AdNauseam is a uBlock fork that goes further: it actively attacks marketers by auto-clicking every ad before blocking

Comments

• Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Couple of issues I’m wondering about…

  First, wouldn’t clicking on everything just make you easier to track?

  Second, how much bandwidth would all this use?

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  • archonet@lemy.lol ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    1. not in this way
    2. none

    the way it works is sending an HTTP request that registers as a “click” to the advertiser (thus costing them money), but then doesn’t actually let the browser download any content and fetch the webpage, basically pi-holes the ad and any attached tracking cookies. Combined with the fact that it does this to every ad, it would basically poison any click tracking.

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    • victorz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      2. none

      Ah great

      it works [by] sending an HTTP request that registers as a “click” to the advertiser

      Uh, wait a minute. 🤔

      Sending a request also uses bandwidth, you know.

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    • lumony@lemmings.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Thanks for doing your part to spread the truth in this sea of lives and FUD.

      It’s clear that most people these days are proud consumers with more money than sense. All they care about is looking good in front of their consumerist friends, and they base all of their actions and decisions around what will support that ideology.

      As a kid, I thought useful idiots were rare. Now I see it’s the exact opposite.

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  • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah, I can’t find an answer whether the “click” is behind some obfuscation, or if the “click every ad” is the obfuscation step itself by attempting to poison the data. The latter may work but yes, may actually increase tracking. Wish that answer wasn’t so hard to find on their site.

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    • Kbobabob@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Did you look at the FAQ?

      github.com/dhowe/adnauseam/wiki/FAQ#how-does-adna…

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  • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Also wouldn’t this be directing a ton of money to google? (or I guess any other ad provider)

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    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The advertisers are paying for the opportunity either way. Clicks cost them more money than just displaying the ad. Useless clicks cost them money for nothing.

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    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      No, because it devalues their click through, as no sales will result from those clicks.

      It’s kinda like printing money, there’s more of it, but the overall value hasn’t increased.

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    • cageythree@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      In the short term, I would think so.

      In the long run, it makes it less appealing for companies to advertise, because they would have larger costs while having less sales. That, in return, hurts Google as advertisers don’t want to pay as much anymore.

      Or in short, it’s designed to hurt the system as a whole, not specific companies.

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• renzev@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  You know this is the good shit because when it first came out a few years back google was running a huge disinformation campaign against it. You’d search for “adnauseum” in google and the first result would be an article from some weird advertising company calling is “insecure” and “malware” without any actual argumentation behind those claims, while no other search engine returned that article (I lost the screenshots, so yall are just gonna have to take my word for it). They also delisted it from the chrome store for not discernible reason. They were afraid.

  But nowadays I’m willing to bet that they figured out how to detect adnauseum’s fake clicks and filtering it out. Stuff like that needs a talented development team to keep it up to date.

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  • lemmeBe@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Has the same limitations as uBlock Origin with a Manifest v3 and won’t work on Chrome.

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    • roofuskit@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      If you’re still using chrome at this point that’s on you.

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    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The solution is simple. Chrome ditches manifest v2? Ditch Chrome.

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    • lumony@lemmings.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It’s not even available on chrome because google removed it years ago.

      They weren’t breaking any rules, but google saw it as a threat and kept it removed since there wasn’t sufficient backlash.

      Really wish people would STFU about the “privacy” aspect about this. It gives junk data to trackers because it floods them with all the ads you’re coming across. The main purpose, though, is to charge advertisers money without giving them a service in return.

      It’s sad most of you consumers can’t see the real significance of this software, but it really puts into perspective why most people are useful idiots these days.

      Consumerism has won.

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    • lumony@lemmings.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It’s not even available on chrome because google removed it years ago.

      They weren’t breaking any rules, but google saw it as a threat and kept it removed since there wasn’t sufficient backlash.

