I imagine that if you walk around barefoot enough then the random weeds stop consciously bothering you
But what about the broken glass, lego bricks, jellyfish, brightly colored posionous creatures, and literal feces?
When the average internet user encounters those they die.
The brightly coloured poisonous creatures aren’t the problem, it’s the dull brown ones…
I don’t mind rough ground under my bare feet, what gets me is floor grit.
Yes, on hardwood or tile, ugh.
That’s why I use indoor gravel floors.
When I have to go off my network because some website won’t load because I am blocking their trackers I get sick from the AI ads, its gross. Truth in advertising is dead so so dead. They are not even trying to make products look real anymore.
I won’t allow list the things the site needs, I would rather just go on mobile for a min. I wish I could set DNS settings per browser so I could spin up a lighter adblock that will allow the sites I have to rarely access and then just have a dedicated browser for.
I wish I could set DNS settings per browser
This is extremely achievable
What browser? Or do I need to do split tunneling per app in VPN settings?
In Firefox, under privacy settings, activate DNS over HTTPS (DoH). The default DNS (CloudFlare) should work, but I prefer the custom setting
https://dns.quad9.net/dns-query
I have this conversation with my wife. I installed a pi-hole on our network, works nearly perfectly, however every site thinks we have ad-blockers installed, and kind of we do I guess.
She got mad because all the sites she wants to read (she love celebrity drama) won’t let her read any more, so she just uses cellular data instead of the home wi-fi. I don’t know how she reads anything with all the ads everywhere.
Couldn’t you just change her phone’s DNS settings to circumvent the adblocker? Then she could still use the WiFi.
Lets call it a combination of “not tech savvy enough” and “it did what I needed and she had a bypass, and I put 0 thought into it after”
oh god, same here. I have Pi-Hole set up with a two layer system so it blocks less for my partner’s phone and laptop and more for everything else.
Heh, my dad wanted to use sites where he needed to have ad blocking disabled. I set his device up in adguard home to be ignored by all of the global blocking rules
I started with pihole and eventually switch to AdGuard home. Sucks for apps that “requires” an occasional ad, but 1 thing I still can’t figure out is why Hulu won’t work anymore.
But I feel you on the benefits and why I won’t give one to my parents. These are people who took 2 months to realize my dad isn’t on the family text group because he accidentally “left” the group, and why my mom’s iPhone stopped ringing because she consciously used the physical mute switch on the side (buried beneath the phone case).
One day I installed AdGuard on a Pi and routed my parent’s traffic through it, effectively blocking ads. I thought they would love to live without ads but she asked me to remove it because the games she plays won’t progress unless she watches ads.
these people addicted to those freenium ad games.
Sounds like I will be working on next
I have a pi hole and my wife likes the Google shopping links that it blocks and my sister in law likes to play games with ads. I ended up just making a bypass list and putting their devices on them.
Same for me. I have a group called
noblockon my pihole. If someone complains, I go and add their device to it. I have given up arguing with people…You know, if the people who go out of their way for ads make it so the people who won’t don’t make such a huge target, I’ll take it.
I literally had this thought yesterday. I’m so glad I know how to use technology. I have no idea how folks raw dog the internet today.
Now that Vivaldi finally has to let go of Manifest v2 (fuck you, Google!) gave their builtin ad blocker a chance. It seems to work fine for most things, except YouTube shorts. I occasionally scroll through those and basically every second video is an ad that would have been blocked by uBlock Origin. How can people tolerate that?
I guess if that happens to other websites, I really need to figure out which Firefox fork best matches the things I liked about Vivaldi (websites in sidebar, workspaces/tab groups, good performance, no AI bullshit)
firefox with vertical tabs on and ai killswitch on has all those features
you can also try ungoogled chromium where you can still install ublock, they give you a tutorial link on first launch although idk if it cando vertical tabs
I use FF Ultima, it’s all the modern polished things i liked about zen with none of the perceived downsides and highly customisable, even supports the new side by side Tab Feature Firefox added recently.
This has been the cleanest browser experience i’ve had as of today when paired with sideberry, ublock, clean-urls and decentraleyes
Or Helium (Ungoogled Chrome + uBlock + some changes from other chromium based browsers): https://github.com/imputnet/helium
It can do vertical tabs by setting Browser Layout to Vertical in settings\appearance. Tabs can be manually grouped. It also has split view.
