FBI Recomends Adblock

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Ad-Blocker's can prevent pushing to sites that sometimes use zero-days to attack or simply trick the victim into thinking they are on the correct site.

 

Ad-blockers when utilized do offer additional protection.  It's like trying to argue there is no need to run a firewall because programs are meant to be secure anyways.  The reality is that when browsing the web using an ad-blocker can have a meaningful impact in regards to the threats you face by going to websites.

And the context of the FBI notice is about shopping.

https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221

Quote

While search engine advertisements are not malicious in nature, it is important to practice caution when accessing a web page through an advertised link.

And this can be demonstrated easily:

 

 

Whenever I try to look up what DLL belongs to what program, I get garbage like this. I happen to know what it belongs to, but this is what happens ever damn time, no matter how obscure. adblock ain't blocking that. This is "SEO" crap that google elevates, leading you to a completely worthless page full of ads. 

 

What really needs to happen is curation, but curation will just not happen with internet search. Google got where it did because it's search actually looked at the context relevancy (prior to google, lycos was the next best search engine, and it would generate results much like this screenshot, full of completely irrelevant, poor quality content.)

 

[GhostRoadieBL]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

Nah, realistically, they are legally to have that information somewhere. With a forum, you agreed to that when you created the account. You agreed to that at some point on a website if you can login to the website. Even the default TOS for forum software includes this language.

 

It exists entirely because they need to store a session cookie. They can store more, but pretty much the reason you see is is because they need the cookie to maintain state, otherwise the second you close that tab, the page will behave as though you've never been there. Which is fine if you are just reading todays news, but if you wanted to return to where you left off, you can't.

 

Though let's be honest. Any site that ever had Google's Analytics code on it, had that somewhere. Which was likely 100% of top 10,000 sites.

If it exists entirely for a session cookie, that should be an option within the accept/deny cookies options (which most sites don't even have)

but when you read the privacy statement (yes I'm the weird one learning what a site actually has access to when you use it) for most sites it states vastly more is collected and used for whatever they feel like without the user's input, simply because you clicked on a link to their site. The most common seem to be IP (totally acceptable), device and browser info(maybe useful for page sizing but not actually needed), browser history and activity on other sites(absolutely not required for the functionality of the site).

[BabaGanuche]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

An adblocker is not a lock on a page, an ad blocker is the axe you break the door with to loot the home.

Not even close. That is not how http works. First you access the main page which then makes request, key word request, for additional content. The addblocker looks at these requests and says you don't really want to make some of them. At a fundamental level all it is doing is not making http requests. It is the same as never going to google.com. You will have a very difficult time arguing that not downloading something is the same thing breaking in. The website can stop responding to my browser's http requests if they no longer agree to send me data.

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, Kisai said:

And the context of the FBI notice is about shopping.

How so? While the warning about criminals impersonating websites could apply to any type of website including shopping websites, the notice doesn't say anything about shopping. It says that cyber criminals are using advertisements to impersonate websites to direct users to malicious websites which host malicious software or steal login information. It's about criminals impersonating websites and using advertisements that appear in search engine results to promote fraudulent websites in an attempt to trick people in to downloading malicious software or logging in to the website to steal their login credentials.

 

Quote

The FBI is warning the public that cyber criminals are using search engine advertisement services to impersonate brands and direct users to malicious sites that host ransomware and steal login credentials and other financial information.

Methodology

Cyber criminals purchase advertisements that appear within internet search results using a domain that is similar to an actual business or service. When a user searches for that business or service, these advertisements appear at the very top of search results with minimum distinction between an advertisement and an actual search result. These advertisements link to a webpage that looks identical to the impersonated business’s official webpage.
 

In instances where a user is searching for a program to download, the fraudulent webpage has a link to download software that is actually malware. The download page looks legitimate and the download itself is named after the program the user intended to download.
 

These advertisements have also been used to impersonate websites involved in finances, particularly cryptocurrency exchange platforms. These malicious sites appear to be real exchange platforms and prompt users to enter login credentials and financial information, giving criminal actors access to steal funds.

While search engine advertisements are not malicious in nature, it is important to practice caution when accessing a web page through an advertised link.

 

The FBI notice is specifically about the use of advertisements in search engines to promote fraudulent phishing websites to the top of the search results.

[GhostRoadieBL]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

The FBI notice is specifically about the use of advertisements in search engines to promote fraudulent phishing websites to the top of the search results.

