Security knowledge and ethical concerns are two separate things. Whether we like it or not, we pay online creators through private data we must give to entities who will use it against our best interests.
Whaat‽
You mean auto downloading and executing foreign JavaScript in a users webpage from some server/CDN I might not even know myself as an ad company could be an attack vector?
Never!
(This mostly for those people who may not know that some [most? Dunno don't have a source for this] ad networks literally allow advertisers to inject small chunks of html into pages for "more interactive/better ads"!!)
This is a great point I try to convey to my less-technical friends and family. Looking at a webpage is not like changing the channel on a tv of old. Looking at a webpage pulls code from who knows where and executes it on your local machine.
These advertisers expect that I should blindly trust them to execute code on my cpu, in my memory, on my machine? Yeah fuck that, it's a privilege. I don't invite every hobo walking by to come into my house and take a shit in my toilet.
If they don't like that not everyone executes their syphilis-ridden javascript, then they should put their shit behind a paywall. But they won't, since they know they don't have a product worth paying for.
in the first half of 2023 alone, with phishing URLs leading the charge with a 140.7% increase.
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Security Gladiators reports that on average, of every 100 ads that are published, at least 1 contains malicious code.
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A report by Confiant found that in Q3 of 2021, 1 of every 108 ad impressions was highly disruptive or dangerous.
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Safety Detectives’ malvertising report showed that the global cost of malware was $500 billion per year in 2015, but in 2021 that figure cost an average of $500 billion per month.
Yes and that's precisely the point. You can make the decision not to pay and there are good reasons to do so (I do so too) but you must recognise that someone is still not getting paid for their work.
Fuck that. We don't have to give them anything. They need to show they actually have put in the effort to protect their viewers. Until then, I refuse to do anything less than use everything available to me to block their ads. The days of whitelisting websites is over.
I am surprised the reason for blocking ads doessn't include making sites somewhat readable. I guess faster loading could be it? But generally it's more of a layout problem than a bandwidth one.
I tend to not use adblockers, or when I do it's on a black list system for worst offenders rather than by default. However, I absolutely refuse tracking, and if it's the only option I go to firefox reader mode immediately.
The usual false dichotomy of "personalised ads or you're killing us!" is not acceptable.
Ad tech IS the tracking, so if you're not blocking ads, you're not actually refusing said tracking. I think you might be conflating cookies with being tracking (they are), but that's only a part of it.
I wonder why ad tech can‘t be „Let‘s show ads that correspond to what‘s being talked about on that website.“ Kinda like what Google suggested with Topics but without following me through the internet.
There is no real technical challenge in displaying ads that are based on the page content. But ads based on tracking users is much more profitable. Plus they can sell the data collected to anyone else that is interested.
Look, you need to understand that advertisers are Hell-bent on forcibly extracting as much money from you as possible. If they could strap you to a chair, hold your eyes open like in A Clockwork Orange, and then charge you for everything you so much as glanced at, they absolutely would.
If that's not how you want to live, then they are your enemy.
You know i think i understand companies sometimes but then i keep being baffeld at how evil a company can be.
Apple for example had me surprised with the reaction to the DMA and i previously thought that they couldn‘t possibly suck harder wirh alö their anti-repair stuff.
I still have a bone to pick with Tim Cook himself for rendering my well working Mac Mini 2012 unusable for my app development job by simply not updating Xcode and introducing a breaking change that prevented me from adding support for new iOS versions to old Xcode.
I wonder why ad tech can‘t be „Let‘s show ads that correspond to what‘s being talked about on that website.“ Kinda like what Google suggested with Topics but without following me through the internet.
They could be. Sites could talk directly to advertisers, and put the ad directly into the page itself instead of asking the ad server for a random ad. Most ad blockers probably wouldn't notice it because it's part of the actual page.
But then they'd lose out on the tracking data and would be responsible to make sure the ad doesn't annoy the shit out of you, so they're not going to do that.