Currently in beta, but for some minor tasks that needed exactly chromium I downloaded it and it worked.
in addition to what not_IO said, depending on your needs Firefox has tab groups, containers for isolating cookies, and fully separate profiles for when you need different addons, bookmarks and browsing history
AFAIK Firefox forks aren’t too different from Firefox feature-wise. It’s hard to make substantive changes to Firefox, so most forks like Librewolf or Waterfox slightly change default settings and extensions, but not sidebars and other cosmetics.
So unfortunately, there is probably no Firefox browser that would have Vivaldi’s features.
Maybe you could try uBlock Origin Lite? It’s Manifest v3 compliant, and I don’t remember having any issues with YouTube shorts using it. I use it on “optimal” filtering mode
Actually, zen browser has by default tab side bars. They change quite a bit.
They have workspaces that can default to open certain containers that makes use of Mozilla’s multi container add-on.
Have a look at zen browser @[email protected]
Thanks but that’s not what I’m looking for. I have my tabs on top. What Vivaldi has is an additional sidebar that lets you display arbitrary websites inside that sidebar while the active tab from the main tab bar still takes up most of the browser window.
I find that quite useful for stuff like a feed reader, notes or a password manager. For a while I also had mastodon in the sidebar but found it too distracting. Basically every website with proper responsive design works.
Oh, my bad, I misunderstood. It’s been a long while since I used Vivaldi.
Every time I help a family member with tech support, I make sure to install ubo as an extra , even if it’s unrelated to the problem. I’ve also started adding the bookmarklet kill sticky. Less clutter and ads means less attack vectors, which means less work for me.
Nice, didn’t know about kill sticky
Hey thanks, never heard of this
Edit: any advice for how to add the bookmarklet to Firefox on mobile? Can’t drag the thing anywhere like the site says, and I can’t seem to right click to copy the link
Not the same feature, but I sometimes use reader view in Firefox desktop and mobile to remove annoying site elements from around articles.
Yeah reader mode is clutch. It often gets around article paywalls too
Great idea for that bookmarklet, might start using it myself. I use Stylus a lot, so in the past I always just wrote my own CSS for unstickying sites I visited regularly, but this would be neat for those one-off occasions.
I use a VPN so places where I can’t block ads, like podcasts on my phone, at least I only get nonsensical swedish-language ads.
I had this experience at work last year. I shared some article that was relevant to work and half the people complained that it had a full page ad they couldn’t dismiss. The other half of us used Adblock, apparently.
Oh yeah, its so wild when you see it.
Like, I forgot Youtube even has ads.
And just to throw out therr, I get it, people need to make money, I am not against advertising, but fuck the ads are SOOOOO MANY and all come off as SOOOOOO scammy.
If you are showing me an ad online, I assume you and the product are just trying to rip me off and whatever is being promoted is a scam. If it was just “Hey, McDonalds has McRibs” in a little banner, ok fine, whatever. But its all this wild cheap garbage from weird fucking bull shit websites. What happened to actually having a sales person vet this shit?
How do you watch YouTube on mobile without ads? Do you just watch on mobile browser instead of using YT app? Is there some alternative front end app that includes adblock?
https://f-droid.org/packages/InfinityLoop1309.NewPipeEnhanced
PipePipe is kind of like an RSS reader for YouTube. It’s not going to give you algorithmic suggestions based on your viewing activity, but it will let you follow channels, and it doesn’t show the ads.
I watch Youtube in my Firefox Android with uBlock Origin, zero ads 👌
I’ve heard Firefox with Ublock Origin and Sponsorblock works well on Android. I’ve personally had frequent issues with Grayjay. But I haven’t tried the above solution yet.
So for Android there’s for example Grayjaj (available on Playstore or https://grayjay.app/ ) or how about Newpipe ( https://newpipe.net/ )
For IOS I have no Idea but how about firefox with UBlock origin
+1 for grayjay, works really well for me
Brave browser on iOS will do it. Orion probably will as well.
Newpipe has been pretty great for me on Android.
I don’t use the app and disabled it. I watch via Firefox Mobile which has Ublock Origin. Also I run NextDNS, which I pay $2/month to, to block ads.
Similar set up on the desktop and laptop, though I also yt-dl a lot.
I also just, really hate video as a format for 99% of things. I MUCH prefer reading blogs and such. Most of my Youtube watching is concert videos. I love live music, even if its mediocre cell phone footage.
Brave blocks it automatically. Easy.
I don’t want to get in a debate about brave.