Which for any smaller company would result in an immediate seizure of the sites conducting the scam and then search engines promoting the sites would likely be searched or seized based on how they are connected.

https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/17-web-domains-were-seized-by-the-fbi-and-usps-for-connection-to-job-scams/

Or a better example is Silk Road.

 

At the very least we should be pushing for the ad promotion practices to be audited (which Google will claim 'it's just the algorithm' and not the fact they profile every person allowing scammers to target more likely victims) or better scenario is ban targeted ads since noone actually wants those things in search results.

[leadeater]

5 hours ago, Kisai said:

Perhaps you haven't been paying attention, because that's exactly what the newspapers achieved.

https://www.wired.com/story/australia-media-code-facebook-google/

https://financialpost.com/telecom/media/u-s-news-publishers-are-taking-big-tech-to-court-but-in-canada-aussie-model-appears-more-likely

No it's not exactly, I know that case well and this ain't it. It's not supporting your point at all.

[leadeater]

23 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If you use YouTube while logged in your Google account then yes you have entered into a contract.  You entered into one when you signed up, which gives them the rights to change the TOS as well.  So if they add in a term that prohibits the use of ad-block on their site then you are sort of bound by that contract.  While it might be a civil matter in that case, there is still the badly written legislation that accessing data that you know you aren't authorized to access is a felony (Aaron Swartz as an example of breaking a TOS).

Yea, when there is actually a service agreement figuring out what is allowed and not is much easier. That's why a lot of places require free account and an agreement to TOS etc, it gives them those types of powers. Also when it comes to video streaming services they do a lot of work to prevent blocking of ads and downloading of content (when not allowed), doesn't always work though.

 

All civil matters though, not criminal. Could be with a really good argument and a supporting situation that would tip it that way. Like the difference between downloading and distributing, civil vs criminal.

 

Like I said about Linus and it applies to basically everyone, ad-block is a moral and ethical opinion with no clear law or legal precedent that applies to it and the additional factor of there being legitimate use cases for it. Going in to "it's definitely this is a really bad move". It's a debate that will never be settled by a topic on this forum that is for sure lol

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

All civil matters though, not criminal. Could be with a really good argument and a supporting situation that would tip it that why. Like the difference between downloading and distributing, civil vs criminal.

 

Like I said about Linus and it applies to basically everyone, ad-block is a moral and ethical opinion with no clear law or legal precedent that applies to it and the additional factor of there being legitimate use cases for it. Going in to "it's definitely this is a really bad move". It's a debate that will never be settled by a topic on this forum that is for sure lol

Upon accessing content pushes it into felonies depending on state and country.  I don't agree with the law, and I would doubt a prosecutor would actually pursue someone for ad-blocking, but at the same time you have Aaron Swartz who was charged with similar things (specifically doing research papers that were technically in public domain but required a paid subscription to access).  Same kind of law that also charged a shoplifter for a felony for swapping barcodes for "unlawful access to a computer".

 

If a site requires you to watch an ad, and you use a program to circumvent it it could in theory be used to charge someone for "unlawful access to a computer" [the law itself is so vaguely worded].  I don't think a prosecutor would pursue that though as in the Swartz case there was a political motive from the prosecutor (trying to make a name for herself) and in the barcode case...it was turned over by the appeals court, but she was originally successfully prosecuted so if they wanted to they could have gone to supreme court to get a ruling.  It's definitely a civil matter, but I wouldn't venture to say it's not a criminal matter though.

 

Either way, all someone needs to do is pretty much argue that it's to protect the integrity of their computer and I bet it would be almost impossible to get a conviction.

 

For the bolded, that's true.  Although I do find it funny how often people argue that it's moral to block ads, that companies shouldn't track people and the company should charge for the service if they want to stay alive (but then say they don't want to pay for a service like YouTube).  There are so many people that want the cake and eat it too.

 

I block ads (in this case for security) and circumvent things like copy-protection all the time (out of convenience), but I don't think what I do out of convenience or to avoid ads is justifiable...but that doesn't stop me from doing it.

 

[Bitter]

https://adnauseam.io/

I'll just keep posting this each time we all talk about ad blockers. This one clicks the ads behind the scenes so the sites get their ad click revenue, google ad tracking gets thrown off, and you don't have to see them.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If a site requires you to watch an ad, and you use a program to circumvent it it could in theory be used to charge someone for "unlawful access to a computer" [the law itself is so vaguely worded]. 

If that were really possible then it would have been tried a lot harder already. The problem with your examples is a person is affecting either a good itself and someone else's computer (changing barcode) or unauthorized access to another computer system/data. Where ad-blocking falls in to problems is it happening on a personally owned computer that the owner has all the rights to do anything they like so long as it's not breaking a specific law.

