[HN Gopher] FBI recommends using an ad blocker
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FBI recommends using an ad blocker
Author : ysabri
Score : 159 points
Date : 2024-09-08 21:57 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ic3.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ic3.gov)
| robpco wrote:
| FYI - this is from December 21, 2022
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| It's always an insane experience when you hop on someone's
| laptop/PC who has zero ad blocking installed.
|
| POV:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/shorts/iV3js9pd5IE
| kurthr wrote:
| Ads (with untrusted javascript and links) considered harmful.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I have a confession to make. I don't really have ad-block. If
| your site is too ad-infested, I stop using it.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| That feels like a pretty fair approach.
|
| If you don't mind, I'm truly curious why you don't Adblock?
| There's no wrong answer here. ;)
| Lord_Zero wrote:
| There might be...
| hirvi74 wrote:
| Not the GP you are asking, but I do not use an ad blocker
| because I predominantly use Safari as my browser. I would
| absolutely love one, but after Apple made all those API
| changes years back, I gave up trying to find one that works
| well and is privacy friendly.
| azinman2 wrote:
| The changes Apple made were to increase privacy. Content
| blockers that have access to the page have no network
| access. A separate process that does can only update the
| blocking rules.
|
| I quite like Ka-block
| gerdesj wrote:
| "The changes Apple made were to increase privacy"
|
| Apple gobbles personal data too and processes it and
| sells it etc. They are simply rather better at looking
| ... friendly. They really are very good at that.
| internetter wrote:
| Check this out: https://kaylees.site/wipr.html. It's no
| UBlock Origin, but it still does an excellent job on many
| sites.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Because I don't know how to install one nor do I have any
| interest in learning how.
| tyleregeto wrote:
| I don't use one either. I actually think ads are a good
| system for supporting content, and I do want to support the
| creators of the content I consume.
|
| I also have a low threshold for obnoxious sites, and will
| just bail and not return if I get annoyed.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| I do that too when my adblock is a little behind the
| adversary
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Typically people with this attitude have no-JS or something
| though for privacy reasons. That would cut a lot of ads down.
|
| Or do you not use any blockers at all?
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Yup, same here.
| mrinfinitiesx wrote:
| I just go to ublock origin on firefox and install it, they'll
| never ask about it; i'm just doing them a solid.
| the_snooze wrote:
| It's such a jarring difference when I'm browsing on my phone at
| home with Pi-Hole vs. when away. So much that it motivated me
| to set up a split tunnel VPN so all my phone's DNS requests go
| through my home Pi-Hole regardless of what network it's on.
| userbinator wrote:
| It's no wonder people have gotten a lot more ignorant and less
| observant when they have to constantly fight the bombardment of
| their attention by unwanted distractions.
|
| In that situation of using someone else's device, I've had to
| move windows half off the screen to be able to concentrate on
| an article when the ads on the side were constantly distracting
| me.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Better not use mine...
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| Here's your YouTube link without the creepy Google tracking
| (and with the missing playback controls):
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=iV3js9pd5IE
| belinder wrote:
| For computer health your PC needs an ad blocker, but also for
| mental health. At what point will the CDC recommend using it
| lapcat wrote:
| Can the FBI now arrest Sundar Pichai for obstructing justice with
| Chrome MV3?
| Nuzzerino wrote:
| That's not how that law works.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If wishing made it so though
| purple-leafy wrote:
| I make loads of browser extensions, is there any wins that can be
| had by building another ad-blocker? An manifest v3 compliant one.
|
| Or does unlock origin lite cover everything?
|
| I was thinking continent specific ad blockers etc
| rkagerer wrote:
| I'd like to see society in general become less tolerant of
| unwanted ads.
|
| The original Google site hit the perfect pitch, where they set a
| few unobtrusive ones out of the way alongside your results
| screen. Ironic they pioneered and eventually normalized what is
| now an epidemic of user-hostile spam all over the web. I feel as
| a whole we lose a lot more productivity and focus to this than we
| gain in economic activity.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > The original Google site
|
| For your nostalgia and/or despair, I found a chronological list
| of screenshots: https://scaledon.com/the-evolution-of-google-
| ads/
| hypeatei wrote:
| > Before clicking on an advertisement, check the URL to make sure
| the site is authentic
|
| Yeah, good luck doing that with all the various tracking links
| that mask the actual domain. Sometimes I try to click on links
| from _legit account related_ emails that are blocked by UBO for
| being part of a tracker /ad network.
| Sephr wrote:
| Even worse: Google allows advertisers to put whatever they want
| in the 'display URL'. This choice by Google actively serves to
| enable fraud online.
| NegativeK wrote:
| I hear this advice from other infosec people constantly, and
| it's starting to grate. In one breath we tell users "attackers
| are professionals who are doing this eight hours a day; they're
| probably going to trick you", and in another we're trying to
| get users -- who are busy doing their jobs -- to recognize the
| difference between an I or an l, or maybe go do a domain
| history lookup to see if businessandsons.com is some new
| knockoff of businessllc.com, or maybe figure out how to parse
| whatever the email reputation filter mangled the domain into.
|
| I know perfect is the enemy of good and defense in depth and
| etc, etc, but this advice just seems crap.
| Sephr wrote:
| Google has convinced regulatory agencies that they're not
| responsible for their own complicity with supporting link fraud.
