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Are Ad-Blockers Saving Internet Users, or Ruining the Internet?
Motherboard ^ | 1/13/2017 | Meredith Rutland Bauer

Posted on 01/13/2017 1:49:00 PM PST by qam1

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To: qam1

The advertisers and websites have done this to themselves. I’m not going to wait for a bunch of ads to load before I see what I’ve clicked on.

Either get faster ad servers, or weave the ad text into the page. I have fiber to the house, so the slow speeds aren’t at my end.

I started by just blocking the flash players that launched automatically (noScript), but have expanded to AdBlockPlus for Firefox, or just the standard install of Brave.

It’s like the Cable networks that have popup ads during the show. A few of those, and that channel is history for me.

It’s hard to believe how stupid the media giants are when it comes to advertising. It must be the drugs.


61 posted on 01/13/2017 4:10:22 PM PST by PAR35
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To: VanDeKoik
It allows me to not have to see an ad for every damn 1 minute video on YouTube.

Wait. UTube has ads?

62 posted on 01/13/2017 4:11:40 PM PST by PAR35
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

>> I do just the opposite and blacklist them as not worth the effort.

ditto


63 posted on 01/13/2017 4:12:51 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: glasseye

I was wondering if Chrome had a “private” window like Mozilla browsers do. Thanks for the insight.


64 posted on 01/13/2017 4:17:06 PM PST by ducttape45 (Every Saint has a past, Every Sinner has a Future!)
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To: yuleeyahoo

All you Linux geeks. Brave will run stand alone. You just unpack it in a home directory.


65 posted on 01/13/2017 4:37:48 PM PST by SanchoP
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To: qam1; All
Websites could get their revenue back from blocked ads by using this one weird trick. Click here to see more. Now click again, three more times, and we'll show you the content which is NOTHING like what you thought it was going to be, and doesn't include the picture that led you to click on it to begin with.

I don't have much sympathy for probably 95% of the advertisers. Most of what they advertise is either generally crap or even downright harmful.

66 posted on 01/13/2017 4:49:15 PM PST by Hardastarboard (Freedom Trumps Fascism)
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To: MeganC

Opera browser: “If you block ads, webpages will load faster and look cleaner.” Thank you, computer geniuses.


67 posted on 01/13/2017 4:50:44 PM PST by Falconspeed ("Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others." Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94))
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To: arthurus

if i can visit no sites because of my multiple ad blockers ... i can cancel the internet. if i cancel the internet i can just go back to watching tv.


68 posted on 01/13/2017 4:53:32 PM PST by slickdain (Make America Wealthy Again ... STOP H-1b visas!)
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To: qam1

As ad producers can’t be trusted either with internet security or with respecting reasonable limits, ad blockers are a necessary self-defense mechanism.


69 posted on 01/13/2017 5:24:41 PM PST by thoughtomator (Purple: the color of sedition)
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To: discostu; All

Breitbart is the worst. My advlocker counts 27 ads blocked on that site.


70 posted on 01/13/2017 11:57:46 PM PST by Cobra64 (Common sense isn't common any more.)
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To: qam1

This reminds me, I need to get a Raspberry Pi and implement a Pi Hole. Basically a network appliance to kill ads on your entire network.

PI-HOLE: A BLACK HOLE FOR INTERNET ADVERTISEMENTS
https://pi-hole.net

Block Over 100,000 Ad-serving Domains
Known ad-serving domains are pulled from third party sources and compiled into one list.

Block Advertisements On Any Device
Network-level blocking allows any device to block ads, regardless of hardware or OS.

Improve Overall Network Performance
Since ads are blocked before they are downloaded, your network will perform better.

Reduce Cellular Data Usage
Pair your Pi-hole with a VPN for on-the-go ad-blocking and save on data costs.

Monitor Performance And Statistics
The Web interface shows how many ads were blocked, a query log, and more.


71 posted on 01/14/2017 12:08:45 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: qam1

Bkmrk


72 posted on 01/14/2017 1:53:56 AM PST by JubJub
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To: Garth Tater
No way people ought to be allowed to decide for themselves how much to tip their server.

