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I once felt mildly guilty about JS and ad blocking so I tried running unblocked at work since the performance degradation of all the crap was less noticeable on

I once felt mildly guilty about JS and ad blocking so I tried running unblocked at work since the performance degradation of all the crap was less noticeable on a fast link. That lasted a few months until I got redirected to a porn site from what was likely a hacked Wordpress system. If I'm going to be assailed by unvetted code that does unauthorized things with my property, I'm going to block everything wholesale without any lingering guilt. If you're a business and you want to serve ads do it with plain text and images. If you need to track me do it with your server logs. You don't deserve anything else.

xp84 3y ago
> serve ads do it with plain text and images... You don't deserve anything else Lots of ads are text and images, but they're all placed client-side using scripts, because* nobody buys ads entirely untargeted (they're ineffective). If you're a business and want a purely server-side ad system to monetize your site with, you're going to be looking for a long time. What you're saying basically amounts to "ad-supported business models online should not exist." Which is an opinion you're entitled to, but if this is your stance I'd encourage you to at least try to, for a week, block all ad-supported sites, rather than the ads, to see what the logical conclusion to your policy would be. *Note: Even without that reason, server-side would be unpopular with both publishers and ad networks because of the need to offer dozens of flavors of server-side SDKs that the publisher would have to integrate deeply into their SS code, rather than using the lingua franca of client-side JS.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  Radio, television, and print ads are "server side". Somehow they still manage to work. We don't have to lose all of our agency just because the jerks in marketing have no ethical standards and most people aren't aware enough to stop their excesses.
  - arp242 3y ago
    I kind of agree with you, but on the other hand you either also paid for it – either directly as in newspapers or indirectly via taxes as for some public TV with limited ads – or they were plastered with ads from top to bottom. So there is perhaps a bit of a balance to be struck. When Google Ads first started way back in the day they were simple fast text ads with content relative to the page you were reading. Since then ... a lot has changed, but I don't think the basic principle of it is necessarily wrong, just the implementation. You can redirect people to porn sites without JS too by the way; via a HTTP header or a meta tag. If they can inject JS they can probably also inject one of those. Don't think you can really blame JS as such for that kind of stuff.
    - brigandish 3y ago
      > You can redirect people to porn sites without JS too by the way; via a HTTP header or a meta tag. If they can inject JS they can probably also inject one of those. Don't think you can really blame JS as such for that kind of stuff. How? Genuinely interested to know how this attack happens without a click from the user.
      - wildpeaks 3y ago
        Using HTTP status 301/302 or HTML meta tag http-equiv="refresh". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_302 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_302 and https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/meta#http-equiv https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/me...
        brigandish 3y ago
        That only happens on first load, how is that equivalent to Javascript?
- benatkin 3y ago
  For me it's more about interruption. The most annoying ads I've noticed lately are Substack. I've never liked them and never will but occasionally there are posts I want to read on there (no thanks to them). When I'm in the middle of reading I get a pop-up. I'll take 10 video ads over one of those.
  - xp84 3y ago
    You’re not wrong about the interruption. I’d add bars that are position:fixed and thus narrow my viewport — though about 2/3 of those are the stupid “sticky page headers” that the publisher put there on purpose, so, it’s a different thing.
- rgoulter 3y ago
  > nobody buys ads entirely untargeted (they're ineffective) I liked this argument from idlewords: https://idlewords.com/talks/what_happens_next_will_amaze_you.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/what_happens_next_will_amaze_you... """Advertisers end up right back where they started,still not knowing which half of their advertising budget is being wasted. Except in the process they've destroyed our privacy."""
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    That is not true. Attribution is the process that allows you to attribute conversions to ads that you have shown. >The losers are small publishers and small advertisers This is not true. In fact small publishers and advertisers are the ones that benefit the most from targeted advertising since it means they will have to spend less to get a customer. If it becomes too expensive for a business to get customers they will go out of business.
- xigoi 3y ago
  You can have targeted ads without tracking. For example, put ads for cooking utensils on recipe websites.
saagarjha 3y ago
I work for what’s ostensibly an advertising company, so I have made the choice to not put an adblocker on my work machine, which is pretty decent and wired into a very fast connection. The ads load pretty fast but I’ve learned to be careful about which tabs I leave open in the background.

