[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation @lemmy.world

1y ago

I've been blocking ads for so long that actually seeing them feels perverse

I use ad blockers and open source privacy focused software whenever I can but occasionally I have to use computers that don't belong to me or an older phone where my usual applications aren't installed and seeing all the advertisements just feels dirty and dystopian.

I think the worst ads are the text to speech ones that say "Download this app today". The unblinking energenic people saying you can make a living at home are probably a close second.

245 comments

Same, it's so weird seeing normal TV or using the internet without blockers. Feels like living in Idiocracy.
- One of my most used sites has a banner that says "Sign up for a small fee to remove the ads."
  I was a confused for a second, because I had never seen one.
  Tried the site with another browser with my default protection off and holy shit, so many ads. The webpage is mostly unusable because of the shear number.

Yeah I agree.
It's made me very intolerant of ads. It's kind of surprising how much effort I will invest to avoid ads, and avoid supporting people who make a living from advertising revenue.
- people who make a living from advertising revenue
  That’s a lot of people, lad..
  
  ...just imagine if they were all doing something productive instead.
  Props to @DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de for helping to discourage their parasitic behavior and ushering them toward career paths that might actually utilize their potential in a positive way!
  
  That's a lot of people who are a net drain on society both economically and in terms of accomplishment. SO MUCH EFFORT is wasted on trying to get my eyes on their graffiti. The greatest engineers of the 1950s and 1960s put humans on the Moon. The greatest engineers of the 2000s onwards struggle to get eyes on ads.
  It's fucking repulsive.
  
  Not really?

I'm always disgusted with tv ads and it blows me away that people just let commercials scream at them all day to buy viagra, anal leakage meds, insurance etc. Why would you let that shit in your home? Ugh
- Why would you let that shit in your home?
  Because you didn't buy the anal leakage meds.
- That's literally my parents "background noise" it's a news argument or commercial 24/7 over there.
- Why would you let that shit in your home?
  because I find it amusing and it doesn't do anything actually harmful.
  
  I just feel annoyed... I hate their fake humor, fake happiness, fake everything. And they are so dumb.
  
  You actually find ads blaring at you amusing? What a truly horrid unpopular opinion. I'll respect that though if you're actually serious but it's hard for me to comprehend.
  
  I don't often watch TV, but I get what you're saying. Sometimes it's fun to just watch through the ads and make fun of them with my gf until a movie comes on, it's sort of a guilty pleasure
  
  Haha, I understand both of the points made. I can't get over the feeling I get from the obvious in your face push to tell you about a product. the obvious act of pushing a brand name and product to me is either annoying, depressing, or disgusting.
  I would rather live happily with what I have. I am simply not the target audience. I can pick out that every ad and commercial I see is targeting the consumer and experts you to buy or think about it. I am neither right now, but that does not mean I am not going to get influenced to buy a product. Also, I want to prevent myself from being influenced by outside sources. I don't know how to do it for everything, and advertising is an easy target to get rid of.
  On the other hand, it is interesting and almost comical how some ads are made. Unfortunately, almost every commercial or advertisement made is short form content. There is almost no depth, and each video/ image/ text is made to be self-contained. I am someone who likes to have an overarching story tied with character development and meaningful changes from events. These commercials seem to be like family guy flashback/reference jokes or acting like a poorly done transition in between scenes that was introduced to force you to stop watching for 5 to 15 minutes with the added benefit of earning the Channel money.

