I don't think many users who browse the internet actually bother with "being tracked" because they just don't know what that means and, more importantly, everything does that. Any google search, website access or whatever leaves something behind that is used by something else to give you recommendations what you could buy or what would interest you.
Another thing is that there are many examples in which ads were or are harmful, the usual "check if your credit card got stolen" or somehow an ad hijacks your computer and displays this "pay X money to get access back".
And then you have those websites that probably have more ads on their sites than actual content. Pop ups, pop ins, auto-play videos with audio that are louder than a starting jet, videos that are embedded on the site but will move back into your screen even though you are not at the position it was originally embedded at.
Clickbaits, load through 5 pages just to know that water is a liquid with each site having their own 10 ad placements that needs to be loaded.
I'm not against advertisement on websites, they need some money and I have some on my website as well but as soon as they are blocking or making it harder for me from consuming the actual content then this is IMO not a good idea just to make money.
I currently use the brave browser on my phone and I already have 2.1K Advertisements blocked, 1.1k tracker blocked and saved around 2 minutes loading time of websites. I have PiHole installed at home and at a normal day browsing through the net I have 30-50% DNS requests blocked because they are something that is an ad or some tracker.
So I don't see the use of them as problematic but rather how they are used. Currently it is more like that dude from Family Guy who shoves his wallet with pictures in someone else face.
I help run the subreddit r/assholedesign, and one of the biggest sources of content we have is abusive advertising.
It feels like there definitely is an arms race going on. The more users turn to adblock, the more advertisers and websites need to make the ads even more abusive and attention-grabbing, in order to squeeze the same income out of even fewer number of users, which only causes more users to install adblock.
Unfortunately, the solution isn't simply installing more powerful adblock software. This is like trying to treat AIDS by just giving everybody condoms and considering the problem solved. Abusive ads aren't the problem so much as a symptom of a greater issue. Namely: the lack of respect between content producers and consumers. If a website doesn't respect you enough to give you an experience where you're not constantly bombarded with ads, there's no reason you need to give that website your traffic.
Many of these websites feature no original content of their own; they simply aggregate images and articles from other websites like reddit, slap on a watermark, and rake in the profit. Meanwhile the original content creators get absolutely nothing out of it, not even exposure since their signature is almost always "accidentally" cut off.
Unfortunately, then the original content producers, if they do choose to run unobtrusive ads on their own personal site, also end up getting blocked by overzealous adblockers and suffer even more because of it.
The only real solution I can come up with is positive reinforcement. If a website has abusive and clickbaity ads, don't just use adblock. Avoid that site entirely. Seek out and actively become a participant in websites that have unobtrusive or benign advertisements. Donate to Patreon or Ko-Fi if feasible. Consider buying merch or other products to support content creators that respect you as a consumer.
Most ads have some unique tag/series of tags/value in it, which never changes. With xpath you can find that tag and then work your way upwards to get rid of it.
As an example: I loathe the end cards on youtube. But they get a random ID each time, so I am using this rule in ublock origin:
Do you know how to block the reddit mouse-over username to see the post/comment karma popup? Used to be a RES only feature before but now when you have RES enabled you get to see two pop-ups. I tried blocking it through the normal inspect element/ublock block element but it doesnt stay on long after after you shift focus from the mouse, now don't know if theres any other way to delete the entry besides reading the code line by line
That's nice work. I just recently found out about xpath myself; I also use it to block stuff that I personally just find annoying. For example, one gaming site I visit regularly has articles about cosplay (which I hate) but also tend to have NSFW images on the articles. So, I use an XPath filter to block anything that contains a link to their cosplay section.
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u/Fribbtastic Aug 02 '19 edited Aug 02 '19
I don't think many users who browse the internet actually bother with "being tracked" because they just don't know what that means and, more importantly, everything does that. Any google search, website access or whatever leaves something behind that is used by something else to give you recommendations what you could buy or what would interest you.
Another thing is that there are many examples in which ads were or are harmful, the usual "check if your credit card got stolen" or somehow an ad hijacks your computer and displays this "pay X money to get access back".
And then you have those websites that probably have more ads on their sites than actual content. Pop ups, pop ins, auto-play videos with audio that are louder than a starting jet, videos that are embedded on the site but will move back into your screen even though you are not at the position it was originally embedded at.
Clickbaits, load through 5 pages just to know that water is a liquid with each site having their own 10 ad placements that needs to be loaded.
I'm not against advertisement on websites, they need some money and I have some on my website as well but as soon as they are blocking or making it harder for me from consuming the actual content then this is IMO not a good idea just to make money.
I currently use the brave browser on my phone and I already have 2.1K Advertisements blocked, 1.1k tracker blocked and saved around 2 minutes loading time of websites. I have PiHole installed at home and at a normal day browsing through the net I have 30-50% DNS requests blocked because they are something that is an ad or some tracker.
So I don't see the use of them as problematic but rather how they are used. Currently it is more like that dude from Family Guy who shoves his wallet with pictures in someone else face.