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Ask HN: Does anybody not use an adblocker?
I recently subscribed to Bloomberg and because of difficulty signing in, I turned off my ad blocker only to see that the site is almost unusable with all of the ads on (even as a paying subscriber).
Does anybody in HN (even/especially those in the media industry) not use an adblocker of some sort to browse the web anymore? If so, can you tell us about your experiences and why?
- bob_theslob646 3y agoIsn't it hilarious that you pay money as a subscriber, yet still see ads? To me, that is hilarious . Imagine paying $120 dollars a year for them to still get more out of it's consumers.
- ForestCritter 3y agoIt's not any different than paying for newspapers or magazines. People think their subscription price is based on the real costs. Subscriptions pay a small portion of the cost and gaurantee ad revenue. Ad revenue pays for the content. Everybody wants the best content but they would all be screaming if their subscription price bore the full cost of the product.
- warrenm 3y agoI wish I did not have to[0] But, quite frankly, most sites are effectively impossible to use without one :| --------- [0] https://antipaucity.com/2016/03/03/on-ads/ https://antipaucity.com/2016/03/03/on-ads/ (though I am down to just uBlock Origin & Detect Cloudflare)
- hacb 3y agoWhat "Detect Cloudflare" is for, in terms of privacy?
- warrenm 3y agoCloudflare's operating probably the largest man-in-the-middle data harvesting operation in the world (at least in the commercial world) If a site's running Cloudflare, and I don't have an amazing overarching reason to hit the site (eg my dr's portal), I add it to my block list
- meotimdihia 3y agoIt is not always bad to harvest data. As a developer, I understand that there are often valid reasons for doing so. I'm not sure where everyone got the idea that tracking and harvesting data is always bad. In addition, it is essentially impossible to have something harmful happen to you if you refrain from entering your bank password on websites.
- warrenm 3y agoHarvesting data is almost always bad There are a tiny handful of use cases where it is not I don't understand how people are not more aware of the invasiveness of such activities
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoI don't. Some sites are unusable. I don't visit them, or if I do, I'm gone almost immediately. Some sites are hard. I will persist if I really want to read the article; otherwise, I'm gone. Most of the sites I visit are still functional. But I mainly just go to HN, some technical sites when I need to, some news sites, actual company sites. I don't go to entertainment sites (they are mostly unusable without an ad blocker). I don't do social media (other than HN). In general, if you make your site unusable with ads, then I won't be back. I don't need your site. But your site might want me, and if you do, knock it off with the garbage that makes it unusable.
- AdamN 3y agoDo you have a search engine or other mechanism to make it easier to find these sites or is it just hunt and peck?
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoWell, if it's an article on HN, there's a link there. If I'm trying to find a specific company, it's Google. If it's a URL I go to frequently, it's the first couple of letters, or a bookmark. If it's technical info, it's Google.
- AdamN 3y agook - I thought you might be using one of the newer engines that allows one to add custom dimensions or exclude sites with wildcard lists (basically uBlock Origin 'score' for lack of a better word).
- ravenstine 3y agoNot the OP, but if I didn't have uBlock Origin installed, I would refer to the number of ads/trackers detected for pages by the Kagi search engine (which I use and highly recommend).
- ezedv 3y agoI understand your frustration. Some websites prioritize user experience by having fewer or less intrusive ads. It's worth exploring adblocker settings or alternative ad-free news sources.
- poetril 3y agoI don't have an adblocker on my machine at work, trying to keep chrome as barebones as possible. On the off chance I click on an article posted in slack its always shocking to see how riddled with ad's the modern web is.
- codingclaws 3y agoI've never used an ad blocker. 98% of the time I immediately press the browser back button.
- Justsignedup 3y agoI do use adblockers, so much so that I basically only use android because of all the system-wide adblocking capabilities, including youtube ads. I occasionally switch off adblockers to see what the rest of the world sees. Within seconds I am shocked every single time. Some sites I use are unusable without adblockers. The youtube experience is attrocious without adblockers. Amazon products are impossible to find without being flooded with sponsored products. Google results are ads until pages later. Its like a whole other internet. I cannot imagine how small of a portion of the internet I'd need to use if I could not use adblockers.
