• ConstipatedWatson@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I dislike the fact that “ads” can also include crapware being injected into my computer (viruses, tracking cookies, mysterious scripts, etc).

    • dan1101@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      And there are so many scam ads that look like UI buttons and such. I can see why people get fooled sometimes. Those sort of ads should automatically be rejected by af networks and the sites that host them. But $$$

    • lucid@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Is this still really a thing? I remember getting some viruses from ads in the very early days of the internet, like late 90s / early 2000s, but can’t remember getting anything in at least the last ten years.

      • ConstipatedWatson@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s currently late and I am on my phone, so I can’t research this too well, but for example this thread and official Microsoft link discusses th Adrozek malware which injects you with unwanted ads and information directly from your browser.

        Sure, it’s not a virus in the older sense of the term where someone either burns your drive or takes over your computer and locks you out asking for a ransom, but it’s still piloting you unsuspectingly and you don’t want it.

  • Schwim Dandy@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I don’t think I could use the internet if I didn’t have an adblocker. Ads genuinely anger me. I think it’s just from the early days with pop-overs and unders, blinking, non-collapsible and the like holding content hostage. Intrusive or not, I’ll do everything I can to not see an ad.

  • istanbullu@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    The internet is unusable without an adblocker… I recommend uBlock Origin and Pihole.

    • Notorious@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      uBlock Origin at a minimum. But I would suggest a privacy focused browser. Librewolf, Mulvad or even Brave. Browsers leak so much information about you it is easy for sites to fingerprint and track you even with an ad blocker.

      https://privacytests.org/

      I know Librewolf is working on their DNS leakage (last section on privacytests.org), but they also allow you to select a privacy focused DNS server which is nice when you’re not on a network you own, so you can’t run PiHole.

  • ximtor@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Does anyone ever actually click on an ad? Like “hey thats cool I wanna check it out/buy it right here right now”?

    I have adblockers active everywhere and only disable then somtimes for specific sites that really don’t work otherwise, but even if the unlikely case would come up that something is interesting I would just look it up separately? Mostly I just turn a blind eye on them anyway, but just wondering, some people gotta really click/buy from these ads? It just seems so surreal to me…

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The only obvious ad I’ve ever clicked on was for a “free” IQ test. I figured I’d never done one cause they’re fake, but I had time to kill, so I clicked through. After 20 mins or so answering questions, it ended on a transaction page. The only way to see your “results” was by paying $20. I obviously didn’t pay, and instead tried to report the ad, only to discover that Google Ads has zero mechanism to even report scams to Google. After some research, it turned out that this blatant bait and switch scam had been operating via Google Ads for like 5 or 7 years. Google doesn’t give a removed if scammers use it’s ad tech to scam your grandma or inject your system with malware, as long as they get paid for the privilege.

      I’ve always used an ad blocker, but the whole experience reinforced how anti-consumer and pro-criminal surveillance capitalism is. Permanent absolute ad block — without exceptions — is how everyone should operate, because none of these companies deserve any trust whatsoever. Even if you trust the site you’re visiting, you can’t trust any ad company they utilize.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If you’re walking around somewhere and you see a person or people offering a “free personality test,” do not take them up on their offer. They’re Scientologists. They once refused to let my mother leave back in the 70s until she said she would start screaming “rape.”

    • TragicNotCute@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      People definitely do. CTR (click through rate) is generally pretty low, even before the majority of Americans were using ad blocks. But it’s not 0

    • Sc00ter@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      My wife does. But she’s a sucker for “a good deal”

      I dont ever click on them myself, but if I start searching for something I need/want, and I see a brand I’m familiar with thru advertising, I’m more likely to explore their product, at least. Simply just because, “of I’ve heard of this before”

      • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Brand recognition is one of the key goals for running ads, it works.

      • ximtor@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        But these are never real deals are they? At least I saw maaaaaaany bullshit fake deals, cant remember anything legit ever…

        I also found my mum buying crap of instagram a while ago, but i kinda got to her to be a bit more mindful what she clicks on.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Not only did my late father-in-law click on ads, he also clicked on spam emails. Yes, his computer was super slow and I regularly had to clean off the malware.

