They call it "dark traffic" - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.

Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.

They call it "dark traffic" - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.

Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.

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

I have an adblocker but not an antivirus

They call it "dark traffic" - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.

Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.

There is nothing like a free lunch.

You either have to directly pay for something or indirectly pay for it by selling your time or data.

Companies need to get their name out there and in the past you did that with a banner on your building, a space in the phone book and maybe your name on the side of the vans. Now we live in the digital world and we use digital advertisement. Heck a lot of companies sponsor certain event including charity events.

If we would totally remove advertisement, your local mom-and-pop shops will get more traffic, but in a lot of countries they would have basically a monopoly unless another competitor exists in the same region.

I don't really mind watching a bit of advertisement on something like a YouTube video or a banner ad on a site. Heck, buildings or vans with logos etc are fine as well in my opinion. My issue is more with the tracking and some forced advertisement (putting your logo on my clothing, vehicle etc).

They call it "dark traffic" - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.

Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.

Sites are lazy and greedy. They throw dozens and dozens of 3rd party javascripts into their headers, that punish and annoy people for not using an ad blocker - they slow the site down, bloat the memory, consume energy, track the user and festoon the page with garbage. As soon as people hear that an ad blocker is a thing, then of course they leap at the chance of using one.

It would be straightforward for sites to insert ads into their content - make the ad urls, images and links indistinguishable from actual content. i.e. serve them up from the same domain, from non predictable paths and use html structure where ads and content are intermingled. Even if an adblocker wanted to block the ads, there are no patterns that work and every single site would require different rules. But that requires effort. I suppose we should be glad that sites don't do it.

I feel like one thing doesn't get talked about enough is that websites feel the need to implement ad services that want to track the user in order to serve ads. Which I just find weird, the expectation to give up ones privacy, just to get served an ad.

Instead, the ads should just be relevant to the content of the page where an ad is embedded, which would automatically make it relevant to the reader, without tracking them.

Any good guides you know of to set that up?

Seeing static banner ads on 2000s websites without popups or tracking: ‍️

Blocking ads on Firefox after popups and other crap started:

Browsing the internet on Android before I realised the browser supports addons: 🤮

Blocking ads and tracking on Android via uBlock origin and Privacy Badger:

My feeling of guilt when scummy megacorporations miss out on ad revenue:

I used to maintain a website for a bicycling club in my county that was great for getting people into biking, getting people out the house, making friends, and staying fit.

We had a banner ad along the top of the site for a local bicycle/bicycle repair shop that aided the club a lot and was very reasonable.

He got something out of it (publicity and a seal of approval towards the value/quality of his work), and we got something out of it (money to run the site, and a bit left over for things like puncture repair kits and the occasional celebratory drink after an arduous ride).

Nobody bats an eyelid to those ads. They are reasonable.

What we have now isn't that. What we have now is an insecure, malware-infested privacy nightmare that ruins webpages and stresses everybody out.

Use Firefox + uBlock origin for your own sanity. Don't let big tech make you feel guilty for not going along with their game.

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.

the web will die.

Maybe, but then who will supply the answers that Ai needs?

They call it "dark traffic" - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.

Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.

"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!"

Wow. That is pretty violent. I do not envy your son.

“And Scott Messer, founder of publishing adtech consultancy Messer Media, added: “Dark traffic is unlike anything we have seen before. It’s demonetising publisher content at scale without user consent.

“Publishers already face an existential-level threat in the face of AI reducing referral traffic. This is another slice that publishers cannot afford to lose.””

They call it "dark traffic" - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.

Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.