- illwrks 3y agoCan you outline how you're doing system-wide as blocking? That's news to me!
- kwar13 3y agoI don't know about the OP but pi-hole gives you amazing url-based ad blocking that works for all your connected devices!
- syncbehind 3y agoUnless rooted, you're basically relegated to two options. 1. You can set your dns to a custom dns (adguard's dns is commonly used) to block ads systemwide. 2. You can use a vpn proxy style adblocker via Blockada, Adaway, or Adguard. If you're rooted, you can just modify your hosts file manually or use something like adaway to do it for you.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoNever used an adblocker. Advertising doesn't bother me in principle, only if it gets irritating (like those excruciatingly annoying BK commercials!). If advertising gets to be too annoying, well that's what the back button is for.
- garciasn 3y agoI work in digital media and I utterly and entirely recommend EVERYONE use ad/analytics/tracking blockers and browsers which limit user-level data collection and tracking. As someone who works in the field and actively builds end-arounds to systems that thwart our ability to easily track your behaviors online, it's in your best interest to do so. Sure, you don't have to do any of this, but seeing any particular ad is the least of your problems when one loads.
- w0m 3y ago> seeing any particular ad is the least of your problems I run a blocker. But for a general user not hitting shadier corners of the web and careful what they click on - What are the larger problems people discuss, and how are they relevant in the day-to-day?
- garciasn 3y agoIf you're located in a non-GDPR (or in a lesser sense CCPA) legislation area, YOU are being tracked cross-site and profiles are being built on your data to better target and sell your behavior for the pleasure of using the Interwebs. Do EVERYTHING in your power to avoid that.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoYeah, I know. I just don't care. Seriously, I remember this being pointed out literally 20+ years ago. It's gotten far worse since then. Horses are out, no point worrying about the barn door now.
- w0m 3y ago
- xhkkffbf 3y agoWhy? Because I believe they're wrong. I think it's just wrong to engage with any business and disable, sidestep or circumvent their way to make money. It's like shoplifting. It reminds of people who open up a box at the supermarket, eat the food, and then claim that the barcode was on the box so that must be what's for sale. I want the Internet to have ad supported content. I want the people who create this content to have a chance of making a fair, market-determined income instead of relying upon things like Patreon. The saddest part for me is that I'm going to get voted down here because the support for this kind of behavior is strong here. Some day all of you will experience a business being undermined by freeloaders and thieves. This is the kind of low-trust world that you're building and it will come for your livelihood too.
- JohnFen 3y agoWhile I strongly disagree that using an ad-blocker is a kind of theft, I have sympathy with your underlying point. The problem is that ads come with so much spying. That's what kills the trust. I don't use an adblocker per-se, but I do stop JS and various trackers, which have the side-effect of stopping most ads. It's purely a self-defense thing on my part. I'll still see any ads which are just ads and not spying platforms. If the use of ad blockers threatens the livelihood of web sites, perhaps that would encourage the websites to stop abusing their readers.
- fullspectrumdev 3y agoThe freeloaders and thieves who ruined the trust work in adtech. They could have simply not abused their position.
- yulaow 3y agoI agree with you, that's why I support any website that uses contextual ads and not profiling/tracking ads deactivating my adblocker for them. I have zero sympathy for sites that try to profile me, I consider personal data protection an inviolable right and act in that sense
- FloatArtifact 3y agoI never understood this stance either. I am sympathetic that these venues need income generation. However, if they are losing so much money over the loss of advertising then they need to change their business model. The free market is that simple.
- asimovfan 3y agoI expect they are all iOS users who don't use ad blockers "in principle".
- CodesInChaos 3y agoI thought iOS Safari had built-in ad-blocking functionality (block list filled by extensions)?
- asimovfan 3y agoI can't block youtube ads on my iPad.