      Really wish people would STFU about the “privacy” aspect about this. It gives junk data to trackers because it floods them with all the ads you’re coming across. The main purpose, though, is to charge advertisers money without giving them a service in return.

      It’s sad most of you consumers can’t see the real significance of this software, but it really puts into perspective why most people are useful idiots these days.

      Consumerism has won.

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• NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I always liked using this on the premise of privacy-through-obfuscation. If the powers that be must get information from me, then i’d prefer to give them garbage information.

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  • FauxLiving@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Exactly. You can’t completely avoid being tracked but you can ensure that your profile is just noise without any value to advertisers

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  • lumony@lemmings.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I always like this on the premise of charging advertisers money while giving them no audience in return.

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  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    And lots of it.

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• rimu@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Google has put a lot of effort into detecting and blocking stuff like this. They call it "click fraud", if you want to look it up.

  It'll just mean they start ignoring clicks from you.

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  • diffusive@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    That, I guess, it’s the whole point. Stopping being tracked 🙂

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    • cageythree@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      This feels like reverse psychology on a little kid.

      “That’s it, I’m not tracking you anymore! >:(”
      “Oooh nooo, what have I done! Oh how much I would wish to be tracked :(”
      “No, you won’t convince me to change my mind >:(”
      “Oh well, guess I’ll have to live without being tracked, what a shame that is.”

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  • 0x0@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    They call it “click fraud”,

    No, click fraud is using botnets to click ads in your site to increase your revenue.

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  • reksas@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    if enough people start doing it its effective

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    • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Not sure how true it was, but there was a YouTuber claiming that their videos were getting entirely demonetized because too many of their viewers had Ad blockers enabled. So even though 75% of people were seeing ads on the video, Google was keeping that ad revenue, withholding it all from the creator because 25% weren’t getting ads. The claim the youtuber made is that this will probably predominantly impact creators with a more tech savvy / privacy aware audience, resulting in less of that niche content.

      Anyway, this is anecdotal, but I wouldn’t put it past Google to pass the issue to the creators for the actions of their consumers, even though it’s not their fault.

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  • ITGuyLevi@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Throw in a dash of track-me-not (www.trackmenot.io) and maybe they’ll start ignoring your search queries too! Worst case my actual searches are so buried in the bs deciding what to market would be easier from my screen-name.

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    • joshchandra@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Fascinating, thanks for sharing! What is the best, current Firefox fork of this one, if you know?

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    • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      can confirm. You know those ‘google rewards’ things? they slowly stopped going for the results from trackmenot lol

      it was nice to get $1 a month off my VPN subscription lol

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  • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Then that achieves the same goal. If they’re ignoring clicks from you, and you’re blocking their trackers, then they probably don’t have a good profile on you, because whatever they do have is either old, poisoned, or both.

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• lumony@lemmings.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’ve been recommending this for awhile, it’s nice to see someone else take up the mantle.

  Yes, it clicks ads in addition to blocking them. Google removed it from its addon repository even though it wasn’t breaking any rules. They just removed it and kept it removed because there wasn’t sufficient backlash, the scumbags.

  It’s the main reason why I use Firefox these days. it’s clear that the cabal will not allow anything that legitimately threatens their power structure, and make advertising less-effective for the same price is a gut punch they need.

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  • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Automated ad clicks probably are breaking the rules, TBF.

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    • wonderfulvoltaire@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Monopoly money

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    • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Don’t care. At this point I will take being actively malicious toward them.

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• x00z@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This would still make a connection to the ad servers that can then track me though.

  I guess with a hardened browser and a VPN it would be alright.

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  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    At this point I think it’s better to poison the well.

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• morphballganon@mtgzone.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Good start. Now make a version that clicks each ad a random number of times from randomly generated IP addresses.

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  • Tja@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    That’s not how IP addresses work.

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    • yarr@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      What if we use a Visual Basic UI to hack the IP address by netmask?