 

Unlawful access falls on it's face due to that which is why it's barely been tried because it's an unwinnable case.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I block ads (in this case for security) and circumvent things like copy-protection all the time (out of convenience), but I don't think what I do out of convenience or to avoid ads is justifiable...but that doesn't stop me from doing it.

Our law actually allows us to make a backup copy of digit data and mediums, the problem is copy-protection gets in the way of our right to do that here, Not that hard to get around and I generally don't bother anymore since I'm not buying physical media anymore anyway.

 

I block ads for two reason, basic security measure and also because so many websites just can't help but make them an actual nightmare to look at and navigate with the ads. I cannot be bothered to white list good ones, effort limit is simply too high to realistically sustain that. And while ad-blocking results in site owners throwing more in to compensate making it a death spiral I can assure you my laziness and desire to not have to deal with ads will outlast any struggling company or site owner. They will cease to exist before my habits change so it's really on them to prove to me that I no longer require an ad-blocker, and that sadly is a collective effort so doomed basically.

[wanderingfool2]

13 minutes ago, leadeater said:

If that were really possible then it would have been tried a lot harder already. The problem with your examples is a person is affecting either a good itself and someone else's computer (changing barcode) or unauthorized access to another computer system/data. Where ad-blocking falls in to problems is it happening on a personally owned computer that the owner has all the rights to do anything they like so long as it's not breaking a specific law.

 

Unlawful access falls on it's face due to that which is why it's barely been tried because it's an unwinnable case.

In the case of the barcode it was the scanning of the wrong barcode using the machine that was deemed as unlawful access; iirc the prosecution argued that since the person utilized the self checkout intentionally knowing they weren't going to scan in the right items.  In Aaron Swartz' case, while he did slow down the system, the unauthorized access charge was him downloading it and breaking the TOS.

 

Some of the laws were written in the times where a lot of stuff was stored prior to the concept of security (i.e. if you knew the phone number you could access some of the data).  The law iirc contains wording about accessing data that you are unauthorized to access, so it doesn't matter if it was loaded locally.  If you break a TOS you are actively accessing and processing the data that you are unauthorized to access if the intent is for your to watch the ad.  I don't think it would ever really go to court (as for the prosecution it would be political suicide), so it would either be to make a statement.

 

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&sectionNum=502.

Quote

Knowingly accesses and without permission takes, copies, or makes use of any data from a computer, computer system, or computer network, or takes or copies any supporting documentation, whether existing or residing internal or external to a computer, computer system, or computer network.

The word access also includes the processing of data

Quote

“Access” means to gain entry to, instruct, cause input to, cause output from, cause data processing with, or communicate with, the logical, arithmetical, or memory function resources of a computer, computer system, or computer network.

The whole thing would be around whether or not preventing ads still allows you permission to view it.  Again, I don't think any prosecutor would actually pursue it (and large corporations wouldn't want to pressure prosecution as it wouldn't do them much good getting that much negative press).

 

46 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Our law actually allows us to make a backup copy of digit data and mediums, the problem is copy-protection gets in the way of our right to do that here, Not that hard to get around and I generally don't bother anymore since I'm not buying physical media anymore anyway.

Similar laws here as well, my circumvention aren't strictly allowed under those backup ones...I justify it in the sense that I pay for services and the media, but I recognize the reasons I do it isn't necessarily justifiable in the whole sense of what I should be doing.

[jagdtigger]

18 hours ago, Kisai said:

There is no reason to run adblock.

*Malwertising enters the chat.*

[Gamer Schnitzel]

It's the government that failed and not Google because the government allows their existence. All those Cali companies should have been raided a long time ago and dissolved. 20 years ago making a company meant that you are selling a lot of printers and people like buying printers. Today being the biggest company means nothing more than predetary behaviour, extensive child grooming to rewire their brain into buying whatever you put in front of them and data theft wherever possible.

These are not businesses anymore.

This all started when Steve Jobs died and his monkey replacements went full retard with the marketing and Apple became the first company to hit a market cap of 1tn. It did not happen because Apple is so cool and makes just such nice devices. It's because they groomed children into believing that their social status changes when they have an iPhone in their pocket.

Installing AdBlock doesn't save you from the brain damage you will have in 5 years because that's what Google and Facebook are working on internally. They want to fuck your brain and they will do successfully.

[MageTank]

16 hours ago, Kisai said:

An adblocker is not a lock on a page, an ad blocker is the axe you break the door with to loot the home. The only way you do not get exposed to computer viruses, ever, is by not having a computer in the first place. Adblock IS NOT ANTIVIRUS.

