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That's not how things happened. First they came with the blink tag. Then they added animated GIFs everywhere. They came with the pop-up. Then they put the pop

That's not how things happened. First they came with the blink tag. Then they added animated GIFs everywhere. They came with the pop-up. Then they put the pop-up under the main window. Ad-blockers' first usage was to make the Web readable. Then years later privacy concerns took over.

andai 8y ago
At this point, ads are just one of many problems. Newsletter popups, cookie consent (10x worse since GDPR), auto-playing video, in-browser crypto mining..? At this point, basic self-respect demands I simply disable JavaScript. It's incredible how much faster the web is without it, and how much smoother, and how much less cluttered.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  The problem is, the people who shape the web, of which some are on HN, will soon notice that people are just switching off JS to evade their tricks, and will make sure websites are unusable without it. Now the opposite is true, but some already implemented loading loading the text via JS, so you can't just read an article without turning on JS first.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    I just close tabs that don't load without JS. There is so much content on the Internet that I don't mind going elsewhere.
  - zentiggr 8y ago
    And those are sites I don't visit anymore. Push, pull, mess with me, I go elsewhere.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Browsers became the new operating systems at some point. It only makes sense that the user controls the software that runs on them.
- marmaduke 8y ago
  > how much faster the web is without it, and how much smoother, and how much less cluttered I know HN has some JS, but I realized that I usually click on comments link for HN stuff since I know it's going to load super fast and not have a ton of useless crap on the page. If the comments are interesting I might read it, but most of the time there's more information in comments than the article itself. Or people quote the interesting parts. Maybe this is lazy or just the parent-of-two way to ingest tech info over morning cereal
  - deagle50 8y ago
    +1. This is my fav news site for that reason.
  - sevensor 8y ago
    Also, HN works fine with a browser that doesn't interpret JS at all. I usually post from w3m.
  - bogomipz 8y ago
    >"I simply disable JavaScript. It's incredible how much faster the web is without it, and how much smoother, and how much less cluttered." I'm curious is there any practical fallout turning JS off completely? Do you just switch it back on for things like e-commerce, web UI's etc? I always find the context switching to the settings menu a bit of a pain. Do you have some recommendations for things that make JS-free web browsing practical or seamless? Cheers.
    - amgutier 8y ago
      I've attempted to keep whitelists working, but now I just use a separate chrome profile with javascript+cookies disabled that is for random blogs/news sites/etc. If you have 2+ chrome profiles open, there is a menu item for "Open link as > No Javascript" that does wonders.
      - bogomipz 8y ago
        I see, this makes sense. I'm sure there is something similar I can do with with Firefox. Thanks.
- damon_c 8y ago
  > cookie consent (10x worse since GDPR) Traveling to different countries makes cookie consent an amazingly broken thing. Every website needs an "ok" button clicked every time you arrive in a new place. How did we get here? Did people vote for this?
  - pthreadses 8y ago
    I travel quite frequently between the EU and the US and occasionally elsewhere - I've never seen a new OK button when I arrive in a new location. Can you provide an example of this?
  - Reason077 8y ago
    > "How did we get here? Did people vote for this?" Here in the UK we had a referendum on it in 2016. People (narrowly) voted NO to stupid EU laws.
    - AsyncAwait 8y ago
      There are stupid laws, but privacy protection is not one of them. People narrowly voted to bankrupt their economy, that's for sure.
      - Reason077 8y ago