It IS perverse. You're having your eyes groped by strangers, all trying to get you to do what you have no desire to do. You just want to get what you came for and leave, but no, everywhere you look something is trying to block your path and distract you from your goal. And it's not even honest: you already know that none of these extraneous, unwanted come-ons you're seeing is anything close to true. In some cases, it's a full-on mental assault.
It's vile. I used to leave some on, but now there's not even such a thing as "acceptable ads" anymore just because of the sheer numbers involved. So now I don't just block: I go full extermination mode. I'm usually on desktop so if it's a one time thing, like a single ad on YouTube that managed to sneak by all of my walls and filters and I can't just pass it by because it's stuck in my field of vision, I'll actually do an "inspect element" and delete it on the spot. But otherwise, if I can't block 100% or very close to it, I find a different site or source, or shut down altogether.
I genuinely don't think our minds were made for this level of constant information onslaught and never-ending manipulation campaigns, and I don't think it's healthy or life-affirming to subject oneself to it without limit. So I don't. People get angry about it, but hey, more for them to enjoy if that's how they wanna roll.
- I had a 16+ year old Reddit account, but was shocked when the whole 3rd party app situation was going down to learn that patently Reddit had ads. Between pihole and browser ad blockers even when I used the web version I never saw them. Don’t think I was missing anything.
- It IS perverse. You’re having your eyes groped by strangers, all trying to get you to do what you have no desire to do. You just want to get what you came for and leave, but no, everywhere you look something is trying to block your path and distract you from your goal. And it’s not even honest: you already know that none of these extraneous, unwanted come-ons you’re seeing is anything close to true. In some cases, it’s a full-on mental assault.
  You paint an image in my head of a guy stopping you on the street to sell you a knock off Rolex.
- And to ensure I don't accidently use their site again, I grab it's most background element and block it, hence effectively blocking the site as a whole.
- This is the thing that got me.
  I never used to mind ads that much, yea they were there but the sites had to earn money somehow and advertising was a fair way for them to do it. I’m not going to pay a subscription for every site that I want to visit.
  Then one time I was looking at jeans on GAP and was bombarded for the next 3 weeks with ads for them on basically every damn site I visited.
  I don’t hate ads that don’t track me about and are obnoxious in their presence, but that just doesn’t exist anymore.

Whenever I see someone's computer who doesn't use adblocker it blows my mind. I can't imagine going back to that shit.
- I just install uBO without saying anything ;)
  
  Chaotic Good
  
  Used to do this, however nowadays I worry it will fuck up their YouTube and they won't be able to fix it themselves lol
- It's a fun game of too many ads leading to adblockers, which leads to those not using adblockers to get twice as many ads, more people use adblockers, etc. Until the only way for a company to make money on a website is either to sell your data, or charge for the service.
  Yay.
  
  I'd happily pay for a service if I could have a guarantee, with legal teeth (like a service level agreement with truly massive penalties for breach), that the service won't ever do any of the following:
  Put an ad in front of my face.
  Sell my personal information.
  I used to pay for some services to get the "ad-free" version, but almost invariably this chain got subsequently followed: ad-free → opt-in "curated" ads → opt-out "curated" ads → "curated" ads → dropping all pretense of there being any advantage to paying as the site becomes ad-o-rama.
  So I won't pay for sites. I just block their ads.
  
  The pattern is always the same. No ads - ads - no ads if you pay - no ads if you pay but we sell your data - personalised ads because you pay, and we sell your data.
- I put dns.adguard.com on their browsers and phones.

"Jarring" would have also been acceptable.
Most people are so desensitized to ads that they barely register. So the advertisers ramp up the attention-grabbing. Repeat. So when I actually see an advertisement it nearly knocks me out of my chair because I'm not desensitized anymore.
- My sister shared me an Instagram reel for a [brand] bag review and asked me to buy it for her (there's no [brand store] in her city).
  It was such an obvious advertising campaign by the brand, when I walked into the store the same reel she shared me was playing in the store screens
  
  I'm 90% sure I understood what you are saying, but I wouldn't be angry if you ninja edited your comment to fix some of the typos. Here's a cute turtle to indicate I'm not trying to be a dick, just gently nudge you cause I want to understand. 🐢

