#ad

@heppycat @DJGummikuh @ShadowJonathan @falcennial
I have my blocker set to only block Tracking, so those pop ups are especially annoying.

@ShadowJonathan I use ad blockers extensively.

@ShadowJonathan I will get a case, if someone tells me. they work in advertising

@ShadowJonathan

Advertisements in general tend to intentionally create anxiety and FOMO. Unintentionally they also distract thinking and attention. Harmful, even if you're not driving a car.

I've mostly successfully eliminated ads from my life, and when I sometimes see how the other half lives, I'm surprised they can even function under it all.

@steffo @ShadowJonathan yea never without an adblocker ever again

@groxx @kevingranade @helenaisvibing @ShadowJonathan

They are lucky that noone thought of construction foam there yet…

@wakingrufus @ShadowJonathan more than a decade ago that was always my experience at corporate training courses where the browsers were plain IE or Chrome if you were lucky.

I dread to think what it's like today for most people who don't install an ad blocker by default.

I'm old enough to remember using Netscape before you needed an adblocker...

@ShadowJonathan Ads make me not want the thing. If I'm in the market for the thing, I'll look it up, and see what's out there. I don't need the thing thrown in my face, and it has the opposite effect.

Btw, I am STILL holding a grudge against Empire Flooring because their phone number has been embedded, against my will, in my brain cells since the early 90s. If I win the lotto, and need thousands of feet of flooring, I'll call them just to tell them they don't get the job!

@wakingrufus @ShadowJonathan my work computer has no adblocking. I'm a teacher and use YouTube regularly. Have to wait 6-30 seconds to show students relevant content. I try and load it up at the start of the day but that relies on no computer issues. I want to punch the screen in every time and my students don't understand it because they have been seeing ads in everything since their eyes started working.

@ShadowJonathan I have a special hatred for ads in the commuting system.

1) After rent and food the train pass is already my largest monthly expense. I pay more for it than internet and electricity combined.

2) Unlike most other ad selling places the income sources for the commuter system is public information. Ad revenu is like 1~2% of total income. IIRC it’s lower the rent for all the stores + vening machines in the venue.

It makes absolutely no sense that those ads exists.

@ShadowJonathan Watching YouTube got so much better since I installed SponsorBlock. With uBlock Origin I have no ads at all. This works on mobile too. Get the Firefox browser for android and you can install uBlock and SponsorBlock there too.

@wakingrufus @ShadowJonathan Some of my co workers don't use an adblocker. How can they live like this?

@ShadowJonathan

If I know the name of the product or company from ads I'm almost always actively avoiding to buy said thing. And the ones I still buy are ones I'd have bought without the ads too anyway...

@ShadowJonathan idk where i would encouter any adds tbh

@ShadowJonathan surprising that the post doesn't even mention using adblockers

@ShadowJonathan - Right on

@drajt

@ShadowJonathan
It's literally unusable. Single websites will consume enough resources to slow down your whole machine.

@ShadowJonathan Hey we do the same things at our house. We mite, change channels or shut off the TV. Also being Canadian we try if at all possible to boycott products from the USA . BABA ( BUY ANYTHING BUT AMERICAN)

@ShadowJonathan
it's like - manipulation turned into a science and mass-produced

i realize i also just described LLMs too

@ShadowJonathan Firefox can make Google the only search tool installable, they can put AI in every menu, they can remove dark and light theme to enforce a single yellow theme with cyan text in Comic Sans, they can add unmutable sounds when you click anything in the browser, I'll still use and love Firefox or Fireforks if that’s the only way to have a decent uBlock Origin working. When I don’t have Firefox, I stop interacting with the internet, I just read books, play offline games and take walks in the forest.
I installed it on desktop, laptop, mobile, Steam Deck, Meta Quest 3, etc.