Call it what you will. It does a very good job at preventing malicious ads from doing their thing. If it makes you feel better, I'll call it a "preventative protection measure". Fancify my words.

 

16 hours ago, Kisai said:

You're playing the "I run adblock to spite websites" argument. You are not entitled to an ad-free experience. If you go to the site owner and whine to them that adblocker doesn't work on them, you at best will be ignored, or at worst, be shamed for it.

No, but I am entitled to a malicious ad-free experience. It's part of the whole "Don't put anything on my PC without my permission" clause that I created when I purchased my hardware with my own hard earned money. Until those of you selling ad space can properly vet the ads to be safe and un-intrusive, deal with the consequences of adblockers. Or, offer a paid "ad-free" experience like I suggested. The problem with your argument is that you will never be satisfied. When I mention blocking ads to avoid the malware that comes with them, you call me entitled. When I offer to pay for an ad-free experience, you denounce the idea because it means less views/publicity.

 

Also, site owners can prevent adblocker from working, why are we having this conversation? Go make it not work and move on, lol.

[Bitter]

  Leela: Didn't you have ad's in the 20th century?    

Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written on the sky. But not in dreams. No siree! 

[spartaman64]

i don't like ads either but what's the alternative? pay a 5 dollar monthly sub for every website you want to use? if everyone uses adblock then a lot of websites won't have income to run anymore. 

[WereCat]

10 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

i don't like ads either but what's the alternative? pay a 5 dollar monthly sub for every website you want to use? if everyone uses adblock then a lot of websites won't have income to run anymore. 

The alternative is that I don't give a damn. Almost every website is trying to collect all my metadata and sell it for profit regardless if I block their ads or not.

4 hours ago, MageTank said:

Also, site owners can prevent adblocker from working, why are we having this conversation? Go make it not work and move on, lol.

That's a good point. There is also anti-adblock though Altough I no longer bother with it, I just leave the website usually of just open it in Edge if I really need to access it as I don't have any extensions in Edge.

[linkviii]

On 1/9/2023 at 5:34 PM, linkviii said:

The FBI wants YOU to be a privateer!

I opened with this line but no one made the poster for me. Guess I gotta do it myself.

 

People asking for evidence that ads are malicious -- when the entire point of this is that the FBI cyber crime division is saying 'yo this be happenin', protect yo self' -- I don't understand why you're asking. Just because you haven't observed it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

 

I've always been confused why if you companies like adobe or Chase bank will buy ad space for their company name, when their company website already is the 1st or 2nd hit next to wikipedia. But in this context it makes sense as, oh, they're paying a ransom to google to prevent other bad actors from buying the space. So not only is google broken, they're incentivized to not get better.

[Kisai]

9 minutes ago, linkviii said:

 

I've always been confused why if you companies like adobe or Chase bank will buy ad space for their company name, when their company website already is the 1st or 2nd hit next to wikipedia. But in this context it makes sense as, oh, they're paying a ransom to google to prevent other bad actors from buying the space. So not only is google broken, they're incentivized to not get better.

Bingo, hit the nail on the head.

[GodofGrunts]

On 1/10/2023 at 8:10 AM, Kisai said:

Nope. Because installing them interferes with the benchmarks.

 

If you are going to benchmark a computer, you turn the internet gateway off. Either unplug the entire computer from it, or you only plug it into a USB ethernet device that has a MAC that has been blacklisted from crossing the internet gateway.

 

Let me explain this another way. Have you tried to use GPU-Z, GeekBench, 3DMark, or anything else that lets you compare your pc against another? That requires access to the internet, and that is usually via a CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework) or by launching the default browser. If it's the former, installing extensions in one CEF, can impair other CEF's (like Steam, Epic, and EGS)

 

Now on the flip side of that argument. There is no reason to run adblock. Period. People have been told the reason their internet experience is so crappy, is because of ads, but it's really because they've installed adblock and now the sites they visit are partially or completely broken. Because those sites were, MOST OF THE TIME, designed around those ad spaces existing. If you turn on an adblocker and suddenly half the page disappears, congratulations, you played yourself.

 

There are very, very easy ways to defeat adblock if a company really wants to. And "Manifest V3" would make that easier. The version "1" adblock worked by affixing CSS rules to change very generic "obvious ad sizes" on the page, or images/scripts that are not first-party. The work around? you run a script to delete all CSS scripts you didn't authorize. You put all the scripts you need to show the site in with the advertisement scripts and run jsmin on them.  Now it's impossible to "block" the ads by any browser-sided means. Everything is coming from the same place as the site itself.

