Wondering how much of the Lemmy user base wouldn’t use an adblocker. If you do use one what other blocking do you use to circumvent data collection, YouTube and reddit front ends and things alike?
I don’t block anything. I work in accessibility, so it’s important to me to know what the experiences are like for my fellow users with disabilities. I also don’t want to recommend sites or apps that are riddled with inaccessible ads. I’d rather not give them traffic at all. Though even though I let them track me, I still get ads in a language I don’t speak for cars I can’t drive. What’re they doing with all that data?
So me seeing ads in random languages is not me being clever with identity obfuscation, but big data being big stupid?
And thank you for your work in accessibility 🫡
Apparently! I don’t hide my data in any way, and constantly get ads in languages I don’t speak. Usually French, but sometimes Hindi or Chinese. And as a blind person myself, I’m not sure that my well paid full time job working in large enterprise and big tech accessibility is altruism deserving of thanks haha.
How are you presumably having websites presumably displayed in one language and ads displayed in another language?
I assume it’s because I live in Canada, and big American data just assumes all Canadians speak French. I regularly get French ads on English websites.
Right, thought it was a trick and I was intrigued.
If you presume it, it will come
A lot of people. For many, it’s not even something they know exist. Even setting it up for them is a bother because of the occasional site it breaks, and the complete lack of technical awareness.
There’s also many of us who don’t use a laptop/PC to access the Internet.
I have adblock on my phone ;)
There’s Android browsers with AdBlock. Mozilla is one of them…
firefox and ublock origin works on a phone just as well
I almost exclusively use my iPhone - I have ad blockers on it. AdGuard, Banish, and Vinegar.
Custom dns
Firefox on Android and its many derivatives (I use Fennec) have uBlock Origin as a browser extension.
I know some of family don’t because they mostly rely on mobile devices and devices like Chromecasts where installing ad blockers can be a challenge. They don’t use traditional computers.
They know apps like NewPipe exist but the effort to port things over or not get recommendations is too much for them.
I do use ad blockers and open source front ends/software/alternatives. Ex. AntennaPod instead of Spotify for podcasts and Linux instead of Windows because I didn’t like ads in the start menu (amongst numerous other things).
I’m so proud of my kids who will demand adblockers if something in their YouTube app or their browser is broken. Even though they like to see toy ads now and then. But when they get the amount a regular mortal receives it’s too much, even for them.
I get you. I like receiving honest real reviews for things rather than be advertised to. Let their quality speak for it. I also hate even minor spoilers for movies/TV shows/video game that you see in trailers.
I use uBlock Origin and Consent-o-Matic. Works like a charm!
Consent o matic is a new one for me. Thanks!
You’re very welcome!
One question though.
Can’t you enable a filter list on uBlock Origin that removes all cookie consents?
I think I have it on. It’s under “Annoyances”. Maybe it’s not as good since you have them both?
I’m sure there is, but tbh I don’t know how, since I don’t need it.
The way Consent-o-Matic works is that it accepts all, securely deletes all of it immediately before it can do anything. That way the site thinks you have all of it so it won’t ask again, but you actually get none of it.
All this plus removing the consent- and other pop-ups for you. A few of the nastier pop-ups might be on your screen for a tenth of a second or less as Consent-o-Matic gets rid of it for you, but otherwise it’s like they were never there to begin with!
Does it work better than “I don’t care about cookies”, if you’ve tried both?
Can’t you enable a filter list on uBlock Origin that removes all cookie consents
What what what?!?! Ive used ublock for years and i didn’t know this
What is the difference between that and “I still dont care about cookies”?
That addon accepts all the cookies.
Consent-o-Matic blocks all the cookies.
The biggest thing I miss from seeing ads is knowing what movies are in theaters… And I never think about looking haha.
2 alternatives could be to follow an RSS feeds for trailers or turn on notifications for a movie trailer or review YouTube channel.
That is an excellent idea. Haven’t done rss feeds in a long time.
My mom uses Edge, told me not to block Facebook ads and clicks on most of the clickbait articles on her MSN home page. It’s like she WANTS them to collect as much data to sell and spy on her as much as possible 🤦
You’ll be surprised how many people likes ads, and likes how much they know about you.
I don’t agree, but I can see the logic in that. If you see ads anyway, why not see them specialised to you making them somewhat relevant.
Awful take I know, but it’s the reality for many people.
That’s not necessarily an awful take, to be fair. That is arguably to the benefit of the consumer, that they can learn about products that are relevant to them.