Ads nowadays are little more than psychological assault and it can't be healthy to be exposed to it regularly. My Home Ec teacher back in the day had a whole unit about the different manipulations present in advertisements and it was really enlightening and upsetting. Modern advertising should be banned or severely regulated.
- I support significant regulation, but it won't happen. But having a course like the one you took as well as media-literacy should be required middle-school education with a more sophisticated follow-up in high school. That also won't happen because then you don't get the people who vote for GOP pieces of shit. It's in their interest to have citizens who are easily manipulated.
  My father said babies were being aborted basically when ready for birth. I said there's no way that was happening, said send me a link. One glance at the page and I didn't need to read the article because of the gimmicks all over plus obviously bogus ads. He had a doctorate of mech engineering, but he couldn't handle life on the internet. Typing this, I'm horrified to realize that I'm glad he passed when he did and didn't end up with ever-increasingly wacko beliefs that could have harmed our relationship.

Every once in a while I find myself looking at the Internet without ad blockers. Like, newly-installing a browser on a newly-installed OS, or trialing a new browser on my phone or whatnot. And when it happens it's a massive shock to me just how unusable the modern Internet is without an ad blocker.
If I were forced somehow to not use an ad blocker, I would probably stop using the WWW portion of the Internet and likely grossly cut down on other facets of the Internet.

its really jarring, and to see people just accept it, kinda hurts my soul.

but occasionally I have to use computers that don't belong to me
Do them a favor and install an adblocker.
- If i had a dollar for everytime I've done this and been asked why I "downloaded a virus" because Google Chrome has a little red icon in the corner and now things don't "feel right", I'd have like 7 bucks
  
  I mean, don't do it against their will. At least put some effort into selling the idea of an internet without ads to them first. Then explain that Google and other companies are going to try to manipulate them into thinking that not viewing ads is a bad thing with false warnings and scare tactics like those. That it's fine, and if they read carefully the warning it doesn't say anything bad is actually happening.
  
  I had a family member visiting that left early because their “games didn’t work right”
  (Network blocking)
- Most people don’t appreciate it when you install software on their personal devices without their permission.
  
  Boy would this be the quickest way to make sure I never allow you to touch my electronics again.
  
  without their permission.
  Nobody said that.
  
  Fine. I don't appreciate it when assholes inflict ads on me, so we'd be even!
- I will occasionally suggest it if I am doing any kind of tech support but I don't push it. Occasionally it can cause issues with webpages and if they aren't savvy enough to have an ad blocker already I don't know if they would have the knowledge of when to toggle it on and off.

I feel like this whenever I'm subjected to cable ads. Who the fuck can sit through like 4 or 5 minutes of ads every 15 minutes?
- And they’re paying lots of money for it! It’s mind blowing
  
  They even speed up old shows and movies to run more ads!

The person who was instrumental in the development of modern advertising was also involved in the notorious little Albert experiment. That really says a lot about how unethical modern advertising is on a psychological level. As a psych major myself I am constantly disgusted by how manipulative and toxic advertising is. It actually troubles me how we've essentially just accepted this as part of our society now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Albert_experiment
- "The aim of Watson and Rayner was to condition a phobia in an emotionally stable child."
- There's a documentary called "Manufacturing Consent" that is an interesting look at the PR and advertising industry that goes into the psychology of it.
  Though some of them have no subtlety. Even as a teenager, I remember noticing the insidiousness of minivan adverts. They weren't selling vehicles, they were selling the idea that a new vehicle will make your kids want to spend time with the family again. It was probably because I was a teenager at the time that I noticed it because I thought minivans were lame and knew I'd resent having to go for family rides just because we got a new vehicle that I thought was dumb anyways.
  But these advertisements wanted to convince families to spend money they may or may not have been able to afford for an emotional result that was at best going to be short term even if your kids had undergone enough brain trauma to get excited by minivans. Eventually the novelty would wear off and they'd want to go back to eating paint chips or doing whatever kids who think minivans are cool like to do. And then the lonely parents are stuck with a vehicle that reminds them of the thing that made them sad and have a new incentive to get a new vehicle to help them forget about it.
  
