3 ms·

These are some of the only ads I see online these days (on Read the Docs, mostly). I don't use ad blockers, but I do use tracker blockers, and those block prett

by msl 6y ago

These are some of the only ads I see online these days (on Read the Docs, mostly). I don't use ad blockers, but I do use tracker blockers, and those block pretty much all ads, for obvious reasons. Not these ones, though. And that's how it's supposed to go.

HappySweeney 6y ago
Can you elaborate on your setup?
- morvita 6y ago
  I'm not OP, but I have my browser setup to block trackers only, nothing that's billed as an ad-blocker. I use Firefox with Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection [0] and Privacy Badger [1] as an extra layer of protection. Some sites, mostly news orgs, complain that I'm blocking ads, but inevitably these are the sites Privacy Badger reports 20+ trackers blocked. I'm happy to see ads online, I'm just not willing to sacrifice my privacy for them. [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop#w_strict-enhanced-tracking-protection https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote... [1] https://privacybadger.org/ https://privacybadger.org/
  - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
    Why not just block ads, too? Do you really think advertising is ethical at any level? Because I do not. If I want to buy something, I seek it out. Anything else is like junk snail mail: a waste of my time and your money.
    - morvita 6y ago
      The short answer: I am not anti-advertising, so I don't block ads that respect me. I don't love advertising in many of it's forms, but taken from the viewpoint of those who make money from ads (i.e. content creators), it is one of the best ways out there for them to make a living. Platforms like Patreon are great for some folks, but not everyone can make a living off of sponsorship from their viewers. But, I am not willing to sacrifice my own privacy to allow someone else to make money, especially given that we have tonnes of examples of non-privacy-invading advertising that works. I listen to 8-10 hours of podcasts a week and I generally find the ads on them, usually where the host does an ad read and includes a discount code, to be far more useful and relevant to me than the hyper-targeted ads backed by 20 tracking scripts I see on news sites. Another example, many of the indie tech news sites I read (e.g. Daring Fireball or Six Colors) will have a weekly sponsor that will have an advertising post or two interspersed with their regular content. I'm happy to take 2-3 minutes out of a 30 minute podcast episode to listen to a couple ad reads or see a brief write-up of a sponsor's product as I'm scrolling through the week's tech news. What I'm not happy to do is have my web browser load a dozen tracking scripts in the background when I open a news article and have flashing pictures deliberately trying to distract me from what I'm reading.
s_tec 6y ago
Which ones? I think I would like to try your setup, since it sounds like a good compromise between having my data harvested and being kicked off of sites for blocking their ads.

by msl 6y ago

HappySweeney 6y ago

Can you elaborate on your setup?

morvita 6y ago
I'm not OP, but I have my browser setup to block trackers only, nothing that's billed as an ad-blocker. I use Firefox with Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection [0] and Privacy Badger [1] as an extra layer of protection. Some sites, mostly news orgs, complain that I'm blocking ads, but inevitably these are the sites Privacy Badger reports 20+ trackers blocked. I'm happy to see ads online, I'm just not willing to sacrifice my privacy for them. [0] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-protection-firefox-desktop#w_strict-enhanced-tracking-protection https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote... [1] https://privacybadger.org/ https://privacybadger.org/
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  Why not just block ads, too? Do you really think advertising is ethical at any level? Because I do not. If I want to buy something, I seek it out. Anything else is like junk snail mail: a waste of my time and your money.
  - morvita 6y ago
    The short answer: I am not anti-advertising, so I don't block ads that respect me. I don't love advertising in many of it's forms, but taken from the viewpoint of those who make money from ads (i.e. content creators), it is one of the best ways out there for them to make a living. Platforms like Patreon are great for some folks, but not everyone can make a living off of sponsorship from their viewers. But, I am not willing to sacrifice my own privacy to allow someone else to make money, especially given that we have tonnes of examples of non-privacy-invading advertising that works. I listen to 8-10 hours of podcasts a week and I generally find the ads on them, usually where the host does an ad read and includes a discount code, to be far more useful and relevant to me than the hyper-targeted ads backed by 20 tracking scripts I see on news sites. Another example, many of the indie tech news sites I read (e.g. Daring Fireball or Six Colors) will have a weekly sponsor that will have an advertising post or two interspersed with their regular content. I'm happy to take 2-3 minutes out of a 30 minute podcast episode to listen to a couple ad reads or see a brief write-up of a sponsor's product as I'm scrolling through the week's tech news. What I'm not happy to do is have my web browser load a dozen tracking scripts in the background when I open a news article and have flashing pictures deliberately trying to distract me from what I'm reading.

s_tec 6y ago

Which ones? I think I would like to try your setup, since it sounds like a good compromise between having my data harvested and being kicked off of sites for blocking their ads.