 

The only, viable, way of blocking ads, is by blocking all third party scripts. Which is not default policy in chrome because of course it isn't. It would break the web. So how do you make sure that happens? devices like pihole. Just send the DNS through your own DNS server that immediately returns not found for ad urls. But in order for that to work, you need to crowd-source what exactly are ad urls, and be careful not to blackist entire CDN's, otherwise entire sites will just be Thanos snapped.

 

And who's going to maintain that?

 

No, realistically,  everyone wants you to use their "app" because you are then trapped in a user experience you can't modify. They no longer care if the web experience is crap any more. "use our app" instead. Lose-lose situation.

 

But again, I'll say that pretty much everyone complaining about ads, is making things up. Ask someone for proof. Screenshots of "ads being viruses", and they won't have them unless they're visiting piracy sites.

What an absolutely wild post.

 

Everything you said is either demonstrably wrong or only partially true to the point it seems like you're doing it on purpose.

[vertigo220]

On 1/10/2023 at 8:10 AM, Kisai said:

Now on the flip side of that argument. There is no reason to run adblock. Period. People have been told the reason their internet experience is so crappy, is because of ads, but it's really because they've installed adblock and now the sites they visit are partially or completely broken. Because those sites were, MOST OF THE TIME, designed around those ad spaces existing. If you turn on an adblocker and suddenly half the page disappears, congratulations, you played yourself.

...

The only, viable, way of blocking ads, is by blocking all third party scripts. Which is not default policy in chrome because of course it isn't. It would break the web. So how do you make sure that happens? devices like pihole. Just send the DNS through your own DNS server that immediately returns not found for ad urls. But in order for that to work, you need to crowd-source what exactly are ad urls, and be careful not to blackist entire CDN's, otherwise entire sites will just be Thanos snapped.

 

And who's going to maintain that?

...

But again, I'll say that pretty much everyone complaining about ads, is making things up. Ask someone for proof. Screenshots of "ads being viruses", and they won't have them unless they're visiting piracy sites.

I can tell you from experience this is wrong. After using an adblocker for years, I made the mistake of browsing the web for a bit without. That "experiment" only lasted a few days, maybe a couple weeks, before I just couldn't take it anymore. I was blown away by just how bad it was, because I had forgotten it was that bad and it probably got even worse in the time I'd been blocking ads. Since then, I've been blocking them again, and things are much better. And yes, adblockers can break websites, but a simple setup like Brave's built-in blocker or uBO's easy mode rarely does this and is fairly easy to fix. Using uBO in advanced mode will break things a lot, but it's usually not too difficult with some practice to get them working, and once done it's good to go.

 

The only viable way to block ads if websites are set up hardcore to prevent it might be to block all third-party scripts, but most websites aren't, so that's not the only viable way. And people already maintain adblock lists.

 

It's already been pointed out, but it's worth mentioning again: the FBI themselves are warning that it exists, and examples of fake search results have been posted here and many people here have seen them. And the ad/link itself doesn't need to be a virus; it just needs to lead to a page where a virus will be downloaded due to the user thinking they're on the legitimate page. Considering the FBI bulletin and the fact this stuff most definitely exists, it's hard not to question your motives in making such statements, especially things like "[a]sk someone for proof."

 

On 1/10/2023 at 10:39 AM, Donut417 said:

I have come across sites where ad blockers have caused issues. Generally I just disable the blocker and do what I need or stop using the site. I will admit it’s a very infrequent issue. I think it has something to deal with blocking scrips. 

It is due to blocking scripts generally, though occasionally due to blocking other content types. If I'm in a hurry or it's a site I don't plan to revisit, I'll disable the adblock as well, but it's worth the time to configure it so the site works properly.

 

On 1/10/2023 at 1:55 PM, Kisai said:

Those ad blockers don't fix that.

...

Adblock will not fix that.

...

Adblock does not fix that. That is a problem with downloading from piracy sites, and if you're seeing that on legitimate sites, they should fire whoever is running the site.

...

Sorry, I am the expert here. I'm not saying ads are perfect, but people bring up the ad bogeyman like 99% of ads are the problem, when it's like 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%. Trillions of ads are served per day, and unless you're in eastern europe, you're not likely to ever encounter them.

 

If you're seeing bad ads, one of three things are true:

1. You're pirating things like tv shows, anime or software, thus the "bad ads" are because piracy sites do not give a care, zero. No honor among thieves.

