537
Ad blocking is alive and well, despite Chrome's attempts to make it harder
(www.theregister.com)
Over my cold, dead hands. Fuck you and your shitty worldview,
this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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I wonder, is hatred of advertising a common thing for folks with ADHD? They take away something you are giving your attention to because it interests you, and shove some other crap in your face just to serve their own interests.
I remember being enraged at the scheduled commercial breaks in the '80s and '90s. The only benefit they had was that I always knew which segment of the show I was in and therefore roughly what time it was.
But now? It is so much damn worse and the normies just seem more OK with it than ever. I just remind myself they are living in a society that conditions them to accept it and gives them a thousand more serious things to worry about.
Edit: some words not have right letters
I have wasted so much of my life watching adverts. I am absolutely over it and I get agitated if I watch them now. I cancel any streaming service that tries to force them on me and I am relying more and more on Plex/Jellyfin. I am not going to waste any more of my life watching marketing lies.
Combo of ADHD and living through the 2000s with Internet Explorer where ads often installed malware and viruses. If you DIDN'T use an Ad Blocker you were playing a game of Russian Roulette every time you opened a web page.
Popups, pop unders, blaring audio, malware, slow page loads...ads are a scourge.
I hate it because it’s an unethical practice to manipulate or mislead and all modern advertising uses dark patterns to try to get you to overconsume.
The ADHD distress is just another side effect of all that
That's me too, an effect of Justice Sensitivity, a common trait among both ADHD and autistic people. Before I knew that I was both, I used to tell people that I was allergic to advertising, to convey my feelings about it.
Dismissing righteousness as "justice sensitivity" is absolutely tragic to me. You're right to feel that way, don't change. The problem is with the system, not you. Applying a medical perspective is stigmatizing and self defeating. Your reaction is real, valid, and a far more sane response to these conditions than acceptance
"it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society"
I wasn't trying to dismiss anything. Just pointing out that it's a commonly observed trait in ADHD people. It's a scientific perspective to notice that people with certain neurologies tend to exhibit certain behaviors more often than people with other neurologies. It's not stigmatizing unless you are both generalizing and value judging.
It's a dehumanizing perspective to categorize experience by "neurologies" and look for problems at an individual rather than systemic level. You don't have "justice sensitivity", you're aware of overwhelming injustice. That's a good thing. Act on it.
Lol normies couldn't care less about serious things, they are more worried about petty interpersonal nonsense, like how others perceive them and conspicuous consumption
The problem is malvertising and tracking. Despite Google's best efforts, ads that deploy malware still exist, and so does ads that track what page/site you're on to profile you.
Who the fuck is still using Chrome?!
Oh, you know. Just 3.6 billion fucking people (73% of web users). But definitely not you and me. I've been on Firefox since 1.0 (2004) and switched to Librewolf a few years ago when Mozilla lost it.
While we are making recommendations use IronFox for Android. Also, blah, blah, blah, Linux better, blah blah.
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That counts android (which never had adblock as a plugin) and or chrome based (edge, brave)?
Most of the time I dont see any ads on YT and I watch a lot of content there. It's getting harder to not get ads there on all my devices but it's doable.
But when I go see my parents, I use their smartTV to watch YT. And I realize how horrible the experience is with all the interruptions and the impossibility to just focus on what you are watching.
And yesterday I got multiple time ads for a crypto scam called Ryxero or something. The scam was using AI clones of Bernard Arnault, a french billionaire, pretending you could win 1000€ a day...
The scam also had deepfakes of news outlets pretending that people in France were "queuing to ATM" to get their money...
I think it's absolutely unacceptable that YT let them serve crypto scams to millions in complete impunity.
I will try to report the scam to authorities. I also reported it to YT but I dont expect them to act. The 3mn long ad was paid by an american business called "EX" which I think serves their scam abroad through YT in complete impunity.
For me the scam and AI clones is obvious but how many got scammed with the complicity of YouTube ? Hundreds ?
BTW you can/should install an alternative YT frontend on smart TVs, if you want to watch YT and are forced to use a smart TV. Even something semi-suitable like Pipepipe will do, but there are also frontends more suited for TV use, e.g. SmartTube
Watching TV of any kind at other people's homes, and especially my parents' place, can feel like some real black mirror shit.
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The ad company hates ad blockers. Whoda thunk it? Also, don't let web browser engines become a monoculture. We went through this shit with Internet Explorer. We know where this leads.
The biggest issue is that making a browser from scratch takes a lot of resources. It's not cheap and takes a long time.
We essentially have Chrome and Firefox now. And Firefox is starting to enshitify.