xp84 3y ago

> serve ads do it with plain text and images... You don't deserve anything else Lots of ads are text and images, but they're all placed client-side using scripts, because* nobody buys ads entirely untargeted (they're ineffective). If you're a business and want a purely server-side ad system to monetize your site with, you're going to be looking for a long time. What you're saying basically amounts to "ad-supported business models online should not exist." Which is an opinion you're entitled to, but if this is your stance I'd encourage you to at least try to, for a week, block all ad-supported sites, rather than the ads, to see what the logical conclusion to your policy would be. *Note: Even without that reason, server-side would be unpopular with both publishers and ad networks because of the need to offer dozens of flavors of server-side SDKs that the publisher would have to integrate deeply into their SS code, rather than using the lingua franca of client-side JS.

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
Radio, television, and print ads are "server side". Somehow they still manage to work. We don't have to lose all of our agency just because the jerks in marketing have no ethical standards and most people aren't aware enough to stop their excesses.
- arp242 3y ago
  I kind of agree with you, but on the other hand you either also paid for it – either directly as in newspapers or indirectly via taxes as for some public TV with limited ads – or they were plastered with ads from top to bottom. So there is perhaps a bit of a balance to be struck. When Google Ads first started way back in the day they were simple fast text ads with content relative to the page you were reading. Since then ... a lot has changed, but I don't think the basic principle of it is necessarily wrong, just the implementation. You can redirect people to porn sites without JS too by the way; via a HTTP header or a meta tag. If they can inject JS they can probably also inject one of those. Don't think you can really blame JS as such for that kind of stuff.
  - brigandish 3y ago
    > You can redirect people to porn sites without JS too by the way; via a HTTP header or a meta tag. If they can inject JS they can probably also inject one of those. Don't think you can really blame JS as such for that kind of stuff. How? Genuinely interested to know how this attack happens without a click from the user.
    - wildpeaks 3y ago
      Using HTTP status 301/302 or HTML meta tag http-equiv="refresh". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_302 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_302 and https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/meta#http-equiv https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/me...
      - brigandish 3y ago
        That only happens on first load, how is that equivalent to Javascript?
benatkin 3y ago
For me it's more about interruption. The most annoying ads I've noticed lately are Substack. I've never liked them and never will but occasionally there are posts I want to read on there (no thanks to them). When I'm in the middle of reading I get a pop-up. I'll take 10 video ads over one of those.
- xp84 3y ago
  You’re not wrong about the interruption. I’d add bars that are position:fixed and thus narrow my viewport — though about 2/3 of those are the stupid “sticky page headers” that the publisher put there on purpose, so, it’s a different thing.
rgoulter 3y ago
> nobody buys ads entirely untargeted (they're ineffective) I liked this argument from idlewords: https://idlewords.com/talks/what_happens_next_will_amaze_you.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/what_happens_next_will_amaze_you... """Advertisers end up right back where they started,still not knowing which half of their advertising budget is being wasted. Except in the process they've destroyed our privacy."""
- charcircuit 3y ago
  That is not true. Attribution is the process that allows you to attribute conversions to ads that you have shown. >The losers are small publishers and small advertisers This is not true. In fact small publishers and advertisers are the ones that benefit the most from targeted advertising since it means they will have to spend less to get a customer. If it becomes too expensive for a business to get customers they will go out of business.
xigoi 3y ago
You can have targeted ads without tracking. For example, put ads for cooking utensils on recipe websites.

saagarjha 3y ago

I work for what’s ostensibly an advertising company, so I have made the choice to not put an adblocker on my work machine, which is pretty decent and wired into a very fast connection. The ads load pretty fast but I’ve learned to be careful about which tabs I leave open in the background.