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Firefox on Linux. I use uBlock Origin, Ghostery and Disconnect, and Flash Control. peppercarrot.com is all zeroes for all three blockers, meaning nothing is bl

by a3n 10y ago

Firefox on Linux. I use uBlock Origin, Ghostery and Disconnect, and Flash Control. peppercarrot.com is all zeroes for all three blockers, meaning nothing is blocked because there's nothing noticed that needs to be blocked. There are no Flash Control icons, meaning no video or audio noticed and blocked. Thanks for caring. :) On the front page of theguardian.com, logged in as me, there's a V icon at the top, meaning that Flash Control has blocked video, probably for some gratuitous menu feature. I have zero trouble using and reading the site. When I first opened theguardian a few minutes ago, uBlock was blocking 13 requests. It's steadily climbed in those minutes to 32 blocked requests. Ghostery is noticing/blocking 0 trackers. Disconnect is blocking two: nielsen and comscore. Disconnect is also blocking 1 from Facebook and 3 from Google. All three tools may be seeing and blocking some of the same things. Without these four tools, except for low/no-commercial technical sites and public service sites like wikipedia my web is all but unusable. With them my web is fine. I very rarely have any problems using any site. I had to enable my bank in uBlock to use their popup bill pay feature. I think I had trouble viewing a cartoon at The New Yorker; I forget what I did to view it. Youtube and Flash Control seem to be in a perpetual arms race, as was the case with Flashblock. Youtube is my main motivation for using Flash Control, to prevent automatic video playing. And yep, I get that sites pay the bills with ads. I $ubscribe to three news sites, and I also get that that doesn't pay the whole bill. The web is either going to have to block me for using a blocker (I've been seeing that very rarely recently, or at least "Unblock us please") or figure out a less dangerous, intrusive and loadsome way to serve ads. (And yep, I just made up the word "loadsome." I can do anything!) EDIT: I whitelist duckduckgo.com in uBlock. https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates https://duck.co/help/company/advertising-and-affiliates https://duckduckgo.com/privacy https://duckduckgo.com/privacy

kalleboo 10y ago
Some of the trackers load more trackers - taking theguardian.com as an example again, with Ghostery on it blocks only 6 items. But whitelist the site and after it lets those 6 load, now it finds 18 trackers.
kasparsklavins 10y ago
Not sure if this is a feature of youtube or chrome, but when opening a video in a new tab, it does not play until I have that tab in focus.
- a3n 10y ago
  I think if you're logged in to youtube/google you can set preferences. I'm never logged in because tracking.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
> I use uBlock Origin, Ghostery and Disconnect, and Flash Control. I just have to say, thank goodness for Moore's Law. Without it, we would never have so many wasted cycles![0] [0] Not saying you're wasting, but the fact that we have to jump through sooo many hoops to stop all this crap is just disgusting.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  I see a parallel to our immune system. One of the most complex pieces of machinery in our bodies has the sole function to keep us from getting overrun and taken over by "hackers". When I look at nature as an example I see a way to more complexity in the things we create - because they are not actually completely "designed", instead we let laws of nature govern how they develop, so I think it's not too far-fetched to look at existing nature-designed systems for guidance on predictions about the future of man-made systems. How we operate, a good example using a very simple product: https://medium.com/@kevin_ashton/what-coke-contains-221d449929ef https://medium.com/@kevin_ashton/what-coke-contains-221d4499...
Lev1a 10y ago
IIRC, Ghostery was scorned in the not so distant past for whitelisting sites for money. Is that still the case? Because ever since then I have used Privacy Badger (https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger) which is made by the EFF which I know is financed mainly through donations and in recent years more and more through the Humble Bundle (https://www.humblebundle.com/ https://www.humblebundle.com/) so not financed by companies that would want their trackers etc. in sites regardless of user choice or as opt-out.
makecheck 10y ago
And YouTube curiously will trigger hundreds of blocked requests in uBlock Origin over just a few minutes when watching a video. I can’t imagine why it needs so many continuous “questionable” accesses.

by a3n 10y ago

kalleboo 10y ago

Some of the trackers load more trackers - taking theguardian.com as an example again, with Ghostery on it blocks only 6 items. But whitelist the site and after it lets those 6 load, now it finds 18 trackers.

kasparsklavins 10y ago

Not sure if this is a feature of youtube or chrome, but when opening a video in a new tab, it does not play until I have that tab in focus.

a3n 10y ago
I think if you're logged in to youtube/google you can set preferences. I'm never logged in because tracking.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

> I use uBlock Origin, Ghostery and Disconnect, and Flash Control. I just have to say, thank goodness for Moore's Law. Without it, we would never have so many wasted cycles![0] [0] Not saying you're wasting, but the fact that we have to jump through sooo many hoops to stop all this crap is just disgusting.

Noseshine 10y ago
I see a parallel to our immune system. One of the most complex pieces of machinery in our bodies has the sole function to keep us from getting overrun and taken over by "hackers". When I look at nature as an example I see a way to more complexity in the things we create - because they are not actually completely "designed", instead we let laws of nature govern how they develop, so I think it's not too far-fetched to look at existing nature-designed systems for guidance on predictions about the future of man-made systems. How we operate, a good example using a very simple product: https://medium.com/@kevin_ashton/what-coke-contains-221d449929ef https://medium.com/@kevin_ashton/what-coke-contains-221d4499...

Lev1a 10y ago

IIRC, Ghostery was scorned in the not so distant past for whitelisting sites for money. Is that still the case? Because ever since then I have used Privacy Badger (https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger) which is made by the EFF which I know is financed mainly through donations and in recent years more and more through the Humble Bundle (https://www.humblebundle.com/ https://www.humblebundle.com/) so not financed by companies that would want their trackers etc. in sites regardless of user choice or as opt-out.

makecheck 10y ago

And YouTube curiously will trigger hundreds of blocked requests in uBlock Origin over just a few minutes when watching a video. I can’t imagine why it needs so many continuous “questionable” accesses.