All ad networks, even the less intrusive ones, can be abused to distribute malware. In this day and age not having an ad blocker is like rawdogging internet strangers.

"dark" as in "not visible". Adblock users can't be tracked (or at least not as easily), hence they are not visible to the ad companies. "Dark", in this instance, is not a derogatory term.

"Brutal" is, though. So I totally agree with you there. Ads are the brutal thing nowadays.

We should bring back paying to read a newspaper, magazine, (pc-magazine :P)

You are probably not wrong, and we should be paying for a lot more things, but the genie is out of the bottle for many things here and it's difficult to roll that back.

For example, newspaper reading habits have changed a lot. Before the internet, you'd usually stick with one newspaper and that's it. Maybe two if you have too much money. You buy your newspaper and you read it front to back, probably even the topics you don't particularly care about.

Now it's often the other way round. Most people read news from quite a few sources (or often just follow links on social media and don't really even care for the publisher), but they don't read their news from virtual cover to virtual cover. Instead, they stick to the topics they care for, or maybe even read about the same thing in multiple publications, comparing what they have to say about it.

For this kind of newspaper reading, current forms of monetarisation don't really work. Most newspapers only offer subscriptions to the whole newspaper, often in the range of €5-15 per month. So if I were to pay for the ~20 newspapers that I read news from at least semi-frequently, that's €200-600 per month. No way I can or want to afford that.

Some allow you to pay per article, but that is usually pretty expensive too (€1-3 per article) and also I need to register to every single newspaper. That's not great either.

What I'd really like to see would be a industry-wide subscription. For example, I pay €10 per month and that allows me to read 100 articles per month across all newspapers. That would be really nice.

You think most people open settings or hamburger menus? You're more optimistic than I am.

These days the average caveman is used by his phone, not the other way around.

Then change it?

Depends. Using some no-name dns server in Uzbekistan is likely not going to be easily reachable for your queries by your local government, if at all.

Then again, most of you don't have queries over encrypted protocols anyway, so it's an open book regardless of who your third-party is.

Best case if you're a luddite, run a very highly recommended(by the fediverse) VPN, like windscribe or mullvad, and use their dns servers. Wireguard will encrypt the queries, and the vpn being supposedly trustworthy would put any cork in it otherwise.

News Media: "ADVERTISERS CAN'T DISTRIBUTE ADS BECAUSE OF YOUUUUUU"

g-good!

"Son, are those ads in my house!?"

dad, please, it's only a little marketing!

"NO SON OF MINE! GET MY BELT!"

dad, no!

"What's our DNS address!?"

dad, I don't kno-

"Count the licks, boy! I'll teach you the hard way!"

I use Mullvad's VPN and DNS on a router level. Every device on my network is blanketed by it. Some services don't work, but I am willing to sacrifice their profits for my integrity. Thus, to them I say 然らば fuckmothers.

I have an adblocker but not an antivirus

Good. Hopefully the advertisers will realize that it's not profitable to advertise online anymore, and then we'll be left the hell alone.

the web will die.

From Banksy's 2004 book Cut It Out. Banksy, in turn, 'got' it (in its original form) from Sean Tejaratchi's 1999 essay in his Crap Hound zine.

I actually like how people are again on the wave of understanding that anarchism is right even if you've voluntarily consented to hierarchy. And other similar things.

Sometimes you need to break rules. Entropy and life are more important.

Looks like it hasn't been updated in a few years, but its open source so you could just fork the repo and add more. There are also quite a few forks already.

I used my mother's laptop once 2 years ago, and i was like, how the fuck do you people browsing without an adblock?

From banksy's limited run "Cut it out" book apparently. Yours for only £310

Even better: system-wide DNS adblocking on Android. Get rid of in-app ads too.

Ads are out of control, they fill my day.

My home, my rules. Ads are not allowed on the devices i BOUGHT.

99% of the targeted ads i get tend to be targeted at someone who has a family and makes 3 times my wage, so you're wasting business resources for your own gain and wasting my time by serving them to me.

So fuck off outta my house.

sorry, fixed.