I once caught a reddit ban for sharing NSFW content even though the youtube video had none. I had to ask why and it turned out there was porn in the ads and apparently that was my fault.
I have this conversation with my wife. I installed a pi-hole on our network, works nearly perfectly, however every site thinks we have ad-blockers installed, and kind of we do I guess.
She got mad because all the sites she wants to read (she love celebrity drama) won’t let her read any more, so she just uses cellular data instead of the home wi-fi. I don’t know how she reads anything with all the ads everywhere.
One day I installed AdGuard on a Pi and routed my parent’s traffic through it, effectively blocking ads. I thought they would love to live without ads but she asked me to remove it because the games she plays won’t progress unless she watches ads.
Sounds like I will be working on next
Couldn’t you just change her phone’s DNS settings to circumvent the adblocker? Then she could still use the WiFi.
Lets call it a combination of “not tech savvy enough” and “it did what I needed and she had a bypass, and I put 0 thought into it after”
I started with pihole and eventually switch to AdGuard home. Sucks for apps that “requires” an occasional ad, but 1 thing I still can’t figure out is why Hulu won’t work anymore.
But I feel you on the benefits and why I won’t give one to my parents. These are people who took 2 months to realize my dad isn’t on the family text group because he accidentally “left” the group, and why my mom’s iPhone stopped ringing because she consciously used the physical mute switch on the side (buried beneath the phone case).
Your wife is the mentality that ensures we can’t have nice things. Too many people are willing to be abused, exploited and manipulated just to get their cookie.
Every time I help a family member with tech support, I make sure to install ubo as an extra , even if it’s unrelated to the problem. I’ve also started adding the bookmarklet kill sticky. Less clutter and ads means less attack vectors, which means less work for me.
Hey thanks, never heard of this
Edit: any advice for how to add the bookmarklet to Firefox on mobile? Can’t drag the thing anywhere like the site says, and I can’t seem to right click to copy the link
Not the same feature, but I sometimes use reader view in Firefox desktop and mobile to remove annoying site elements from around articles.
Yeah reader mode is clutch. It often gets around article paywalls too
Great idea for that bookmarklet, might start using it myself. I use Stylus a lot, so in the past I always just wrote my own CSS for unstickying sites I visited regularly, but this would be neat for those one-off occasions.
When I have to go off my network because some website won’t load because I am blocking their trackers I get sick from the AI ads, its gross. Truth in advertising is dead so so dead. They are not even trying to make products look real anymore.
I won’t allow list the things the site needs, I would rather just go on mobile for a min. I wish I could set DNS settings per browser so I could spin up a lighter adblock that will allow the sites I have to rarely access and then just have a dedicated browser for.
I set up firefox and ublock for my inlaws, but they only use edge.
They like to read some rag newspaper website and the difference is STAGGERING, the ads it has everywhere, I can’t describe it. They always use edge, on purpose. Deliberately.
My mom is the same, she uses Firefox but I was hesitant to add ublock because if it break something she would have no idea on how to fix it. So I installed Librewolf and changed so it remembers login to make it simpler for her, she never uses it. I think she is so used to the ads that she believes something is wrong when the ads are no longer there.
Change to Mullvad or Adguard DNS. It’s not perfect, but doesn’t require manifest V2 so it works well even on edge.
That said it’s even harder to fix issues caused by DNS-level adblocking than an extension so consider at your own risk.
This is me and my wife. She showed me a video on her phone the other day and it started with two ads. I didn’t really comprehend that they were ads and asked her why I was watching some weird Dominos meme. 🤷
good spouses don’t let their SO suffer ADs
I downloaded audio files and VLC to make a playlist so my partner doesn’t have to listen to ads when out for a run.
It might be time to introduce them to Navidrome :)
I’ve offered so many times to get ReVanced set up for her and she just doesn’t care at all lol.
Same experience when I try to watch TV with commercials after 20 years of cable. Can’t even get through a sitcom. Hard to believe I grew up with that shit drilling into my brain every 5 minutes.
I once had an ad break so long I plain forgot what I was watching.
If I ever get hit with a break longer than 2:30 I just nope out.
If I’m hit with a break >0 I’m out.
I literally had this thought yesterday. I’m so glad I know how to use technology. I have no idea how folks raw dog the internet today.
I’ve been using ad block for years and was so confused when I went to watch the Rick and Morty marathon on Adult Swim. I had no idea it showed ads during the “intermission”. I immediately muted it, tried to figure out why ad block wasn’t working and questioned how anyone could put up with it.
Coming from a guy who watched infomercials as a kid, I could recite them from memory, living ad free for almost 20 years makes ads nauseating to me.
I’m the “tech guy” in my family and friend groups. Every time I need to help someone with something I have this experience and it’s crazy.
I once explained to a sixty-something-year-old that she could use firefox+uBO instead of paying for youtube red or whatever the hell it’s called Course, then I had to try to explain the concept of browser extensions and I’m not sure she got it
Not just ads but there’s a ton of malicious ads out there. Scareware that you don’t have to even click and your computer is now “infected” with a “virus” and you have to call some shitbag to just turn off the notifications for money.
Yeah dns blocker will give out you in a different world. Apps don’t have intrusive ads anymore
I use a VPN so places where I can’t block ads, like podcasts on my phone, at least I only get nonsensical swedish-language ads.
I install uBlock origin for them when they aren’t looking.