- SyrupThinker 3y agoSure you can, you can run something like Wipr [1] and SponsorBlock [2] in Safari on an iPad for an ad-free YouTube experience, in the browser. Of course there is a compromise on the video quality (1080p max) and convenience of the official app. [1]: https://kaylees.site/wipr.html https://kaylees.site/wipr.html [2]: https://sponsor.ajay.app https://sponsor.ajay.app
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoI believe you can if you use safari instead of the YouTube app.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- chmod-rwx 3y agowhat does adblocking have to do with OS?
- trompetenaccoun 3y agoSafari makes it difficult on non-jailbroken iOS.
- dyingkneepad 3y agoMy wife doesn't, simply because Android Chrome doesn't support one and she won't move to Firefox because it doesn't have an extension to translate pages with Google Translate like Chrome does :(
- pesfandiar 3y agoHave you tried Brave?
- suprjami 3y agoIn recent Firefox on Android, I can now highlight text and there is a Translate option along with Copy Paste etc. I have the Google Translate app installed, I assume that's doing it.
- Zeyka 3y agoTry kiwi browser, it's chrome for android but with extensions
- childeofentropy 3y agoThere are translation add-ons for Firefox actually you can find them on the add-on search: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firefox-translations/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firefox-trans...
- childeofentropy 3y agoHere's the link https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firefox-translations/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firefox-trans...
- Marvy_a 3y agoGet DNS service with ad blocking, like NextDNS. It's pretty easy to set up, I'm using it on my Android phone and iPad. It's free for up to 300,000 queries per month (I've never exceeded this limit, for reference I made 100,000 queries on my phone this month). It also has a lot of configurability (You can select specific blocklists, whitelist sites and etc.). It's not as good as a dedicated AdBlocker like UBlock Origin , it won't be able to block YouTube ads for example, but it's far better than nothing.
- CommitSyn 3y agoI would prefer not to, as I'd like to support the websites I browse. However, the privacy issues that come from invasive tracking that ad networks do is something I can't support.
- trompetenaccoun 3y agoSame. I'd have no issue with non-tracking ads.
- aldanor 3y agoHighly suggest to use dns-level blocking so the majority of that crap doesn't even reach you. If you don't want to configure and maintain your own box, nextdns is a pretty solid option.
- dfawcus 3y agoI don't, I used to. These days I tend to use firefox with uMatrix for general browsing, with Javascript and CSS disabled globally. Then enabled on a site by site basis depending upon how I value the content, and if it is even worth following a link.
- aserafini 3y agoI don’t. Reason: I work building ‘internet stuff’ and I want to experience the internet in the same way that the majority of people experience it. That’s more useful to me because I consequently experience the pain (or delight) of the typical user with greater accuracy.
- thiht 3y agoI fail to see how having your navigation riddled with ads is useful. Learn the lesson that ads suck, don’t add any to the « internet stuff » you’re building, install an adblocker and move on?
- aserafini 3y agoI’m just not finding that ads suck that much. Things like mandatory cookie dialog boxes annoy me a lot more.
- justsomehnguy 3y agoI don't. (Un)surprisingly a strict mode in Firefox blocks most of the clutter. Can't say when I stopped bothering (I'm on FF since 2.x) but I have other things to do. The only exceptjon is what I got some addons to block some obnoxious things, like 'login here with Google!!!' and Google webfonts (which sometimes breaks a carefully curated look of the site made by Internet connosiers, which just gaves me a chuckle).
- mo_42 3y agoI do since a long time. At least 15 years. I was using an add-on for Firefox where I could control to which sites a page could connect. Some years ago this was a pretty good way for browsing ad-free and without being tracked because both relied on resources from external domains. Now, I’m using a DNS resolver that blocks these domains. It’s probably not as fine-grained but works across many devices.
