I cannot understand how some people are living with this. It is unbearable
My retired parents live with me. I went ahead and put a PiHole on our home wifi. A day later my mother was literally complaining that she couldn’t click on ads on facebook. I told her those are ads and they track her and she says “well everyone likes to use the internet how they like to use it… can you put it back the old way? I want to look at these shoes”. Can’t fucking win.
My wife turns off the WiFi on her phone to avoid the pihole. She does this so she can watch the ads in her games to get an extra life or whatever. You’ll never win on that front and I won’t either.
I get so pissed off when I try to play sudoku on the bus and it forces me to watch 30 seconds of ads between each game. And then during the game I have to ignore the flashing banner ad at the bottom of the screen.
Just pay for a good offline sudoku app. It probably costs less than a cup of coffee. Then we’ll all be happier.
or get an open source, free and privacy friendly one from f-droid in case you haven’t tied your hands with an iphone
Simple games don’t need internet access. Can’t you block network connection for that app?
A better option even is getting something like what BurnedOliveTree@lemmy.world suggested, or this other one https://f-droid.org/packages/org.moire.opensudoku/ or this other one https://f-droid.org/packages/org.secuso.privacyfriendlysudoku/
Then pay 99 fucking cents for the app.
If the ads annoy you enought to post online, but the app is good enough that you keep playing anyway, then pay the developer for their work.
I swear to God some people around here have heard the term FOSS and thought “I don’t have to pay for software, hur dur it’s free and writes itself!”
I recommend Airplane mode or getting this https://www.f-droid.org/packages/com.kaajjo.libresudoku
Do you guys not use encrypted DNS or VPN while on mobile? I couldn’t deal with ads just because I’m off WiFi.
The thing is with a small app ads pay f all compared to the ongoing development costs. $100usd a year for Apple developer license, recent Mac and time spent developing it.
Try this
Lol at all of these comments coming up with ways to not pay someone $1 for a sudoku app.
There’s TrackerControl.
Try RethinkDNS or NextDNS. They don’t require wifi to work.
I also really don’t like ads, but I think what’s lately been bothering me more is every short form video that exists has subtitles added to the middle of the video. I can’t even look at the videos because I hate getting distracted by the unnecessary text in my face. Like just let me watch your video, I don’t need you to spoon feed me the words too.
It’s a decent value to play the ad while you actually pay attention to the show you’re “watching” for 30 seconds.
You ever consider divorce? /S
Wow. I never would have guessed that people would be upset that they couldn’t watch ads.
People defend what’s familiar, even if it’s shit
Oh my god, this statement hits too hard, especially relating to my wife and things like this. She’s very resistant to change.
Same. My wife gets mad that her ad emails won’t load on her phone. I’m like, hun, just delete them, we don’t have money anyway.
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“my house my rules”
hopefully you have a mustache to twirl while you say it
As long as your legs are under my table, I make the calls.
Spot on. I was incredulous when they told me they each sent their cheek swabs in to the “free to be me”, the population tracking group 🌊 👁️a. Now I understand that that same company’s entire database is on the dark 🕸️.
People actually CLICK on ads??? Genuinely never had even an iota of desire to do that. I forgot it was even an option.
Boomers that aimlessly surf facebook. They’re still trying to figure out what the use-cases are for the internet thingy they pay $60 a month for.
I do when it is advertising something I hate. Publishers get dollars for clicks, pennies for impressions. That way I force someone I dislike to give money to someone I like.
I use adnauseum on my computer so it blocks the ads, but also sends a request simulating a click to the ad network. Based on average CPM, I’ve cost advertisers like $300 so far.
Is that a browser extension?
Yep. The developer recommends to run it in stead of rather than alongside uBlock Origin, though, which is a dealbreaker for me 🤷
That’s because it’s built on top of uBlock. If you click on the extension it even has the uBlock logo. It’s literally just uBlock except it clicks on ads in the background. It even tells you how much projected money you cost them for clicking their shitty ads. And the websites gets paid. Only the advertisers get shafted.
Honestly I’m astonished it’s not more popular.
So you’re saying that it does literally everything uBlock does AND fucks over advertisers?
If there’s an option to shaft specific sites run by people you dislike too, I’m in! 😄
Yes but Google banned them from the extension store so if you’re using Chromium you need to sideload it.
Interesting. But wouldn’t that still decrease my privacy? Advertisers still won’t know which ads I’m interested in, but they will know what sites I visit and can still build a profile from that data.
Some people care more about fucking advertisers than privacy, as long as they don’t have to suffer through the ads themselves. But yeah, blocking is more private than fake clicking.