  I never got that from minivan commercials. They mostly focused on storage capacity without needing to get a full size van, not really family. Family was more incidental because someone without a bunch of kids didn't need the space.

I'm used to seeing brief YouTube ads when I cast from my phone, but I was in a hotel recently where the only option was live TV (we were in the back of the hotel and the Chromecast didn't have a good enough antenna to pick up the router), so it was the first time in years I saw full-on commercials. If the movie hadn't been so good- After the Thin Man- I wouldn't have put up with it.
- Look into the gl.inet travel routers. I've got one of the smaller ones and it has helped me on a few trips. It can run as a hotel wifi extender. An AP for your devices while it logs into the hotel wifi or ethernet on their behalf, etc. Can even channel all your data over a VPN over the hotel connection which is useful if you're overseas and want to use your services back home but need to un-geoblock yourself.
  Worth a look for under $100.
  
  I agree, and those routers can be extremely cheap. I recommend people plug them directly into ethernet whenever possible otherwise speeds basically get cut in half when operating as extenders (just like at home, excepting backhaul).
  And in hotels without an obvious ethernet port: check behind the TV. There is usually a less metered port on the wall back there for use by the TV. Sometimes it is restricted, but I've been pleased to find that enough hotels don't have the foresight to do more than simply obscure things a bit.
  
  Thanks.
- Tangentially related, I recently replaced my Chromecast with a "Chromecast with Google TV". It's an Android TV box which you can install SmartTube on and cast YouTube with no ads. Yes, I am aware of the irony of paying Google for new hardware instead of paying them for their ad-free service, but the new device cost less than 2 months of YouTube Premium and I like tinkering.
  
  Oh nice! I'll have to look into that! Thanks! It's not glacially slow, is it? That's one of the reasons I never use the apps of my so-called smart TV.
- The Thin Man series is worth commercials for.
  
  Totally. I was loving it and watched the rest when I got back home.
- I've actually come to appreciate commercials after cutting Netflix. It's a set time for me to take a little break, and it's out of my hands. (I mute it too, of course.) Otherwise I could just keep watching on and on without a break, and that's not really very good for you.
  I have no will power.
  
  To each their own, I guess. They know you're putting it on mute, by the way. That's why they try to make it as eye-catching as possible.
  
  Appreciating commercials because you have no willpower sounds... fraught, at best.

I've wondered how businesses advertise anymore because I never see advertisements. I don't watch TV. I don't listen to radio. I have ad blockers on my devices. I just assumed most people used as blockers too.
- there's always the boomers who can't do it/don't know it's even possible and others that know nothing about computers that they can prey on
- Paid sponsorships mostly, since sponsorblock can't do anything without anyone marking a segment as an ad, you will see it in a video eventually.

I use a VPN which has an excellent ad & bs blocker. But occasionally some sites need me to turn it off to pay for things or whatever and I forget to turn it back on and end up browsing the internet in its normal state.
And wow... welcome to commerce central. It's not that all the ads are obnoxious though some are, but the quantity of them is out of control on some websites.
To be fair, I've found it's a good rule of thumb that the quality of a website is usually proportionate to the less amount of ads they have.
I also reviewed mobile games for a while and had to play without a VPN to get the same experience most players would get - game ads are the worst. Unrepresentative of the games they're trying to sell, but also often sexist (veering towards misogynistic), obnoxious and with false endings.
- Which VPN?
  
