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Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users - Press Gazette

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  • 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.

    The only site I allow ads on is photopea.net because it's awesome and I use it regularly. Fuck ads otherwise

  • Raw-dogging the internet without an adblocker is about as irresponsible as not using contraception

    No glove block, no love browse

  • Ads used to be static text in the sidebar that the site owner manually put there. They didn't have any tracking and didn't slow down the loading time. Once they started adding images, I started using an ad blocker. I was stuck on dial-up until 2008 and a single, small image could add 10 or more seconds to the page loading time.

    2008! Bro I feel for you, retrospectively.

  • Besides the trackers and malware, ads can be categorised as a flaw in technology. A kind of software parasite that uses a computer's resources without providing any additional functionality to the user.

    Ads are malware (software maliciously made to do something the user doesn't want), yes. :3

  • Whats not to know?

    Step 1) Open the browser.

    There is no step 2. Just go wherever you want, and read. Or watch videos. If you don't know where something is, search for it. The browser does all the work. That's like saying you don't know how to use a microwave.

    A number of kids also don’t know “file system.” The filing cabinet is a foreign concept, as are many of the now-antiquated technologies referenced/adapted for desktop computing (the address card for your Rolodex, the floppy disk save icon). Tablets and phones are culturally moving us towards stuff being contained within its respective singular app, like all your word documents being within the word app rather than meticulously sorted through layers of folders (even though on the backend, it is). So returning to your first step: why have a browser as the first step when you could just skip having to search for anything because there’s an app? Plus, the delicious unskippable metrics.

  • The trade body called it “illegal circumvention technology”

    Lol. Fuck off.

    And this is exactly why Google did away with Manifest v2 (what uBlock runs on) and why they wanted to introduce their “web integrity” standard. At that point the pages would be signed with ads and in the signature didn’t match the page wouldn’t even be shown.

    They tried to play it off as “ensuring that you truly get the correct copy of the page and no bad hackers have intercepted it” but really it would have 100% forced ads.

  • 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.

    Besides the miserable experience unchecked advertisements cause, it is simply not safe to allow those advertisements to load.

    A few years ago (before SSDs were common) I noticed unusual hard disk activity when loading a popular link aggregation site. A bit of investigation turned up a Trojan on my system. After removing it and reloading that site, my PC was immediately reinfected. The site owner denied any responsibility and said it was the advertising company's fault.

    The way the Internet operates now means no one is responsible for the content their site provides or the damage they cause. Imagine if restaurant owners were able to deny responsibility for the atmosphere in their restaurants or food poisonings they caused? IMO it's the same thing.

    Advertisers and websites have created the "dark traffic" mentioned here by repeatedly poisoning the public and they deserve the massive loss of revenue their behavior has caused.

  • What was the malware?

    IDK, it was awhile ago and blocked in the page it auto opened. By Cromite maybe?

  • 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.

    When I was about five years old, my parents were shopping for a car. When the radio said Brand X Dealer was the best place to buy a car, I was so excited to tell them what I'd just learned.

    I haven't forgiven advertising since.

  • Whats not to know?

    Step 1) Open the browser.

    There is no step 2. Just go wherever you want, and read. Or watch videos. If you don't know where something is, search for it. The browser does all the work. That's like saying you don't know how to use a microwave.

    I think you underestimate how techy many people are.

    You need to know the concept links. URLs. Web pages, navigation, tabs and your browser controls. It’s like getting in a boat with no concept of boating.

    I’ve spent years trying to teach my mom and grandma, and honestly if they aren’t super interested/engaged, they just can’t do it. It’s like teaching someone how to boat that hates boating unless it’s required.

  • 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.

    Advertising needs to become as socially acceptable as smoking.

    It arbitrary pollutes any environment it’s conducted in, and causes secondary harms to non-participants by incentivising insecure hoarding of private information with the intent to better target individuals.

  • The trade body called it “illegal circumvention technology”

    Lol. Fuck off.

    I actually agree with that but the only other solution is subject yourself to deeply concerning levels of surveillance, not to mention surveillance pricing.

    I use AdNauseum and they have a toggle for privacy-conscious ads and I leave that on. That's my best compromise.

  • I have said it before and I'll say it again.

    Adblockers are a critical part of any modern computer's security suit, and everyone should use them.

    I won't even consider removing mine unless the owners of a site with ads take full responsibility for any dammage to my computer coming from visiting their site with out an adblocker.