I got a lot of complaints from family, too. Especially because I block Meta. I just let them bitch and I tell them things like “those ads are broken because of malware” which isn’t entirely untrue.
but this means that she would see the ads but not being able to click? I don’t get it. They should had just disappeared, no? Or was she complaining that she wasn’t seeing the ads?
The ads still appear in the facebook feed but clicking them results in a “this site could not be found” or similar error, is how I understood it to work. I know the PiHole basically makes it so the routes from “whateveradwebsite.com” end up not resolving to an IP address. I’m not sure how FB is serving them; so the text/image content might be coming from an FB server and the link is just an ad URL with a bunch of tracking info on it.
yeah you’re right actually. I always use it combined with a local browser adblock and didn’t think of that
PiHole just blocks the DNS. Facebook serves ads from their own DNS so it’s not possible to block them in that way. Same with YouTube, I believe.
But if they click it, it usually ports you through a tracker link so they can track your clicks, and that’s easy enough to block.
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No. Google search results still show sponsored links. But if you then click on them it breaks. Same thing for FB. The links are served from Facebook.Com and so they are not flagged as ads.
So she is likely getting exactly what she searched for and then it breaks after clicking on it
yeah you’re right actually. I always use it combined with a local browser adblock and didn’t think of that
My wife bitched at me for the same reason 🤣
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I know it’s rare, but there have been times I intentionally clicked on an ad - if it genuinely seemed like a unique or useful product I had some interest in.
I imagine the fake-social-post type of ads are worth blocking though since it’s based in dishonesty and deception.
I block ads on all my devices, but I assume they’re scams by default when I do see them.
Some shops I only used once still send me their written newsletters and I don’t mind checking them if they do them entertaining, or about some niche products, even if I don’t consider buying them at all. I miss well-designed full-page print ads in magazines, or just those with a catchy imagery\wording. Now these all feel like a vintage, premium product, akin to vinyl records, if compared to what garbage web serves today. Such a weird thing to be nostalgic about, but I hope oldschool advertisers\smm persons feel it on their end too.
I get Royal Mint and Royal Mail news leaflets. I just like looking at pictures of stamps and coins lmao
If you want to click on ads just install a mobile game
“I’ll try to fix it. Now that I put it in taking it down brings the Internet down. Sorry, let me think how to fix this”
And literally put up excuses until they get used to it. I’m sorry but they made you do stuff you didn’t enjoy for your own good while telling white lies, it’s time for payback.
Great aunt was talking about all of these anti-aging pills that she was going to get
How could she even see the Ad? I don’t use facebook btw.
The ads on Facebook (and many other sites) are served from the same site as the actual content. So if you try to block ads with pihole it will stop the website from loading any posts.
Hi, butting in here, hope you don’t mind a question - is there a place to go with basic I instructions on how I can set this up too? Thanks!
Yeah for sure. I’m no expert by any means, but I can talk through what I did.
I used the instructions directly from their code repository: https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/#one-step-automated-install (I used option 1, the automated install). I did this on an old RPi2B that I had laying around.
After I set up the pi, I got its MAC address. I used this to set a static IP address in my router settings. This is important to make sure the pi keeps the same IP at all times. Then, also in my router settings, I set the DNS server to be the pi’s static IP address.
After all that was done, I just plugged the pi into a dedicated power supply and rebooted the router.
My dad’s the same way.
Would url cleaner help in this case?
You forgot the endless popups in the 2000s, which led to every browser integrating a popup blocker since then (and which often fail to stop actual malicious popups, no less)
Yes, in these years are a lot of pop ups, pop unders among other crap in some pages, but normally in most pages there was, apart of an ocassinal Banner not much else to justify an adblocker. But nowadays, between ads, clickbaits, cookie consent, adblocker detections and ant-adblocker, paywalls and other shit like these, you need a lot of extensions and scripts if you don’t want that the page fills your browser and HD with all kind of PUPs and unwanted scripts, apart of an ad/trackerblocker. It’s a cats and mouse game between companies which want to track and profile you with all kind of dirty tricks, and the user and devs continuos searching contrameasures to show them the middle finger.
reminds me of this scene from Idiocracy
yoink
How about those mobile ones where they gradually move in from the sides to form a border around the content until you tell them to fuck off
Only in apps from Google Play. Use InVizible Pro from F-Droid
Almost, but needs a few tweaks:
-
Content should be border-to-border in the 2000 panel.
-
Needs to be 3 lines of content in 2010 and only two lines of content in 2018.
-
2018 needs a slide-over autoplay video on the bottom-left of the content space.