  I use Surfshark but I expect most of the quality ones offer something similar. Nord and Express often get mentioned as the best VPNs but Surfshark as the best cheap VPN - I'm impressed with it, would recommend. You can even use Chrome on Android and most sites seem like normal, though I've switched to Firefox anyway
  (If you are thinking of using a VPN just don't use a free one because they're probably dodgy)
- proportionate to the less amount
  "inversely proportionate"
- Level 99 mafia boss checking in 😎

My husband refuses to use ad blockers for some unknown reason (I installed them on his computer, he won't fucking use them/turns them off) and also is the person who gets the cookie settings menu and clicks "accepts all" every time. I get so stressed trying to use his computer but also like dude! Have you any idea just what you are allowing them to access??? Granted, I'm somewhat ignorant when it comes to how to be completely safe and private on the internet, but I try, and to see someone just blatantly not care makes me lose my cool a little.
- My condolences on the divorce

yes, I despise ads. It's gotten to the point where if I'm forced to endure an ad before a youtube video, I'll mute it and avert my eyes. It feels like a psychological assault out of nowhere. it's worse at gas station pumps, where I can't always mute it
- Oh right? I never watch or listen to them. Given no other option I'll even cover my ears and hum. Ads breAk the soul, and I literally feel healthier not being subjected to them.
- Wait your gas station pumps have ads!? Where do you live?
  
  United States. there are Ads everywhere. for the wildest shit, too. Ads for medications and prescription drugs are the worst of them, shouldn't even be allowed... but, ya know.... lobbyist money (A.K.A. bribes)

The NHL put computer graphic advertisements on the boards and it has nearly ruined the sport for me. There are some bootleg streams that have a broadcast without the advertisements but most of them I find have the ads. Flashing shit. Cars driving down the boards. Animated logos. It's insane what the NHL decided to do with their broadcast product.
- How can I capture more of people's wealth, privacy, and/or sanity to line my pockets?
  CEOs, man.
  
  To be fair to those soulless coldblooded monsters it is literally their job to maximise profits, and if they fail they will be replaced with an equivalent bastard

The worst ones I've ever seen by far are ads for mobile games. Some, if not the majority, are full of fetish content, gore and other gross and disturbing stuff just for the shock value; most of the "gameplay" that's shown has nothing to to with the actual game.
Some ads have real people in them act out what (supposedly) happens in-game, those are almost worth watching for their trash value.
- Those ads bother me more than most because It's entirely false advertising. Nothing shown in those ads for the most part reflects the actual gameplay in any way shape or form.
  There was somebody who actually released a mobile game that has all of like the fake game mechanics from all the advertisements that you see on those ads and it's awful but really funny lol

Pihole was the best thing I ever set up for home Internet consumption
- Add on a OpenVPN instance to keep mobile devices behind that pihole when on mobile data/external wifi.
  Plus a little extra encryption across public networks couldn't hurt.

I always get the same 2 responses:
Its not that bad or I dont notice.....grrrrrrr
- “I’ve been beaten into accepting it.”
- so you've never heard "It makes me feel nostalgic and I enjoy it"?
  
  Honestly, nope. That would be a new one!

My latest ad-shock was over at a friend's house. I've not had cable since probably '03? They have cable because a parent lives with them and insists/pays. Just having the TV on playing random things felt weird. Weirder still is having the movie interrupted by ads every 5 seconds. And the ads are just gross. The only thing that was decent was using it as a discovery service. The movie, one of the X-Men that was not one of the good ones, was what we stumbled upon. We watched for a bit, then ended up switching to watching it elsewhere to dunk on it. In ad-free, interruption-free, 4k with surround. Paying for the cable experience (which is rapidly the streaming experience) seems entirely anachronistic.

I notice this more when I have to search for things online on the work laptop. I had no idea how bad some sites were. Things blinking on the one side, a video playing on the other. Huge banners everywhere telling me to download this or click here for this clickbait article.
I’m so accustomed to Firefox, uBlock, Facebook Container, Privacy Badger, and a VPN at home that I feel overwhelmed when I’m online without them. Even my phone has ad blockers and the VPN. It’s a nightmare when you’re running sites…raw.
- Can you not install uBlock Origin on your work machine? I'd argue that it will improve your productivity and reduce the chance of losing the company's info to trackers and the like!
  
  Nope. It took a coup for me to just get Firefox installed instead of just using Chrome and no add-one are allowed.

