Maybe we should stop calling them adblockers.
I am not blocking ads I am blocking spyware and malicious scripts. I wouldn’t have anything against well behaving ads without js.
Also making it illegal is nit necessary, just don’t show me your content and exclude it from search results and we are good.
I am selecting the files I wish to transfer and the ones I do not. It is my bandwidth. I also use reader mode as an accessibility feature.
“Selective file transfer” is a nice way to put it.
On that note, I wish Firefox had a setting to always load sites in reader mode, when available. Ideally with the ability to set exceptions, though.
This seems like a basic accessibility feature. I believe Safari can do it on a per-site basis, but all browsers should have the option as a global preference.
I’m not blocking ads; I’m exercising my property rights.
That’s how we need to be framing this, and the level of outrage we need to have about it: who the flying fuck do these technology companies think they are, to presume to dictate how I am “allowed” to use MY OWN PROPERTY?!
This is nothing less than a war on private property rights. They are trying to subjugate us and turn us into digital serfs. We are justified in defending ourselves and our rights by any means necessary. They are lucky we’re merely taking technological countermeasures and not shooting them in the street.
Yup, it’s also why I refuse to run video games with kernel-level anti-cheat (and I use Linux, so that wouldn’t work anyway), and why I block as much as I can through my browser. I do allow certain intrusions, like DRM for certain games or videos, but it’s on a case-by-case basis and not something I just hand out.
So I completely agree. If they want me to pay for it, they need to find a privacy-respecting way to do it. I can buy a newspaper at the store with cash, and until I can accomplish the same thing through my browser, I’ll keep using an ad-blocker. I’m happy to pay a few cents here and there, but I’m not making an account and I’m certainly not letting them plaster my browser with annoying and privacy-violating advertisements.
Meanwhile I just hate ads. I hate how deceptive and manipulative they are, and how the entire point is convincing people to Buy Product™ regardless of if it even works as advertised or will even be useful to the person. It always comes across as antisocial behavior to me, but maybe I’m way too radicalized from my hate of late stage capitalism and overconsumption.
I really think that’s a separate issue, which needs to be discussed as a completely separated issue. I agree ads by their nature are manipulative, they serve the website and the advertiser not the user. I think that once ads are non user-tracking then we can have a discussion about advertising ethics and deceptive advertising (online ads have always been terrible even before they were privacy invading) but you can’t have that discussion when it’s mixed in with privacy issues. Only once you take away the privacy issues then we can have the conversation about ad-pollution versus website revenue.
This, some feel the need to balance their use of adblocking by saying how it would be better if ads were less intrusive, less spying.
We would be better without any ad at all.
I could tolerate well-behaved static image banners, but you know it would all be distracting videos at the least.
True. This is why I switched to uBlock origin, because it blocks so much more than ads: trackers, malware, and those stupid autoplaying videos. I really wish there was an “acceptable ad” option (per-site because some don’t deserve that but many do) like Adblock Plus though, where it lets through unobtrusive ads.
I really wish people would stop calling them adblockers too, they’re wide-spectrum content blockers, and they’re not blocking ads, they’re blocking malicious ad-networks which is necessary for user security. Given the prevalence of online spyware it should be a basic feature built in to all web browsers.
It just gives spyware-promoting sites the ability to say “but you’re hurting our revenue” which is a completely separate issue.
The right to use adblockers? This is my device. I bought it. I have ownership. I decide what and who gets to run code on it. Write what you want in lawyerspeak in contracts designed to prevent me from reading and/or understanding it. You can’t redefine ownership
You can’t redefine ownership
Sadly, they really are trying to. And by promising comfort and convenience within a walled garden, they are managing quite well to convince the majority of people that it’s all good and for our own benefit.
Can’t open your devices, can’t copy your content. Welcome to DRM hell
My right is to use
- Adblocker
- Trackerblocker
- Clickbait Blocker
- Fingerprint Randomizer
- Anti-adblock blocker
- Cookie Advice Blocker
- Paywall jumper
This as long Website abuses with these measures, to steal my data, bandwith and browsing speed, annoying me. I’m a user not a tradable matter
If sites want me to pay for their content, they’ll need to find a privacy respecting way to get money from me. But their preferred compensation method usually involves even more privacy intrusion and spam than just blocking their ads.