| I wrote an article about Google's role in enabling link fraud[1],
| which shows how this is effectively a form of regulatory capture.
|
| Here's a particularly salient critique of these very same FBI
| recommendations, from my article:
|
| > The FBI suggests "Before clicking on an advertisement, check
| the URL to make sure the site is authentic. A malicious domain
| name may be similar to the intended URL but with typos or a
| misplaced letter." -- this is useless advice in the face of
| unverified vanity URLs
|
| 1. https://eligrey.com/blog/link-fraud/
| kenjackson wrote:
| Can't an ad always just redirect traffic to a vanity URL while
| exposing a non-vanity URL to Google?
| yard2010 wrote:
| AFAIR it's against their code, they do have strict rules
| regarding their ads.
|
| But it's funny I remember adsense fighting the bs fraud ads
| on the internet, only to become the bs fraud themselves..
| Sephr wrote:
| Yes. The core issue here is that Google does not effectively
| verify ownership of vanity URLs.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| [2022] - I thought I'd heard this before.
| yoyar wrote:
| Windows itself is malware.
| BaculumMeumEst wrote:
| What would tip the scales to justify including an ad-blocker in
| Safari by default?
| vunderba wrote:
| PSA: Even among tech minded folks, a surprising number of people
| are still using adblock which is widely known to use sponsored
| whitelists to allow companies to bypass the filters.
|
| The gold standard which works as an extension in both chrome and
| Firefox is uBlock _Origin_ , annoyingly not to be confused with
| uBlock.
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin
|
| https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin/cjpal...
|
| Also be aware that Google continues to add restrictions to
| extension permissions such that uBlock Origin may not be as
| effective as it once was.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Also be aware that Google continues to add restrictions to
| extension permissions such that uBlock Origin may not be as
| effective as it once was.
|
| That's fine. I don't use a Google made browser, so this would
| not affect me at all. It would also be very easy for this to
| not affect you too if you just had the courage to stop being a
| sheeple
| vunderba wrote:
| I'm not sure who this comment is directed at and I can't
| speak for everyone but I do think some people have to use
| Chrome as a requirement from their jobs - such as UI/UX
| testing for frontend development.
|
| So for them, it's better than nothing.
| simple10 wrote:
| Is the warning on uBlock Origin Chrome extension page due to it
| not using the manifest v3? Anybody know if uBlock is still the
| best option for Chrome?
| vunderba wrote:
| Marginally related, I've heard that Brave (which is a
| chromium fork) is going to maintain support for V2 so uBlock
| Origin will continue to work on it, but I don't use it
| personally so take that with a grain of salt.
| rty32 wrote:
| Not even that. Most of my software engineer colleagues do not
| use ad blockers at all. They are definitely aware of them, but
| they don't use them, and they don't bother to use them. Which
| is surprising.
|
| You would expect that the people who have the ability to write
| perfect selector rules to block ads and understand how all of
| this works would be the first to use them. But no.
| userbinator wrote:
| Meanwhile, Microsoft fights with itself on whether adblocking is
| good or bad:
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/learning-center/using-a...
|
| https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/supported-browser...
| taf2 wrote:
| I must be a strange person because I don't run any adblocker...
| if I happen to need to visit an ad stricken site I just toggle on
| reader mode. Get my info and get out... I never have to worry
| about clicking on a search result and it doing nothing ... but
| also I rarely visit these ad sites.... For the cookie banners I
| just inspect and delete the elements when they get in the way...
| aflag wrote:
| An ad blocker would save you some extra clicks.
| NegativeK wrote:
| > I never have to worry about clicking on a search result and
| it doing nothing
|
| I can't remember the last time I noticed that the ad blocker
| even existed on my machine. Occasionally some clever site will
| basically say "if you can see this, we're supported by ads and
| could use your help" -- but it doesn't break things and I don't
| see ad links in search results.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I've love to see what happens if ad-networks became _legally
| liable_ for any scams or malware that they enable.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| We still haven't reached peak Idiocracy.
|
| YouTube/hulu/disney+ still cut to ads instead of displaying them
| around the border of the content.
|
| Carl's Jr/Brawndo still haven't purchased the FCC.
|
| We are pretty close though.
| karlzt wrote:
| Previously:
|
| The FBI now recommends using an ad blocker when searching the
| web:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34916239
|
| _734 points | 2 years ago | 430 comments_
| thimabi wrote:
| Recently, my grandmother got herself scammed when trying to pay
| her bills, because she clicked a Google search ad for a
| fraudulent website posing as the local gas company. She lost some
| money and, of course, some of her personal data as well.
|
| When situations like this happen, I mostly place the blame on ad
| companies. It's their product, so it should be their
| responsibility to prevent abuses. But there is scant regulation,
| and the ad industry itself has little concern for privacy and
| data protection. Why would it waste money being proactive and
| effective against malicious ads?
|
| It is nice to see the government recommending ad blockers.
| However, it bothers me that it is up to us, users and customers,
| to deal with the negligence of ad companies.
| rty32 wrote:
| Wonder if someone would make a YouTube video talking about using
| uBlock origin to block YouTube ads, citing FBI's recommendation,
| see if it gets taken down by violation of YouTube's ToS.
| dopadelic wrote:
| Adblock would break most websites nowadays. It's commonplace to
| detect adblock and disable the website if adblock is detected.
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