Adnausem
It is built on top of unlock origin and will silently click on the ads in the background to mess with your digital footprint while costing advertisers money who use pay per click.
Google:
That sounds neat, but it means those ads are at least partially loaded on the background, which is also bad
only the URL is loaded.
https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/FAQ#how-does-adnauseam-click-ads
How does AdNauseam “click Ads”?
AdNauseam ‘clicks’ Ads by issuing an HTTP request to the URL to which they lead. In current versions the is done via an XMLHttpRequest (or AJAX request) issued in a background process. This lightweight request signals a ‘click’ on the server responsible for the Ad, but does so without opening any additional windows or pages on your computer. Further it allows AdNauseam to safely receive and discard the resulting response data, rather than executing it in the browser, thus preventing a range of potential security problems (ransomware, rogue Javascript or Flash code, XSS-attacks, etc.) caused by malfunctioning or malicious Ads. Although it is completely safe, AdNauseam’s clicking behaviour can be de-activated in the settings panel.It just sends a request to the ads
Is that considered click fraud or is that only when an advertiser intentionally gets competitor ads clicked, and similar behaviors?
Not saying anybody [here] cares just curious (as a Ublock Origin user)
I think it is when a competitor does it in an attempt to make the advertiser lose money.
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Old guy checking in. When ad blockers first became a thing, my then-teenaged boys started using one and were trying to talk me into it. I was pretty dubious. I said my concern was that the model most of the web was built on was ad-supported. That is, people created content on the web to try and get visitors, and made money by selling ads on their site, or used monetized links. If everyone started using ad blockers, I said, that model would break down and either people would stop creating content or they’d go to a new model, like subscriptions. I figured few people would take time equivalent to a full time job to create content for free.
I think that largely came to pass. A lot of great online publications have closed their doors, and the are lots of paywalls now. The things is, the sites are just as much to blame. Most people wouldn’t have been driven to use ad blockers if the ads hadn’t gotten so untenable. A banner or a box here or there is one thing, but when there are a giant number of pop-up windows, autoplay videos, windows you can’t back out of, and all the other hellish stuff, people are going to be highly motivated to find a way to stop it.
That whole arms race was one of the things that ruined the internet, in my opinion.
Not sure if arms race is the right way to put it when 1 side is deploying nukes and the other is only deploying shields. Money ruined the internet, ads is just one way how it did that.
That actually is a major facet of the military arms race. Side A develops a missile. Side B develops an anti-missile missile. So side A develops a missile with multiple warheads or builds more missiles so they won’t all be shot down, etc. The defensive systems spawn the development of more or more-devastating offensive systems.
I still see one party racing with arms and one party trying to survive.
It really doesn’t matter what the users did in response, because the MBAs’ greed is such that they would have eventually ruined everything anyway no matter how compliant or patient the users were. It doesn’t matter how much they get, it’s never enough.
It was already being enshittified, adblockers had fuck all to do with it since even today they represent a fraction of all users.
The jack wagons who decided to push web 2.0 as a money making gig are to blame, not the users.
I’m perfectly happy to pay for things I value, especially if the alternative is being forced to pay with my time and attention. The evidence also doesn’t entirely support your argument, since plenty of places that you pay for still try to show ads.
The evidence also doesn’t entirely support your argument, since plenty of places that you pay for still try to show ads.
Where was it ever said that a site could only use one model? The same is/was true of newspapers that cost you a subscription but also sold ads. Without the ads, the subscription would be much more expensive.
I personally am unlikely to pay for a huge variety of news sites and other publications, but I really appreciated having access to all that content for free. Sure, I might pay for one or two especially valuable sites, but my personal opinion is that it was better when the sites were making enough money to make it worthwhile for them by selling a reasonable amount of advertising, and the content was free to the users.
If your claim were accurate, they wouldn’t have to resort to putting ads on websites that are subscription based.
Unless you want to make the argument they’re just greedy bastards, which then means your first argument is bull, because they were already greedy bastards enshittifying it all well before adblockers were even close to commonplace.
And again, adblockers even today account for a fraction of users.
42% is a fraction, but it’s a huge fraction. Higher in some demographics, lower in others.
If your claim were accurate, they wouldn’t have to resort to putting ads on websites that are subscription based.
How do you figure? Most business ventures will ask themselves how much a customer would pay for their product. If the answer is lower than enough to make product, they either won’t enter the market or they’ll figure out a way to lower the price. Selling ads is a way to lower the price. Also worth noting that ads used to generate a lot more revenue than they do now.
“Without the ads, the subscription would be much more expensive.”
That’s not at all how it works. How is it that adults think prices are based on costs? They teach supply and demand in high school.
As I said elsewhere, for most products, the makers ask how much they think people would be willing to pay for it. If that price is lower than an amount that would generate reasonable profit, they’ll either no go to market or they’ll look for ways to reduce or offset costs. Ads are a common way of keeping the price within what people are willing to pay.
No, that assumes that prices are based on cost, which is not true. Ads are a way to make money on top of what people will pay.
He didn’t write a multi page thesis covering every single use case, quick tell him he’s wrong!
You’re right that ads supported the model, but the model was also generally anarcho-communist in nature. That people wanted to experience it without ads was expected, and considered fine. It is fine.