Nor should they be allowed to waist the waiter's time deciding what to eat. Do away with all menus. The customer will eat whatever the cooks feel like cooking at the time.

73 posted on 01/14/2017 7:14:00 AM PST by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: Garth Tater
There’s just too much freedom going on out there on the internet and it’s not good for people.

AND, we need to take that LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE BRAVE thing out of the National Anthem.

74 posted on 01/14/2017 7:17:26 AM PST by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: RegulatorCountry
Don’t fake them into clicking accidentally because your stupid banner is timed to jump up over the “next” arrow on the web page when the viewer moves their cursor toward it.

And there is a special place in hell for sites that spread articles out over 10-20 pages of ad polluted crapdom.

75 posted on 01/14/2017 7:36:29 AM PST by southern rock
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To: ducttape45
I run Ghostery, Ad-Block Plus and have the blocking cookies for most/all the advertising sites on my computer. Any site that wants me to turn off my ad blocking capabilities I simply blacklist and don't go back.

The statement in the article that ad-blocking is the new anti-virus/anti-malware rings very true. Since using Ghostery, Ad-Block Plus and blocking cookies I cannot recall the last time Malwarebytes popped up due to a website wanting to download malicious code onto my computer through some advertisement on a website.

If websites really gave a sh*t they'd find another way to monetize their website. That means they'd have to have excellent content that users would want to pay to access and consume / contribute.

Oh gee, like say .... FREEREPUBLIC.COM which has survived 20 years using this exact model.

Or perhaps websites that rely on advertising dollars to survive (and many of them make quite a bit of money..) would want to spend some of that revenue guaranteeing the safety and security of the advertisement on their website.

That's REALLY the problem at the core of the debate: These sites want all the revenue without having to spend a thin dime on securing their sites properly and checking to make sure the advertisements that appear on them are safe and don't install malicious code on their readers computers.

Then there's the advertisement sites, of which there are more than I can name. Unscrupulous, lax in their own security, wanting to serve up as much as possible using as few resources (secure) as possible. Subject to hacking themselves and they don't really give a crap.

All this gives me a business idea. Not going to state it here. Going to talk to a venture capitalist friend of mine and see what he thinks first. There's a way to do this all safely and securely by giving users the control over what they see. Why didn't I think of this before?!

76 posted on 01/14/2017 7:49:30 AM PST by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: MeganC
The way to deal with this is to place the ads as content in a site instead of using these annoying weblinks that stream crap to your computer and hog up all your bandwidth.

That's certainly one way to do it. The person(s) who figure out how to dynamically insert user preference based, secured ads into a secure HTML-5 Content Stream where it cannot be tampered with may become the next Internet billionaire.

That would involve re-writing content delivery engines (I think .....) to accomplish, but it's doable.

I kinda like your idea, I may incorporate it into mine. :-)

77 posted on 01/14/2017 7:53:16 AM PST by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: UCANSEE2
The customer will eat whatever the cooks feel like cooking at the time.

I like that one. EAT YOUR PEAS! It's all your gonna get.
78 posted on 01/14/2017 7:57:59 AM PST by Garth Tater (What's mine is mine.)
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To: usconservative
I use a couple of different browsers, each for specific reasons. Chrome is used primarily for Facebook and Twitter. Palemoon, a Mozilla product (26.5) is my primary browser though that may change. Ever since changed their programming code in version 27 and newer it screws with too many of my websites. As long as 26.5 doesn't become dangerous to use I'll stick with it.

I use Adblock Latitude with Palemoon and Adblock Plus with Chrome. I tried Ghostery and even NoScript in the past but they both caused problems when I tried to pay my bills online. The various websites just wouldn't work correctly. But I haven't had too much to worry about since I use a combination of Adblock and AVG.

I've never had a reason to use something like Malwarebytes, and if my system ever got infected to the point where that kind of programming was needed to be used, I'd just reprogram the entire computer.

79 posted on 01/14/2017 1:58:49 PM PST by ducttape45 (Every Saint has a past, Every Sinner has a Future!)
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To: qam1

They should quit making the ads so annoying. I’m not the problem here, talk to the advertisers.


80 posted on 02/16/2018 8:05:05 PM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity (Liberalism is a social disease.)
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