2. You don't have enough of a "Value" attached to your tracked presence, which GDPR has absolutely destroyed for EU people. This means you get "default fill", non-paying ads on sites, and garbage tends to sneak in for a few minutes once in a while before it's shut down.

3. The ad servers are hacked. Which is what happens when people use self-hosted solutions and don't actually know jack about running them.

I've been using various ad blockers for years. Adblock Plus, uBO, uMatrix, Brave's integrated blocking, and probably one or two more I'm forgetting. Ad blockers most definitely do fix these things.

 

I hate to question your "expertise" because I don't know what you do, but many of your statements just don't line up with reality, at least not my and others' version of it, so I do have to wonder a bit. And IME, "tech support" absolutely does not equal expert. As for your number, not only has it been pointed out, with references, that it's (unsurprisingly) massive hyperbole, but as I said before, it's not just ads that are themselves viruses, but ones that link to malicious sites.

 

I, and the FBI, have seen bad ads on Google. But apparently I was pirating directly from Google and the FBI is full of it.

On 1/10/2023 at 3:42 PM, Kisai said:

Perhaps you haven't been paying attention, because that's exactly what the newspapers achieved.

https://www.wired.com/story/australia-media-code-facebook-google/

https://financialpost.com/telecom/media/u-s-news-publishers-are-taking-big-tech-to-court-but-in-canada-aussie-model-appears-more-likely

 

What do you think the footer of those sites say hmm?

Every news site has something like that. Google forces them to.

 

They designed that content for you to watch live. in a time before VHS and DVR's were a thing.

 

I did not say the companies who own these broadcast assets weren't completely idiots.

 

Go find one for me, right now. You won't find one. These people crying about needing ad blockers to protect them from the scary warrry ads, in the off chance that one of them might contain a virus or malware... seem to be unaware that Windows comes with said protection too. There is not a bloody malware apocalypse the second you unbox your PC and plug it straight into the cable modem unlike in 2001.

 

I'll rephrase this for the peanut gallery:

 

You can do whatever the hell you want with the content when it arrives on your computer, but you are not within your right to impose that on others. 

 

People routinely pirate things and hand it to their friends. Digital assets to such people defending adblock are viewed as having no value, and the content creator is undeserving of any revenue. That is the message you are sharing when you tell people to block ads.

 

And yes, many of those news sites have subscriber options, that CLEARLY none of you use.

First of all, that's not what those news companies achieved. What they achieved was the right to be paid for content they produced that companies like Facebook were using to make money off of without sharing it. It's strange how the companies that make the most off of ads are also the ones that seem the most ready to rip off others.

 

As has been pointed out, there's no need to find you an example right now, because there are numerous examples from the recent past. That's like saying show me an example right now of a car being stolen on your street. You can't? Then why lock it. And as has also been pointed out already, firewalls exist and are used for a reason, and ad blockers are no different. And I certainly hope that you're not plugging your PC directly into the modem. I mean, go for it if you want, but being an "expert," I hope you're not advising others to do so.

 

Referring to people that disagree with you as the "peanut gallery" isn't going to help your argument; it only diminishes it and yourself. But, since you dumbed it down for us, it's nice to see that you feel "[y]ou can do whatever the hell you want with the content when it arrives on your computer." So you've officially sanctioned the use of ad blockers, since they take the content that arrives on the computer and parse it to execute some of it and not execute some of it.

 

And that may be the message they're choosing to take away from it, but it's not the message I'm sharing. The message I'm sharing is I don't want pages to take multiple seconds to load, eating up bandwidth and battery, only to have them jump around every time I scroll or move the mouse and cause me to click on links I didn't mean to because they won't sit still. And I don't want to be browsing sites only to have NSFW or embarrassing ads showing. And I don't want situations like my parents had where one of them was looking at things for the other as a gift, i.e. secret, and ads for it started showing for the other. It's beyond ridiculous.

 

I pay for subscription services if the service is worth subscribing to and if I support the company. Unfortunately, most aren't worth it or the company is not worth supporting, in which case I try to find alternatives.

On 1/10/2023 at 3:49 PM, Kisai said:

Yes there is, that is called copyright law and EULA's fall under contract law.

Again, 

https://fordauthority.com/2021/06/ford-backed-lobby-group-working-to-overturn-right-to-repair-law/

No, they absolutely know they can "make the vehicle absolutely hostile to modders", to require special dealer tools and manuals to fix anything. Also you know what else you can find on eBay? Stolen dealer manuals. But no, in your mind a photocopy of a stolen dealer manual isn't stealing.

