Submitted 3 months ago by 1984@lemmy.today to technology@lemmy.world
They call it “dark traffic” - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.
Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.
News Media: “ADVERTISERS CAN’T DISTRIBUTE ADS BECAUSE OF YOUUUUUU”
g-good!
The fbi suggests using an ad blocker. Guess what an ad blocker is as important as an antivirus.
More, if anything.
Malvertising has become pervasive enough that adblocking is starting to become a necessity from an IT perspective
Maybe the problem is the advertisers and not the consumers. Jeeeesus.
Besides the trackers and malware, ads can be categorised as a flaw in technology. A kind of software parasite that uses a computer's resources without providing any additional functionality to the user.
Ads are malware (software maliciously made to do something the user wants), yes. :3
Bottom line: if I’m forced to consume ads on a device belonging to me - I will rather throw it away!
I used my mother’s lapton once 2 years ago, and i was like, how the fuck do you people browsing without an adblock?
Using an ad blocker makes me tech savvy? Oh, la, la. Hand me my monocle and glass of schardonayegh.
I mean, basically yes? Do you think most people ever touched the addons button?
Well, no, but is that really the bar? It is a pretty low bar no matter how you dress it up. Now leave me alone with my schaedeghenayegh.
You think most people open settings? You’re more optimistic than I am.
Sorry that’s spelled jardoughneigh you uncultured swine. Give back that monocle at once!
And just like that, 200 redneck women said in unison “huh, that’s a real pretty name. Schardonayegh. Ooooh, even better -Schardonayegh Lynn. I love it!”
I personally am not bothered at ALL by the banner video ads overlayed on top of another banner ad that opens a new tab when you try to close the banner video then another one opens covering the original banner then the page scrolls all the way back to the top and shows you an email list sign up, why would I be?
i know this may go against the general attitude here but i gotta say this does make me a little sad when i think about it. and i use adblockers as well, but i never knew what the numbers were. when it’s put into context like this it’s hard not to be discouraged by the fact that this is still probably a minority of users. i mean what the hell, how are people still using the internet with ads turned on.
I’m starting to notice that a lot of people don’t even notice what are ads or not. When i installed pihole and enabled it for all devices at home. My gf was complaining why suddenly a loy of pages wouldn’t work anymore. Yeah, so she always clicked the ad/sponsored link everywhere and didn’t have the slightest clue. And let’s not start about social media and how basically 75% of it is (hidden) ads.
Personally I’m of the mentality if some company force feeds me their ads while i was not actively searching out their product type, I’ll think 3 times before ever considering their products. Thankfully, i see basically no ads (online) anymore these days.
i guess it’s true that technology has been getting too easy to use. the barrier to entry being too low means people aren’t really ready to use them safely.
When I was about five years old, my parents were shopping for a car. When the radio said Brand X Dealer was the best place to buy a car, I was so excited to tell them what I’d just learned.
I haven’t forgiven advertising since.
Can only imagine how f’d up kids’ minds must be now
My kid hasn’t ever seen an ad on any streaming service or any web page, ever. And I block ads via DNS. We don’t have any kind of live TV service or cable so they literally have just never seen any ads, ever.
Sometimes if we’re out at a restaurant, some TV is playing live content and an ad runs. My kid is shocked like it’s the first time he ever ate sugar.
Glad I can keep that toxic trash out of my house and out of his life.
My daughter has become obsessed with watching videos about the game Wobbly Life. There’s one YouTuber who seems to post extremely frequently and advertises in every video for a subscription mod platform. She is now always asking about that mod platform, and the best way we can explain it to her (because she’s 5 and simply too young to understand what mods even are, has zero room for any nuance on her world views etc.) is we just give her a hard-line “we do not pay for mods”
I still whitelist sites a like with sensible ads. Axios for instance.
But I had to rip APNews out when Google Ads tried to serve me malware.
I don’t even bother reporting ad network malware. No one gives a shit including site owners and network operators
What was the malware?
IDK, it was awhile ago and blocked in the page it auto opened. By Cromite maybe?
Seeing static banner ads on 2000s websites without popups or tracking: 🤷♂️
Blocking ads on Firefox after popups and other crap started: 😀
Browsing the internet on Android before I realised the browser supports addons: 🤮
Blocking ads and tracking on Android via uBlock origin and Privacy Badger: 😀👍
My feeling of guilt when scummy megacorporations miss out on ad revenue:
There are a couple of steps missing at the beginning. There was a time when we only blocked popups; other types of ad were fine, but popups were annoying enough that they needed special attention, and the popup-blocker was usually built-in to the browser without needing an extension. It took a couple of years for the non-popup types of ads to become obnoxious enough to warrant blocking.
Even better: system-wide DNS adblocking on Android. Get rid of in-app ads too.
I use a degoogled CalyxOS phone so all those apps that load ads via Google services don’t even work, or they work and the ads don’t load haha. One caveat is that I can’t use paid apps either though, I’m not against those.
My feeling of guilt when scummy megacorporations miss out on ad revenue:
😛
Fuck yeah, advertiers are a cancer.
“The growth of dark traffic undermines the ability of publishers to fund the production of quality content, or even operate as a business. We must recognise users are not the main driver causing this.”
And Scott Messer, founder of publishing adtech consultancy Messer Media, added: “Dark traffic is unlike anything we have seen before. It’s demonetising publisher content at scale without user consent.
Definitely. They are likely laying the groundwork to make using an adblocker a criminal offense.
They always care about us when they are losing money arent they…
Bold of them to claim they produce quality content. Such businesses should die right along with their advertisers.