- mike_hearn 3y agoDoubt you're going to get very useful answers from the HN community tbh, even though a lot of posters here work for advertising companies. I don't use an ad blocker and never have. It's fine, I'm used to it. Some sites are pretty horrible (mostly low end news sites). I subscribe to a handful of news sites which don't have any ads and that works out fine, most other sorts of sites have tolerable levels of advertising. If they don't I just go back and do without. Why: the golden rule, pretty much. Not gonna be popular, but that's how I see it. Treat others how I'd want to be treated myself. If I browse someone's site whilst blocking ads, I'm consuming their financial resources but not allowing them to consume my attention in return, which is the "deal" implicitly entered into when I visited their site. Yes yes, it's not a written deal, you can make legalistic argument about it, but fundamentally the assumption website authors make is that people use browsers that follow the specs and will thus see ads, and ad blockers cause browsers to not follow the specs. If everyone did this those sites either wouldn't exist, or would have paywalls, and I appreciate the fact that they exist and don't have paywalls. There are a couple of other related reasons. I've been on the other side of this. I run a company and sell a product to developers (a tool for deploying desktop apps). We have tried ads, mostly text based. They don't work at all, presumably due to high rates of ad blocking. The number one feedback we get from missed sales is that they'd have loved to know about us earlier but it was just too hard to find us at the right time, and by the time they discovered us (often by accident) they were already buried under sunk costs. Targeted advertising is at heart about informing people about a product they might need at the time they need it. Because nobody is seeing ads, devs often end up wrestling with whatever MVP-level projects they found by following links from some project created by Big Tech whether it's any good or not, because they're simply unaware any alternatives exist. In turn this discourages people from just doing ordinary selling of commercial-quality tools, which leads to frustrating developer experiences. I live in Switzerland where there are many rules that are very lightly enforced, for example, you can just walk on and off public transport with no ticket gates, and inspections are rare (my guess, 5-10 times a year even if you use it every day). My company's product is also done in this spirit: you can download it with no account creation or signups, the code isn't obfuscated, and it's free for open source projects. That policy is basically on the honor system with a bit of manual spot checking: if you declare your project is open source then the app just unlocks without payment unless we notice that you're lying. This sort of flexible trust-but-verify society is nice to live in but for it to work, it requires everyone to follow expectations even when you can get away with not doing so. I feel like ad blocking is similar to that. Likewise I could crack the commercial software I use and use it for free without being caught, but if everyone did that then the software wouldn't exist, so I don't, and I hope others will act the same way (whilst accepting that this isn't going to be true some of the time). Finally, given the enormous extent to which the software industry is funded by advertising, it feels a bit hypocritical to block it. Consider how much of our collective developer platform is paid for using ad revenues either directly or indirectly (anything by Google or Facebook, even HN). If everyone blocked ads then at minimum Chrome and Android probably wouldn't exist, nor would HN which is justified partly by sponsored posts by YC startups. In fact it seems likely that there'd be no competitive open source browsers or consumer operating systems. I like that there are, and if that means advertising, so be it.
- muzani 3y agoI don't. I think adblocking is a form of petty theft. If something has too much ads, I don't use it or pay for the ad-free version. I pay for YouTube Premium. Also adblocking does reduce some experiences. Some sites will tell you to disable it, and that's more irritating than the ad banners. I had conversation with my daughter on how games used to have no ads but now they're chock full of ads, but TV has no ads now but up to a third of TV was ads when I was her age. I think there's a bit of nostalgia to ads, that some shows were designed for it. Even if it's those dodgy Evony ads. I can watch Futurama without ads today, but it feels like something's missing. Netflix shows drag out, maybe because it's missing the "grind" of ads?
- aerio 3y agoI'm nearly 40, which is irrelevant except as to say that I fully remember "the time of ads", and I couldn't disagree more. I don't think adblocking is a petty form of theft, I think it's prudent, as ads are often security risks - not to mention don't include proper privacy settings but still try to track you against your will. Which is illegal in my part (EU) of the world. I'll try to support in other ways if I think your content is worth it and you provide secondary ways to pay. I don't see the nostalgia aspect either. Shows were only "designed for it" in such a way that they frequently take breaks from the plot to show ads,. I challenge you to point to any single show where frequent ad breaks actually made the show better. If you feel like Netflix shows "drag out", that sounds like an attention span issue. The same episode is either much shorter without 30-40% more time being spent on ads, or it's the same air time and just has more actual episode.
