[HN Gopher] Privacy Badger is a browser extension that learns to...
___________________________________________________________________
Privacy Badger is a browser extension that learns to block
invisible trackers
Author : memorable
Score : 242 points
Date : 2022-06-09 05:07 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (privacybadger.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (privacybadger.org)
| msarrel wrote:
| I've been using this extension for several years now. It works
| very well. The only time it doesn't work is when a site contains
| code specifically written to defeat it.
| gnuj3 wrote:
| At this stage of uBlock Origin, is there actually any point of
| using other extensions of you're just a regular Joe "browsing the
| web"?
| worble wrote:
| Maybe not for just "regular joe" but Arkenfox maintains a good
| list of extensions to use for privacy, and more importantly,
| which ones really don't add that much with recent Firefox
| updates:
|
| https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/wiki/4.1-Extensions
| ghostwords wrote:
| Hi, Privacy Badger dev here.
|
| While there is likely to be overlap between the various
| advertising/tracker lists and Privacy Badger, regardless of
| whether you enable learning locally, Privacy Badger can
| automatically discover new trackers that list-based blockers
| don't know about.
|
| Besides automatic tracker blocking, Privacy Badger comes with
| privacy features like click-to-activate replacements for
| potentially useful trackers (video players, comments sections
| like Disqus, etc.), and link cleaning on Facebook and Google.
|
| Privacy Badger is also a political tool. By using Privacy
| Badger, you support the Electronic Frontier Foundation [1].
| Privacy Badger sends the Global Privacy Control [2] signal to
| opt you out of data sharing and selling, and the Do Not Track
| [3] signal to tell companies not to track you. If trackers
| ignore your wishes, Privacy Badger will learn to block them.
| The idea isn't to block all advertising but rather to promote a
| better Web.
|
| [1] https://www.eff.org/ [2] https://globalprivacycontrol.org/
| [3] https://www.eff.org/issues/do-not-track
| sky-kedge0749 wrote:
| Thanks for your work.
|
| Has there been any study as to how closely Privacy Badger
| converges to list-based blockers like uBlock Origin given
| enough time? Is that at all a metric you use in development?
| ghostwords wrote:
| Definitely, we have been working on generating insights
| from comparisons to other content blockers as part of
| Badger Sett scans.
|
| There are a few academic studies that note that algorithmic
| and manual approaches to tracker blocking tend to
| compliment each other, for example:
|
| https://kevin.borgolte.me/files/pdf/www2020-privacy-
| extensio...
| sky-kedge0749 wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| Do any significant disadvantages of Privacy Badger stand
| out to you, contrasted with uBlock Origin? The biggest
| problem I can think of is that uBlock Origin will
| immediately prevent me from loading content that could be
| dangerous, while Privacy Badger has to visit dangerous
| content enough times to learn to block it, which is less
| good for security.
|
| On the other hand the big advantage to me for Privacy
| Badger is that it doesn't depend on manually-curated
| lists. uBlock Origin nicely wraps the block lists but
| when it comes down to it you are giving control over your
| browsing experience to the random volunteers building
| these lists, which, who knows? Though I'm not accusing
| anyone of anything.
| ghostwords wrote:
| It may be that Privacy Badger is more likely to break the
| Web than manual list-based blockers, just due to the
| nature of automated learning.
|
| Regarding having to see dangerous content multiple times:
|
| - Privacy Badger gets remote learning at this point from
| Badger Sett, so most common trackers should be accounted
| for.
|
| - Privacy Badger isn't so much a security tool as a
| privacy tool. Yes, blocking trackers is good for
| security, but it's not the primary objective. The primary
| objective is to stop non-consensual pervasive tracking.
| In this light, having to see tracking a few times before
| deciding to block it is a reasonable approach.
| hjek wrote:
| Wasn't the local learning disabled because it enabled
| fingerprinting?[0] Has that been fixed since you're
| recommending it?
|
| [0]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/privacy-badger-
| changin...
| ghostwords wrote:
| I'm not sure what you are asking. What am I recommending?
|
| All extensions that modify page state are fingerprintable.
| Privacy Badger's local learning creates the possibility of
| additional fingerprinting. As discussed in the blog post
| you linked to, we decided that we can deliver most of the
| benefits of automatic learning without local learning. We
| further believe that local learning can offer benefits that
| outweigh the risk of additional fingerprinting, which is
| why we kept the ability to re-enable this feature at the
| user's discretion. Does this answer your question?
