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I run a Pi-hole (mostly for my phone and paired with OpenVPN and iOS/MacOS content blockers) and run into the same "problem". My advice is to stop patronizing

by Boxbot 8y ago

I run a Pi-hole (mostly for my phone and paired with OpenVPN and iOS/MacOS content blockers) and run into the same "problem". My advice is to stop patronizing those sites at all. Just like paywalled articles linked on HN, just stop visiting. Seriously, just stop. It's the only way we're going to move to something less damaging and invasive than the current ad/data economy. I should note that I do pay quite a lot for journalism and art via subscriptions, Patreon, Kickstater, etc, but I'm not going to tolerate sites clogging up search results with paywalled articles or piles of tracking scripts and media downloads.

icelancer 8y ago
This is completely untenable advice to give family that shares your Internet connection, which the OP clearly pointed out.
- w0utert 8y ago
  Why? I've been running pi-hole on the home network for over 2 years already, and indeed sometimes I get complaints about shopping sites not working, but there is always an alternative site that does work so we order there instead. Just last week it even saved us money because it turned out a different site had the same product at a significantly lower price. Apart from a few non-important edge cases literally every major site works without problems with a pi-hole. I think 'simply stop using sites that refuse to work unless they can track you' is a very valid and workable solution.
throwawayboi 8y ago
> Just stop. As long as there is an economic incentive to serve ads, and as long as 99% of people don’t care (and trust me, normal people absolutely do not care like HN cares), nothing will happen, just like nothing has BEEN happening. We need a GDPR-like bill in the US, and we need it yesterday. Stop relying on the “market”. Stop relying on regular people. This problem is bigger than just “stop visiting those sites”, just like climate change is bigger than just “stop using gasoline”.

by Boxbot 8y ago

icelancer 8y ago

This is completely untenable advice to give family that shares your Internet connection, which the OP clearly pointed out.

w0utert 8y ago
Why? I've been running pi-hole on the home network for over 2 years already, and indeed sometimes I get complaints about shopping sites not working, but there is always an alternative site that does work so we order there instead. Just last week it even saved us money because it turned out a different site had the same product at a significantly lower price. Apart from a few non-important edge cases literally every major site works without problems with a pi-hole. I think 'simply stop using sites that refuse to work unless they can track you' is a very valid and workable solution.

throwawayboi 8y ago

> Just stop. As long as there is an economic incentive to serve ads, and as long as 99% of people don’t care (and trust me, normal people absolutely do not care like HN cares), nothing will happen, just like nothing has BEEN happening. We need a GDPR-like bill in the US, and we need it yesterday. Stop relying on the “market”. Stop relying on regular people. This problem is bigger than just “stop visiting those sites”, just like climate change is bigger than just “stop using gasoline”.