain owner that I'm fairly certain at this point is a honeypot.

https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn...

https://www.techradar.com/news/pc-mag-owner-j2-global-buys-s...

Kape Technologies was formerly known as Crossrider before it was acquired by Teddy Sagi, an Israeli billionaire that has spent time in jail for insider trading. Crossrider itself never had that great a reputation itself, what with their primary product being a development platform through which they were frequently used by third parties to invade ad platforms to serve up malware.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#535

Post by smileybarry »

laundermaf wrote: post #490
smileybarry wrote: post #162

I started using NextDNS years ago and it's been a blessing. Blocks almost every ad on a DNS level on mobile devices, and on PC I still augment it with uBlock Origin. Per-device logs also let me debug connectivity if something breaks, and it's great for mapping local device names without mDNS debugging or some dnsmasq resolver lying around.

I regularly find websites that don’t work until I disable the Adblock, usually on mobile. This isn’t intentional generally. How do you deal with that? Are you just not going to buy a plane ticket on the airline’s website just ‘cause?

Turning off affiliate blocking fixed 99% of those, and the rest I just manually add to my allowlist. It’s not many but if that doesn’t fix quickly then I just switch it off for a minute.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#536

Post by Bedon292 »

hendersoon wrote: post #426
chrisfinazzo wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this reason alone, I am seriously tempted by PiHole's companion, PiVPN. Browsing without this protection just seems crazy to me.

I keep my phone VPN'd to my home network via wireguard 100% of the time, pointing at my AdGuard Home hosts for DNS. This works great, the beauty of wireguard is it reconnects in under a second so it's never annoying. You do need a reasonable upload speed to do this, though. Otherwise I guess you could use an "always free" VM at Oracle or something.

Yeah, definitely thinking about doing something similar. Was wondering about something like Zero Tier as well. I just don't use my phone all that much away from home, so it hasn't been up on the priority list.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#537

Post by yomkippur »

Larrikin wrote: post #18
bloopernova wrote: post #5

Firefox for Android with ublock origin makes my mobile web browsing sane again. Highly recommended.

The experience is so awful when I browse on my iPad, instead of my Android phone with Firefox+UBlock. I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads. The modern web is so much worse than the pop up ads of the old web.

> iPad

there's your problem right there.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#538

Post by yomkippur »

Yhippa wrote: post #165
Larrikin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The experience is so awful when I browse on my iPad, instead of my Android phone with Firefox+UBlock. I really don't understand how most people can stand to browse with all the ads. The modern web is so much worse than the pop up ads of the old web.

It's almost like half the membership here are trying to serve you ads and the other half are trying to avoid them.

Because their soon-to-be-had wealth is tied to serving ads and the rest of us don't want it.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#539

Post by skinnymuch »

hendersoon wrote: post #427
lawn wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they'll still see a ton of YouTube ads.

There are a couple of ways to block YT ads, but DNS-based adblockers won't do it. On Android you can simply install an alternate YT client, boom, job's done. Works on Android TV also. On iOS, the content blocker lists in Safari can block YT ads, but there's no way to block them in Google's YouTube app unless you jailbreak and install a modified app. So just watch YT in Safari.

You can side load YouTube tweaked apps. You’ll have to refresh the app every 7 days without a workaround or dev account but altserver makes it painless after the first time.

Re: Google cracks down on VPN based adblockers

#540

Post by scubadude »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #354
ryandrake wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, Pi-hole is basically just dnsmasq, so you don't actually need a Raspberry Pi and the official Pi-hole software if you already have a Linux box on your home network doing other things. Just configure dnsmasq and you've got Pi-hole's functionality. With custom firmware, your Internet router can host dnsmasq, so you don't even need a separate box (this is what I use).

Yup. I run a PiHole in the cloud so I can PiHole my phone without exposing my home network at all. EDIT: On my phone, I do use Firefox with uBlock Origin, but the PiHole blocks ads that aren't in the browser, or use an app's browser view.

Trustworthy DNS seems so critical to security, I erred on the side of PiHole on a pi at home, self cloud hosting my DNS scarred me a bit.
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