 

You're speaking out of your behind then, because the copyright law is what protects digital content from being modified and redistributed. 

You seem to be the one speaking that way, because you're not even making the point you're trying to make. Just because they make it hostile to modders doesn't make it illegal. Just like sites can be hostile to people that block ads, but that doesn't make it illegal to block them.

On 1/10/2023 at 5:39 PM, Kisai said:

And the context of the FBI notice is about shopping.

https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221

And this can be demonstrated easily:

Whenever I try to look up what DLL belongs to what program, I get garbage like this. I happen to know what it belongs to, but this is what happens ever damn time, no matter how obscure. adblock ain't blocking that. This is "SEO" crap that google elevates, leading you to a completely worthless page full of ads. 

 

What really needs to happen is curation, but curation will just not happen with internet search. Google got where it did because it's search actually looked at the context relevancy (prior to google, lycos was the next best search engine, and it would generate results much like this screenshot, full of completely irrelevant, poor quality content.)

The context was absolutely not about shopping. From the notice:

Quote

In instances where a user is searching for a program to download, the fraudulent webpage has a link to download software that is actually malware. The download page looks legitimate and the download itself is named after the program the user intended to download.

They're specifically talking here about downloads. Furthermore, it doesn't matter what context it's in, as it carries over to other areas.

 

And your argument about the SEO results is akin to saying that there's no point in locking your doors since a burglar can break in through the windows, i.e. since it doesn't protect 100% against everything, it has no use.

 

On 1/10/2023 at 11:33 PM, Bitter said:

https://adnauseam.io/

I'll just keep posting this each time we all talk about ad blockers. This one clicks the ads behind the scenes so the sites get their ad click revenue, google ad tracking gets thrown off, and you don't have to see them.

I looked at that a few years back. It's a nice idea, though I had some issues with it, but I think the developer dealt with that. At some point I need to give it another look. But there's still one big problem with it: by clicking in the background, you're stealing from the companies that are advertising since they're paying for clicks without actually getting views. Ok, that's mostly sarcasm, because I don't really care, and the advertisers (Google, Facebook, various companies that sell ads) steal from those companies much more than users ever could, a point that some people seem to miss. Though I will say that given the choice, blocking ads--which deprives the site of revenue while sparing my bandwidth and battery, speeding up my browsing experience, and telling them what I think of their ads--will often be preferable to this approach, which simply fosters the behavior while losing the other benefits and cheating the advertising companies. But it depends on the site, e.g. I have no issue at all blocking them and depriving revenue from Google/Facebook/etc whereas other sites I'd be more inclined to not do so, but then that's just more work. Maybe a combination of uBO for some sites and adnauseam for others would be best.

[Bitter]

28 minutes ago, vertigo220 said:

I can tell you from experience this is wrong. After using an adblocker for years, I made the mistake of browsing the web for a bit without. That "experiment" only lasted a few days, maybe a couple weeks, before I just couldn't take it anymore. I was blown away by just how bad it was, because I had forgotten it was that bad and it probably got even worse in the time I'd been blocking ads. Since then, I've been blocking them again, and things are much better. And yes, adblockers can break websites, but a simple setup like Brave's built-in blocker or uBO's easy mode rarely does this and is fairly easy to fix. Using uBO in advanced mode will break things a lot, but it's usually not too difficult with some practice to get them working, and once done it's good to go.

 

The only viable way to block ads if websites are set up hardcore to prevent it might be to block all third-party scripts, but most websites aren't, so that's not the only viable way. And people already maintain adblock lists.

 

It's already been pointed out, but it's worth mentioning again: the FBI themselves are warning that it exists, and examples of fake search results have been posted here and many people here have seen them. And the ad/link itself doesn't need to be a virus; it just needs to lead to a page where a virus will be downloaded due to the user thinking they're on the legitimate page. Considering the FBI bulletin and the fact this stuff most definitely exists, it's hard not to question your motives in making such statements, especially things like "[a]sk someone for proof."

 

It is due to blocking scripts generally, though occasionally due to blocking other content types. If I'm in a hurry or it's a site I don't plan to revisit, I'll disable the adblock as well, but it's worth the time to configure it so the site works properly.

 

I've been using various ad blockers for years. Adblock Plus, uBO, uMatrix, Brave's integrated blocking, and probably one or two more I'm forgetting. Ad blockers most definitely do fix these things.

 

I hate to question your "expertise" because I don't know what you do, but many of your statements just don't line up with reality, at least not my and others' version of it, so I do have to wonder a bit. And IME, "tech support" absolutely does not equal expert. As for your number, not only has it been pointed out, with references, that it's (unsurprisingly) massive hyperbole, but as I said before, it's not just ads that are themselves viruses, but ones that link to malicious sites.

