5 ms·

I resisted using an ad blocker for many years; I kinda felt like if I wanted to use a site, I should be willing to trade for seeing their ads. I've changed my t

I resisted using an ad blocker for many years; I kinda felt like if I wanted to use a site, I should be willing to trade for seeing their ads. I've changed my tune a couple of years ago, and this is a (small) part of the reason (but a bigger part of it now that I know how crazy usage for ads has gotten). I'm on mobile data nearly 100% of the time most months. 14GB costs me $50-$70 (depending on which network I'm on, I have two) to download ("unlimited" plans actually aren't, when used as a hotspot, though T-Mobile now seems to actually have a mostly unlimited hotspot option, I haven't tried it yet). So, not only are ads intrusive, disrespectful of privacy, and generally of negative utility for me as a user...they're also ridiculously costly. So, yeah, I use an ad blocker. Oddly, I tried disabling it earlier today for an LA Times article (because of their blocker blocker), but it didn't correctly detect that I'd disabled it, so I closed it and went elsewhere. Now I know I should never disable ad block for LA Times, no matter how interesting the story seems.

excalibur 10y ago
I recently (past year) bit the bullet and began ad blocking myself. My primary concern is the recent proliferation of malicious content through the common ad networks. Supporting websites is great, but not at the expense of your own security.
- noir_lord 10y ago
  I've been using adblockers since they where a thing (and DNS blocks longer than that) since back then you could rely on the adnetworks feeding your malware at some point. I'm trying to think if I've ever clicked an advert on the internet intentionally and it's probably under half a dozen accidentally.
  - andai 10y ago
    I wonder sometimes, with the amount these advertisers know about me, how come they don't know I don't click on ads? It would increase their profits to not target me.
    - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      They do know you don't click on ads. They just show you ads for people who are going for exposure rather than clicks, because you count as an impression even if you can't be used to generate clicks.
      - chiefalchemist 10y ago
        True. But if you've never clicked doesn't that mean something? Even if the goal is impressions wouldn't you prefer someone who has shown to be influence-able over someone who isn't? (Hint: I would de-target non clickers.)
        tripzilch 10y ago
        Yes, if online advertising was strictly a deal between the media (online newspapers etc) and the advertisers. But there's a useless middle-man industry that is the cause of all these problems: the ad-networks. They don't quite care that the impressions are no good to the advertisers, and they care only very little about the brand-damage to the media, caused by malware and bandwidth-waste. Or (dangerous) inconvenience to the consumers. We wouldn't have any of these issues if the media were just to strike deals with advertisers themselves (like newspapers used to) (or maybe hiring out to an advertising agency, but still keep full editorial control, no newspaper would regularly allow an ad agency to inject their content last-minute before press, without any editorial oversight). They would basically just self-host the ad banner, with a click-through link, self-hosted analytics for the advertisers, and everything would be fine. Ad blockers don't block self-hosted banners. No viruses, no malware, not as much privacy risk, no bandwidth wastage. The ad-networks are really bad for all parties involved.
        SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
        What makes you think people who don't click aren't influenced? Repeated spaced exposure seems to have an impact on people, even if they don't think it does.
- wernercd 10y ago
  Obligatory: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/05574633295/forbes-site-after-begging-you-turn-off-adblocker-serves-up-steaming-pile-malware-ads.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/05574633295/forbe...
- matt4077 10y ago
  Maybe we need smarter ad blockers. Publications right now have little incentive to improve their ads with regards to security, readers' resources or quality – because if the LA Times motivates you to install an ad blocker, the NYT is getting hit as well. The tragedy of the commoners, so to speak. If ad blockers would aggressively judge each publisher, ad network and/or advertiser and rewarded good behaviour by showing the ads, I could see publishers prioritising the user experience. I'm pretty sure the publishers and journalists themselves look at these websites with horror, and they'll jump at the chance to regain some quality. The adblock+ model is tangentially similar, but charging the publishers is simply too close to blackmail to be acceptable.
  - bsder 10y ago