| hjek wrote:
| > We further believe that local learning can offer
| benefits that outweigh the risk of additional
| fingerprinting,
|
| Nice. I thought the local learning (which was kinda the
| main appeal of PB) was dead after reading that post. Glad
| that isn't the case.
| ghostwords wrote:
| We've been trying to communicate that nothing essential
| changed, Privacy Badger still learns automatically, but
| we clearly have a ways to go before this becomes
| generally understood.
| Grimburger wrote:
| I like decentraleyes
|
| > Protects you against tracking through "free", centralized,
| content delivery.
|
| https://decentraleyes.org/
| jan__j wrote:
| LocalCDN is an actually maintained fork of this.
|
| https://www.localcdn.org/
| SquareWheel wrote:
| I like the idea of LocalCDN not necessarily for privacy
| reasons, but for performance. Now that shared browser
| caches are a thing of the past, it feels incredibly
| wasteful how often we have to download common libraries and
| fonts.
|
| I'd like to keep 500MB or so of data locally and just have
| it replace the network requests when they're made. I'd be
| curious how much data that might end up saving after a
| month or year of browsing.
| its_bbq wrote:
| Sounds like you could be fingerprinted by what's in your
| cache
| SquareWheel wrote:
| Only that I have an extension installed. Presumably the
| libraries cached would be the same for all users. So
| assuming an install base of >10,000, I'm not particularly
| bothered about it.
|
| I'm more interested in techniques for faster page
| loading.
| toastal wrote:
| It's basically unmaintained and CDNs for this style of are
| not useful anymore... https://httptoolkit.tech/blog/public-
| cdn-risks/
| divarre wrote:
| Genuine question, how is it unmaintained? It was last
| updated 4 months ago: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
| US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes...
| https://git.synz.io/Synzvato/decentraleyes
|
| Is it not still relevant as long as all sites don't choose
| to host their own dependencies, as recommended in the
| article you linked?
| toastal wrote:
| The libs need to be manually maintained. Literally the
| first one I looked at, jQuery (https://git.synz.io/Synzva
| to/decentraleyes/-/tree/master/res...), and we can take a
| look over at NPM (https://www.npmjs.com/package/jquery)
| and see the latest version, 3.6.0, was released on
| 2021-03-02 and is still not shipped with Decentraleyes.
|
| This add-on shaped the privacy-positive landscape for
| browsers upon it's release, but the features have be made
| obsolete with the latest browser isolation and that most
| entities have migrated to bundled JavaScript and off of
| CDNs.
| divarre wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification!
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Cookie-AutoDelete. Click it to whitelist a website so that its
| cookies and local data aren't deleted.
|
| Why would I allow all websites I visit to store things on your
| computer? I have about 20~ domains whitelisted (which I've
| added and maintained over years). The rest will be forced to
| forget me and not be allowed to create profiles and sell my
| interests and habits to the highest bidder.
|
| Works great with Firefox Multi-Account Containers: this lets me
| be stayed logged into an account (eg Google) but only for a
| subset of services (Google Drive, Gmail) - not Google Search:
| why would I want Google to keep an history of my queries?
|
| Works great with https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu (I
| really don't care about them since they're auto deleted
| anyway). I wish uBlock, Cookie Auto Delete and I don't care
| about cookies would be installed by default with Firefox.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| i have made it a habit to use firefox in private browsing
| mode all the time. i know i can use "private
| browsing.autostart", i was a big user of that for many many
| years but ineed some persistent logins.
|
| private browsing i do as in, i start my pc, firefox starts on
| its own so i do ctrl+shift+p. then i go about my day using
| this window and more such windows.
|
| whenever i have to wind down for the day or want to get rid
| of a session, i just close the windows and i am clean.
