I haven't seen any ads actually try to exploit browser vulnerabilities (although I do believe many are engaging in illegal fingerprinting attempts - see how som

I haven't seen any ads actually try to exploit browser vulnerabilities (although I do believe many are engaging in illegal fingerprinting attempts - see how some web sites suddenly pop up a video DRM prompt if you aren't allowing DRM by default, even though they contain no DRMed video content). But the amount of social engineering (trying to trick users into installing malware), scams, and obvious misinfo (the "you won't believe what car Greta is driving" ads for example) is mind-blowing. Even shopping ads often turn out to be worse-than-Temu "sell the worst piece of undersized crap China can crank out, promising a money-back guarantee that turns out to be worthless" scams. Making sure tech-inexperienced friends and relatives have an ad blocker makes a night-and-day difference in the amount of damage control and cleanup you'll have to deal with.