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    • umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      maybe we can setup a botnet to poison advertiser data.

      click all the ads, all over the planet!

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    • pebbles@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You can fake your IP. There isnt really any authentication at the IP level. Just make a packet and overwite the IP field.

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    • Evil_incarnate@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Have it form connections to all the other browsers using the extension and they all send a click.

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    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Nothing is random

      In bot cases like this you would have a proxy list that it “randomly” picks from

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    • Landless2029@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It does if it reports the URL to click home somewhere and users can opt in to pull the list to auto click.

      It would DDoS the ad servers. Muwhahahaa

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    • FiskFisk33@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Totally doable if this was a distributed service

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  • GenosseFlosse@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Ad Networks use browser fingerprinting to detect duplicate clicks, which is tied to your hardware, system locale, installed fonts etc.

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    • morphballganon@mtgzone.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Sounds like a solvable problem

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• Geodad@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This would just give money to the advertisers.

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  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This transfers money from the advertiser to the advertising agency, without creating a sale for the advertiser. This devalues the services of the agency.

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    • Geodad@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I still don’t want to give those fuckers money. If I just use uBlock, the ad is never seen, thus no sale is made and the slimy ad company gets money.

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• lemmylommy@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Some ads have used browser exploits to infect visitors in the past. So this is a very, very bad idea, if it actually is implemented in a way that is hard to filter for ad networks.

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  • DarkSurferZA@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    So the way I understand this to work, it’s 100% safe from the type of attack you’re describing.

    You are clicking the link (asking the advertiser for the data) but then never actually fetching it.

    So you can never get the malicious payload to be infected.

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    • Goretantath@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Im too scared to trust it works out fine in the end to use it, been raised on the idea that interacting with an ad in any way other than task managering the pop up is dangerous. Wheres the part of the code that makes it safe and a write up of how it functions, otherwise im fine just blocking ads with regular ublock.

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• LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Interesting, was wondering about this. This would also “help” the websites with more ad income right?

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  • giacomo@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    if thats true, brb setting up a website and a not farm

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    • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Haha I imagine they need at least unique ip addresses to count. Now I wonder if for clicks to count you need to properly click through and load the target website with the same “browser fingerprint”.

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    • joshchandra@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Careful: that then enters the world of ad fraud, which randos like us doing the clicking isn’t considered.

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  • lumony@lemmings.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes. I prefer this to the whole “ethical ad” debacle people have had prioritized for them.

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  • Colloidal@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Potentially.

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• Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  IMO, this is a bit much.

  It’s one thing to block ads, it’s another thing to essentially participate in an ad fraud scheme. If this simply hurt Google, I would have no issues (they are corrupt criminals, an American oligarchic institution), but you also risking harming independent sites that have done nothing wrong.

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  • littletoolshed@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Why is advertising ok, but any response in opposition of it, is not?

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    • Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      This is an excessive approach that risks collateral damage to 3rd parties who are not involved.

      I have no issues with blocking ads (internet is unusable without ublock origin + Pihole), but actually simulating clicks is IMO not the right approach.

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  • Goretantath@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Remember, advertising is jist a new word they made to wash over the ick with its original name, propaganda. I’d rather not participate in any propaganda.

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  • joshchandra@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You incorrectly use the term ad fraud, which addresses advertisers themselves automating clicks on their own links to generate fake income. There is nothing wrong with people-with-no-corporate-interest who click.

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  • victorz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    To each their own. I’m in your boat too, I think.

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• zecg@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard, you’d have to be deranged to want an extension clicking random shit.

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  • shneancy@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    it doesn’t actually click on stuff. it “clicks” so that the advertisers’ and your digital footprint’s statistics get messed up, but you never see the results of the clicking, nothing pops up, nothing gets downloaded

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    • FauxLiving@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It also adds noise to the site metrics and recommendation algorithm making them less valuable overall.

      It’s like the application that will watermark images with digital noise designed to throw off AI training that uses that image.