|
| i understand people use cookies auto delete like you
| mentioned but for my use case, i dont even bother. i can sign
| in, do what i need to do and i dont care about signing out or
| even being tracked across sessions because sessions are not
| persistent across logins
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| I enabled TOTP on 23 websites, so it would be annoying to
| log in and enter a temporary code every time I need to
| access my account there.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| sure... i get that.... its not for everyone. you can do
| one thing, keep one browser window for websites that you
| absolutely need to be logged in to always. for general
| browsing/surfing, etc, use the private window. for
| example, this means you arent logged in to youtube or
| google search while you go about your day while you can
| still use gmail in a container.... the normal not-
| container browsing needs cookie removal and stuff
| ajvs wrote:
| Firefox has this feature natively, no need for an add-on.
|
| In Privacy & Security settings set it to clear all browsing
| data when Firefox closes, and simply add exceptions for
| whichever domains you want. This also has the advantage of
| clearing some things CAD is unable to due to limite of the
| WebExtension APIs.
| kop316 wrote:
| As an FYI, Cookie Auto delete has the option to delete the
| cookies as soon as you close a tab vs. when you close
| Firefox, which to me is a lot nicer.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| 1. This extension (CAD) allows to auto delete after a delay
| (15 seconds by default). So no need to close the browser to
| delete trackers, and you can re-open a tab without being
| immediately logged out
|
| 2. Exceptions in Firefox preferences don't support regular
| expressions, so you need to whitelist both https:// and
| http:// and you can't tune things for subdomains. CAD is
| much more powerful, with custom rules (*.google.com), white
| and greylists, etc https://github.com/Cookie-
| AutoDelete/Cookie-AutoDelete/wiki/...
|
| 3. CAD has the option to keep a log of deletions and
| restore the deleted data/cookies.
|
| 4. And CAD supports containers, so you can open tabs of the
| same URL but only be logged in the one you want (multiple
| Gmail accounts but remain incognito in Search, Maps,
| Youtube and other Google properties).
| eps wrote:
| As per Wikipedia -
|
| _In October 2020, following security disclosures by the Google
| Security Team, Privacy Badger changed its default behavior. While
| it would previously learn to block new trackers heuristically
| after installed, it now defaults to blocking only trackers it
| already knows from automated testing before release. While it can
| still be configured to learn heuristically, it is no longer the
| default option because it can be exploited by third-parties to
| fingerprint the user based on trackers it blocks._
|
| So it seems that it no longer actually "learns to block", not by
| default.
| nunez wrote:
| given this, how is this different from adguard or ublock?
| ghostwords wrote:
| Hi, Privacy Badger dev here.
|
| - https://privacybadger.org/#How-is-Privacy-Badger-
| different-f...
|
| - https://privacybadger.org/#Is-Privacy-Badger-compatible-
| with...
|
| By the way, I like both uBlock Origin and AdGuard!
| dontbenebby wrote:
| I moved to just using uBlock + noscript + containers. EFF
| people don't know how to audit things. It's better to use as
| few extensions as possible + put services you paid for into a
| Firefkx container to segregate the browser rather than try
| these half measures.
|
| Also Firefox now builds in functionality similar to HTTPS
| everywhere:
|
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/https-only-prefs
|
| Code needs to be reviewed to be safe, so minimize the code in
| your browser to reduce both fingerprintability and possible
| exploits.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >So it seems that it no longer actually "learns to block", not
| by default.
|
| It does learn, just not on your PC:
|
| By default, Privacy Badger receives periodic learning updates
| from Badger Sett, our Badger training project. This "remote
| learning" automatically discovers trackers present on thousands
| of the most popular sites on the Web. Privacy Badger no longer
| learns from your browsing by default, as "local learning" may
| make you more identifiable to websites. You may want to opt
| back in to local learning if you regularly browse less popular
| websites. To do so, visit your Badger's options page and mark
| the checkbox for learning to block new trackers from your
| browsing.
| smichel17 wrote:
| I'm hoping someone with technical knowledge of how Privacy
| Badger works will read this / be able to answer:
|
| With local learning disabled, is there any need for using the
| Privacy Badger add-on specifically? Would it be possible to
| distribute the tracker lists which are generated by Badger
| Sett in a format compatible with uBlock Origin?
|
| edit: Found that Badger Sett generates a json blob:
| https://github.com/EFForg/badger-
| sett/blob/master/results.js...
|
| I am not that familiar with uBlock Origin's filtering syntax,
| but from a quick look, it seems like the json could be
| translated at least to the 'dynamic filtering' rules
| (accessible only when you enable "I am an advanced user").
| Perhaps I'll open an issue.