I use them on my personal systems but not my work laptop. I have to use an ad blocker on my phone because so many sites, including "respected" news organizations, are an absolute mess when ads are enabled.
It's bad when you go to one of the top news company's websites in the US and there's a pile of content covered by advertisements. I guess I didn't need to read those sentences anyway.
I guess faster loading could be it? But generally it’s more of a layout problem than a bandwidth one.
There was a website which I allowed ads on to help support them. One day, I went to that site in my browser and my laptop fans spun up at that time. Turns out that ads on that site caused my processor usage to spike near 100%. A reload fixed the issue. Once that same thing happened 2 to 3 more times, I just blocked all ads on that site from then on.
There are times that people can't throw the resources of an Intel i5 processor towards rendering the advertisements on one website. I would think that is more common these days with Chromebooks running the modern equivalent of a Celeron processor. Phones also don't have much processing power to give and will warm up and drain batteries all towards the all important goal of "render those advertisements".
I think people tend to allow advertising until it becomes a major problem that needs resolved (such as if the site is bogging down your computer or if the advertising makes the site unable to be read easily). Since those people would then need to fix the issue and hopefully fix it for good, it is easy and efficient to just block out all advertising forever.
Asked how likely big companies would be to abuse their data, Americans were most wary of TikTok (59 percent), followed by: Meta (56 percent), X/Twitter (49 percent), OpenAI (48 percent), Google (44 percent), Apple (41 percent), Amazon (40 percent), Microsoft (38 percent), Comscore (32 percent), and Adobe (31 percent).
I'm surprised people trust Microsoft and Amazon more than Apple; Amazon needs all the data they can get on you to build "better" profiles on what to sell you, ties your Alexa requests to feed advertising (you can opt out) and Microsoft, especially with Edge (post advertising and services team takeover) has been trying to send everything to Microsoft to feed both ads and their AI. FFS, even Outlook warns you now that they'll share your data with >800 "partners".
Apple is no saint, far from it, but people trust a conglomerate over it?
They don't need adv, users are locked inside their platform - so they protect their users from the outside while they use them from the inside (in the end not much different from the others)
with Microsoft though its less of a problem for users because that would require you to daily use those applications. not many people that I know of personally use outlook, so they would be unavfevted ny outlook ads when compared to the other platforms, which they physically spend more time in.
I've been using an ad blocking DNS for years and would not consider using the internet without it. Since it's a DNS it works everywhere on mobile or Wi-Fi. I just figured that an ad blocker of some sort is basically a digital condom and must be used. When I see people who don't use one, I think they are crazy.
Both, I use a DNS level ad blocker on my entire network and use UBlock origin on my browser. That way most ads are killed outside of the browsers as well and it keeps my system from contacting malware servers by domain name at least.
Edit: Mind you, most of my apps are open source and have no ads to begin with, but for the few that are closed source. That's what the blockers are for.
Had my boss trying to grab a pdf (crosswords, colouring pages, printed for kids in a pub) while using Chrome without any adblock extensions.
The volume of ads, trick links, and shite on that one website in particular was outstanding. She asked me if a link was OK to click. Promptly pointed out she should use Firefox (which has unlock and other extensions added) instead of chrome as the link she had clicked was for some sketchy software and not a crossword.
I can't imagine the internet without ad blockers. Ublock is a great addition, removing elements from pages is a huge advantage. So many sites sling rubbish wherever they can.
Does anyone ever actually click on an ad? Like "hey thats cool I wanna check it out/buy it right here right now"?
I have adblockers active everywhere and only disable then somtimes for specific sites that really don't work otherwise, but even if the unlikely case would come up that something is interesting I would just look it up separately? Mostly I just turn a blind eye on them anyway, but just wondering, some people gotta really click/buy from these ads? It just seems so surreal to me..
