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uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

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Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#541

Post by MagicMoonlight »

plutokras wrote: post #534
jimrandomh wrote: post #282

Eventually, this arms race ends with a computer vision model that looks at the screen, classifies visual elements as ads, and draws a rectangle over anything that looks like an ad. I am significantly less tolerant of ads than average people seem to be. (I think average people are making a horrible mistake about this, and are badly cognitively damaged by ads in ways they don't realize). If my choices are to look at ad…

> Eventually, this arms race ends with a computer vision model that looks at the screen, classifies visual elements as ads, and draws a rectangle over anything that looks like an ad. That would be a killer feature for AR glasses. Imagine no billboards, no political posters, no neon storefront clutter.

[dead]

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#542

Post by davkan »

aanet wrote: post #218

Controversial opinion: This entire thread reads like a game of cat-and-mouse. People trying to block intrusive ads, and FB reaching into the depths of code and making it nearly impossible for anyone to do so en masse. I've been there. Tried to uncheck all the boxes on their ad platform; used all manners of ad blockers, etc; used incognito mode; used Tor; etc. etc. etc. At some point, you realize that the only way to…

Unfortunately it’s hard to replace local groups for me. It’s mostly crap but there is very useful updates there as well and I live in a small enough community there’s no alternative. I’ve used them to get rides, forest fire info, community event info etc.

I used to use marketplace as well but they’ve completely ruined it with shipped products and ads and stuff from too far away. They’d rather show me pages upon pages of shit I’ll never buy because it’s shipped or three hours away than show me just the five results for “dresser” within 20 miles of me. So now i only interact with marketplace through buy/sell groups. God I miss Craigslist.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#543

Post by kikokikokiko »

plutokras wrote: post #534
jimrandomh wrote: post #282

Eventually, this arms race ends with a computer vision model that looks at the screen, classifies visual elements as ads, and draws a rectangle over anything that looks like an ad. I am significantly less tolerant of ads than average people seem to be. (I think average people are making a horrible mistake about this, and are badly cognitively damaged by ads in ways they don't realize). If my choices are to look at ad…

> Eventually, this arms race ends with a computer vision model that looks at the screen, classifies visual elements as ads, and draws a rectangle over anything that looks like an ad. That would be a killer feature for AR glasses. Imagine no billboards, no political posters, no neon storefront clutter.

And some people appearing like flesh exposed monsters with ping pong balls for eyes

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#544

Post by totetsu »

esjeon wrote: post #508

I've just let Claude analyze an HAR file containing XHR traffic on the Facebook timeline. It happily wrote a script for extracting contents, fetch images and videos, and rebuilt the timeline into a single HTML -- highly responsive, with ZERO ads. Now, parry this.

Doesn’t your HAR file have everything an agent would need to send requests to FB as if it was you? I hope it was an aged one.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#545

Post by qbane »

hatsunearu wrote: post #225
qbane wrote: post #128

I wrote and shared uBlock Origin filters for Facebook, shared on Reddit and up to a week later they changed the DOM structure bypassed the filters. After some attempts I no longer publish the filters.

Could you publish it with a license saying it shall not be used by any Facebook employee or something?

It is like prohibiting LLM consumption by putting a small reminder -- never works if done without using weird tricks (like mentioning nuclear weapon) also if they are forging new DOM structure they are NOT using the filter itself

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#547

Post by [deleted] »

inigyou wrote: post #407
RunSet wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This browser extension is so inimical to online advertising Google (world's largest advertising corporation) banned it from the Chrome web store. https://adnauseam.io/ It loads every ad, and clicks them without display them. So the advertiser still pays for the click but the user never sees ads.

Are we sure it actually works? That the ad networks think it's a real click?

[deleted]

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#548

Post by seb1204 »

liendolucas wrote: post #228
aanet wrote: post #218

Controversial opinion: This entire thread reads like a game of cat-and-mouse. People trying to block intrusive ads, and FB reaching into the depths of code and making it nearly impossible for anyone to do so en masse. I've been there. Tried to uncheck all the boxes on their ad platform; used all manners of ad blockers, etc; used incognito mode; used Tor; etc. etc. etc. At some point, you realize that the only way to…

Gold advice. People should get out of there and enjoy more of their free time!

I disabled YouTube app on my phone for the same reason. The shorts stole my time too easily.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#549

Post by snickerer »

Ads are an attack, aimed at your brain. They try to inject malware into your thinking, manipulating your worldview and your actions.

That's horrible, worse than attacking a machine with malware, damaging persons and societies.

Decades of ad propaganda have tricked people into seeing them as something 'normal'. But we shouldn't accept being under constant attack of brain worms.

I propose a sane rule for all humans: if you see an ad somewhere, or if you suspect a hidden ad ('influencers' trying to promote something), close the tab immediately and never return to that site.

Re: uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook

#550

Post by gf000 »

tredre3 wrote: post #487
ProAm wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a small understanding as to how ads work and what they know.

Blocking ads is intended to prevent the ad network from tracking you. But: 1. Facebook already knows everything you see and do on facebook 2. Facebook is the ad network and serves its own ads. Therefore blocking ads on facebook won't prevent facebook from knowing everything you do. GP seems to have a fair understanding of the situation, care to explain why you think it's wrong?

> Facebook is the ad network and serves its own ads.

Well, it certainly replaces valuable data like how long have you looked at a given ad with either nothing, or random noise (e.g. if you draw a rectangle over them).

We are no longer living in 2013 where people posted about everything they do. Sure, plenty people do so still, and our interactions with that (even implicitly like how long we looked at it) is plenty of value in and of itself, but I disagree with the general notion.

The effectiveness of ads is that they can just throw stuff at you and "see" what sticks, without you ever telling a word.

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