    • ZephrC@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I know ad rates and metrics are heavily based around click through, but does it even actually matter? I mean, TV ads are big money expensive, and nobody has ever clicked on those. I guess if you’re advertising a shitty mobile game or something then it matters, but does McDonalds or whatever even want you to buy a hamburger before you watch a YouTube video? That doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

    • guy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I have ad blockers everywhere, except native mobile apps. I’ve clicked on an Instagram ad for shirts. I bought the shirts. People keep complimenting me on the shirts. No regrets there

      • ximtor@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I guess that sounds reasonable. I sometimes miss seeing some of the cool stuff on instagram

  • daddy32@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Ads are just pure negative. There was even one study that calculated this as a direct financial negative, although unfortunately in narrow circumstances: it was calculated that for mobile users in the US, paying for the data transferred to display the ad was more expensive than what the site owner got paid for including it on his site.

    • derpgon@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      That’s is indeed a pure negative - for the users. The site and the the mobile carrier both got paid.

      Yes yes, capitalism good.

      • Jojo@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Don’t forget the company serving the ads, and also the company paying for them

  • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Back in the day, major news sites like the BBC ran ads that were infected with malware that then infected computers. These weren’t shady sites like people expect you to get viruses from.

    Installed an ad blocker the day that news broke and never looked back. Ads are potentially harmful to your devices.

  • LeadersAtWork@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If the ads are unobtrusive and interesting, and not clearly based on harvested personal data, I wouldn’t mind.

    Unfoorrrtunately…

  • SolidVerse@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s a necessity. The internet really is unusable without it. Pop-up ads, long unskippable video ads, annoying shovelware scam ads, etc etc.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Don’t a majority of them also use Chrome? Because they’re going to find that their adblockers are less and less effective.

    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s yet another reason to use a DNS as blocker, and not let your browser use DNS over https.

      I haven’t done it myself yet, but I figure that sooner or later I’ll need to update my router to block all outbound DNS that doesn’t go through my DNS ad blocker. Some devices try to use their own hardcoded DNS to get around them…

        • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          DNS blocking is about the only way to block ads & tracking on things like streaming devices. You can’t install Firefox or uBlock on an Apple TV for example. You can block ads on many of the apps on the Apple TV as well as all the telemetry they try to collect with a well configured pi-hole and selected DNS blocklists.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            True, but using a computer with an adblocker and a second gen Chromecast (which you don’t need Chrome for) also eliminates that.

      • TheEntity@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        DNS-based ad blocking is unfortunately much less effective. It’s still better than nothing though, that’s for sure.

        • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          A multi-layered approach is the best approach. My pi-hole blocks advertising domains, malware domains, etc. That helps tremendously with all the “smart” devices that include DVRs, streaming devices, etc. where you can’t install something like ublock. I also make sure something like ublock is installed wherever possible.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Because then it can bypass your ad-blocking DNS

          DNS over HTTPS was a great idea for privacy if left in your hands, but immediately ran into the reality of intrusive advertising

        • Hexarei@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          Because dns ad blocking is typically done with something like dnsmasq which doesn’t support DNS over HTTPS, though it’s easy enough to setup a resolver/forwarder that does

    • Reddfugee42@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Then there’s those of us who uninstalled the YouTube app and installed Kiwi so we can install the uBlock Origin chrome plug-in 😅

      • tb_@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Firefox has plug-ins available out of the box on Android, including uBlock Origin.

        • Reddfugee42@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Kiwi is a browser with plug-in support out of the box but it’s always good to have options, thanks :)

          • tb_@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Oh, I seem to have misinterpreted your message then. That’s pretty neat

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I remember the good ol days when the ads would lag up the loading of the page

    Now they all load first and cover the entire content of the page because screw usability

    Looking at you, every news outlet site ever