US trade association News/Media Alliance announced it had secured the takedown of 12ft.io
Oh thats why that stopped working. Bunch of jerks.
Advertisers do not have the right to demand my attention, or to brainwash me. I have every right to deny them. This is war.
Ads are out of control, they fill my day.
My home, my rules. Ads are not allowed on the devices i BOUGHT.
99% of the targeted ads i get tend to be targeted at someone who has a family and makes 3 times my wage, so you’re wasting business resources for your own gain and wasting my time by serving them to me.
So fuck off outta my house.
Adblockers the heroes we need.
Also, aren’t most folks using apps these days? I have elders and younger relatives that literally don’t know how to use a web browser.
Whats not to know?
Step 1) Open the browser.
There is no step 2. Just go wherever you want, and read. Or watch videos. If you don’t know where something is, search for it. The browser does all the work. That’s like saying you don’t know how to use a microwave.
A number of kids also don’t know “file system.” The filing cabinet is a foreign concept, as are many of the now-antiquated technologies referenced/adapted for desktop computing (the address card for your Rolodex, the floppy disk save icon). Tablets and phones are culturally moving us towards stuff being contained within its respective singular app, like all your word documents being within the word app rather than meticulously sorted through layers of folders (even though on the backend, it is). So returning to your first step: why have a browser as the first step when you could just skip having to search for anything because there’s an app? Plus, the delicious unskippable metrics.
I think you underestimate how techy many people are.
You need to know the concept links. URLs. Web pages, navigation, tabs and your browser controls. It’s like getting in a boat with no concept of boating.
I’ve spent years trying to teach my mom and grandma, and honestly if they aren’t super interested/engaged, they just can’t do it. It’s like teaching someone how to boat that hates boating unless it’s required.
I didn’t mind having a couple of static ads on a page. But now it’s so much. So many dynamic ads, autoplaying videos, popups asking you to sign up to a newsletter, etc. No thanks.
I wouldn’t mind unobtrusive ads targeted to the content of the page being viewed -but that doesn’t happen. Modern ad networks all work on surveillance, and are indistinguishable from what we used to call “spyware”. I have avoided spyware since the 90s.
I honestly wouldn’t care if you put your mattress ad on a web page I’m reading about mattresses. I might even click on it!
So this confirms that people have a negative reaction to ads, which every actual internet user knows in their bones already. This means they ALSO are not even doing their one job of persuading people to buy shit. Of course this won’t lead to companies reducing investment for ad carrying or finding ways to make them more appealing, that costs money, instead they will use AI generators to produce WORSE ads and leverage their capital to have governments capitulate and force users to watch by banning blockers, probably VPNs too. Bill Hicks was the most correct about advertising, and remains undefeated.
A true visionary, taken too soon.
Psychology has revealed that the ability to direct attention to and process stimulus is limited, and that it’s more limited in the most vulnerable members of society, including those with autism and those with too much stress.
Stimulus engineered to capture attention must therefore be treated by the law as a form of violence.
When piholes go mainstream they are fully cooked
I tried to give my mom a pihole, she made me get rid of it because it broke the NY times and some rando mobile game she plays. Some people can’t be helped.
You just make excuses and after a couple days mom’s forget about it and move on to other games
Not even a linux guy, but I had a Pi from a decade ago that I never opened, decided to set it up and use it for something useful, friends suggested Pihole. pained myself for 2 days getting everything working (most of my trouble had to do with peripherals and IP addresses not the device itself) but after the grief, got it working and it was well worth it.
I even printed a sticker for it that said “where ads go to die”
sorry doubleclick, but you’re toast
25 years of adblockers and that is the single most important thing that keeps me from cutting myself off the web. I’ve donated money to adblockers and will continue to do so until I die! I send emails to the web sites that ask me to remove the blocker to tell them I will not and that there are many other sites that welcome my adblocking ass!
I think about doing that except with VPN’s.
You bro. Looks like you are looking at some information without 15 things popping up in your face. I see you are into the “dark traffic”
What’s frustrating to me is the idea that law makers and advertisers believe I don’t have a right to alter data that comes onto things I own. And nobody chime in with the brain dead “☝️🤓 actually you don’t own it.” Because even if you wanna waste time with that stupid distraction, I own my computer. I built it from parts.
Controlling my perception is my right. If I wanna use things that block ads that’s my right. PERIOD. I NEED TO BLOCK ADS BECAUSE OF MY DISABILITY.
You have that right at least in Europe. The nuance is that website provinding content can choose to not serve it to you. Or something like that but maybe more complexe.
Let me know when you can’t inject malware via ads…
AdBlocker is the one who should get the Nobel Peace prize.
Ads on websites are deals the sitemaker made with themselves. The internet is free.
[rant] The Internet is not FREE. Its just free at the point of use!
Just like ad funded websites aren’t free to use, they are also just free at the point of use!
People seem to forget where the all this ‘ad money’ comes from. It’s not growing on magic money trees, it’s coming from every product you buy and it’ll be interesting to see how much products have gone up against the sheer amount of ads that are shovelled everywhere now.
The reason the internet used to be great was because people shared information with no expectation of monetary gain. Just the love of what they knew and the joy of sharing information.
So the sooner everyone realises you’re all paying for the ads on every product/service to be shown already, and blocking them actually saves you money because the more ads that are shown, the more websites get paid, the more ad/tracking companies charge companies and yes, the more expensive you’re product and services get! [/rant]
I don’t mean free from operating costs. I mean free for the person using it to experience it how they choose.
db2@lemmy.world 3 months ago
And I’m one or them. Every time I turn it off things become legitimately unusable.