Ads need to be banned. They are inherently harmful, inherently deceptive, and only valuable in competition with other advertising. There is a direct line between the advertising model and the malignant politics that are destroying our world. Ban them all.
Ad blocking is alive and well, despite Chrome's attempts to make it harder
Submitted 17 hours ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/06/chrome_mv3_no_harm_ad_blocking/
Comments
Sunsofold@lemmings.world 2 hours ago
Jessvj93@lemmy.world 22 minutes ago
I was born in 93, got non-dial up home internet access in 2003, and never ever, in the history of my time being on the internet. I have never ever, not even once clicked on an ad on purpose. Like the Yahtzee ad thats showing right above your comment, I will never click this shit and follow it all the way up to giving my credit card info over. Why do we even have these nowadays, aside from tracking you?
Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 2 minutes ago
Because some people do click it. Children, old people, tech illiterate people. The exact target market for those wanting to exploit people.
TalkingFlower@lemmy.world 38 minutes ago
I have:
-Brave as my browser -Ublock Origin -DNS-wide AdBlock -Youtube sponser block
I barely see any ads now, except those that pop up as an overlay and nag you, and some of them can be block manaully.
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 16 hours ago
Let’s be honest: The internet without adblock is unusable. I really do not know how all those people without adblock are doing that.
klymilark@herbicide.fallcounty.omg.lol 1 hour ago
It… Really, really is. I remember using Fandom on mobile being so bad I set up an auto redirect to breezewiki, and that was with adblockers. Now that I have DNS-wide adblocking on, when I accidentally click a Fandom link it’s pleasantly surprising how well that’s working.
Dasnap@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
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.
Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 hours ago
Don’t forget that most people don’t know that blocking ads is possible. To most people, their browser is on an appliance, like a washing machine or fridge. They know how to do the basics, but that’s about it.
ftbd@feddit.org 15 hours ago
Or who do so little cleaning at home that their appartment becomes almost unusable or outright dangerous to live in
dukemirage@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Similar light? Go get some fresh air. It’s just a bunch of ads, the worst are avoidable if you don’t visit clickbait sites.
Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
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?
IronBird@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
something something when all you know is the farm
Bytemeister@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Kinda reminds my of my 2010 Toshiba laptop touchpad. The pad was probably 2 inches wide and 1.6 inches tall, and it had special “quick zones” setup in each corner, and then scroll zones on the bottom and right side, and then “back” and “forward” zones at the top, and a window switch zone on the left. When you subtracted all the “reserved” space on the touchpad, the actual useable area was slightly larger than the top of my thumb… And gestures and tap to click was on be default. I don’t know who tested that and was like “yeah, that’s useable” but seriously, WTF dude.
thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
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.
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 fences 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.
Bytemeister@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
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.
PhoenixDog@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
It’s genuinely insufferable. I have plenty of ad block on my pc but little on my phone. When I’m doing stuff on my phone it’s sometimes impossible to navigate certain news sites or watch videos because of all the fucking ads.
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 15 hours ago
If you have Android, you can install Firefox and use uBlock Origin there. It’s awesome :)
garretble@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Engywuck@lemmy.zip 14 hours ago
AdGuard works well,l on Android, as well as Vivaldi or Brave with their in-built adblockers.
GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Passerby6497@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Seconding Ad Guard and Firefox with uBlock origin, that’s what I use and I see minimal ads unless ad guard isn’t running
murmelade@lemmy.ml 15 hours ago
What browser/OS? There are many options on mobile, from extensions to system wide DNS blocking.
Doomsider@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Some sites, particularly ones that serve up questionable things like torrents or roms, are horrible without ad blockers.
mechoman444@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I think people are using the world wide web less now and much differently. Most people don’t browse websites like going to ESPN.com or newgrounds or something. Problem use apps now and only a select few for that matter.
My wife can’t even find her safari browser in her iPhone which she’s glued to most of the day. For her is 90% email and 10% tiktok.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Is it?
I used Chrome with “Ublock lite” in someone else’s computer for a bit, and was shocked by how many ads got through, not to speak of annoyances and what I suspect was a malware link.
