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Ad blocking is alive and well, despite Chrome's attempts to make it harder (www.theregister.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 304 points 7 months ago (46 children)

Let's be honest: The internet without adblock is unusable. I really do not know how all those people without adblock are doing that.

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  • [–] 93 points 7 months ago (21 children)

    I see people who put zero effort into ad-blocking in a similar light as people who don't leave shitty partners. At some point they manage to convince themselves that it's not a problem.

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  • [–] 57 points 7 months ago (14 children)

    Don't forget that most people don't know that blocking ads is possible. To most people, their browser is on an appliance, like a washing machine or fridge. They know how to do the basics, but that's about it.

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  • [–] 36 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    Some even LIKE the ads.

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  • [–] 29 points 7 months ago* (4 children)

    I'm pretty sure I've clicked in like 3 ads in my life accidentally. But I saw people actively clicking in ads on purpose regularly and that shit shocked me completely. People don't look at it as malware and phishing links like I do and think it's a good thing. Internet was a mistake.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago*

    I use Ad Nausaem (probably butchered the spelling) Firefox plugin on my home PC for that. Instead of blocking ads, it hides them into a sandbox and "clicks" on all of them in the background. Won't use it on anything battery-powered though.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    So I’m not trying to be contrary… but who is using their browser on an appliance?! Certainly not ‘most people’?

    I would agree that there is a general ignorance of adblockers but there’s no way most people are using browsers on appliances..

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    What? Nobody's using their browser on an appliance (except for a handful of masochists with Samsung fridges). I said to most people their browser is on an appliance, as in they treat computers, phones, and laptops like appliances, in that they're mysterious boxes that do a particular job.

    Hardly anyone is trying to hack their appliances, and the majority of people just lump their computing devices into the same category - it does what it was designed for and nothing else

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    A computer is an appliance. In the strictest sense of the word.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Just like I treat my car and for other that's offensive because a car is a passion project. I can imagine the parallels.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    There definitely are. I've met a lot of people who really love their cars, and if I ever talked to them about how I (didn't) take care of my car they would look at me the same way I look at people who tell me they've never even seen the settings menu of their web browser.

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  • [+] -20 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Similar light? Go get some fresh air. It's just a bunch of ads, the worst are avoidable if you don't visit clickbait sites.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago*

    Mainstream sites have been known to spread malware due to the lack of vetting process ads go through even on big ad networks.

    But really, it's just a bit of a black eye malware, you slipped and fell into a doorknob clicked it yourself, your partner ads didn't do anything.

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  • [–] 49 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    No seriously though. Was using managers laptop very briefly, and needed to look up some instructions. No adblock, Google Chrome default browser, etc. The websites were almost unreadable. Giant video ads in top and bottom corners, big thick flashing distracting ads on all sides making the readable area a little bigger than a postage stamp. Genuinely how do people browse the Internet like this?

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago*

    Kinda reminds my of my 2010 Toshiba laptop touchpad. The pad was probably 2 inches wide and 1.6 inches tall, and it had special "quick zones" setup in each corner, and then scroll zones on the bottom and right side, and then "back" and "forward" zones at the top, and a window switch zone on the left. When you subtracted all the "reserved" space on the touchpad, the actual useable area was slightly larger than the top of my thumb... And gestures and tap to click was on by default. I don't know who tested that and was like "yeah, that's useable" but seriously, WTF dude.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (11 children)

    It's genuinely insufferable. I have plenty of ad block on my pc but little on my phone. When I'm doing stuff on my phone it's sometimes impossible to navigate certain news sites or watch videos because of all the fucking ads.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    AdGuard works well,l on Android, as well as Vivaldi or Brave with their in-built adblockers.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Firefox on android works well too! I use it instead of a lot of apps (including the other place...ugh...)