| ghostwords wrote:
| Hi, Privacy Badger dev here. Here are a couple of links to
| answers to start:
|
| - https://privacybadger.org/#Is-Privacy-Badger-compatible-
| with...
|
| - https://github.com/EFForg/privacybadger/discussions/2786#
| dis...
| schoen wrote:
| For those who never worked with Privacy Badger developers (or
| with badgers), see also
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sett
| raverbashing wrote:
| It actually says that on their page (they call it "local
| learning")
| [deleted]
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| i've been using ublock origin for as long as i can remember,
| religiously on every browser i use and that means, i refuse to
| use browsers that support it fully.
|
| that said, i recently saw "localcdn" addon for firefox which i've
| started to use. don't know if it has made any improvement but why
| the hell not
| adjagu wrote:
| Had not heard of LocalCDN[0] before. Currently using
| Decentraleyes[1] on mobile and desktop Firefox as well as
| recommending to everyone I know. At first glance LocalCDN looks
| like it could become a replacement for Decentraleyes. Does
| anyone have experience with both extensions?
|
| Personally I will wait to try LocalCDN until it becomes
| recommended by Mozilla and installable on mobile Firefox, but
| it has peaked my interest. Thank you for sharing it 2Gkashmiri.
|
| [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/localcdn-
| fork...
|
| [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
| US/firefox/addon/decentraleyes...
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| i remember decentraleyes from when it came out but i never
| bothered with it. dunno why. i was an ABP user at first when
| that came out but i switched to ublock origin years ago. i
| was even a noscript user for a long time but being lazy, i
| stopped.
| pixxel wrote:
| LocalCDN is an active fork of Decentraleyes. From memory it
| was forked back in the day to add a Chrome plugin (the
| original was Firefox only at the time). That's from memory
| though, so please do a little research to confirm.
| fritigern wrote:
| I use uBlock Origin with Firefox. Is Privacy Badger worth adding
| on top of it?
| user3939382 wrote:
| I use it and Decentral Eyes and uBlock Origin but it does get
| tiring how often these extensions break critical functionality on
| websites.
|
| Especially when I don't discover the problem until I'm half way
| into a multipart form submission that can't be refreshed, or an
| e-commerce transaction fails because it rapidly hands off between
| multiple third-party servers and one of them in the middle of the
| chain had some critical JavaScript path blocked.
|
| I still do it but it is a pain.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Weird. When I first used both of those years ago I had issues,
| but it's been multiple years since I've had a site actually
| break because of either.
| pmontra wrote:
| Not so weird. I unblocked all the important parts of the
| sites I use most (examples: Stripe's, PayPal's and my credit
| cards payment forms that sites redirect to) but I got a
| problem recently with a site that accepted an order but
| failed to redirect to some different payment processor. I had
| to send mail to cancel the order and place it again with
| Chrome on the next day. All it usually take is whitelist some
| site in uBlock and reload because usually sites accept orders
| only after getting a payment. That one was optimistic.
| cptskippy wrote:
| I've been encountering more and more sites that will only work
| completely in Google Chrome. T-Mobile and Motorola.com are some
| of the larger examples I've come across.
| zucked wrote:
| Agreed. Between browser extensions and DNS-based products
| (PiHole) the number of websites that simply refuse to function
| is quite high. Deciphering which part of my environment is
| breaking the site is more time consuming than I wish.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| I have no illusion that true anonymity is even possible on the
| internet these days but if by any chance I can mildly
| inconvenience the marketing parasite with running a simple
| extension why not?
| sdfhdhjdw3 wrote:
| Because random extensions are a liability, for example.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I love Privacy Badger and have been using it for years now. If I
| ever do see an ad, that ad is completely irrelevant and has no
| idea what I want, which I just love. I hate the advertising
| industry in general but at least being able to keep the
| creepiness is a big plus.
| Fat_Thor wrote:
| One of the less known features of Internet Explorer 9, released
| way back in 2011, was its Tracking Protection. In it, there was
| an option to turn on personalized tracking protection where it
| heuristically keep track of trackers that appear more than once
| on different sites and block it automatically. You can still find
| it in Internet Explorer 11. And prior, IE8 had a lot of features
| that was ahead of its time. IIRC, IE8 was one of the first
| browsers to have ad-blocker built in. This was almost a decade
| before any other browser made tracking protection a built in
| feature.