We desperately need a third browser.
We desperately need a third browser.
Safari?
It's happening, it's just taking a little time.
Also, even though everyone is probably aware of it, Ladybird.
Even if they manage the compatibility, extensions are a big factor.
Bitwarden, adblock, sponsor block, multi account containers, libredirect... Without those, I don't think I would adopt.
All of these are pretty "enthusiast/tinkerer" stuff. Some rando that doesnt use these also won't be touching servo or ladybird basically ever. I think they would get adapted pretty fast for use among "us".
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Didn't even notice them trying. Pathetic.
Let's be honest: The internet without adblock is unusable. I really do not know how all those people without adblock are doing that.
Some sites, particularly ones that serve up questionable things like torrents or roms, are horrible without ad blockers.
well that's why most people use apps instead. the real internet is so hostile without a guide.
especially now that you can't use the mainstream browsers and do it. the barrier to entry has gotten so high that i don't blame kids for being put off by computers and prefering their phones for everything. tiktok has annoying ass ads, but no apps are as bad as the average news website...
it reminds me of trying to learn about cars growing up. i didn't learn about cars growing up. i tried, but everyone i tried to learn from spent the whole time complaining about all the anticonsumer practices that made cars shitty these days. all the hoops you have to jump through to work on them yourself anymore. how the manufactures went out of their way over the course of years to take what used to be a fun tinkerers hobby for the everyman and made it incredibly difficult and expensive to do yourself.
my take away was "I hate cars". so when i hear teenagers these days say that they hate computers i get it. they fucking suck now and there's this 8 foot fence of knowing how to make them suck less before they can even start wanting to learn about them. but it's going to take them a very very long time to get good enough with the computer that they can accomplish anything on it better than on their phone. so we have trucks full of ladders that can scale that fence, and even if we lose our ladders we know how to scale that fence barehanded if we gotta. but the kids just walk around the fence because they don't value what's inside. why would they?
so I'm just waiting for the old pc based intent to slowly wither away as we age with it... places like this becoming out last bastions in a world that requires validated apps on phones.
Do people mostly use apps instead? I don't really get that perception, but also everyone in my family basically hates tiktok, facebook, instagram, twitter and other social media sites on principle. My apps are basically 2FAs, email, chats, and tools, but the vast majority of my time on my phone is in Firefox.
Yes. As someone in High School my peers have no idea whats happening while using a computer and none of them hate that they need to install a bajillion apps for the dumbest stuff. They just do it and keep the apps, even if they legit use it once a year.
Basically none of them know what a folder is, that there are actual files inside their phone/computer. When I'm doing tech support I can't say "open the files app/file explorer and go to x folder" I need to hold their hand through it all "take your mouse here on this icon, click on this, drag and drop this here..." and silently facepalm when they can't drag and drop... Or I make them press keyboard shortcuts that does it for them. Many of them refer to any kind of sideloading/piracy as "installing an apk/installing as an apk" even on iPhones and computers.
I really really believe that mine and the following generations are substantially more tech illiterate than previous ones. Like of course they dont all need to be tech savvy but my dad or my 50 year old teachers know how to open folder or drag and drop and I can just say it as is to them and they will do it fine, maybe after a 2-3 second wait. Can't do that to my peers. They exclusively know how to "use" phones to scroll the social medias, take photos, text and such.
yes, the vast majority of web traffic is phones using apps. no person that uses this platform is an average user.
even if your family hates tiktok it's still massively popular.
especially among the youth who probably only have a really shitty locked down chromebook from their school and the recently developing world. in the global south most people never got a decent computer. they all got phones instead. once you're on a phone everything pushes you towards apps.
No seriously though. Was using managers laptop very briefly, and needed to look up some instructions. No adblock, Google Chrome default browser, etc. The websites were almost unreadable. Giant video ads in top and bottom corners, big thick flashing distracting ads on all sides making the readable area a little bigger than a postage stamp. Genuinely how do people browse the Internet like this?
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I see people who put zero effort into ad-blocking in a similar light as people who don't leave shitty partners. At some point they manage to convince themselves that it's not a problem.
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If you ever use the web without an adblocker you see why people have such a hard time with it and why apps took over. It’s almost entirely unusable except for some of the data farming social media sites (which also try to funnel you to their apps).
Better be. Also, fuck chrome.
If you dont have an adblocker.. you're guaranteed to get that fake "Virus found" notification from a website that has bad ads.
I can't think of a single reason why I would want or need a website to be able to send me notifications. Whomever invented that is on my time machine list, just after the guy who made webpage elements move around right before you click them.
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