    > Maybe we need smarter ad blockers. And maybe we ad purveyors who don't suck. I occasionally do tech support on relative's computers and am appalled by how slow they are without an ad blocker. I'll go even more extreme, if my browsing experience on your site invokes more than your domain and a single CDN domain, you FAIL. If you want to serve ads, you should have to put your resources and the reputation of your domain at risk to serve them.
  - bigbugbag 10y ago
    In other parts of the world they would find who is making those ads and who is in charge of those and burn their houses down or chop them with machetes. Suddenly the number of people willing to produce ads for clients and said clients is dramatically reduced. I'm not suggesting this kind of extreme response, my point is there's no punishment for putting up those ads so there's no incentive to behave correctly and we're stuck in a spiraling vicious cycle. Breaking this cycle and turn into a virtuous cycle requires a paradigm shift and I'm afraid this is not going to happen by itself. Moving away from ads as a business model means wiping out google, facebook and a few others big players so whatever effort to emerge a new business model will be resisted by those who have the power and can burn money for years without even noticing it. Until then I have two solution, the first is a combination of noscript[1] and ublock origin[2] in my browser and the the second is wallabag[3] which for the LAT page given as example gives this: http://share.pho.to/AegpU http://share.pho.to/AegpU [1]: http://noscript.net/ http://noscript.net/ [2]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock [3]: https://wallabag.org/en https://wallabag.org/en and https://wallabag.it/en https://wallabag.it/en
throdowngoblow 10y ago
> I should be willing to trade for seeing their ads. So did you spend time looking at them ads on purpose of guilt???
- Bjartr 10y ago
  No, on purpose of wanting to aupport the creatirs of the content being consumed.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  I think maybe you're reading too much into it. I made no mention of "guilt". I merely stated that I was willing to trade seeing ads (not explicitly taking time to look at them or click them) for free access to content...when those ads were much less intrusive and privacy-invading and bandwidth intensive than they are now. Ad networks have since convinced me that was a mistake, but I feel no guilt about using an ad blocker.
  - throdowngoblow 10y ago
    > I think maybe you're reading too much into it. how could I make that more clear than using ??? OTOH, you use the word trade which does imply guild on both sides
panarky 10y ago
The LAT ads are so fat and intrusive, and their blocker blocker is so infuriating, that I recently just turned off JavaScript completely for their site. It means I don't get images or videos, but I can read the occasional article without going through unnecessary gyrations. It's not that I'm unwilling to pay for good journalism. I subscribe to the New York Times, Washington Post and The Atlantic. But the LA Times has chopped back their newsroom so savagely that they have very little investigative journalism or foreign corespondents anymore. It's just not worth enduring their abusive ads and nagware to read what little content is worthwhile.
- nebabyte 10y ago
  I just use ublock's advanced mode to block scripts. Nicer than having a separate extension to do it (on Safari and like to keep it light) and is more or less a permafix. If (when) it breaks the layout I just click that built-in reader mode thing.
- HeavenBanned 10y ago
  > that I recently just turned off JavaScript completely for their site. I started laughing so hard at this comment. It's so funny to me that someone would go to such great lengths to get the article unmolested. Thought I'd share my two-cents. I love reading HN sometimes. I will try this technique out, you can bet your bottom dollar.
rocky1138 10y ago
For me it's not so much about seeing ads to help support a site, it's the fact that ad companies use all sorts of crazy black pattern ways of tracking you all over the web. It's just not safe to have any ads enabled.
alpha_squared 10y ago
I genuinely do want to turn off my ad blocker and whitelist some sites, but the ad placement and intrusiveness is abhorrent nowadays. And now we have ad blocker blockers, as if that'll solve the problem. I'm in no way entitled to reading the article, but I've since resorted to just blacklisting JS from loading on some websites -- LA Times being one of them.
Niten 10y ago
I happily disabled my ad blocker for the LA Times when they requested it, but I eventually closed the page when they decided to load enough ad content to make my Chrome tab unresponsive on my Xeon workstation. I won't be back. I'm not even really adverse to ads, or to paying for content. (I subscribe to three newspapers, two of them in print.) I just want a browsing experience that isn't terrible.