      You’re no longer a user who is able to be profiled (because you ‘like’ things completely at random). If everyone was using a plugin like this then advertisers wouldn’t be able to serve targeted content because they wouldn’t know what content types work best for each user because every user clicks ads randomly and so there is no detectable signal, just noise.

      You get the same effect, but reduced, if less people are using it.

      In addition, if half of the users on a website are using adblockers and suddenly those users start clicking ads, then it costs twice as much to advertise while not providing any additional customers which makes spending money on web advertisement less attractive.

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• fossilesque@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’ve used this for a while. Also, I love filling out corpo surveys because I feed them bad data. It’s the little acts of chaos.

  Another great extension:

  addons.mozilla.org/en-US/…/fake-data-haterapps/

  If they want real information, they can pay me. :)

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  • joshchandra@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Ha, this is as hilarious as it is creative. Interesting find; got any more?

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    • fossilesque@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Depends on the situation really, it makes me feel the joy of a naughty child. Roll with it. Where you can feed people bad data, do it. Where you cannot, strip it and block it. Obtusify and randomise how your computer connects to the internet (VPNs, SPN, etc.), use containers (Firefox), support others breaking rules (snowflake.torproject.org), contain your applications (safing.io), spoof things like location etc. This is my little everyday act of anarchism. If people want to fight back against this bullshit, they should learn to stop complying with the folks putting everyone and everything in boxes. People are so used to mindlessly complying.

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• yool_ooloo@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Why can’t uBlock Origin and this thing work at the same time?

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  • noodlejetski@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    because it’s a modified uBlock Origin, so it’s like running two ad blocking plugins at once, which isn’t recommended. and if uBO blocks an ad first, AdNauseam won’t be able to detect it and click on it.

    anyway, I remember reading a long time ago how that approach isn’t going to harm ad companies anyway, because [technical reasons that I don’t remember at all].

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  • Famko@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It’s a bit redundant to run both at the same time, considering they both practically do the same thing and one is built off of the other.

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• dantheclamman@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Just curious- if ads are for something illegal, couldn’t this expose me to liability for theoretically “clicking” it from my IP/device? And if ads are for something unsavory ( like a “chat with local cougars” site or something similar), wouldn’t they start to deliver me more such ads, thinking, wow this IP is the only one clicking every sex chat ad, send them more!

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  • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    How many websites do you browse with links to truly illegal content?

    If you live in a country with truly abysmal human rights, definitely don’t bother with this plugin, but in most cases you should be fine on the illegal side.

    Even if somehow the website you’re browsing has some super sketchy ad to buyillegaldrugshere.com or whatever, to get in trouble with the law in most civilized places you’d have to actually buy the illegal drugs, not just ping the illegal drugs IP. Especially since you can pretty easily prove to a judge that your system fetches ad links automatically and without further engagement.

    Not saying it can’t happen, just that it’s really unlikely you would be served an ad for something so illegal just clicking on it is a liability. The literally only case I can think of coming close is CSAM, but even then, if you’re regularly browsing websites that advertise CSAM, maybe find other websites to occupy your time? And I can just about guarantee any website serving CSAM ads is already doing illegal shit, so you should probably be more worried about that than an ad-click…

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• jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Can’t tell if 4/1 gag or not! Brilliant!

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  • joshchandra@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Oops, lol, I forgot about the date. This has existed for years.

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• pyre@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I don’t know, just sounds like I’d be contributing to the marketers metrics so they can show “it works”. it’ll only make them invest in ads more. if anyone thinks capitalists are these genius level manipulators who know how everything works I only refer to the richest person alive being the least charismatic, least knowledgable, unfuckable troglodyte who keeps making an ass of himself.

  if any of these companies suffer any losses or reduced profits they’ll just fire hardworking people, not one of them will turn around and say maybe the ads aren’t working when you actively work to show them that it is working.

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