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Modern ad networks are essentially the “fax machine flyers” of old: someone you don’t know using your resources and your time, denying you use of your own resou
by makecheck 6y ago
Modern ad networks are essentially the “fax machine flyers” of old: someone you don’t know using your resources and your time, denying you use of your own resources temporarily, to send you something you don’t want. Except now it’s like every “normal” fax page includes 15,000 flyers.
- andai 6y agoSome pages don't let you "Reject All" cookies, you have to uncheck them one by one, and there's literally hundreds of ad networks listed. It's spooky, I tell ya!
- grishka 6y agoUse your browser settings to block third-party cookies altogether. And, better yet, install uBlock Origin and never see an ad again.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- boogies 6y agoDoesn’t Google grant itself first-party status by redirecting you through an advertisement domain? µBlock definitely is the king of ad blocking extensions — only the fork AdNauseam (https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/) can compete, and that’s by both blocking ads and fighting back with obfuscating click simulation.
- CameronNemo 6y agoHmm. I think it would be better if the extension clicked randomly rather than clicked on all ads. That would cause the numbers to be much harder to interpret, and ad agencies or departments would have a much harder time measuring their efficacy or justifying their existence.
- boogies 6y agoMe too, and it provides a slider for the percentage to click that I kept below 100 when I used it (now I use Palemoon, which doesn’t support WebExtensions, and I use /etc/hosts).
- valvar 6y agoYou can change the click frequency in the settings. I guess it would be better to make that setting a part of the splash page that shows up on installation, though, as otherwise many will miss it.
- iso1631 6y ago> ad agencies or departments would have a much harder time measuring their efficacy or justifying their existence. 50% of adverts are a waste of money, the problem for people wanting to advertise is nobody knows which 50%
- michaelmior 6y ago> never see an ad again I wish that were true. Although uBlock Origin does a good job, some ads definitely still make it through. There are also some sites that detect ad blockers and refuse to let you in unless you disable it. There are workarounds for some of these, but it's still a bit of a mess.
- emayljames 6y agoI agree, although to add, uBlock Origin has an 'annoyances' list that does a pretty good job of stopping detectors.
- michaelmior 6y agoThanks for the reminder that I hadn't enabled this in my current browser :)
- sbarre 6y agoIf a website doesn't let me in because I use an ad blocker, I respect their decision and I leave the site and find what I need elsewhere. I have yet to come across a site that offered something so unique or compelling that I decided to turn off my ad blocker to use it.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- grishka 6y ago> There are also some sites that detect ad blockers and refuse to let you in unless you disable it. That, and when there's an email subscription popup, is when the one-click JS toggle extension comes out. Can't detect anything if it can't run any code in your browser.
- michaelmior 6y agoIt can "detect" if JS is disabled (by loading content via JS) so this doesn't always work.
- beders 6y agoPlease don't. Unless you are willing to pay for the services you are using for free now, ads is what keeps them "free". You can object to being targeted based on your browsing habits, but don't stop ads altogether.
- ihsw 6y agoAd networks had their chance, it's done now.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoEh, I get where you're coming from, but no. The ad industry is insidious and has exploited every means possible to hijack the user's attention: pop-ups, flashing banners, auto-playing videos with sound, inline ads that reflow what you're reading after they take way too long to load, extensions that insert ads, paying ISPs to insert ads, talking to Alexa through your TV... There is no level these people will not stoop to, and we're sick of their shit. They brought this on themselves.
- grishka 6y agoIt's my device and it's my choice what it's allowed to load and display to me. It's not my responsibility to make sure someone who provides their service for free earns money from shitting into my brain. Implied contracts aren't a thing for me. If you want to make sure you get paid for your service, put up a paywall.
- gpvos 6y agoToo late. They had their chance and blew it.
- Justsignedup 6y agothis. this is the way i solve this. They can use all the cookies they want, ublock tends to just eliminate all of it. Overall FF has been incredibly user friendly making all sort of plugins that focus on privacy possible, while Chrome has been as hostile to it as possible.
- at-fates-hands 6y agoUnless you get the pop-up from the site that says, "We see you're using an ad blocker. You need to turn it off in order to access our site." Along with some marketing drivel about how its important advertisers get their ad revenue.
- grishka 6y agoThis is when you revoke that website's privilege to run arbitrary Turing-complete code in your browser because it didn't use it wisely.
- tomjen3 6y agoSites can set as many cookies as they want. I have installed temporary containers (that is a Firefox only feature sadly), 15 minutes after I close the last tab in that group all those cookies are automatically deleted. Each tab group then has its own cookie container, so I can have multiple groups open and they don't share anything - I can login to different google (or any other service) accounts in different contains and it works like I want it to. For the sites that I want to use logged in, I either create a special container for that site only, or I just use a password manager to log me in each time I need to visit it. The added privacy is great, the peace of mind in just clicking I agree is great.
- novaRom 6y agoHow do you circumvent browser fingerprinting? If every container has the same user agent, canvas, screen resolution, JS benchmark test results, etc. then no matter what but you are uniquely identified, bingo! I really feel today having different devices with different browsers, connected to different providers is only working solution.