- muzani 3y agoFuturama is one examples. Ads usually kick in on a cliffhanger or to emphasize a punchline. This was a popular narrative technique back in the day. It might be why sitcoms worked fine for decades but never really carried over to the VOD era. Not ads, but the best example of a dramatic interruption are the first two seasons of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, where the hero is screwed and then it cuts out into the Roundabout song. This is a lot less dramatic when you can just binge watch things and don't have to wait a week for the next. Whereas Netflix shows tend to fill it with fluff, things like side drama, background stories, and redundant plot elements. I know I can skip the ad, but I don't really know if I can skip story details. I end up watching something like Squid Game on 2x speed.
- hayst4ck 3y agoAd blockers are rules for thee, but not for me. As software engineers many of us play a part in creating a world that we wouldn't want to live in and then exempt ourselves from it with ad blockers leaving the ignorant or less technically inclined to fend for themselves. It unethical to use ad blockers. I could not imagine using the internet without an ad blocker and despite trying to live an ethical life, that's one thing I can't go without. If for no other reason, raw dogging the internet without an ad blocker is a real and legitimate security risk. I consider it part of professional ethics not to work for ad based companies, and I have started to pay services, like wikipedia in particular, so they don't have to be supported with ads.
- Spooky23 3y agoIs it unethical to use accessibility tools that cannot see visual ads? Is it unethical to use a computer that isn’t associated with you? (And thus have no ad profile?) If I get a untargeted ad, am I stealing?
- hayst4ck 3y ago> Is it unethical to use accessibility tools that cannot see visual ads? Arguably, in a black and white sense I think so. In a practical sense no. You wouldn't expect someone who's blind to get a free meal at a restaurant just because they are blind. From a practical point of view implementing ads for the visually impaired probably costs more than the ads gain, and therefore a company would rather not, but if a company implemented an accommodation so that the ad could be experienced by the impaired person, then I would argue not experiencing that ad is unethical. > Is it unethical to use a computer that isn’t associated with you? The point is applying Kant's categorical imperative. If we took the idea of using ad block and made it a rule that everyone must follow, websites would not be able to fund themselves because they fund themselves by showing ads which creates a contradiction and therefore using adblock is unethical. You can equivocate to try to justify the behavior, but that doesn't change that for most of the web, you are provided a web page in exchange for ads. Companies are taking your data and selling it because they can, and you don't know the value of your data, so that is arguably theft and almost certainly unethical too. Poorly specified contracts are also unethical. When you visit a website, you don't know what you are giving up or the price you are paying. That's wrong. I am a little sad there is no wide spread doxxing of the owners of adtech/data broker companies to force the ethics discussion in congress.
- nailer 3y agoMe, advertising is fine on most of the sites I like, and I don’t like ripping off sites that are dependent on ad income. You may not like this answer but you asked and that is my reason. I think about advertising 50 times less than I think about cookie warnings.
- bob_theslob646 3y ago>and I don’t like ripping off sites that are dependent on ad income. He pays them a monthly fee. How is that equivalent to they are dependent on ad income? They also receive massive amounts of money from their data moats on their Bloomberg terminals charging upwards of $20,000 a year
- nailer 3y agoI'm talking about myself, not the OP. That said he's ripping off every other site he doesn't pay for.
- make_it_sure 3y agoEveryone is crazy about privacy, but I don't understand why. If you're not visiting anything illegal, you shouldn't care. It doesn't affect my life at all.
- meotimdihia 3y agoI think people who lack understanding about the internet may prioritize privacy because they don't truly comprehend it. Please correct it if I'm wrong.
- t0bia_s 3y agoIf you don't have anything to say, it doesn't mean that you don't need a freedom of speech. I guess you still close doors while making s*it or use curtains at your window.
- ForestCritter 3y agoGoing on the internet is going out in public. If AI is allowed to appropriate anything on the internet because it is the public domain and you forfeited privacy when you put it there, then it is all public and you have no right to privacy. Can't have itboth ways.
- t0bia_s 3y agoThen share your password for your bank account, please. It's accesible from internet, then it is public by your statement.