Zink@programming.dev 10 hours ago
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 so 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 right what time it was.
But now? It is so much damn worse and the normies just seem more OK with it than ever. in 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.
QuandaleDingle@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I’m ADHD and I fucking hate ads. They screw up my attention and are just scummy. It doesn’t help that I’m constantly cognizant of the evils that are corporations.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 hours ago
I genuinely believe most forms of advertising on the web are ableist because they try to make them as distracting as possible. Removing those ads is accessibility.
I don’t consider ads at the start and end of videos to be ableist, but they’re still annoying. Mid video ads, pause screen ads, and banner ads are all ableist.
TORFdot0@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
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
Murdoc@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
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.
Doomsider@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
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.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
I’ve been wondering if ads never got more intrusive than the simple banners on the side or top of sites if there would’ve been a huge push to block them. I think most people would figure that, especially on small sites run by people instead of huge corporations, that web hosting isn’t free so a banner on a page was a fair tradeoff.
But of course that couldn’t be enough for the ad folk who started ramping things up with their flashing ads and pop-ups, eventually culminating in the autoplay video malware hellscape the net has turned into today.
Buelldozer@lemmy.today 8 hours ago
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 a scourge.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
On the contrary, I find my eyes slide right off ads. Why should I care about something I’m not looking for, that’s just going to make whatever they’re advertising more expensive to buy.
Maybe that’s the au side of AuADHD taking over, though.
BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
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
Zink@programming.dev 4 hours ago
Oh yeah agreed. Their role in the rat race makes up a significant part of their personal identity. That’s part of the design, to keep you focused on your consumption instead of your life.
I guess I should have referred to the noise as attention-grabbing things instead of serious things, lol.
Blaster_M@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
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.
boaratio@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
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.
kerthale@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Let’s be very clear here. Chrome ripped off the hard work from the KDE webkit people. That is also the reason much of it is open source, because open source and volunteer contributions made it live.
CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 hours ago
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.
GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
It’s happening, it’s just taking a little time.
CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Not to mention googles continued attempts to enforce standards that essentially amount to a whitelist to freeze out any possible competition.
JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch 11 hours ago
Plus firefox mostly exists because google pays them, probably so there’s no anti-trust action against them.
knexcar@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
We desperately need a third browser.
Safari?
DylanMc6@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
It’s a good thing Vivaldi’s ad-and-tracker-blocker is still there (although you can install Chrome extensions in Vivaldi though)
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 8 hours ago
Over my cold, dead hands. Fuck you and your shitty worldview,
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Who the fuck is still using Chrome?!
arararagi@ani.social 2 hours ago
Everyone, they really don’t care about ads as much as us.
ilillilillilillililli@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
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.
barnaclebutt@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
While we are making recommendations use IronFox for Android. Also, blah, blah, blah, Linux better, blah blah.
Railcar8095@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
That counts android (which never had adblock as a plugin) and or chrome based (edge, brave)?
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 11 hours ago
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 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 “queing 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 ?
balsoft@lemmy.ml 5 hours ago
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
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 4 hours ago
Interesting ! Thanks for the suggestion.
Although I usually have issues with third party clients all the time.
On Android for example I used the following clients so far :
- Vanced YT
- Revanced YT
- Freetube
- Newpipe
- Morphe
- Grayjay
All of them eventually failed or were down for extended durations. Point is, these third party apps are always vulnerable to YT purposefully sabotaging them.
But I will try it out anyway I don’t have much to lose.
Zink@programming.dev 10 hours ago
Watching TV of any kind at other people’s homes, and especially my parents’ place, can feel like some real black mirror shit.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
We find everything we need on Tubi and Mubi…
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 13 hours ago
Better be. Also, fuck chrome.
Amathril@piefed.social 15 hours ago
I am honestly sad and sick of the sheer volume of ads, well, everywhere and in everything. Internet, tv, even in the real world you are bombarded by ads from every angle. Every time any free app or service gains traction, boom, there are ads now.