 

I, and the FBI, have seen bad ads on Google. But apparently I was pirating directly from Google and the FBI is full of it.

First of all, that's not what those news companies achieved. What they achieved was the right to be paid for content they produced that companies like Facebook were using to make money off of without sharing it. It's strange how the companies that make the most off of ads are also the ones that seem the most ready to rip off others.

 

As has been pointed out, there's no need to find you an example right now, because there are numerous examples from the recent past. That's like saying show me an example right now of a car being stolen on your street. You can't? Then why lock it. And as has also been pointed out already, firewalls exist and are used for a reason, and ad blockers are no different. And I certainly hope that you're not plugging your PC directly into the modem. I mean, go for it if you want, but being an "expert," I hope you're not advising others to do so.

 

Referring to people that disagree with you as the "peanut gallery" isn't going to help your argument; it only diminishes it and yourself. But, since you dumbed it down for us, it's nice to see that you feel "[y]ou can do whatever the hell you want with the content when it arrives on your computer." So you've officially sanctioned the use of ad blockers, since they take the content that arrives on the computer and parse it to execute some of it and not execute some of it.

 

And that may be the message they're choosing to take away from it, but it's not the message I'm sharing. The message I'm sharing is I don't want pages to take multiple seconds to load, eating up bandwidth and battery, only to have them jump around every time I scroll or move the mouse and cause me to click on links I didn't mean to because they won't sit still. And I don't want to be browsing sites only to have NSFW or embarrassing ads showing. And I don't want situations like my parents had where one of them was looking at things for the other as a gift, i.e. secret, and ads for it started showing for the other. It's beyond ridiculous.

 

I pay for subscription services if the service is worth subscribing to and if I support the company. Unfortunately, most aren't worth it or the company is not worth supporting, in which case I try to find alternatives.

You seem to be the one speaking that way, because you're not even making the point you're trying to make. Just because they make it hostile to modders doesn't make it illegal. Just like sites can be hostile to people that block ads, but that doesn't make it illegal to block them.

The context was absolutely not about shopping. From the notice:

They're specifically talking here about downloads. Furthermore, it doesn't matter what context it's in, as it carries over to other areas.

 

And your argument about the SEO results is akin to saying that there's no point in locking your doors since a burglar can break in through the windows, i.e. since it doesn't protect 100% against everything, it has no use.

 

I looked at that a few years back. It's a nice idea, though I had some issues with it, but I think the developer dealt with that. At some point I need to give it another look. But there's still one big problem with it: by clicking in the background, you're stealing from the companies that are advertising since they're paying for clicks without actually getting views. Ok, that's mostly sarcasm, because I don't really care, and the advertisers (Google, Facebook, various companies that sell ads) steal from those companies much more than users ever could, a point that some people seem to miss. Though I will say that given the choice, blocking ads--which deprives the site of revenue while sparing my bandwidth and battery, speeding up my browsing experience, and telling them what I think of their ads--will often be preferable to this approach, which simply fosters the behavior while losing the other benefits and cheating the advertising companies. But it depends on the site, e.g. I have no issue at all blocking them and depriving revenue from Google/Facebook/etc whereas other sites I'd be more inclined to not do so, but then that's just more work. Maybe a combination of uBO for some sites and adnauseam for others would be best.

If you have no intention of following through on anything you click manually that's certainly not stealing. I don't see how robo clicking ads is much if at all different here, but that's ok. It's not perfect but for some this is a better solution than outright blocking.

[vertigo220]

11 minutes ago, Bitter said:

If you have no intention of following through on anything you click manually that's certainly not stealing. I don't see how robo clicking ads is much if at all different here, but that's ok. It's not perfect but for some this is a better solution than outright blocking.

It is different, because very few people likely click ads only to immediately close them, and even then they might do it on one or two ads, whereas adnauseam clicks on a bunch of ads. Neither is "right" but one is less right than the other. Mind you, I'm not at all against it, at least in that regard, just making a statement. My main point, though, is that whether it's a better solution than blocking is largely philosophical, because they each have their pros and cons and can net different results. Before the change I suggested a while back, which as I said IIRC it was implemented, it would IMO be much worse than blocking. Now, with that change, it's probably about the same, being better in some situations and worse in others.

[williamcll]

On 1/10/2023 at 11:12 AM, StDragon said:

https://brave.com/

 

Awful idea, they have their own ads and shills about crypto.