The only obvious ad I've ever clicked on was for a "free" IQ test. I figured I'd never done one cause they're fake, but I had time to kill, so I clicked through. After 20 mins or so answering questions, it ended on a transaction page. The only way to see your "results" was by paying $20. I obviously didn't pay, and instead tried to report the ad, only to discover that Google Ads has zero mechanism to even report scams to Google. After some research, it turned out that this blatant bait and switch scam had been operating via Google Ads for like 5 or 7 years. Google doesn't give a fuck if scammers use it's ad tech to scam your grandma or inject your system with malware, as long as they get paid for the privilege.
I've always used an ad blocker, but the whole experience reinforced how anti-consumer and pro-criminal surveillance capitalism is. Permanent absolute ad block — without exceptions — is how everyone should operate, because none of these companies deserve any trust whatsoever. Even if you trust the site you're visiting, you can't trust any ad company they utilize.
The EU is currently testing a new payment framework that would make payments faster and easier and also enable very small payments.
This could finally enable micropayments in browsers (well, in Firefox and maybe Safari) which would eliminate intermediaries like Google and all the scummy ad companies and enable websites to work out deals directly with visitors on the spot (pay a very small amount like a cent or a fraction of a cent to read this article).
Obviously, Google will need to be dragged kicking and screaming into this.
And yet for content I can be reasonably sure is actually human generated (read: niche enough to not have been flooded to the point I no longer can trust the "usual"/"big" sites) I might consider paying for server costs a little.
The only obvious ad I’ve ever clicked on was for a “free” IQ test. I figured I’d never done one cause they’re fake, but I had time to kill, so I clicked through.
That click should have lead you to a page that says 'you failed'. 😂
If you're walking around somewhere and you see a person or people offering a "free personality test," do not take them up on their offer. They're Scientologists. They once refused to let my mother leave back in the 70s until she said she would start screaming "rape."
My wife does. But she's a sucker for "a good deal"
I dont ever click on them myself, but if I start searching for something I need/want, and I see a brand I'm familiar with thru advertising, I'm more likely to explore their product, at least. Simply just because, "of I've heard of this before"
I know ad rates and metrics are heavily based around click through, but does it even actually matter? I mean, TV ads are big money expensive, and nobody has ever clicked on those. I guess if you're advertising a shitty mobile game or something then it matters, but does McDonalds or whatever even want you to buy a hamburger before you watch a YouTube video? That doesn't really make a lot of sense.
As you've noticed, there are different types of ads. Not all have clicks as their goal. Some are just there to make you think about their brand, for example.
I have ad blockers everywhere, except native mobile apps. I've clicked on an Instagram ad for shirts. I bought the shirts. People keep complimenting me on the shirts. No regrets there
I've personally clicked on Instagram ads and made purchases from them. This has pretty much always been for various events, and I don't really have any regrets there. I've seen some cool plays and gone to parties that I'd never have known about otherwise.
I can't imagine what would ever drive someone to click on a random banner ad though.
Not only did my late father-in-law click on ads, he also clicked on spam emails. Yes, his computer was super slow and I regularly had to clean off the malware.
Sometimes the sponsored links at the top of a Google search are exactly what I was looking for. I just need to quickly disable AdAway so that I can follow the link.
Great ad I saw recently was a Charlie Day Mt Dew commercial. He said one word and a Mt Dew sign dropped over him and he yelled in his Charlie Day voice, "Hey I didn't even take a drink yet!" And that was the commercial.
Ads are just pure negative. There was even one study that calculated this as a direct financial negative, although unfortunately in narrow circumstances: it was calculated that for mobile users in the US, paying for the data transferred to display the ad was more expensive than what the site owner got paid for including it on his site.
Many parts of the Internet has become functionally unusable without one. And given online advertising's history as a vector for malware, as blockers are just the sensible choice.
The main problem is 3rd party advertising. If the New York Times ran ads on their website like they did with the physical newspaper, we would not have this problem.
Publishers need to take direct responsibility for every ad on their platform.
Plausible deniability. Oh, a mildly sexual ad has shown to you? Someone probably approved it on the third-party site. Oh, you didn't want to see it? Sorry, we got nothing to do with it.
