Internet ads you can't turn off

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

With firefox, adblock, and flashblock, I see very few ads.

But richness of HTML5 is allowing page developers to annoy me with different types of popups and distractions. I'm waiting for a add-on to block those too. I'm sure one already exists but the annoyance hasn't yet reached my critical 'hunt' threshold.

Yeah, HTML5 is a major reason why the hosts file is becoming more and more important.

[Serpentine]

I find disabling application storage and html5 storage goes a long way to stop html5 ads, since a lot of them seem to require that there's something like a cookie already in the storage.

I love it - all these sites reporting about cookie tracking on the decline leading to improvements in privacy etc, and that it's a big blow to google/facebook/twitter; yet they've all moved on to appending referrer links, using app/html5 storage and a few other less savory methods. Cookies were the least troublesome and easiest to manage :/

[MikeOxlittle]

If you use Firefox also look into the add-on Ghostery.

Works very well for an extra layer of 'protection'.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Angst

But is youtube still accessible with Flashbock?

You just tell flashblock to allow Youtube.

[idraw22]

Ugh,


I keep running into one that SAYS you can turn it off, but it keeps on running until whatever I came to see has downloaded or I stop clicking or I'm gone. I don't think av or adaware does anything for it, sigh.

Originally Posted by cjr72

Having to maintain entries for the /etc/hosts files of my various machines seems like a nightmare to me.

I treat it as a multi-layered thing. The hosts file is good since it is portable across systems (Linux/Android and Windows) and handles most software. "Ad blockers" are nice because they go that extra miles in the web browser.

That said, I wish that I didn't have to do that. It is unfair to ad supported websites. On the other hand, bandwidth on mobile devices is expensive and advertisers aren't willing to respect that. Not only are the individual ads large, but they aren't cached. Even on the desktop, they fail to acknowledge that the form of advertising has to be appropriate to the website. If the website is visual (text or images), having audio in the advertising is a huge faux pas. If the content of the site is serious (news or research oriented), animation is distracts from the content. Add a 30 second advertisement to the top of a 5 minute video clip, and I'm okay with it. Do the same to a 2 minute video clip, and you're wasting the viewer's time. Oh, and please stop tracking me. Advertisers can target demographics based upon the content rather than the user. The former doesn't violate my sense of privacy while the latter does.

[Ubermensch]

When you watch TV or listen to the radio, you are bombarded with ads. If I can choose to easily help my brain from being washed while on the Internet, you can be sure as hell that I will. AdBlock for the win.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Ubermensch

When you watch TV or listen to the radio, you are bombarded with ads. If I can choose to easily help my brain from being washed while on the Internet, you can be sure as hell that I will. AdBlock for the win.

Is paying for a subscription to an internet radio station easy?

I agree that most ads are poison for the mind. Can you imagine if adblocking addons were on by default?

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I agree that most ads are poison for the mind.

I think that it depends upon the medium. Print advertising can be quite informative: detailing which products/services a company offers, product features, current pricing, and other such stuff. Business websites are pretty much the same idea. Even online storefronts are advertising (analogous to the mail order catalogs of days gone by). Of course you need to balance it out with independent reviews since advertising is intrinsically biased, but at least it lets you know what's out there.

Most TV, Internet, and radio advertising is a different story though. It's mostly meant to capture minds, rather than provide information then let the consumer consciously decide. In that sense, it is poison for the mind.

[Joykins]

Sometimes I want to see ads, like if I'm looking for a particular product or service. I just don't want ads foisted upon me when I want to read the news or listen to music.