[HN Gopher] It's astounding how bad the web is without an ad blo...
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It's astounding how bad the web is without an ad blocker
Author : BerislavLopac
Score : 44 points
Date : 2022-08-29 18:09 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| mikestew wrote:
| I particularly enjoyed the reply of "those ads feed a lot of
| families, including mine". Man, I don't want to get all Godwin
| here, but that can be said about a lot of things I wouldn't want
| my name attached to. Please find a better rationalization than
| "I'm in it for the money".
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Those people could find other jobs actually doing something
| useful for society with their skills but they wouldn't get paid
| as well.
| masukomi wrote:
| .... wait "most of the highest paid programmers ($750k/yr)"
|
| a) WT ever living F. How many programmers are making that much.
| Like really. Discounting CTOs, VPs, etc.... like actual "i write
| code for a living" people.
|
| Are there even 100?
|
| b) even if there are _none_ of those people are writing freaking
| ad software, or anything even remotely close to it. They're
| prolly doing seriously brainiac next level AI and quantum
| computing stuff. Sure, some of them may work at google and thus
| get paid for it but.... no. just ... no.
|
| Yes, programmers make ad software. Yes, programmers mostly use ad
| blocking software and are thus unaffected by their creations.
|
| but WTF is with this perception of $750k/yr being anywhere even
| _remotely_ near what the average programmer gets? Like. that's
| not only not in the same neighborhood, it's not in the same
| planet.
| throw98u238 wrote:
| > _WTF is with this perception of $750k /yr being anywhere even
| _remotely_ near what the average programmer gets?_
|
| They said "highest paid programmers", not "near average"
| programmers. This is fairly typical total comp for the senior
| staff level at a FAANG. Around 5-10% of engineers at these
| companies will make that much (and a smaller percentage make
| even more).
| [deleted]
| mguerville wrote:
| As others have pointed out it's mostly noticeable on mobile, I
| only consider looking something up on mobile if I know I can
| append my search with a domain that I trust to be ad-free or ad-
| light. Recipe... too risky to go on a random site (because of ads
| and also proliferation of fake recipes that are just stock images
| and Ai generated copy to garner pageviews), so I do "{dish} +
| seriouseats.com". Movie or TV trivia... "{movie} wiki"... etc.
|
| News is the worse, I rely on twitter for headlines or go straight
| to my paid app (NYT + WSJ) if I hope to read more than 140
| character on any topic.
| tobbob wrote:
| This in addition to the months of legal work required to actually
| read all the terms from the hundreds of tracking companies that
| I'm expected to individually allow or disallow, before being able
| to see the page, only to realise it's not what I was looking for.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| A few years ago, my father-in-law asked me to fix his computer.
| He only said it was "slow".
|
| When I got there, he had a serious malware infection. Multiple
| spyware/hijacker browser extensions, a service running on the
| desktop that would pop open ads, the works.
|
| He said it started doing this stuff after he installed an iTunes
| update. It took me way more effort than it should have to
| convince him that the ad that claimed to be an iTunes update was
| fraudulent and started the mess.
|
| After I managed to clean up the mess, I installed uBlock Origin.
| It's been smooth for him ever since.
| voxic11 wrote:
| For anyone on android, you can get full ad blocking by using
| firefox with https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
| US/android/addon/ublock-origin...
| ausaus wrote:
| Or set dns.adguard.com as Private DNS.
| SahAssar wrote:
| DNS adblocking is not at all the same as browser level
| adblocking. Also setting your dns provider to adguard.com
| entrusts them to see what domains you visit, which you may or
| may not care about.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Ublock origin is much better than a DNS level blocker. It can
| block lots of junk inside a page that doesn't come from a
| different server.
|
| I use a combo of both and many custom filters but just DNS
| blocking isn't enough and work the rise of DoH and ads served
| on-domain it's only going to get worse.
| Double_a_92 wrote:
| Yeah, that's the main reasons why I rarely use the Web on my
| phone. It's just horrible, for every new site I load I have to
| click at least 2-3 dialogs before I see the content.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| And the close button is guaranteed to be about 2mm wide.
| keeganjw wrote:
| Anytime I need to use the browser on my phone, I'm shocked how
| bad and unusable the web is. I move back to my laptop with an ad
| blocker if I want to do anything other than a quick Google
| search. A few mainstream sites like Google and YouTube are
| alright, even if the ads are annoying, but most sites are just
| downright hostile to be on.
| jkestner wrote:
| 1Blocker is worth paying for, if you're on iOS.
| tuatoru wrote:
| Most government websites are OK.
|
| I have about a dozen sites I access on my phone outside home. I
| use pi-hole at home.
|
| 1. https://pi-hole.net/
| RDaneel0livaw wrote:
| It really is shocking as you said. I think every single time I
| try to use the web on my phone, I think "how did this happen?"
| ... because it truly is unusable. I was trying to read an
| article about a game my friend and I were playing and it had so
| many popups/popovers/ads/bullshit/etc and the worse thing ever
| where the page was jumping all over the place as I was trying
| to read it (what's happening here? Other content loading in? It
| can't know where my phone screen is though?). So I literally
| gave up, wrote it off as basically impossible to use. Went to
| the computer with Firefox and ublock and read the page.
| Unbelievable.
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| Me too, although in a sense I kinda like it because it makes me
| use my phone less.
|
| Reddit is now completely unusable on a phone now unless you
| download the app, which I refuse to do. So I now spend far less
| time on Reddit, which has turned out to be a great choice.
|
| Sometimes I wish that more of my favourite distractions had
| _more_ friction, not less.
| mikestew wrote:
| Imagine the bubble we live in at our house: everything, phone
| or otherwise, goes through the pi-hole. You can come to our
| house with your random phone or laptop, ad blocker or not, and
| you won't see ads, either, thanks to network-wide DNS blocking.
| And we both mostly WFH, and therefore rarely venture out into
| the wild, wild Internet outside of our home network.
|
| And then I have to look something up while we're camping,
| expecting the same experience as I get every other day of the
| week, and...I would seriously curtail most of my non-work-based
| Internet use in a major way if that's what I had to put up with
| every day.
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(page generated 2022-08-29 23:02 UTC)