| louissan wrote:
| Genuine question -- how is this different/better than/less good
| than Brave?
| topranks wrote:
| This is from the EFF, Brave is just iffy.
| behnamoh wrote:
| English please?
| nxte wrote:
| I'm also wondering this. I use Brave and I'm wondering if
| adding Privacy Badger is overkill. I already use uBlock
| Origin and Decentraleyes.
| ghostwords wrote:
| Hi, Privacy Badger dev here. If you're happy with your
| setup, no need to install anything else.
|
| For reasons you might want to use Privacy Badger, see the
| following links:
|
| - https://privacybadger.org/#How-is-Privacy-Badger-
| different-f...
|
| - https://privacybadger.org/#Is-Privacy-Badger-
| compatible-with...
| drudoo wrote:
| I had to stop using Privacy Badger as a lot of sites would break.
| This was specifically when shopping, booking tickets or using
| government/banking sites. Extremely frustrating as most of the
| places it would break would be important sites where i really
| didn't want it to happen.
| 46_and_2 wrote:
| You can just disable it for some sites, or play around with
| their trackers to see enabling which fixes your website. I've
| seen it break some shopping sites too, but that's been mostly
| on rare occasions for me.
| drudoo wrote:
| I know and I did that. But when I daily had it break sites it
| got too annoying. When important sites break half way through
| using them, it was more a hassle than a help.
| 46_and_2 wrote:
| Understandable, I had it break once during opening a pop-up
| third-party website while verifying a credit card
| transaction - very annoying indeed. But through some
| tinkering managed to catch and whitelist the third party
| site later (it was timing out so no easy feat) and haven't
| had similar problems in a while.
| WithinReason wrote:
| When you have multiple similar extensions it can be a long
| process to figure out which one is breaking a site
| ghostwords wrote:
| Hi, Privacy Badger dev here. I hear you, and we're working on
| breaking fewer sites while blocking more trackers. For what
| it's worth, Privacy Badger now is better at both things than it
| was years ago, and it will be better yet next year.
| behnamoh wrote:
| thanks for all the time you put into this.
| mid-kid wrote:
| I've had more issues with some filter sources in ublock
| origin's default list. In particular Fanboy's lists, and some
| others, that just block classes, IDs and URLs with certain
| names and patterns that are "commonly" used for annoyances or
| ads, but are so aggressive they often overdo it.
|
| Didn't realize endcards were a thing on youtube until a year
| ago because of it, and many sites break in subtle to unsubtle
| ways.
| gorhill wrote:
| > ublock origin's default list
|
| Youtube's endcards are not blocked by default in uBO, and I
| can't find a list in the set of stock lists which blocks
| them.
| jmiskovic wrote:
| Happy user for several years now. I prefer this over other more
| popular blockers because Privacy Badger doesn't directly go after
| ads. It just blocks the tracking aspect; which in 99% cases of
| today's web advertising also prevents the ad from showing up.
|
| In general I consider ads to be unethical cognitive burden. The
| exception is if the site owner keeps the lights on by
| incorporating non-tracking advertising, it would feel scummy to
| block off their ads and just take the good content. On the other
| hand tracking users is an active hostile move and blocking it is
| the right choice. At least that's my reasoning for choosing
| Privacy Badger.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > it would feel scummy to block off their ads and just take the
| good content
|
| Nothing is scummier than web site owners thinking they are
| entitled to our attention, to say nothing of selling it to the
| highest bidder without our consent.
|
| There is zero obligation on our part to pay attention to ads.
| Zero. There is absolutely no shame in not wanting to be
| subjected to such noise. They'd very much enjoy it if we paid
| attention but they aren't entitled to make a single cent off of
| us without our consent.
| causi wrote:
| _In general I consider ads to be unethical cognitive burden._
|
| You don't even have to go that far. They're attempted fraud.
| They are by and large lies intended to trick you into giving
| someone money.
| ISL wrote:
| Many ads simply generate awareness:
|
| "Need a plumber in $TOWN? Call $TOWN Plumbers at 555-1212."
|
| Others simply advocate for a cause:
|
| "Vote Yes on $TOWN Proposition #4!"
|
| Ads like those above do add cognitive burden, but they can
| provide utility to a community and are demonstrably neither
| fraud nor lies.