        Privacy protection laws are a good thing. But “cookie consent” pop-ups are stupid and pointless. Pop-ups do not improve privacy, and they make the web worse.
        AsyncAwait 8y ago
        But that's a bad implementation on the part of the site, under GDPR you should have the option to opt-out as well.
        behringer 8y ago
        Why? If I'm a site owner that wants to track where you come from and where you're going, even within my own site, then I have the right to ask you to gtfo if you don't like it. GDPR allows for this.
- fnordsensei 8y ago
  Maybe the consent workflow should be abstracted and standardized, and put into web browsers. Rather than everyone rolling their own workflow (most which are horrible), the browsers could offer a unified way to do this, and a central place to revoke consent. Though it would probably take legislation to make orgs use it. The current workflows have a lot of dark patterns, despite GDPR.
  - jnky 8y ago
    Hasn't this been tried before? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P3P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P3P
    - andai 8y ago
      > Then when a user visits a site, P3P will compare what personal information the user is willing to release, and what information the server wants to get – if the two do not match, P3P will inform the user and ask if he/she is willing to proceed to the site, and risk giving up more personal information.[4] As an example, a user may store in the browser preferences that information about their browsing habits should not be collected. If the policy of a Website states that a cookie is used for this purpose, the browser automatically rejects the cookie. This sounds ideal, or at bare minimum, vastly superior to preferences boxes which take 10+ seconds or more of JavaScript to load, and impede access to content, (and sometimes don't load properly and never go away).
  - laumars 8y ago
    Content owners don't want a standard way because they depend on user apathy, confusion and dark patterns to "trick" users into allowing websites to monetise their consumers data. I say "consumers" rather than "customers" because at this point it feels more like the people buying data are the customers, rather than the actual daily website visitors.
    - fnordsensei 8y ago
      Agreed, which is why it would take legislation for orgs to use it, even if a standard was agreed upon. If it's uniform and learnable, the possibility to trick people shrinks dramatically.
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  And poorly constructed single page applications that 9/10 could have been basic HTML / CSS pages with Bootstrap and maybe minimal jquery.
  - zerkten 8y ago
    > with Bootstrap Why is this even necessary in most cases? We developed sites for years without any of these frameworks and the the latest CSS standards will hopefully make it possible again while staying sane.
- pietrovismara 8y ago
  Don't blame the tool (JS), blame the people who use it to cripple your web experience.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  It is, and unfortunately it's also incredible how much of it simply doesn't work, or fails in obscure ways, without JavaScript. I use NoScript on my personal laptop, and I often have to add sites to the temporary-allow list several times a day. (Please don't say "just don't use those sites, then." I'll use something else if there's an alternative, but there often isn't, and I'm not willing to cut myself off from a big chunk of the web on principle alone.)
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    Which is okay because most sites only require javascript served from 10-30% of the domains listed to actually function. The other 70-90% of domains serving the JS running on your browser are for tracking and monetization. I don't mind JS, but when you go to a Kinja website, 20+ domains are serving up JS that runs in your browser. That's insane; but also very typical.
nkrisc 8y ago
Regardless of how it began, using ad-blocking software today is a security measure to help keep your computer secure from malware. For me that's the primary purpose, the privacy concerns are important to but second to security.