2018 also needs one of those chatbot popovers in the bottom right of the page
-
Basically. However, in early 2000, it had popups all over.
@gohixo9650 I turned off my ad blocker by accident the other day and freaked out as the internet was unbearable.
Me everytime i use a broswer without ublock. Ill open a link here in lemmy without opening it externally to firefox and dear god my eyes.
Ublock makes the internet a better place. Or at least it shoves the bad stuff under the bed lol.
I always forget about my adblocker until I need to use a browser without one. It’s really pretty miserable.
I helped someone I know out with a thing on their computer and got blasted by ads because they didn’t use an ad blocker.
Those two minutes on the Internet really had me questioning how anyone manages to use it raw without going insane.
Maybe if we tell them uBlock Origin is a condom for their browser, they’ll understand?
What a sentence to type out
I see it that way. You don’t dive into some strange without protection, don’t let your computer do it with websites.
It’s always difficult with digital matters, since there isn’t anything tangible and concrete to show.
Like, there’s no shady person following them with a notebook and reporting back to their boss all day, but that is kinda what’s happening, just invisible to the user.
My pihole is pretty good at showing family how many connections their apps make are completely unnecessary to their actual functions. That’s a good illustration to start with.
I miss the IT Crowd and I am sad a show like it will never exist again.
I like your glasses.
I’m afraid they’re not for sale.
Dead.
you’re funny
Still not for sale
Nice tie! Haha
(Quietly) Thanks.
Hahahhahahah
A fire, at Sea Parks?
Damn, that mash looks tasty!
Brought to you by the twin principles of star math and wishy thinking!
When you say you turn your back to the stars… How do you do that?
It’s okay, you can just do a re-watch. It’s not like it’s been deleted by the Elders of the Internet.
There’s no further point once you can recite all the best scenes from the top of your head.
Okay, go on then, one more rewatch
But only if its been completely demagnetised.
Father I hear your a racist now father
How do you get interested in that type of thing?
It’s an ecumenical matter
Silicon Valley is the closest show I’ve seen in years
As I recall, back in the late 90s there was a story in the Wall Street Journal about a man who loved receiving email spam. After a long day’s work he would go home and relax by looking through his email spam and order things.
Some people are just like that.
I don’t like spam but I do like a good scam email, especially if they’ve actually given it some plot.
Tbh, I can relate to some degree. Sometimes I really love watching TV commercials. My favorite is teleshopping
Yeah, when I watch sports events from other countries it’s interesting to see the commercials, even if I don’t speak the language. It’s when I have to watch 20 minutes of the same commercials every hour that it gets bad.
Infomercials are incredibly entertaining TV and I will stand by that statement
I once had a user whose PC would freeze every time they tried to see their desktop. Like, you minimise something full screen and the PC would freeze for a few minutes and crawl while the desktop was in view.
Turns out they had more than 4,000 items on their desktop.
That day I learned where Windows puts icons that don’t fit on the desktop (it stacks them all on the first icon’s place, lol). And this wasn’t even the problem they called about! They were just grumpily blaming Microsoft and working around it for years.
I guess my point is computer illiterate/belligerent people will find a way around the problems they cause and just blame something/someone else.
I know what the problem is! Its the gigabytes! - Customer 15 years ago…
Kind of like smartphones today with an app for literally every friggin thing.
All the better to track you with so you have no choice but to agree and agree to their arbitration clauses if you want to use their and their competitors’ products with no alternative to avoid it. Sometimes you can’t even use the mobile site when so many services and businesses have flat out broken their mobile sites just to force the app. I don’t like DuckDuckGo’s browser but I use it to block trackers in the background.
This is correct. I use ddg for the same reason, and the “Desktop site” option for those little shits that broke their mobile site to force the app. If that option doesn’t work, I leave the site.
I found that Firefox mobile with adblocker solves 100% of my advlock issues, and usually fixes format and display issues with websites. Half the websites I view on chrome mobile don’t even fit on my screen anymore!
Last time I tried ff mobile, it was sluggish, and had no extensions. I’m guessing they fixed those issues? I like ddg mobile browser well enough, but I’d love to use ff on my mobile, too. And, yes, I did notice those formatting issues. I thought it was just bad design, but it’s the chrome engine? Interesting. Not at all surprising, though, but interesting.
Ah this brings back the memories of the race to close pop-ups as you can hear your parents coming home. For every one you close, three pop up to take it’s place. You can hear the key in the lock. Sweat pouring down your face you finally do it, you hit the last X and nothing new pops up. You have defeated the pop-ups… this time.