    This is due to the fact that ads can be hijacked and infect your computer with malware just by accessing the site.

    I have also experienced my browser being hijacked by clicking a link that was compromized, it redirected my browser in a loop, then opened a javascript password popup box that took all focus from the browser window and refused to go away, while the page below displayed a message that I needed to call tech support.

    It was very annoying to resolve, Firefox would by default restore any pages that was open in a tab if the browser crashed, and since the password prompt was stealing focus from the browser window, I had to kill it through the Task manager, which restored the page on start up....

    I had to create a new profile, then it it solved it

    I don’t know if anyone reading this will ever have this problem (if you got this far without installing an adblocker, this is your wake up call - go get one now), but ctrl+W is the shortcut to kill a tab and that should work regardless site focus or popups

  • 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.

    Yo bro. Looks like you are looking at some information without 15 things popping up in your face. I see you are into the "dark traffic"

  • Raw-dogging the internet without an adblocker is about as irresponsible as not using contraception

    And just like STDs, those malware-laden ads can infect your whole system before you even relaise what happened.

  • 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.

    “The growth of dark traffic undermines the ability of publishers to fund the production of quality content, or even operate as a business. We must recognise users are not the main driver causing this.”

    "It’s demonetising publisher content at scale without user consent."

    They act like we don't know what we are doing and want the ads. People who block ads in browsers like ddg and brave choose those browsers for that reason.

  • When I was about five years old, my parents were shopping for a car. When the radio said Brand X Dealer was the best place to buy a car, I was so excited to tell them what I'd just learned.

    I haven't forgiven advertising since.

    Can only imagine how f'd up kids' minds must be now

  • Here's how you make people aware of your products.

    You sell a quality product for a reasonable price.

    That's it.

    Instead, capitolism has become this game of cat and mouse where the consumers ALWAYS lose. Just a game of shrinking product sizes, reducing quality, and raising prices. Little by little.

    It's most obvious when you haven't had a product in a while, maybe years, and you grab it again. Only to realize they've gone through several iterations of enshitification.

    When I was a kid, Andy Capps Cheese Fries used to be about as long as my pinky, and they were thick. Now it's like the length of my pinky until my second knockle, and it's like the same thickness as a pretzle stick. Sure, it's technically the same product, but everytime I buy them I realize why I was disappointed the last time I bought them. And I won't buy them for another 5 years. Maybe by then they'll be the length of my pinky nail and as thick as a sewing pin, but cost 8 dollars instead of the 25 cents it was when I was a kid.

    They did a durability test on hammers. In one side was an old rusty hammer. It had a date of 1931 on it. In the other was a brand new hammer bought that same day from Home Depot.

    The new hammer crumbled long before the 1931 hammer did. This test was done in 2017.

    But I never buy products because they advertise. I buy them because I remember how good it was the last time.

    Except now, you're advertising BAD memories. Because when I go in expecting this much, with this quality, and instead I get a fraction of it, with only a fraction of the quality.....congradulations. You saved money on production costs. You also pushed your customer away from being a repeat customer.

    All this business schools, and all the data they have I'm sure shows that their way is better. So explain to me why it seems businesses these days struggle to make the line go up, but when I was a kid business was booming?

    The thing is business is more booming than it's ever been, but making the line go up forever is a fool's errand, at some point you'll hit a peak. Hitting that peak is immensely punished in our economic system.

    If you make a hammer that'll last 100 years, you'll sell as many as you can reach customers who need one, before hammer sales plummet. Instead of being rewarded for making a great product, you'll be punished when sales fall because you've solved a problem for most people.

    Advertising is kind of neutral in abstract in my head. Make a great product for a fair price, and let people know about it, and that's actually probably a benefit to both parties. Make a terrible product, and tell a bunch of people it's great, and you've spent resources doing them a disservice. But if you can convince them it's good enough to spend money on it, and keep your revenue per customer above the cost to acquire them, it's profitable. And that's all they care about. It's basically the same pattern as a scam, but profit is the only thing they're told they're allowed to care about.

  • And this is exactly why Google did away with Manifest v2 (what uBlock runs on) and why they wanted to introduce their “web integrity” standard. At that point the pages would be signed with ads and in the signature didn’t match the page wouldn’t even be shown.

    They tried to play it off as “ensuring that you truly get the correct copy of the page and no bad hackers have intercepted it” but really it would have 100% forced ads.