- ForestCritter 3y agoMy statement is that you can't have it both ways. You can't lay claim to everything a web crawler can get its hands on but then expect privacy when it suits you.
- t0bia_s 3y ago
- zhte415 3y agoImagine a world where the advertising billboard you walk past reaches into your head and takes a photo of your shopping list. While it's there it takes note of any deep concerns you may not know you have. And your sleep habits, where you live, random visual memories it may find useful anytime in the future, has a guess at how much you'd like to spend using personal records, what pets you have or would like, family, a bunch more. It then morphs into a dancing dashboard mannequin, a personal avatar, spouting nonsense, getting on your nerves, while its technoneurons spread, root-like, tapped into you. As you exit the car going into the supermarket, the supermarket is now a construct of the avatar not the bricks and mortar building it was when you were growing up. It exists for the avatar to make your life better, not for you, it robs you of choice and agency it does not agree with. You go into a small cafe for some splice. It has a touchscreen display to order from, you must pay with a card or ApplePay.
- kleer001 3y agoYes, yes, keep going.
- dotcoma 3y agoNo, not me, I don’t not use an adblocker, you’d have to be crazy not to use an adblocker these days. I use Ublock Origin on the browsers I use on my Mac and Wipr for Safari on my iPhone.
- noisycarlos 3y agoI don't use them. I do pay for the version without ads of the services I use them most though (YouTube, Nebula, Reddit, using Kagi instead of Google, etc). I happen to not use sites that don't offer a version without ads enough for them to annoy me OR I've used FB and it's so annoying that I just stopped using it, which is an improvement on my life anyway. All in all i spend about $30/month to not have ads while supporting the sites I use, which I think it's pretty reasonable.
- AdamN 3y agoI have YouTube premium and overall probably spend $100/mo on digital content. What bothers me is that even when paying full price I'm getting giant banner ads on the top and a slower experience.
- tsoa 3y agoOne occasion in which I don't use an adblocker is to support the creator of the website. For example, learnopengl.com politely encourages to remove adblock in order for the website to be continued.
- Anders_A 3y agoI don't use any ad blockers. I do however use consent-o-matic as those popups are the worst thing the EU ever did to the internet. Some sites have annoying ad popups, but most of the time they're just embedded in the sites and I don't even notice them.
- meotimdihia 3y agoIn the past, I used adblock, but now I only allow it on 1% of websites. It's only necessary for 1% of websites. The reason is that I now have a website and earn money through ad banners, so I understand how challenging it is to optimize ad banners. Meanwhile, we may have 60% of users using adblock in certain fields.
- pubfonts 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- vvendigo 3y agoI don't use adblockers. I want to experience web as it is. If it's unusable I don't use it. So I can see how ads changed over time. Used practices seem more desperate nowadays, sometimes it's like year 2K again. Even google is using interstitials with misleading controls. After all, I'm paid with advertising money like most people in the big tech...
- ano88888 3y agoi don't. ads don't bother me that much unless it is too intrusive. if all of us block ads, it means we need to pay for a lot of sites/apps that we are currently getting for free. I don't think it is a good idea. Not everyone is rich.
- Nasreddin_Hodja 3y agoI don't use. I don't care about ads, I'm more concerned about 3'rd party requests so I block them via uMatrix extension.
- taubek 3y agoI use two browsers. In one I have adblocker. In another one I don't use it. I use it on the browser from where I browse YouTube, news portals, etc. On the browser that I use 99% for work I don't use it since I want to see (yes, strange I know) ads in my Twitter feed or work related portals that I visit. This way I support those portals (at least I hope that they get paid for showing me ads).
- shortrounddev2 3y agoI work in adtech so I have to disable it occasionally
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cafard 3y agoI don't, but my browsing tends to be somewhat limited, and I tend to ignore the ads. I'm aware, vaguely, that the NY Times, is dumping ads for movies and clothes into its page, but I couldn't tell you which movies and clothes I saw yesterday. Now, if I do see ads for women's clothing in a deeply technical post, and notice that the clothes include some I bought as a present for my wife, then I'm amused.