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Isn't the more practical and impactful option not patronizing services/apps that rely on advertising to raise revenue?

scarface74 8y ago
Are you willing to give up Google, StackOverflow, and almost every website on the Internet? What about Android itself? The entire reason for Android's existence is for Google to make money on advertising.
- lern_too_spel 8y ago
  And yet on Android, you can easily install a systemwide adblocker, while on iOS you need to jailbreak or reinstall every seven days. iOS is user hostile, and I'm constantly surprised that anybody who is a developer would willingly use it.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    If by "easily" you mean use a third party app store that most people aren't going to use and now you have one central app that has your entire data usage history to sell to the highest bidder....
    - lern_too_spel 8y ago
      > If by "easily" you mean use a third party app store that most people aren't going to use Whether most people will use it or not is not relevant to how easy it is. Just go to https://f-droid.org https://f-droid.org, click the download button, click on the downloaded notification, and follow the prompts. > and now you have one central app that has your entire data usage history to sell to the highest bidder.... The apps on fdroid are open source and use a reproducible build system.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        you can easily install a systemwide adblocker So now "easily" has turned into going to a third party App Store and either blindly trusting an app wont surreptitiously store and forward all of your data or either trusting that someone else has audited the code or audit the code yourself and to be doubly sure, build the code yourself.
        lern_too_spel 8y ago
        >So now "easily" has turned into going to a third party App Store and either blindly trusting an app wont surreptitiously store and forward all of your data or either trusting that someone else has audited the code or audit the code yourself and to be doubly sure, build the code yourself. The thing with open source reproducible builds of popular software is that somebody else has already done that verification, so you don't have to do anything. That's how easy it is. To get the same level of assurance on an iOS device, you would have to reverse engineer the app binary. Of course, it's not even possible to begin with because Apple doesn't allow system-wide adblockers at all.
        scarface74 8y ago
        How well did that "open source reassurance" work for finding the security vulnerability that led to HeartBleed? The vulnerability went undiscovered for 1.5 years?
        lern_too_spel 8y ago
        Much better than the lack of open source vetting that led to Xcodeghost and "goto fail."
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  "Are you willing to give up Google, StackOverflow, and almost every website on the Internet?" I mean, if enough people are dodging ads, and the site can't make any money, you'd be going without anyway. "What about Android itself? The entire reason for Android's existence is for Google to make money on advertising." Then why are you using it? Let me turn this on you: Why do you feel you shouldn't be paid for your work?
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I was responding to Isn't the more practical and impactful option not patronizing services/apps that rely on advertising to raise revenue? Then why are you using it? Let me turn this on you: Why do you feel you shouldn't be paid for your work I am not using Android, I buy products where the value proposition is simple -- I give Apple money and they give me stuff. Neither my computer or phone has third party crapware and my computer doesn't look like a NASCAR car with dozens of stickers you can't remove.

Are you willing to give up Google, StackOverflow, and almost every website on the Internet? What about Android itself? The entire reason for Android's existence is for Google to make money on advertising.

lern_too_spel 8y ago
And yet on Android, you can easily install a systemwide adblocker, while on iOS you need to jailbreak or reinstall every seven days. iOS is user hostile, and I'm constantly surprised that anybody who is a developer would willingly use it.
- scarface74 8y ago
  If by "easily" you mean use a third party app store that most people aren't going to use and now you have one central app that has your entire data usage history to sell to the highest bidder....
  - lern_too_spel 8y ago
    > If by "easily" you mean use a third party app store that most people aren't going to use Whether most people will use it or not is not relevant to how easy it is. Just go to https://f-droid.org https://f-droid.org, click the download button, click on the downloaded notification, and follow the prompts. > and now you have one central app that has your entire data usage history to sell to the highest bidder.... The apps on fdroid are open source and use a reproducible build system.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      you can easily install a systemwide adblocker So now "easily" has turned into going to a third party App Store and either blindly trusting an app wont surreptitiously store and forward all of your data or either trusting that someone else has audited the code or audit the code yourself and to be doubly sure, build the code yourself.
      - lern_too_spel 8y ago
        >So now "easily" has turned into going to a third party App Store and either blindly trusting an app wont surreptitiously store and forward all of your data or either trusting that someone else has audited the code or audit the code yourself and to be doubly sure, build the code yourself. The thing with open source reproducible builds of popular software is that somebody else has already done that verification, so you don't have to do anything. That's how easy it is. To get the same level of assurance on an iOS device, you would have to reverse engineer the app binary. Of course, it's not even possible to begin with because Apple doesn't allow system-wide adblockers at all.
        scarface74 8y ago
        How well did that "open source reassurance" work for finding the security vulnerability that led to HeartBleed? The vulnerability went undiscovered for 1.5 years?
        lern_too_spel 8y ago
        Much better than the lack of open source vetting that led to Xcodeghost and "goto fail."
s73v3r_ 8y ago
"Are you willing to give up Google, StackOverflow, and almost every website on the Internet?" I mean, if enough people are dodging ads, and the site can't make any money, you'd be going without anyway. "What about Android itself? The entire reason for Android's existence is for Google to make money on advertising." Then why are you using it? Let me turn this on you: Why do you feel you shouldn't be paid for your work?
- scarface74 8y ago
  I was responding to Isn't the more practical and impactful option not patronizing services/apps that rely on advertising to raise revenue? Then why are you using it? Let me turn this on you: Why do you feel you shouldn't be paid for your work I am not using Android, I buy products where the value proposition is simple -- I give Apple money and they give me stuff. Neither my computer or phone has third party crapware and my computer doesn't look like a NASCAR car with dozens of stickers you can't remove.