| Cilvic wrote:
| I understand you made your point in good faith and I
| appreciate that you made me think about the difference
| between GP "lie" and "creating awareness".
|
| Nevertheless, I believe that giving the awareness part a
| free pass, can be a slippery slope. I didn't want to think
| about plumbing or the Proposition 4 or plastic surgery. So
| unless I search for either of those two I feel it's an
| intrusion to force those thoughts on me.
| nybble41 wrote:
| The "lie" is the unstated implication that doing these
| things the ads recommend will serve your own interests,
| and not just the interests of the advertisers.
|
| "Creating awareness" would be handing out unsolicited
| _facts_ with a neutral point of view. Most ads are more
| in the nature of unsolicited and manipulative _advice_
| from someone who does not have your best interest in
| mind.
| causi wrote:
| Exactly. Most advertising is at least as malicious as
| someone walking up to you and saying "give me five
| dollars."
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Ads in general? Or specifically online ads? Or specifically
| online ads that use cookie tracking?
| behnamoh wrote:
| imo ads - online or offline - are fine, but the internet
| has enabled advertisers to use so many shady tricks to milk
| more data (and money) out of consumers.
|
| I'm completely desensitized to ads and know people who
| won't click on ads at all. I wonder how effective ads are
| then.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Same here. I use it for anti-tracking, and uBlock Origin for
| primary ads, and PiHole for anything that slips through those
| two.
|
| Ads are a plague. They waste screen space, they're often virus-
| laden traps, they look ugly and ruin the look of a good
| website, they're often scams, etc.
|
| I pay for the the internet service that sends the ads to me,
| the screen the ads show up on, the computer that requests the
| ads and the electricity that powers the computer.
|
| I am not paying for all that just to get ads shoved in my face.
| If they want donations or a subscription, fine. Understandable.
| But no ads.
| brnt wrote:
| I think we really shouldn't feel guilty instructing our user
| agents to do as we please. They were meant to act on our
| behalf, that's their purpose!
| paskozdilar wrote:
| > In general I consider ads to be unethical cognitive burden.
|
| I agree.
|
| > The exception is if the site owner keeps the lights on by
| incorporating non-tracking advertising, it would feel scummy to
| block off their ads and just take the good content.
|
| I disagree - if content cannot survive without advertisement,
| then we're better off without it anyway. Non-tracking
| advertising is less bad than advertising, but it's still
| intrusive and not-called-for, just like all advertising.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| > if content cannot survive without advertisement
|
| Goodbye, niche knowledge sites, I suppose
| paskozdilar wrote:
| Most niche sites I know are completely ad free. What are
| some that live off ads?
| alanh wrote:
| they don't make enough off ads anyway
| pessimizer wrote:
| Niche knowledge sites don't use a lot of bandwidth, and in
| a lot of cases can easily survive on the donations of niche
| knowledge fanatics (especially after the rise of patreon
| and substack.) The real niche knowledge sites who can't
| survive without advertisement are trade magazines, and if
| the ads are specific to the niche (rather than generic
| intrusive ad auction chum), their readers value the ads
| almost as much as they value the content.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Goodbye, 99.9% of content we all regularly read.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Speak for yourself.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| > I disagree - if content cannot survive without
| advertisement, then we're better off without it anyway.
|
| So radio and TV should have never existed?
| paskozdilar wrote:
| In the current form, yes.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| s/So/& _commercial_ /
|
| There are noncommercial models for broadcast media, and the
| fact that some countries ended up with the vast
| wasteland[1] that _is_ commercially-supported broadcast
| television and radio isn 't an inevitability. It was made
| to happen, by commercial interests. It could well have been
| different in the US, and still is in numerous other
| regions.
|
| See Robert W. McChesney's _Telecommunications, mass media
| and democracy : the battle for control of U.S.
| broadcasting, 1928-35_ (1995)
|
| https://www.worldcat.org/title/telecommunications-mass-
| media...
|
| https://archive.org/details/telecommunicatio00mcch
|
| https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=05E6FC47CE851CB143F1DD
| 4...
|
| ________________________________
|
| Notes:
|
| 1. FCC Commissioner Newton Minnow, 1961
|
| https://vimeo.com/55481067
|
| https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-06/newton-
| min...