I was excited when Brave launched their original crusade to try to block privacy-violating ads and replace them with profit-sharing, privacy respecting ads (i.e. local only, no data shared with third parties), but AFAIK the profit-sharing never happened (and as such I never used Brave). I’d be happy to pay a few cents or whatever to view website content, provided it goes through an intermediary so it’s not related to me in any way. I don’t want an account at each of these sites, but I’m happy to replace their lost ad-revenue anonymously, provided that buys me a privacy-respecting experience.
That the point, maintaining a website, a service or information, costs money and it is legitimate that they rent their space to advertising companies to earn money. But it is a big difference from placing ads related to the content of the page and quite another from using targeted ads that are based on your data and histories, many times even coming from companies with a poor reputation or directly from scammers, because they don’t bother to control the origin (eg YouTube)
It is legitimate for an informative page or newspaper to limit access to subscribers, but a user does not have to create an account just because they want to find out about an important fact in a newspaper that they have never visited and never plan to do so again. It would therefore be much more ethical to log this user’s IP allowing a certain number of accesses and only put up a paywall if they log continuous access. Because there is a right to information.
It is not a fight against the legitimate interests of the pages, but the abuse that the pages do with their interests, overriding the rights, privacy and security of the users.
there is a right to information
I disagree. I see no problem with media companies locking their content behind a paywall, because that’s their IP and they can do what they want with it. The reason they don’t is because that would destroy their income since people will just go elsewhere for that information.
I have no problem paying for information, I have a problem with spreading my personal information all over the Internet. I honestly don’t think these sites care too much about my personal information, but they need to get it to process recurring payments and whatnot. That just opens me up to security issues, so I choose to not make accounts.
So that’s why I want some form of anonymous payment system where I can pay for access without divulging my personal info. I’d just load the browser with $X/month, and the browser would pay $Y/month for all of the users that use the browser to access that site that month. That keeps transaction costs low and preserves my personal info. The browser could also potentially provide anonymous demographic info since that’s useful for curating content.
Unfortunately, no such payment network exists, or at least no such system is popular.
Unfortunately, no such payment network exists, or at least no such system is popular.
Adding that not all people can’t affort to pay a monthly fee, maybe to one or two newspaper, but it’s absurd tto create dozends of paid accounts to be informed. Worst in the case of research papers in some sites. That means that people have to pay a fee to dozends of sites or they remain ignorant abot important succeses in the world and maybe important informations for their studies. I’m from Spain and it’s absurd for me to pay to Washington Post, NY Times and others for an ocasional consult an monthly fee. I’m an old retirée and need making money sudokus to reach the end of the month, paying already a lot of money, simply for the access to Internet. Fine for you when you can pay for every newspaper you visit for an information, but I have no regrets skipping the paywalls for an occasional piece of information.
That’s totally fair.
That said, the current choices are:
- make an account, enter personal info, and pay a monthly fee
- be tracked across the Internet by advertisers, who’ll try to manipulate you into buying stuff
That’s a crappy set of options, so it’s no wonder people opt for ad blockers since both alternatives involve sharing personal information (which is likely to be exposed in a breach).
Instead of that, I want these choices:
- microtransactions through my browser that pays for content I access (with a monthly cap)
- privacy respecting ads served by my FOSS browser based on local browsing history (doesn’t talk to the Internet)
Advertisers still get relevant advertising, but they don’t get the personal information, just data about which ads were accessed due to which categories. Users could choose which sites to pay for directly, and which to pay for via ads, the only change is that privacy is preserved.
I think that ads which are related to the content of the page you visit is the best solution, there are no adicional informacion needed, nor these from the browser or other sources, you visit a page with information related to computers and find ads and banners from computer brands. That is. It is absurd to see there food ads, because you visited before the catalogue of an supermarket which filled you with trackers. The only problem is surveillance advertising, which must be declared illegal, without these surveillance and tracking, ads ar not the problem and no more need of an half a dozen blockers and scripts to avoid this crap.
Ads are a way for companies to steal your life from you. 60 seconds at a time.
The way I see it, once the page lands onto your screen, the company/website owner/etcetera should have absolutely no right to tell you how you can or cannot interact with the page so long as you don’t load the page to attack their server(s).