The more popular ad blocking gets, the more I worry about the ad industry lobbying to criminalize blocking ads as “theft of revenue” or some insane concept along that line.
And you just know the burden of that new criminalization won’t come with the expensive and long legal procedures needed to bad all the ad blockers but instead will just be a piecemeal tax charged to consumers
I refused to use adblockers on principle - not because I thought multibillion corpos needed more money, but because I recognized that sites using ads to sustain their business model needed views to maintain their viability in our fucked capitalist system.
Then Youtube swapped to three unskippable fucking ads after every video.
Now I just whitelist decent sites and let Adblock take care of the rest.
Never see ads using ublock
I block ads specifically so websites that rely on ads as revenue die.
I block all ads, everywhere, period. No whitelists, no nothing.
Because I got sick of ending up with malware infected ads and having to clean up my computer (back when I was on windows, I’m sure the days not far off where linux will have the same problem)
All these companies crying about ad revenues and shit? If they ever policed the ads they force down our throats for content, So they didnt serve malware, or obnoxiously loud or long ads, or any other bullshit, then people wouldnt have to need ad blocking tools.
You do you
Although I pity you
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/majority-of-americans-now-use-ad-blockers/ar-BB1kEhis
That’s why ads are now being tested on the OS level.
The Censuswide report indicates that 66 percent of experienced advertisers use ad blockers.
lol
https://www.ghostery.com/blog/privacy-report-advertisers-and-adblockers
Straight from the source.
And a funny quote I found from Cory Doctorow a year ago: “One in four web users has installed a blocker, making it (in the words of Doc Searls) the largest consumer boycott in history”.
All sorts of people are fed up with this shit.
The other 33 are lying.
My man, 95% of people dont even know what a browser is and you expect those to know what an adblocker does or is? even now, all people using adblockers, or extensions in general are barely a drop in a desert dry bucket
We should be more grateful for these people. Our adblockers function because they don’t bother using them.
The moment that most of society starts using adblockers is the moment they become defunct when the big corporations begin actively fighting them. I’ve already witnessed this with YouTube Vanced/Revanced.
What’s wrong with youtube vanced? It works just fine for me.
How long have you been using it?
I’ve been using it for years. About six months ago or somewhere around that, YouTube started a small campaign against adblockers though. In that campaign, they actually forced Vanced to rebrand to Revanced due to a lawsuit. It was in this time that through the campaign more people became aware of adblockers.
This actually sucked for users like me. The amount of times I’d have to repatch Revanced due to the constant updates was awful. It’s more stable now, but if this ever happens again it will be annoying.
If people bring attention back to adblockers, then it will be like this again. Sites will be threatening legal action and restructuring themselves to break adblockers, while adblockers will have to constantly update in order to stay functional.
Interesting. It’s maybe been like a year or so for me. I have had to repatch a couple times. Good to know I got more bullshit to look forward to.
Because Ublock Origin is better than AdBlock in every way? Or maybe because they’re already using PiHole?
I doubt people are using better options as an argument for this. The Youtube stuff makes the news like every other for blocking people, yet I haven’t noticed any of it. If it weren’t for lemmy and reddit spamming it I wouldn’t have known it was possible and I’m not even doing anything crazy. Just Firefox and ublock. If people were using great options, it wouldn’t have even been making the news because no one would have noticed.
Firefox with ublock origin was impacted, however only a set of users get the change. This way Youtube can test what impact it has.
The fact you were unaffected means nothing.
Remember in Futurama when Fry finally goes online in the future and get attacked by ads. Or similar in Altered Carbon with whatever that contact-lens-AR thing was and the character spins out.
I don’t know why people evangelize others using adblock. The more mainstream it becomes, the more likely websites use effort to stifle their use.
Just let’s keep it on the dl so we benefit.
I want businesses relying on ads to die though. Doesn’t work if too few people use adblockers.
I think we don’t give gradual acclimatisation enough credit here. Most of my students have never heard of Firefox and tools like ublock origin because they’re acclimatised to the mobile ecosystem
“How do I install something? I use the app store.”
“Oh, but I already have the internet on my phone, why would I want a 3rd party app to use the internet” (think old people who mix up AOL with the internet in reverse!)
As soon as I show them, they convert in seconds - they’ve forgotten web pages without adverts can exist.
I have no less than a dozen plugins in my browser to make the Internet usable. More than half is just for YouTube.
Because they’re not the “default”. Most folks stick with whatever comes on their device by default; Edge on Windows, Safari on MacOS/iOS, Chrome on Android, etc. Anything beyond just picking it up and turning it on requires forethought and effort, which most users don’t care about.
Well it’s really due to the fact that most people are ignorant about computer technology. I personally use pi-hole.
The difference in surfing the web on my phone with pi hole vs without it is stunning. It’s almost unusable without.
Set up pi-vpn so you can tunnel back into your home network whenever you’re away!
Note that PiVPN is only being maintained on a “best effort” basis, so you may wish to look into the component parts separately and just install that way.
Yes but also it’s mostly just an install script. It’ll suck if one day it stops working but there are other projects already offering a similar ease-of-use setup
I learned recently that banner ads on websites and apps track your physical location, which is then sold to all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons.