I feel you, I've been using an ad blocker for so long I've lost count of the years. I'm always obliterated by how vapid and meaningless modern ads are, its all psychological hacking which is a violation of our mental sovereignty.
I also feel like the "happy young people, living their best life with our product" style ads help keep people delusional about the current state of the world and where we are heading. Like that "Everything is fine" meme, but the dog has a vr headset on and sound cancelling headphones that constantly chant "The heat you are feeling is good for the economy. Everything IS fine!".
I agree, it is 100% dystopian.
- They Live called it in 1988!
  
  I just recently watched that movie for the first time a month or so ago, and it was so jarring how accurate it was with the subliminal messaging

Absolutely. And it's getting even worse, since some ad networks also broadcasting executable code in the form of javascript snippets intended to make interactive banners, where e.g. you move the mouse cursor over it, and an in-ad mouse button moves along. A bunch of those have been used to run malicious code on the machines and actually cause harm to the user, from crypto miners to keyloggers and trojans.
In this day and age, I consider a system without adblock to be compromised by default.
- This makes me wish noscript wasn't a game every time I loaded a new site. What a pain in the ass to figure out how to make the site load properly without loading garbage scripts.
  
  I'm using uBlock origin with the cosmetic filter activated in combination with Ghostery, that gets most of the shit sorted without a whole lot of manual interventions.

I stopped over at my parents' house a few weeks back for a get-together and the TV was on. I nearly felt physically ill at the amount of ads- at one point I saw an overlay ad on top of an actual "commercial" ad. The program that was on was definitely less run time than the adverts that ran in-between short sections of the program.
- Did you know that most people won't notice a ~2% increase in the play speed of shows, and that by doing so you can squeeze in an extra 30 seconds of ad time into a 30 minute block?
  Because TV companies know this. Many of them do exactly that.
  
  Some of them push it all the way to 5-10% and it kills the pacing of the dialogue and writing. But hey more ads more money I guess
  
  Me on my way to speedrun my telenovela
  
  I'd heard that somewhere. shiver Normies who watch TV scare me.
- I've heard that actual football action is about 11 minutes. And yet football broadcasts lasts hours.
  
  FOOSBALL IS THE DEVIL
  and really, REALLY boring

At this point I actively avoid brands that shove ads into my web browsing.

sat down to watch TV with the parents for the first time in a loooong time and when ads came on I was astounded how many there were and how long they were... insufferable TV ads >_>

I forget that YouTube has ads. And then I go to watch on a platform that doesn’t have blocking and it freaks me out.

"When I'm watchin' my TV
And a man comes on and tells me
How white my shirts can be
But, he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke
The same cigarettes as me"
The Rolling Stones

yeah, i've been trying out different browsers and it's so so bad. like, they're pure garbage
don draper era ads actually had fucking thought in there. people made art and worked on the typesetting. now it's pure AI vomit garbage that means nothing to nobody, nobody along the entire chain of making this gave a single fuck about it, no one that's ever seen the image has had a genuine feeling come from it other than disgust and doom.
- don draper era ads actually had fucking thought in there. people made art and worked on the typesetting.
  You're seeing the past with rose-tinted glasses. Ads fucking sucked as well back in the day, and you're only remembering the ones that are, well, memorable. And even that means that the fucking advertisers won; because you're still thinking about those ads - and remember: ads are created specifically to get to your hard-earned money.

Whenever I use a browser without adblock, it takes me back to the early 2000s, and not in a good way.

I gave up trying to get my wife to use anything that blocks ads, and she won't switch away chrome. When she bakes, she leaves her tablet or phone open, with multiple video ads destroying her battery. Seeing this thing just turns my brain to mush as I don't see any ads. I don't know how she puts up with having ten video ads on one page.
- Time to set up a pi hole on your local network and kill it at the source!
  
  And then hear 10,000 times how her web site is broken by the ad blocker, and show her again how to disable it for the 10,000th time. Or is that just my hell?
  