    Then I guess I'm not looking at those pages. No skin off my nose. That said, Firefox with Ublock Origin plus a couple of other ad-blockers seems to be working pretty well for me. Anything with a paywall, I just move on.

  • Advertising should be illegal. Huge waste of money and everyone's time.

    Unfortunately I don't think you can just make it illegal. People/companies would still do it, just covertly. Then you end up in a situation where adverts are not marked as such and that's probably even worse than the current situation, where ads at least identify themselves as ads.

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    It doesn't because you're not just arching the original message but any comments and reactions that message receives as well
  • ZenthexAI - Next-Generation AI Penetration Testing Platform

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    Niemand hat geantwortet
  • The BBC is launching a paywall in the US

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    Yeah back in the day we made sure no matter who you were and what was going on you had the opportunity to hear our take on it Mind you I suppose that still happens thanks to us being a very loud and online people, but having an "America says x" channel in a time where people liked us sure was a good idea
  • OSTP Has a Choice to Make: Science or Politics?

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    Ye I expect so, I don't like the way this author just doesn't bother explaining her points. She just states that she disagrees and says they should be left to their own rules. Which is probably fine, but that's just lazy or she's not mentioning the difference for another reason
  • Whatever happened to cheap eReaders? – Terence Eden’s Blog

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    This is a weirdly aggressive take without considering variables. Almost petulant seeming. 6” readers are relatively cheap no matter the brand, but cost goes up with size. $250 to $300 is what a 7.8” or 8” reader costs, but there’s not a single one I know of at 6” at that price. There’s 10” and 13” models. Are you saying they should cost the same as a Kindle? Not to mention, regarding Kindle, Amazon spent years building the brand but selling either at cost or possibly even taking a loss on the devices as they make money on the book sales. Companies who can’t do that tend to charge more. Lastly, it’s not “feature creep” to improve the devices over time, many changes are quality of life. Larger displays for those that want them. Frontlit displays, and later the addition of warm lighting. Displays essentially doubled their resolution allowing for crisper fonts and custom fonts to render well. Higher contrast displays with darker blacks for text. More recently color displays as an option. This is all progress, but it’s not free. Also, inflation is a thing and generally happens at a rate of 2% to 3% annually or thereabouts during “normal” times, and we’ve hardly been living in normal times over the last decade and a half.
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    It's not just skills, it's also capital investment.
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    Phew okay /s
  • Why Japan's animation industry has embraced AI

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    The genre itself has become neutered, too. A lot of anime series have the usual "anime elements" and a couple custom ideas. And similar style, too glossy for my taste. OK, what I think is old and boring libertarian stuff, I'll still spell it out. The reason people are having such problems is because groups and businesses are de facto legally enshrined in their fields, it's almost like feudal Europe's system of privileges and treaties. At some point I thought this is good, I hope no evil god decided to fulfill my wish. There's no movement, and a faction (like Disney with Star Wars) that buys a place (a brand) can make any garbage, and people will still try to find the depth in it and justify it (that complaint has been made about Star Wars prequels, but no, they are full of garbage AND have consistent arcs, goals and ideas, which is why they revitalized the Expanded Universe for almost a decade, despite Lucas-<companies> having sort of an internal social collapse in year 2005 right after Revenge of the Sith being premiered ; I love the prequels, despite all the pretense and cringe, but their verbal parts are almost fillers, their cinematographic language and matching music are flawless, the dialogue just disrupts it all while not adding much, - I think Lucas should have been more decisive, a bit like Tartakovsky with the Clone Wars cartoon, just more serious, because non-verbal doesn't equal stupid). OK, my thought wandered away. Why were the legal means they use to keep such positions created? To make the economy nicer to the majority, to writers, to actors, to producers. Do they still fulfill that role? When keeping monopolies, even producing garbage or, lately, AI slop, - no. Do we know a solution? Not yet, because pressing for deregulation means the opponent doing a judo movement and using that energy for deregulating the way everything becomes worse. Is that solution in minimizing and rebuilding the system? I believe still yes, nothing is perfect, so everything should be easy to quickly replace, because errors and mistakes plaguing future generations will inevitably continue to be made. The laws of the 60s were simple enough for that in most countries. The current laws are not. So the general direction to be taken is still libertarian. Is this text useful? Of course not. I just think that in the feudal Europe metaphor I'd want to be a Hussite or a Cossack or at worst a Venetian trader.