I got caught once… At a friend’s home by his mom ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yes, typical screens from these years, from a user who, as a newbie in the Internet, clicked on these beautiful banners and animations that were on certain pages with nice freeware stuff, screensavers, games, funny Powerpoints, etc… Nowadays these things do not appear and you can only notice that the PC goes every time slower and you know that you belong to the big family of the botnet community.
This gonna give me a seizure if I stare at for too long.
Whew, what an interesting blend of nostalgia and dread.
Lol, Jesus Christ. 🤣
My computer never looked like this
I have it on good authority, if you type Google into Google, you can break the internet.
Wait a minute, the “Elders of the Internet”!? The Elders of the Internet know who I am!? You’ve got to let me have it!
no no. The Elders of the Internet would never stand for that! The Internet needs to get straight back to Big Ben.
No shit young people do that, like 22 yo. Saw it. Freaked out.
is this how people do memes in 2023? shit, i miss impact
Everyone hates Impact but goddamn was it CLEAR and LEGIBLE.
Even this tiny image is legible with this style
The trick with any meme text is the outline stroke. Without it, even impact is illegible on the wrong background.
Motival Posters had a lot of black space outside of the picture so you could actually read the text!
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I used this scene in a cybersecurity training session. I knew it got the point across, when our resident ad-clicker asked me for advice to avoid that situation.
E: she asked for advice for her home computer, as she didn’t understand that “at home and at work” meant “at home and at work with any device, not just work’s”
Literally the Windows Desktops+Applauncher / Mac Desktop+Panel of people making waaay more Money that I am.
Like Mac really, who thought just piling up apps in an always shown panel is a good idea?
I have spent a lot of time around a lot of IT workers and I am literally the only person I’ve ever seen on a project that has an ad blocker installed in their browser.
I’m noticing some sites have become pretty unusable on mobile and I dunno what to do.
firefox for android + ublock origin and/or adguard-dns
Mullvad also has an adguard DNS. In android, if you go to network settings and then “Private DNS”, you can add this hostname: adblock.dns.mullvad.net
Cromite if you don’t like Firefox on Android.
sure if you prefer to support the google monopoly
I use Firefox on my desktop and laptop devices. I’ve tried using Firefox on Android. It’s slow, and breaks on some sites. If you use it, good for you. I’m not gonna use it just for virtue signalling.
I have literally never had any of these issues with Firefox on Android
I use fennec and have had zero issues.
I’ve never had issues with Firefox on Android, and because I use Firefox on desktop I can sync my browsers between devices
Honestly I find it faster on my phone than chrome
Virtue signalling and armchair activism is all they know.
How is it slow?
I don’t know the technical reasons. Probably due to people optimizing their pages for Chromium, since it’s the de facto standard. Most pages load slower on Firefox for me. Chromium based browsers are usually better. Also, most websites of Indian government break for me on Firefox. It’s probably their fault, not Firefox’s. But I don’t want to deal with the annoyance. Everything seems to work most of the time on desktop, though.
Stop making things up to justify your poor decisions. Caring about privacy and security isn’t “virtue signaling”, its just a good idea.
Bruh. I do care about privacy and security. Otherwise I would’ve used Chrome or Brave. Stop acting like anything except Firefox is trash. (That is the virtue signalling part.) They’re not. I’d be happy if Firefox suited my needs on Android. I’m sorry that I can’t change my experience just because you say so.
Firefox is very likely the best suggestion for people on android who have those concerns. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you but that’s what you are seeing here, people reccomending the best option. No one is telling you can’t use whatever you want.
If you don’t need access to another VPN, Blokada does device-wide ad blocking on iOS and Android.
I have a friend who has their entire center 5th of their laptops screen just dead. they move windows around it to deal with it. I look at the way they’re using their computer and like I can barely reach it at their window size but it’s better than paying the $500 MacBook repair to them
remember when youtube ads were those banners that appeared on the video and had a close button
i got stuck on the second screen
i’m not sure if what seems to be a poignant interactive demonstration of internet UX enshitification is shallow/incomplete or depends on javascript/trackers that my browser is blocking. it’s ironic either way
it might have js, I’m not sure. It isn’t the true modern web experience without 12MB of JS on a blog post/article, though :)
Oh god
But seriously, my favorite are online stores for products, but you can’t buy their product because they have pop-up ads for other products that interfere with their websites you can’t actually view or buy their fucking product.
It’s like, insane. And probably why Amazon still exists.
At this point I just want the internet to go away
I’m not sure is this is as or more cursed than user inyourface but I hate it anyways