  I tried that, it seemed to break some sites she used. So she made me remove it. Yet she complains about Facebook and google knowing what she’s browsing 🤦‍♂️
- My condolences on the divorce
  
  😂
- Is she one of those people who does it to support creators? Or is it just too much effort for her?
  
  She doesn’t like change…

My colleague uses chrome like Google intended and every time she shares her screen I question her sanity. Terminal instead of iTerm, ok. Not using oh my zsh, well, if you insist. But that? You can barely identify the information you're looking for between all that screaming nonsense.

I have not seen advertisements in a long time accounting to a few years. I have abandoned all the proprietary data harvesting platforms and rarely surf web for no reason. Using libre software, platforms and only referring to specific reliable scientific sources helps a lot in reducing the wastage of time. It also helps in planning things better and I have seen that I am generally able to complete my self assigned projects faster. It also leaves me with more time to spend in leisure. Of course it also combats addiction to mostly useless Social Media. Being away from all the toxicity on the internet also keeps me happier. It's quite disgusting how tech corporates exploit millions of users' data for Capital generation.

When I'm not using computers behind my three layers of filters I have here at home.. I feel very sad for the internet.

so of course I have ublock origin on my computer, AdAway on my phone and pihole on my network, but the school computers actually prevent you from installing any adblocking extensions
anyway at school I see a lot of "download Wave Browser/OneLaunch/PC app store/other random crapware" ads and videos in the corner and I can barely read anything on the site
- It's insidious. I worked IT at a nonprofit that cares for disabled people, and every so often I'd find that OneLaunch toolbar at the top of one of our PCs and have to go in and uninstall it. I'd look in the history and see that one of the care personnel googled something like "printable calendar" and got tricked into clicking one of those ads. I don't know how google expects you to use the Internet without blocking all that shit.
- It's times like these that you remember how the Internet has become filled with advertisements to the point that it interferes with normal use. Not suprising to hear older folks still getting random crap on their devices when it's shown in their face every moment.
- Is it wave browser or are you misspelling brave? I haven't seen an ad in a while
  
  Wave browser is a real thing. It's a PUP adware web browser based on Chromium with Yahoo as the default search engine
- Wavebrowser/Onelaunch are fucking CANCER literally everywhere all the time in ads. Tired of google letting them use their ad service, but ya know, gotta get that money anyway how and in every way.

I will go to many lengths to avoid ads. I never use the YT app for example unless I’m on my desktop which has multiple ad blocking extensions and containers. Been using Yattee for iOS that plays nice with nvidious or piped
Get fucked advertisers

I got onto the YouTube vanced train back in 2018 and every now and then I hop on desktop YouTube and it's soo jaring.
- Ublock origin made it so I never see an ad on YouTube

I’ve been doing it for so many years across all devices and platforms that I actually get…confused for a second when one slips through. It is normally YouTube that slips through (they seem to be trying new things almost daily to get around any possible ad blocks), but sometimes it is from a major news web site or something. I actually have to look around for a second and then realize what has just happened.
- I've been using uBlock Origin for years, and in that time I've never seen one YouTube ad. And I watch a lot of YouTube.

That's because it is.

I think the worst ads are the text to speech ones that say "Download this app today".
Dear god, they read themselves to you now?!? Kill it with fire!!
I want the creator drawn and quartered.

Does anyone have recommendations on how to block ads on Android without rooting? I've tried AdAway but it doesn't seem to be terribly effective. I'm pretty tied into Chrome and would prefer not to change browsers but I understand I might have to.
- Change your dsn to dns.adguard.com
  Edit: Firefox on Android has unlocked origin as well nowadays
  
  Or if you can afford it, subscribe to a private DNS provider, they offer more control.
- Not what you wish to hear, but for web browsing, use Firefox. The Android version still supports plugin like uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger. Ad blockers are effectively dead in Chrome with the advent of manifest v3.
  Firefox accounts work very much like your Google account in chrome, so it was relatively straightforward to migrate. Just install firefox on your desktop, get your Mozilla account set up, and use the desktop tools to migrate from chrome to firefox. Then once it's good on your desktop, install firefox on your android devices and sign in to your Mozilla account, everything should sync.
  Passwords I'd recommend not using any browser solution and instead use something like bitwarden.
  Breaking the Google chains are tedious but doable!
  