- jkochis 6y agoI seem to always have this handy snippet in my dev tools history: document.querySelectorAll('input[type=checkbox]').forEach(el => el.removeAttribute('checked'))
- anko 6y agohttps://github.com/oblador/hush https://github.com/oblador/hush if you use safari :) Basically the regulations say that if a user doesn't respond to this popup, by default all the cookies are rejected except the ones the site needs. This app hides the popup :)
- mstade 6y agoI wonder how many people reading this comment are thinking, "what's a fax machine?" :o) I like the analogy, but I wonder how effective it is on anyone under the age of what, 35?
- zxexz 6y agoYou might be surprised how many of us under-35s still have to use Fax machines on a regular basis ;)
- castwide 6y agoEspecially anyone who works in law, government, banking, or healthcare.
- PeterStuer 6y agoor Microsoft
- yakubin 6y agoCounts as government.
- TheRealDunkirk 6y agoI love that some of the most-sensitive information users are the ones hanging on to a completely-unsecured transmission method. Sure, tell me again about all those HIPAA and SOX requirements when we still have fax machines.
- pwg 6y agoYou have to keep in mind the time when these requirements to "use fax" for security came about. There was a single telephone company (or it was shortly after there were plural "baby-bells") and the telephone network was a completely private, isolated, network that only the phone company (or baby-bells) even had access to. It was also a network that was heavily regulated such that the possibility of a random attacker from half a world away being able to tap into a phone call as it happened simply did not exist. In that environment, placing a phone call was considered "secure" (or at least as secure as network isolation and regulation could cause it to become [I'm ignoring NSA style 'state secret' taps, those have likely always been available to NSA style agencies]). So it would have been seen, at that time, as reasonable to use fax machines for document exchange, because the "phone network" was considered to be secure against having a man-in-the-middle tapping off one's communications. Wind the clock forward thirty years, and have the once isolated and highly regulated telephone network more or less become just another packet protocol on the general Internet, and the choice of using "fax" for secure document exchange sounds ludicrous. The issue is that the regulations those environments operate under have not been updated in the ensuing thirty years to account for the fact that "phone network" is no longer the once isolated, mostly secure, network it once was. And if the regulations don't get updated, no lowly clerk at the front lines is going to lose their job by _not_ using the comm. system called for by the regulations.
- notsureaboutpg 6y agoThere's a huge difference though, people didn't use fax machines to access loads of quality content for free. Things aren't free, but the Internet makes us feel like those things are, and then when the creators of the content we consume for free attempt to receive their pay, we call ad networks shady and shifty and cheating. There are huge problems with ad networks, but they are feeding and providing for lots and lots of content creators in a way we, as the general public, aren't willing to do. Complex situation with complex answers...
- sunnytimes 6y agoi started working at a place that would get stacks of flyers across the fax machine every day , they would just toss them in the recycling bin all the while wasting tons of paper and ink .. i started calling all the removal numbers and got it down to zero .. they thought the fax machine was broken haha.
- adrr 6y agoIf people didn’t want ads it wouldn’t be a multi billion business. Also your analogy is wrong. Your browser won’t execute code unless it requests it. Fax machine spam you don’t have do anything except have it connected to a live telephone connection. It’s more like complaining that your sole of your shoes is being worn out more because grocery stores put the milk in the back forcing you to walk past items you don’t intend to buy. You can always go to a different store just like you no one is forcing you to browse websites that are ad supported.
- mola 6y agoPeople don't want adds. how do you infer that people want ads because the ad industry is profitable? It's profitable because a few people want to influence and spy on a lot of people. Most people don't want ads they just tolerate them for getting actual services. Most these people don't even know how much tracking is involved and how nefarious this industry really is.
- adrr 6y agoWhy do they work? Why can I go start a business and scale it to millions of paying customers by using ads?
- zentiggr 6y agoBecause there are businesses and politicians willing to pay through the nose to get their message in front of those that they want to influence, and you are then the middleman that gets our irritation and ad blockers and pushback for contributing to the proliferation of the most invasive, unscrupulous segment of our entire society.
- layoutIfNeeded 6y agoBecause you’re infecting people with mind-viruses to force them to buy your crap. Advertising is about exploiting human psychology, taking advantage of people with weak impulse control, and outright lying.
- 6y ago
- jamiequint 6y agoThis is a terrible analogy. Nobody forced you to go to the website that voluntarily decided to include the trackers.
- tehjoker 6y agoI can't tell if this argument is meant seriously but it is incredibly specious. If every single website operates in this fashion and modern life is nearly impossible without them, then consumers are presented with no option and it amounts to coercion.
- jamiequint 6y agoIt’s inconvenient for me to have to pay for things, that doesn’t mean stores are obligated to let me shop for free.
- passivate 6y agoIt is still not a nice thing to do. Can we at-least agree on that?
- spiralx 6y agoIf that website doesn't ask me if I want to allow those trackers then it's forcing them upon me without my consent. How am I supposed to know if a website has a tracker before I visit it?
- jamiequint 6y agoThey also don’t ask you if you want whatever specific content they are rendering that day to be rendered or not. Caveat visitor.