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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.

  • Grok, Elon Musk's AI chatbot, seems to get right-wing update

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    Yep. Pretty sure that was deliberate on Musk's (or his cronies) part. Imagine working at X and being told by your boss "I'd like you to make the bot more racist please." "Can you convince it that conspiracy theories are real?"
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    I'm sorry but that capitalisation is really off-putting. You're Not Writing A Headline You Know
  • Sierpinski triangle programs by 5 AI models

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    oh, wow! that's so cool!
  • Uber, Lyft oppose some bills that aim to prevent assaults during rides

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    California is not Colorado nor is it federal No shit, did you even read my comment? Regulations already exist in every state that ride share companies operate in, including any state where taxis operate. People are already not supposed to sexually assault their passengers. Will adding another regulation saying they shouldn’t do that, even when one already exists, suddenly stop it from happening? No. Have you even looked at the regulations in Colorado for ride share drivers and companies? I’m guessing not. Here are the ones that were made in 2014: https://law.justia.com/codes/colorado/2021/title-40/article-10-1/part-6/section-40-10-1-605/#%3A~%3Atext=§+40-10.1-605.+Operational+Requirements+A+driver+shall+not%2Ca+ride%2C+otherwise+known+as+a+“street+hail”. Here’s just one little but relevant section: Before a person is permitted to act as a driver through use of a transportation network company's digital network, the person shall: Obtain a criminal history record check pursuant to the procedures set forth in section 40-10.1-110 as supplemented by the commission's rules promulgated under section 40-10.1-110 or through a privately administered national criminal history record check, including the national sex offender database; and If a privately administered national criminal history record check is used, provide a copy of the criminal history record check to the transportation network company. A driver shall obtain a criminal history record check in accordance with subparagraph (I) of paragraph (a) of this subsection (3) every five years while serving as a driver. A person who has been convicted of or pled guilty or nolo contendere to driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol in the previous seven years before applying to become a driver shall not serve as a driver. If the criminal history record check reveals that the person has ever been convicted of or pled guilty or nolo contendere to any of the following felony offenses, the person shall not serve as a driver: (c) (I) A person who has been convicted of or pled guilty or nolo contendere to driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol in the previous seven years before applying to become a driver shall not serve as a driver. If the criminal history record check reveals that the person has ever been convicted of or pled guilty or nolo contendere to any of the following felony offenses, the person shall not serve as a driver: An offense involving fraud, as described in article 5 of title 18, C.R.S.; An offense involving unlawful sexual behavior, as defined in section 16-22-102 (9), C.R.S.; An offense against property, as described in article 4 of title 18, C.R.S.; or A crime of violence, as described in section 18-1.3-406, C.R.S. A person who has been convicted of a comparable offense to the offenses listed in subparagraph (I) of this paragraph (c) in another state or in the United States shall not serve as a driver. A transportation network company or a third party shall retain true and accurate results of the criminal history record check for each driver that provides services for the transportation network company for at least five years after the criminal history record check was conducted. A person who has, within the immediately preceding five years, been convicted of or pled guilty or nolo contendere to a felony shall not serve as a driver. Before permitting an individual to act as a driver on its digital network, a transportation network company shall obtain and review a driving history research report for the individual. An individual with the following moving violations shall not serve as a driver: More than three moving violations in the three-year period preceding the individual's application to serve as a driver; or A major moving violation in the three-year period preceding the individual's application to serve as a driver, whether committed in this state, another state, or the United States, including vehicular eluding, as described in section 18-9-116.5, C.R.S., reckless driving, as described in section 42-4-1401, C.R.S., and driving under restraint, as described in section 42-2-138, C.R.S. A transportation network company or a third party shall retain true and accurate results of the driving history research report for each driver that provides services for the transportation network company for at least three years. So all sorts of criminal history, driving record, etc checks have been required since 2014. Colorado were actually the first state in the USA to implement rules like this for ride share companies lol.
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    Niemand hat geantwortet
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    We have to do this ourselves in the government for every decommissioned server/appliance/end user device. We have to fill out paperwork for every single storage drive we destroy, and we can only destroy them using approved destruction tools (e.g. specific degaussers, drive shredders/crushers, etc). Appliances can be kind of a pain, though. It can be tricky sometimes finding all the writable memory in things like switches and routers. But, nothing is worse than storage arrays... destroying hundreds of drives is incredibly tedious.
  • Meta Reportedly Eyeing 'Super Sensing' Tech for Smart Glasses

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    I see your point but also I just genuinely don't have a mind for that shit. Even my own close friends and family, it never pops into my head to ask about that vacation they just got back from or what their kids are up to. I rely on social cues from others, mainly my wife, to sort of kick start my brain. I just started a new job. I can't remember who said they were into fishing and who didn't, and now it's anxiety inducing to try to figure out who is who. Or they ask me a friendly question and I get caught up answering and when I'm done I forget to ask it back to them (because frequently asking someone about their weekend or kids or whatever is their way of getting to share their own life with you, but my brain doesn't think that way). I get what you're saying. It could absolutely be used for performative interactions but for some of us people drift away because we aren't good at being curious about them or remembering details like that. And also, I have to sit through awkward lunches at work where no one really knows what to talk about or ask about because outside of work we are completely alien to one another. And it's fine. It wouldn't be worth the damage it does. I have left behind all personally identifiable social media for the same reason. But I do hate how social anxiety and ADHD makes friendship so fleeting.
  • How I use Mastodon in 2025 - fredrocha.net

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    Sure. Efficiency isn't everything, though. At the end of the article there are a few people to get you started. Then you can go to your favorites in that list, and follow some of the people THEY are following. Rinse and repeat, follow boosted folks. You'll have 100 souls in no time.