excalibur 10y ago

I recently (past year) bit the bullet and began ad blocking myself. My primary concern is the recent proliferation of malicious content through the common ad networks. Supporting websites is great, but not at the expense of your own security.

noir_lord 10y ago
I've been using adblockers since they where a thing (and DNS blocks longer than that) since back then you could rely on the adnetworks feeding your malware at some point. I'm trying to think if I've ever clicked an advert on the internet intentionally and it's probably under half a dozen accidentally.
- andai 10y ago
  I wonder sometimes, with the amount these advertisers know about me, how come they don't know I don't click on ads? It would increase their profits to not target me.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    They do know you don't click on ads. They just show you ads for people who are going for exposure rather than clicks, because you count as an impression even if you can't be used to generate clicks.
    - chiefalchemist 10y ago
      True. But if you've never clicked doesn't that mean something? Even if the goal is impressions wouldn't you prefer someone who has shown to be influence-able over someone who isn't? (Hint: I would de-target non clickers.)
      - tripzilch 10y ago
        Yes, if online advertising was strictly a deal between the media (online newspapers etc) and the advertisers. But there's a useless middle-man industry that is the cause of all these problems: the ad-networks. They don't quite care that the impressions are no good to the advertisers, and they care only very little about the brand-damage to the media, caused by malware and bandwidth-waste. Or (dangerous) inconvenience to the consumers. We wouldn't have any of these issues if the media were just to strike deals with advertisers themselves (like newspapers used to) (or maybe hiring out to an advertising agency, but still keep full editorial control, no newspaper would regularly allow an ad agency to inject their content last-minute before press, without any editorial oversight). They would basically just self-host the ad banner, with a click-through link, self-hosted analytics for the advertisers, and everything would be fine. Ad blockers don't block self-hosted banners. No viruses, no malware, not as much privacy risk, no bandwidth wastage. The ad-networks are really bad for all parties involved.
      - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
        What makes you think people who don't click aren't influenced? Repeated spaced exposure seems to have an impact on people, even if they don't think it does.
wernercd 10y ago
Obligatory: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/05574633295/forbes-site-after-begging-you-turn-off-adblocker-serves-up-steaming-pile-malware-ads.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/05574633295/forbe...
matt4077 10y ago
Maybe we need smarter ad blockers. Publications right now have little incentive to improve their ads with regards to security, readers' resources or quality – because if the LA Times motivates you to install an ad blocker, the NYT is getting hit as well. The tragedy of the commoners, so to speak. If ad blockers would aggressively judge each publisher, ad network and/or advertiser and rewarded good behaviour by showing the ads, I could see publishers prioritising the user experience. I'm pretty sure the publishers and journalists themselves look at these websites with horror, and they'll jump at the chance to regain some quality. The adblock+ model is tangentially similar, but charging the publishers is simply too close to blackmail to be acceptable.
- bsder 10y ago
  > Maybe we need smarter ad blockers. And maybe we ad purveyors who don't suck. I occasionally do tech support on relative's computers and am appalled by how slow they are without an ad blocker. I'll go even more extreme, if my browsing experience on your site invokes more than your domain and a single CDN domain, you FAIL. If you want to serve ads, you should have to put your resources and the reputation of your domain at risk to serve them.
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  In other parts of the world they would find who is making those ads and who is in charge of those and burn their houses down or chop them with machetes. Suddenly the number of people willing to produce ads for clients and said clients is dramatically reduced. I'm not suggesting this kind of extreme response, my point is there's no punishment for putting up those ads so there's no incentive to behave correctly and we're stuck in a spiraling vicious cycle. Breaking this cycle and turn into a virtuous cycle requires a paradigm shift and I'm afraid this is not going to happen by itself. Moving away from ads as a business model means wiping out google, facebook and a few others big players so whatever effort to emerge a new business model will be resisted by those who have the power and can burn money for years without even noticing it. Until then I have two solution, the first is a combination of noscript[1] and ublock origin[2] in my browser and the the second is wallabag[3] which for the LAT page given as example gives this: http://share.pho.to/AegpU http://share.pho.to/AegpU [1]: http://noscript.net/ http://noscript.net/ [2]: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock [3]: https://wallabag.org/en https://wallabag.org/en and https://wallabag.it/en https://wallabag.it/en

throdowngoblow 10y ago

> I should be willing to trade for seeing their ads. So did you spend time looking at them ads on purpose of guilt???

Bjartr 10y ago
No, on purpose of wanting to aupport the creatirs of the content being consumed.
SwellJoe 10y ago
I think maybe you're reading too much into it. I made no mention of "guilt". I merely stated that I was willing to trade seeing ads (not explicitly taking time to look at them or click them) for free access to content...when those ads were much less intrusive and privacy-invading and bandwidth intensive than they are now. Ad networks have since convinced me that was a mistake, but I feel no guilt about using an ad blocker.
- throdowngoblow 10y ago
  > I think maybe you're reading too much into it. how could I make that more clear than using ??? OTOH, you use the word trade which does imply guild on both sides

panarky 10y ago

The LAT ads are so fat and intrusive, and their blocker blocker is so infuriating, that I recently just turned off JavaScript completely for their site. It means I don't get images or videos, but I can read the occasional article without going through unnecessary gyrations. It's not that I'm unwilling to pay for good journalism. I subscribe to the New York Times, Washington Post and The Atlantic. But the LA Times has chopped back their newsroom so savagely that they have very little investigative journalism or foreign corespondents anymore. It's just not worth enduring their abusive ads and nagware to read what little content is worthwhile.

nebabyte 10y ago
I just use ublock's advanced mode to block scripts. Nicer than having a separate extension to do it (on Safari and like to keep it light) and is more or less a permafix. If (when) it breaks the layout I just click that built-in reader mode thing.
HeavenBanned 10y ago
> that I recently just turned off JavaScript completely for their site. I started laughing so hard at this comment. It's so funny to me that someone would go to such great lengths to get the article unmolested. Thought I'd share my two-cents. I love reading HN sometimes. I will try this technique out, you can bet your bottom dollar.

rocky1138 10y ago

For me it's not so much about seeing ads to help support a site, it's the fact that ad companies use all sorts of crazy black pattern ways of tracking you all over the web. It's just not safe to have any ads enabled.

alpha_squared 10y ago

I genuinely do want to turn off my ad blocker and whitelist some sites, but the ad placement and intrusiveness is abhorrent nowadays. And now we have ad blocker blockers, as if that'll solve the problem. I'm in no way entitled to reading the article, but I've since resorted to just blacklisting JS from loading on some websites -- LA Times being one of them.

Niten 10y ago

I happily disabled my ad blocker for the LA Times when they requested it, but I eventually closed the page when they decided to load enough ad content to make my Chrome tab unresponsive on my Xeon workstation. I won't be back. I'm not even really adverse to ads, or to paying for content. (I subscribe to three newspapers, two of them in print.) I just want a browsing experience that isn't terrible.