If large websites respected our choices regarding ads (DNT is a decade old, people!) and served contextual ads when asked to not track, we would not need to use #AdBlockers.
Instead, for over a decade now web publishing industry's been hell bent on screwing readers over, ignoring clearly stated preferences, misrepresenting what they do with the data, and using dark patterns to maliciously mis-implement legal requirements when forced to do so.
I use tracker blockers. The fact that the trackers and the ads go hand-in-hand is not my problem to solve, and as soon as "They" start using non-invasive contextual ads, I'll be happy to ignore them the old-fashioned way, like we did in the 20th century.
@WagesOf@rysiek DNT was always an assure non-solution that everyone always knew wouldn’t work and that advertisers loved agreeing to as they could use it as a marketing datapoint.
I still last turn it on- but that’s more to be vaguely annoying than anything else.
@mori@WagesOf sure. But it's also a setting that is out there, is a standard, is well understood, and we can show that advertisers and web publishers outright ignore it.
That's also a valuable datapoint.
"Oh you value my privacy? Respect my clearly stated and communicated preference then."
@rysiek the amount of trust advertises would need to build up for me to do that is enormous. Certainly for established players with a track record, pun coincidental.
The Great Adblocker Debate is an offshoot of the question “whose agent is the browser”.
We are being conditioned to think that the browser is the agent of the remote service controlling our computers.
Take the “cookie laws” as an example. We're told that a website must “ask our permission before it saves a cookie in the browser”, as if otherwise the browser is by default under website's control. This is backwards.
The adblocker is a statement, a remider that what we're doing on the web is actually requesting some data and then using a tool to show it us.
@rysiek I resisted using an adblocker for as long as possible, but without it, much of the internet is now unusable. I'm simply not going to sit there and wait for multiple adverts to load, just to read a short article! And on mobile, it's my mobile data plan they're using for all those irrelevant autoplay video ads
@andycarolan@rysiek I thought the modern internet is broken beyond repair. Then I forgot to import my Firefox profile on a freshly installed OS. I refuse to believe, that there are people using internet without uBlock Origin. Even then a lot of sites are bloated. I'll probably go on a rant about this soon...
@PiTau@andycarolan@rysiek After Firefox reinstallation, when I didn't have any plugins, I received some YT links from friend. Opened them... And almost immediately I started to swear and wanted to throw my laptop out through the window. It is absolutely unbearable.
@PiTau The internet is very broken now. Search for one is a joke. Sponsored and irrelevant content regularly appears before relevant results. Search should have been immune to manipulation by companies and individuals... but here we are. @rysiek
@andycarolan@rysiek Hmm, you seem to have scrolled away from the video to the actual article. I'm sure you meant to keep watching it in picture-in-picture mode so it covers up the text. I'll just freeze the whole page while that loads for you.
@markusl I had never considered accessibility, but yes I completely agree. It's a confusing place now with every article reduced to a postage stamp sized frame, flanked by adverts on all sides. And if you click somewhere you didn't mean to... BOOM, you’ve opened a fresh tab to a sponsor's site with it's own agenda! @aburka@rysiek
@andycarolan and even if you clicked where you meant to — on a link for example — boom, the link opens in a separate tab and you suddenly find yourself on Booking-dot-com.
@andycarolan Indeed. For many years I insisted to myself and others that ads were the cost of free content and if you wanted content to continue to be free you should should be willing to put up with the ads.
Then I found out just how privacy-invasive the whole AdTech industry is.
Now I use ad-blockers everywhere I possibly can.
If they aren't going to be civil, then neither am I.
@rysiek Respecting DNT is nowhere near sufficient. They absolutely must stop displaying unvetted ads, especially accompanied by code provided by sketchy third parties, which are a prime channel for browser vulns and wetware vulns. Only zero-code ads vetted as non-scammy and non-hate-inciting by their ad departments (lol that used to be a thing) are anywhere near acceptable.
@rysiek I think I'd use an adblocker anyway, to disable those annoying autoplaying videos (that I pay when I'm not on wifi). But in 2023, I think that using an adblocker is a form of self defense
@rysiek ~20% of my DNS requests are currently blocked (ads, tracking...). I tried to disable my adblocker but some websites are overrun with ads. So I am keeping my adblocker activated on all my devices (computers, smartphones...) #AdBlocker#Internet#Browsing#Safe
@rysiek even if they did all that, id never have it disabled because from the moment they were able to do so, ads and ad serving networks were in the practice of executing code that the site owner hadn't audited and had no idea what it was doing. Chew through enough trojans and browser hijacks and you learn your lesson
@rysiek All that, plus ads for actual malware. Where the first sponsored link in a Google search points to a site that will trash your system and steal stuff from you.
At this point, ad blockers are basic infosec, right up there with not reusing passwords.
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