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    There are a couple of VPNs with built-in DNS blocking for advertisements. Athena is a solution that uses your phone's VPN functionality to route traffic served from known ad networks into a digital brick wall like Roadrunner baiting Wile E. Coyote into a painted tunnel.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

    well that's why most people use apps instead. the real internet is so hostile without a guide.

    especially now that you can't use the mainstream browsers and do it. the barrier to entry has gotten so high that i don't blame kids for being put off by computers and prefering their phones for everything. tiktok has annoying ass ads, but no apps are as bad as the average news website...

    it reminds me of trying to learn about cars growing up. i didn't learn about cars growing up. i tried, but everyone i tried to learn from spent the whole time complaining about all the anticonsumer practices that made cars shitty these days. all the hoops you have to jump through to work on them yourself anymore. how the manufactures went out of their way over the course of years to take what used to be a fun tinkerers hobby for the everyman and made it incredibly difficult and expensive to do yourself.

    my take away was "I hate cars". so when i hear teenagers these days say that they hate computers i get it. they fucking suck now and there's this 8 foot fence of knowing how to make them suck less before they can even start wanting to learn about them. but it's going to take them a very very long time to get good enough with the computer that they can accomplish anything on it better than on their phone. so we have trucks full of ladders that can scale that fence, and even if we lose our ladders we know how to scale that fence barehanded if we gotta. but the kids just walk around the fence because they don't value what's inside. why would they?

    so I'm just waiting for the old pc based intent to slowly wither away as we age with it... places like this becoming out last bastions in a world that requires validated apps on phones.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Do people mostly use apps instead? I don't really get that perception, but also everyone in my family basically hates tiktok, facebook, instagram, twitter and other social media sites on principle. My apps are basically 2FAs, email, chats, and tools, but the vast majority of my time on my phone is in Firefox.

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  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)

    Yes. As someone in High School my peers have no idea whats happening while using a computer and none of them hate that they need to install a bajillion apps for the dumbest stuff. They just do it and keep the apps, even if they legit use it once a year.

    Basically none of them know what a folder is, that there are actual files inside their phone/computer. When I'm doing tech support I can't say "open the files app/file explorer and go to x folder" I need to hold their hand through it all "take your mouse here on this icon, click on this, drag and drop this here..." and silently facepalm when they can't drag and drop... Or I make them press keyboard shortcuts that does it for them. Many of them refer to any kind of sideloading/piracy as "installing an apk/installing as an apk" even on iPhones and computers.

    I really really believe that mine and the following generations are substantially more tech illiterate than previous ones. Like of course they dont all need to be tech savvy but my dad or my 50 year old teachers know how to open folders or drag and drop and I can just say it as is to them and they will do it fine, maybe after a 2-3 second wait. Can't do that to my peers. They exclusively know how to "use" phones to scroll the social medias, take photos, text and such.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    yes, the vast majority of web traffic is phones using apps. no person that uses this platform is an average user.

    even if your family hates tiktok it's still massively popular.

    especially among the youth who probably only have a really shitty locked down chromebook from their school and the recently developing world. in the global south most people never got a decent computer. they all got phones instead. once you're on a phone everything pushes you towards apps.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Yeah. My partner, who notably hates apps (I suggested hermit to turn websites into apps, and they rejected the idea until I reworded it as "Bookmarks"), mostly uses apps. Several people have commented that it's weird that I use the mobile browser for most social media (Lemmy being the exception).

    Yeah it's apps for everyone now.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    It... Really, really is. I remember using Fandom on mobile being so bad I set up an auto redirect to breezewiki, and that was with adblockers. Now that I have DNS-wide adblocking on, when I accidentally click a Fandom link it's pleasantly surprising how well that's working.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    I think people are using the world wide web less now and much differently. Most people don't browse websites like going to ESPN.com or newgrounds or something. Problem use apps now and only a select few for that matter.

    My wife can't even find her safari browser in her iPhone which she's glued to most of the day. For her is 90% email and 10% tiktok.

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