tbh it feels like most people I know use chrome or even edge without any extensions

How do I do that on iPhone?

Unlike when your friends or parents might raw dog, you can put that adblock condom on their computers for them.

If you had nothing to hide, you wouldn’t mind Trojans! /s

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 $$$

using the internet without an adblocker is like fuckin a 5 dollar hooker behind a dumpster.

You’re gonna catch something nasty and go through a lot of misery.

Remember the mosquito banner? The one with the annoying mosquito sound?

I remember.

I use Mullvad so naturally, I can pick my exit country. Since I’m an iOS user (aka, no NewPipe etc) I always choose an exit country that is majority non-English-speaking. It makes the YT app adds so much more bearable if I can’t understand what they’re saying.

Yeah early days were really hard.

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.

Is there a big advantage to a pihole in addition to ublock?

I was fine with unobtrusive ads, I was fine with a minute of ads before a YouTube video. But it got so bad it was constantly interrupting everything. Also want to know what’s extremely unpleasant? Political ads calling for a moral panic against you or taking bigotry against you as a general assumption. I’m not watching that bullshit. My life is better without ads

I once watched a 60 minute ad because I wondered (what would a 60min ad even be about) and I can’t remember

Wow! Pranks from 2004 are ads in 2024.

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 fuck 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.

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

I’ve personally clicked on Instagram ads and made purchases from them. This has pretty much always been for various events, and I don’t really have any regrets there. I’ve seen some cool plays and gone to parties that I’d never have known about otherwise.

I can’t imagine what would ever drive someone to click on a random banner ad though.

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”

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.

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.

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

Sometimes the sponsored links at the top of a Google search are exactly what I was looking for. I just need to quickly disable AdAway so that I can follow the link.

The WoW forums around 2012 had a virus infect thousands of computers before blizzard removed it. It was a 3rd party ad that was spreading the virus.

This is still an issue today.

Exactly.

I was excited for Brave when they talked about service privacy-friendly ads and sharing revenue with sites. That obviously didn’t happen, but I think it is a good idea in general.

I don’t mind privacy-respecting ads like sponsorships and whatnot in videos, but I absolutely cannot stand the data-harvesting ads used almost everywhere, as well as ads in services I’ve paid for.

overlooking the biggest issue, the malware/virus ads.

Just trying to read the news on my phone kills its battery because of all the ads and crap. I’m just reading, why is my phone’s battery draining like water? Hence Ad blocker is mandatory.