  If you really feel lazy, I'd still go with Firefox password manager over chrome.
- Firefox with uBlock origin, setting your DNS to "DNS.adguard.com", and using ReVanced with MicroG for YouTube has worked best for me on a non-rooted phone.
- Try adguard. Its a system wide blocker(blocks ads in most apps too) and needs no root. Its paid. For free you can use blockada version 5. Get it on fdroid. Or just use adguard dns.
- You're pretty much gonna have to switch browsers. There are other options, but they don't work as well as uBlock Origin. The best alternative to that is a VPN that blocks ads, like Proton. But they aren't as good at blocking. They will, however, remove most ads, and from other apps as well.
- When not rooted I have two main free solutions.
  You can use nextdns on your home network. They have around 200,000k free requests. For 2 people it seems to work out to around 20 days of ad blocks. This particularly helps with the ads on the TV as well.
  Otherwise you have the options to use Firefox with extensions or Brave without (I know it's not popular around here). You can also use ReVanced for youtube blocks.
  For most usage that free combination suffices for me.

I signed up to Vessel [1] when they were giving out the 1 year free trial, and it was only 9 months or so in that I realised that it had ads. It was kinda jarring, especially for a paid (not that I did) service.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vessel_(website)

I set up a pihole and installed revanced on my mom's phone. She was surprised when I mentioned that YouTube has ads once haha.

Idk I just pay for stuff if I like it so no ads. Like including DVDs or streaming services. Or I use FOSS and everything's good.
- Streaming services are shoehorning ads in for paying customers. DVDs have unskippable ads when you put them in.
  Paying for stuff does not free you from ads.

Only time I ever see actual ads anymore are when I'm out and about and see billboards, when my parents are watching TV, or when I go to furaffinity on TOR for some NSFW images.
I'm fine with the ads on FA since they're at the top and bottom of the pages and not intrusive at all and aren't really much more than ads for probably shitty games (minus the Brok the Investigator ads) and art commission services the vast majority of the time.
- FA as in.. Fur Affinity?
  
  Yes. As in furaffinity.

What? What ads?

I often forget they even exist

I want to be there. I browse strictly on mobile I dont have a computer and I haven't seen to be able to get anything to work properly the few times I tried. It's so much worse on mobile cuz I'm so likely to accidentally tap the ad and they usually take up the whole screen and maybe 3 or 4 lines of am article before another ad. Plus one on top and bottom of the browser that is always there, plus a pop-up video auto playing in the corner.
- If you're on Android, Firefox have ad block addon, and for YouTube you have revanced
- Set your private DNS to something like dns.adguard.com, it's a game changer!
- for mobile if you have android try rethink dns 👀
  
  For mobile I would say adding blocklists in the router.

It is jarring. I am feeling a little bad for actual writers though when I have to turn back from a news site because it doesn't like my adblocker or pihole. I haven't relented. But given the whole writers strike thing and the fact that I don't want AI writing pretty much anything meant to be read by human eyes, I do feel bad.
- I don't.
  If they were worth reading, they could publish.

I did my annual reimage and it's always jarring having to put everything back on lol.

What a great way to put it. Years ago my wife was annoyed when I started blocking ads because it was effecting streaming on some apps. Now if an ad gets through look out!
When we see ads, it is so annoying. Page loads are clunky and games blast you with ads.

I’m cool with ads as long as they aren’t filled with malware. Unfortunately they’re all filled with malware.

I remember the times I'd go from watching Tivo to trying to watch live TV.

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