| mirntyfirty wrote:
| I think he meant advertising plus all the tracking that
| goes on.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| the phrase I quoted is followed by:
|
| > Non-tracking advertising is less bad than advertising,
| but it's still intrusive and not-called-for, just like
| all advertising.
|
| So yeah, they are against all forms of ads
| chollida1 wrote:
| I mean, this is not a well thought out idea.
|
| Google wouldn't exist if it couldn't support itself.
|
| Neither would 99.99% of websites available.
|
| Think of how many sites, are available just because they can
| cover their costs by putting adds on their site.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Think of how many of those sites are absolutely worthless
| vehicles who are really only available for the purposes of
| displaying ads.
| kqr wrote:
| You mean if the content does not cater to people who are
| well-off enough to pay for it with money?
|
| There are many people who simply don't have the financial
| means to support all the content they like. Does that content
| not deserve to exist? Should quality internet content really
| be a class question?
| paskozdilar wrote:
| No, I'm just saying if it's important, someone will want to
| preserve it, and it will survive. If nobody does, then it's
| not important.
| frereubu wrote:
| That's a very specific definition of important.
|
| Thought experiment: what about a free website that shows
| people where their nearest food bank is?
| cupofpython wrote:
| they can appeal for grants and funds as a non-profit to
| keep it running. why does such a website need to make a
| profit?
| frereubu wrote:
| I wasn't suggesting that they need to make a profit, just
| enough to pay for hosting and maintenance time.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| This is a really disingenuous argument that can justify all
| sorts of ridiculous stuff, the least of which would be the
| predatory and toxic mobile game industry
| cupofpython wrote:
| Im pretty sure predatory and toxic mobile game industry
| would fall under the same (or worse) categorization as
| ads, so would fall under the same logic of "if you cant
| afford to run your website without doing something
| unethical, then your website doesnt deserve to run"
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Amen to that. The toxic casino games have choked out
| 99.99% of the actual games, and that model is now
| spreading out to other platforms like a cancer.
|
| Back to ads, it sounds like living in a corporate
| dystopian nightmare where your every move is tracked and
| you're constantly manipulated is somehow the "woke"
| option in this discussion. Great.
|
| I could easily host a local Facebook-esque site for a
| hundred friends and family for less than $10 a month. I
| wouldn't need all their apps and every website they use
| to participate in a spy network to make it work, either.
| Sakos wrote:
| I'm totally fine with ads as long as they aren't intrusive
| (pop-ups are the worst). Sites should be able to finance
| themselves without requiring a subscription, since it allows
| access to those with less financial means. I just don't want
| them to track what I do on the internet and as long as they do,
| I'll block all of them.
| specialist wrote:
| Yes and: I'm mostly okay with (non-obtrusive) contextual ads.
| Behavioral targeting is immoral, cannot be redeemed, and
| should be illegal.
| zagrebian wrote:
| > I prefer this over other more popular blockers because
| Privacy Badger doesn't directly go after ads. It just blocks
| the tracking aspect
|
| This is the exact reason why I use DuckDuckGo Privacy
| Essentials instead of an ad-blocker. Whenever I mention that I
| don't block ads out of principle, I get down-voted a lot :-D
| danuker wrote:
| > If as you browse the web, the same source seems to be tracking
| your browser across different websites, then Privacy Badger
| springs into action, telling your browser not to load any more
| content from that source. And when your browser stops loading
| content from a source, that source can no longer track you.
| Voila!
|
| So, for example, does it stop loading fonts? Or CDN-hosted
| assets?
| c0balt wrote:
| Last I checked they relied on DNS-level blocking , like ublock
| origin, in addition to some fancy replacements for widgets like
| disqus. I don't think privacy badger blocks loading content
| from most CDNs but it may block cookies from them.
| ghostwords wrote:
| Hi, Privacy Badger dev here. The short answer is, it
| *shouldn't*. Longer answer here:
| https://privacybadger.org/#Does-Privacy-Badger-contain-a-lis...
| Hitton wrote:
| I used it for short time few years ago, but stopped after it
| was breaking sites by blocking regular images from CDN. I guess
| I could have made a whitelist or otherwise tweak its behaviour,
| but I don't have time to babysit software which probably
| brought only marginal benefits over uO filters anyway.
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