It is absolutely unavoidable, even when using adblock and similar services, and what is even worse is that this doesn’t even feel like marketing now, but just a coercion tactic to force you to subscribe to “premium”, because the ads do not really often feel like trying to sell you something but just annoy the hell out of you.
I am just so tired of it…
JayGray91@piefed.social 15 hours ago
even in the real world you are bombarded by ads from every angle
I despise the digital billboards that now litter highways and roads that gets congested during rush hours. And especially at night when they just ignore brightness laws and blinding everyone and endangering drivers.
Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
And gas station ads, especially ones on max volume. Obnoxious ads blaring so loud that even if you sit in your car you can still hear them very loudly.
ToTheGraveMyLove@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
Digital billboards suck, but everyone using those obnoxious, bright-ass LED headlights is way worse.
TheBat@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
I am honestly sad and sick of the sheer volume of ads, well, everywhere and in everything. Internet, tv, even in the real world you are bombarded by ads from every angle. Every time any free app or service gains traction, boom, there are ads now.
Capitalists: BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY
Me: With what money???
GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Literally though! This is literally the entire reason I got fed up with ads! What’s the point if I’m too poor to buy the junk they’re hawking?!
boogiebored@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
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).
nukeforyou@lemmy.zip 12 hours ago
If you dont have an adblocker… you’re guaranteed to get that fake “Virus found” notification from a website that has bad ads.
Bytemeister@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
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.
evulhotdog@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
Probably something tertiary to PWAs.
orioler25@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Didn’t even notice them trying. Pathetic.
shrugs@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
[deleted]GalacticSushi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 hours ago
Plug an old PC into what?
ptu@sopuli.xyz 3 hours ago
It
irate944@piefed.social 16 hours ago
My company forced us to use only Chrome on our PC’s and one of the things I was worried about was the ads. I put youtube in the background while I work.
And I was surprised by how…… My experience was exactly the same as Firefox and Brave. Ok, actually, one or two ads managed to slip through and appeared in the front page - albeit rarely and randomly - but I never got those ads at the beginning of the video. On other websites, I never got ads.
I was wondering, then, if there was some catch. Maybe the trackers would still get through or something. But according to that link, not even that? lol
TheMcG@lemmy.ca 13 hours ago
I’m surprised by these results tbh. And it seems for most people there is no big difference. But I do think for power users the catch is still there.
Lazaros Papadopoulos, research assistant at Goethe University, told The Register in an email that the study used the default filter sets for the respective ad blocking extensions in order to mimic the behavior of the typical user and to ensure rule consistency.
They used the default rule sets. One of the major limitations of mv3 iirc is the number of block list urls you can have. Like I’ve added a number of additional items to block via additional lists which I believe is mostly not possible in mv3.
CactusEcho@piefed.social 15 hours ago
Is there a way to block youtube ads on the tv? I have an android tv and using the youtube app is painfull… :-(
TheBat@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
jjlinux@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
This is the solution. I’ve been using it for a couple of years, no ads, and almost no segways either.
ToTheGraveMyLove@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
I don’t think so, since YouTube runs their ads from the same servers as the videos. You need to use an alternate front end that doesn’t serve ads to begin with. One thing I used to do too was run a VPN on my router in Japan, so I would get Japanese ads instead. There were way fewer ads, I would have no idea what they were advertising, and the few ads I would get were way more entertaining.
Stern@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
pi-hole may be what you’re gunning for.
SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml 15 hours ago
My ad blocker won’t let me watch YouTube…OR YouTube won’t let me watch with an ad blocker. I don’t care. No ads for ME.
vin@lemmynsfw.com 12 hours ago
If google really wanted to, they can. But if you’re so against ads, what’s the point in showing them? Leaving a mechanism to block ads with default being with ads is net positive for google. Now, something like AdNauseum is what hurts google
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
My brave browser still blocks everything. Very pleased.
Fridgeratr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 45 minutes ago
It doesn’t help their case that most mobile websites are just completely unusable with ads enabled. It’s impressive how shit they are sometimes