andai 8y ago

At this point, ads are just one of many problems. Newsletter popups, cookie consent (10x worse since GDPR), auto-playing video, in-browser crypto mining..? At this point, basic self-respect demands I simply disable JavaScript. It's incredible how much faster the web is without it, and how much smoother, and how much less cluttered.

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
The problem is, the people who shape the web, of which some are on HN, will soon notice that people are just switching off JS to evade their tricks, and will make sure websites are unusable without it. Now the opposite is true, but some already implemented loading loading the text via JS, so you can't just read an article without turning on JS first.
- adrianN 8y ago
  I just close tabs that don't load without JS. There is so much content on the Internet that I don't mind going elsewhere.
- zentiggr 8y ago
  And those are sites I don't visit anymore. Push, pull, mess with me, I go elsewhere.
adrianN 8y ago
Browsers became the new operating systems at some point. It only makes sense that the user controls the software that runs on them.
marmaduke 8y ago
> how much faster the web is without it, and how much smoother, and how much less cluttered I know HN has some JS, but I realized that I usually click on comments link for HN stuff since I know it's going to load super fast and not have a ton of useless crap on the page. If the comments are interesting I might read it, but most of the time there's more information in comments than the article itself. Or people quote the interesting parts. Maybe this is lazy or just the parent-of-two way to ingest tech info over morning cereal
- deagle50 8y ago
  +1. This is my fav news site for that reason.
- sevensor 8y ago
  Also, HN works fine with a browser that doesn't interpret JS at all. I usually post from w3m.
- bogomipz 8y ago
  >"I simply disable JavaScript. It's incredible how much faster the web is without it, and how much smoother, and how much less cluttered." I'm curious is there any practical fallout turning JS off completely? Do you just switch it back on for things like e-commerce, web UI's etc? I always find the context switching to the settings menu a bit of a pain. Do you have some recommendations for things that make JS-free web browsing practical or seamless? Cheers.
  - amgutier 8y ago
    I've attempted to keep whitelists working, but now I just use a separate chrome profile with javascript+cookies disabled that is for random blogs/news sites/etc. If you have 2+ chrome profiles open, there is a menu item for "Open link as > No Javascript" that does wonders.
    - bogomipz 8y ago
      I see, this makes sense. I'm sure there is something similar I can do with with Firefox. Thanks.
damon_c 8y ago
> cookie consent (10x worse since GDPR) Traveling to different countries makes cookie consent an amazingly broken thing. Every website needs an "ok" button clicked every time you arrive in a new place. How did we get here? Did people vote for this?
- pthreadses 8y ago
  I travel quite frequently between the EU and the US and occasionally elsewhere - I've never seen a new OK button when I arrive in a new location. Can you provide an example of this?
- Reason077 8y ago
  > "How did we get here? Did people vote for this?" Here in the UK we had a referendum on it in 2016. People (narrowly) voted NO to stupid EU laws.
  - AsyncAwait 8y ago
    There are stupid laws, but privacy protection is not one of them. People narrowly voted to bankrupt their economy, that's for sure.
    - Reason077 8y ago
      Privacy protection laws are a good thing. But “cookie consent” pop-ups are stupid and pointless. Pop-ups do not improve privacy, and they make the web worse.
      - AsyncAwait 8y ago
        But that's a bad implementation on the part of the site, under GDPR you should have the option to opt-out as well.
        behringer 8y ago
        Why? If I'm a site owner that wants to track where you come from and where you're going, even within my own site, then I have the right to ask you to gtfo if you don't like it. GDPR allows for this.
fnordsensei 8y ago
Maybe the consent workflow should be abstracted and standardized, and put into web browsers. Rather than everyone rolling their own workflow (most which are horrible), the browsers could offer a unified way to do this, and a central place to revoke consent. Though it would probably take legislation to make orgs use it. The current workflows have a lot of dark patterns, despite GDPR.
- jnky 8y ago
  Hasn't this been tried before? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P3P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P3P
  - andai 8y ago
    > Then when a user visits a site, P3P will compare what personal information the user is willing to release, and what information the server wants to get – if the two do not match, P3P will inform the user and ask if he/she is willing to proceed to the site, and risk giving up more personal information.[4] As an example, a user may store in the browser preferences that information about their browsing habits should not be collected. If the policy of a Website states that a cookie is used for this purpose, the browser automatically rejects the cookie. This sounds ideal, or at bare minimum, vastly superior to preferences boxes which take 10+ seconds or more of JavaScript to load, and impede access to content, (and sometimes don't load properly and never go away).
- laumars 8y ago
  Content owners don't want a standard way because they depend on user apathy, confusion and dark patterns to "trick" users into allowing websites to monetise their consumers data. I say "consumers" rather than "customers" because at this point it feels more like the people buying data are the customers, rather than the actual daily website visitors.
  - fnordsensei 8y ago
    Agreed, which is why it would take legislation for orgs to use it, even if a standard was agreed upon. If it's uniform and learnable, the possibility to trick people shrinks dramatically.
giancarlostoro 8y ago
And poorly constructed single page applications that 9/10 could have been basic HTML / CSS pages with Bootstrap and maybe minimal jquery.
- zerkten 8y ago
  > with Bootstrap Why is this even necessary in most cases? We developed sites for years without any of these frameworks and the the latest CSS standards will hopefully make it possible again while staying sane.
pietrovismara 8y ago
Don't blame the tool (JS), blame the people who use it to cripple your web experience.
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
It is, and unfortunately it's also incredible how much of it simply doesn't work, or fails in obscure ways, without JavaScript. I use NoScript on my personal laptop, and I often have to add sites to the temporary-allow list several times a day. (Please don't say "just don't use those sites, then." I'll use something else if there's an alternative, but there often isn't, and I'm not willing to cut myself off from a big chunk of the web on principle alone.)
- mywittyname 8y ago
  Which is okay because most sites only require javascript served from 10-30% of the domains listed to actually function. The other 70-90% of domains serving the JS running on your browser are for tracking and monetization. I don't mind JS, but when you go to a Kinja website, 20+ domains are serving up JS that runs in your browser. That's insane; but also very typical.

nkrisc 8y ago

Regardless of how it began, using ad-blocking software today is a security measure to help keep your computer secure from malware. For me that's the primary purpose, the privacy concerns are important to but second to security.