I’m completely disconnected from what new movies and TV shows come out after years of blocking all ads. I can see wanting to change but ads have only gotten more annoying so I have no desire to change yet
Personally, I get actually relevant Instagram ads pretty frequently, particularly for various events that I’m interested in. I’ve seen more than a few shows specifically because I saw an Instagram ad.
I’d naturally prefer no ads, but when they are necessary - and someone does have to pay the costs of running large platforms - I would prefer them to be actually relevant. It’s still ultimately my decision as to whether I buy something or not.
I have AdNauseum on with the “Hide Ads” button unchecked and “leave non-tracking ads alone” option enabled. Privacy Badger is on too to detect tracking scripts.
I can safely ignore ads generally but what I want is to discourage the practice of annoying placements to farm clicks. If they want clicks then they can have as many of my fake ones as they wish.
If you do use one what other blocking do you use to circumvent data collection, YouTube and reddit front ends and things alike?
Firefox on maximum security will get rid of all cookies when you close the window (ie exit from Firefox, not just close the tab). If there are sites that require cookies, you can use Firefox containers to stop it collecting data across other sites).
I do use adblockers but there are sites which deserve the revenue (and don’t bombard you with shite) so I try to remember to whitelist them. But I’m not as diligent about this as I should be. Someone does have to pay for it and we don’t have a decent system to do that without advertising (yet). I can’t subscribe to the eleventy million sites I visit so advertising is a necessary evil (atm). Obviously, denying bad sites the advertising revenue is a public service, so there’s that.
Lady I used to sit next to at work didn’t use an ad blocker. She also would have like the “do you want to install this plugin?” thing open in her ide for weeks. I don’t know how she did it. She’s a software developer so she’s reasonably tech literate. It just didn’t bother her enough to think about doing something about it.
reminds me of one of my coworkers years ago, we all had cubicle desk computer jobs but oh Lord she had so many scribbled on post-it notes stuck all over her cubicle and all over the edge of her computer screen 🤦♀️ She was an older lady close to retirement age.
Some people just prefer post it notes.
I used to use a notepad but now there’s too much going on so I have to use a spreadsheet.
By default I’m using adblocker but when I notice I’m visiting a new site more frequently like wikis for games, I disable it and keep it off if the site is usable.
if the site is usable
Unfortunately most of them are in Fandom so that’s a big no.
I need to start doing this more. I just forget
I haven’t bothered yet because I don’t really frequent the types of sites where the ads get in the way (although my occasional Youtube visits are starting to convince me to use one).
I do use a plugin made by the EFF that blocks certain tracking cookies though.
This certain plugin, is it Privacy Badger?
That’s the one!
If you do use one what other blocking do you productively use to circumvent data collection, YouTube and reddit front ends and things alike?
I use an ad blocker, and in addition also use Pi-hole for network-wide domain based tracker blocking. I use tailscale to use this on my phone, but also have Tracker Control (the real version installed from F-Droid) to do something similar if for some reason I need to disable Tailscale (only one can be used at once, as they both use the VPN method).
I asked a friend of mine about this recently and she told me it was because it helps her kids learn patience.
That got me thinking about it, I personally learned a rather large amount of patience because of ads when I was growing up so it made a lot of sense to me.
Ads growing up didn’t track you all over the internet.
Ads teach people patience? That is the worst justification for ads I’ve ever heard. She’s probably in the advertisement industry so she’s pro-ads.
or she’s not computer literate enough to install ad blockers and too proud to admit her lack of computer literacy.
Holy shit, this is worse than reddit lately. You read an anecdote about a lady, made up her whole life and got angry about what you just made up. Fucking hell.
And as the coup de grâce, their name is LemmyKnowsBest.
Not her whole life, just the argument she was using.
No, they have a point. In hindsight, I definitely can see how the unskipable ads of cable TV resulted in a greater deal of patience. I’d be interested to see a more academic study of it, but anecdotally I definitely can see it.
As long as she doesn’t buy anything they ask for that is coming from ads and tells them that the products advertised are probably the worst of their kind I would be okay with it.
People who aren’t trying.
Because.
My wife, she plays mobile games where you get temporary boosts if you watch an ad.
You both know that good ad blockers let you whitelist some games?
I have 2 tablets, 1 to play the games, 1 to run the ads for those games. (And the ad tablet has nothing else on it)
your wife has too much “free” time
Yeah, she should be spending her time doing much more productive things like shutting on other people’s wives on niche nerd forums.
Care to explain your comment?
I’m going to guess that they do not approve of those games and think that the wife is an inferior person because she enjoys something that they don’t.
