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Almost everyone tech savvy that I know runs an ad blocker and I've installed one for all my family members who aren't. At family holiday gatherings they've even

Almost everyone tech savvy that I know runs an ad blocker and I've installed one for all my family members who aren't. At family holiday gatherings they've even started asking me to "do that thing you do" to clean up their browsers. Regular people are getting very very tired of so many obnoxious ads, and even though they don't think about it much, no one is like "hey, I have WAY to much privacy! I need to give away my data!!"

extra88 9y ago
You're still the exception. I don't use an ad blocker, of my two immediate IT staff coworkers, only one does use one. However, I do do things that mean I see fewer ads, especially obnoxious ones. I spend a lot of my time in RSS feeds, not often venturing to the actual sites. When I do go to those sites, if ads are burdensome, I use Safari's Reader View and I have enabled the "always use" option for a few sites (e.g. The Verge). I'm also on sites like this and Reddit, which is quite ad-lite. I subscribe to one political news site which gives me A) full-text in RSS and B) reduced ads on the site (I occasionally go to the site because the RSS doesn't have images or embedded content).
- packet_nerd 9y ago
  > You're still the exception Depends in the measure, I guess. Recent versions of Chrome have started blocking certain obtrusive ads by default. That's getting pretty mainstream.
  - gcb0 9y ago
    Google is the source of most of those ads. think about it.
forapurpose 9y ago
> Almost everyone tech savvy that I know runs an ad blocker and I've installed one for all my family members who aren't. How do you provide support to them for websites that malfunction due to the adblockers? IME, they often don't recognize that the problem is the adblocker much less have the patience to call me for help - and if they did, I don't always have time to help them when they need it.
- packet_nerd 9y ago
  I install Firefox + uBlock Origin and tell them that if they have specific issues they can hop back to IE. That being said, I'm trying to think, and I honestly don't know that I've ever seen any sites break due to ad blockers (it may be that I'm guilty of not recognizing the source of malfunctions myself). Regardless, the web is a big place and life is short. If a site can't get it right I just move on. Mental bandwidth is a limited resource and (IME) ad-blocked pages consume less overall, despite possible issues. Oh, I have seen the ones that throw up anti-adblock walls. I hate those.
  - zamber 9y ago
    > Oh, I have seen the ones that throw up anti-adblock walls. I hate those. The anti-adblock list in uBlock can help with that. Read the README.md though because it requires a user script too.

extra88 9y ago

You're still the exception. I don't use an ad blocker, of my two immediate IT staff coworkers, only one does use one. However, I do do things that mean I see fewer ads, especially obnoxious ones. I spend a lot of my time in RSS feeds, not often venturing to the actual sites. When I do go to those sites, if ads are burdensome, I use Safari's Reader View and I have enabled the "always use" option for a few sites (e.g. The Verge). I'm also on sites like this and Reddit, which is quite ad-lite. I subscribe to one political news site which gives me A) full-text in RSS and B) reduced ads on the site (I occasionally go to the site because the RSS doesn't have images or embedded content).

packet_nerd 9y ago
> You're still the exception Depends in the measure, I guess. Recent versions of Chrome have started blocking certain obtrusive ads by default. That's getting pretty mainstream.
- gcb0 9y ago
  Google is the source of most of those ads. think about it.

forapurpose 9y ago

> Almost everyone tech savvy that I know runs an ad blocker and I've installed one for all my family members who aren't. How do you provide support to them for websites that malfunction due to the adblockers? IME, they often don't recognize that the problem is the adblocker much less have the patience to call me for help - and if they did, I don't always have time to help them when they need it.

packet_nerd 9y ago
I install Firefox + uBlock Origin and tell them that if they have specific issues they can hop back to IE. That being said, I'm trying to think, and I honestly don't know that I've ever seen any sites break due to ad blockers (it may be that I'm guilty of not recognizing the source of malfunctions myself). Regardless, the web is a big place and life is short. If a site can't get it right I just move on. Mental bandwidth is a limited resource and (IME) ad-blocked pages consume less overall, despite possible issues. Oh, I have seen the ones that throw up anti-adblock walls. I hate those.
- zamber 9y ago
  > Oh, I have seen the ones that throw up anti-adblock walls. I hate those. The anti-adblock list in uBlock can help with that. Read the README.md though because it requires a user script too.