I mean it’s the same with any other browsers with ad blockers on mobile platforms.
Firefox on Android and Orion on IOS both let you use ublock origin.
No need to use crypto bro ad company browser.
Brave users are in a cult. I swear to god.
I’m not, I just really don’t care that much.
Then just watch YouTube with ads or pay for premium.
I mean you care enough to mention it randomly. 🤷♀️
What? No I just know everyone wants to have a big discussion about brave or Firefox. I don’t particularly care. Brave blocks it out of the box.
No one was talking about crypto bro ad company brave (or Firefox) till you brought it up randomly.
It took me years to accept that mid video sponsor ads are just… a thing now, and it ultimately makes little sense for me to just give a blanket ‘nope’ to everyone who uses them…
We thought we could build a digital utopia, and laughed off ‘the corpos will buy all of it’ as fanciful cyberpunk doomer hysteria.
… well… turns out that wasn’t hysteria.
Oh well. At least I can more easily conceptualize myself as something like ‘down on his luck shadowrunner’, rofl.
The old logic from the 90s still holds -> the more pernicious the ads, the less you should want to be there.
That it all got functionally digitally enclosed and normalized doesn’t change that… you just gotta deal with the terror of knowing most people these days just literally are programmed by advertisements and algorithms.
I never see ads almoat anywhere, I have layers of blocking, PiHole, UBlock Origin, Ghostery, often use a VPN, NextDNS on the phone, a few other plug ins.
I’ve been using adguard dns on my phone for a few years but have noticed a lot more ads sneaking though on certain sites. Would you recommend next dns?
I have had good luck with it and there is a pretty generous free tier I think if you want to try it.
Sponsorblock
+1 for Sponsorblock
I realised this myself when i had to watch some youtube video in a browser without adblock. There was literal porn as an ad. The second of two was some hentai game, but at least it was half blurred. I have no idea who used that browser to get those targeted ads, it was a shared computer.
Even the companies displaying the ads can’t always tell why a particular ad was displayed to a particular person.
Thats the thing.
They used to know.
Because instead of shitty algorythms, some sales person would go out and be lke “hey Ford, want to advertise on our car website?”
I would pay for an app to tell me the nearest McDonalds that had McRibs.
I still dont understand why YouTube removed banner ads from on top of the video. The ones on the homepage and side feed, I can kind of understand. They want to show more videos to people faster. Sure. But the on-video banner ads were quite unobtrusive imo. Like I didn’t even close them very often in the olden’ days when I didn’t use an adblocker all the time.
Excuse me, are you insinuating Tai Chi Walking is a scam?
It all went to shit when advertisers realized that they don’t actually have to sell anything. The ad is the product. That’s why so much advertisement is a scam now. Regulation is so far behind the problems of the internet it is ridiculous. Some companies entire business model is to put out ads, then funnel the data straight to data brokers. The products aren’t real, they just have to get prints, eyes and occasional curiosity or accidental clicks, and they make a margin over it. It is madness.
What happened to actually having a sales person vet this shit?
“Optimized” away as fast as possible, you can safely bet.
What happened to actually having a sales person vet this shit?
That costs money. Why would they do that when it turns out that they don’t actually have to?
You don’t immediately want to click on an AI image of a toe infection, or fingers holding some weirdly anatomical exotic fruit?
I have no idea what you are even talking about because I basically never see ads anywhere.
You’re not missing much.
They also interrupt video at random times on web video. It is like web advertisers are unaware of the transition that existed on linear broadcast so the viewer can retain context. Web videos are so jarring they have the reverse effect.
I’m always surprised when a band mate wants to share a song with me and they whip up their phone and absolutely tolerate 45s of ads before the music starts
Oh yeah, and Spotify pays artist garbage. Its best to buy direct from their website or Bandcamp (on Bandcamp Fridays).
Though Bandcamp is starting to get enshitified.
What’s going on with Bandcamp?
I want to say they recently laid off a bunch of people for AI coding despite pushing against AI music. Plus their owners are kind of increasingly Vulture Capitalisty.
I can’t find it at theoment but Insaw something on reddit and lined up a list of alternatices but of course, the alternative suggestions are even more smaller and niche.
Same here. A buddy of mine was listening to YT Music on a speaker when an infomercial length ad started talking (uh, I mean, lying) about all the how and why the United States has the best healthcare system in the world and there’s no good reason to change any of it.
My head almost exploded. What. The. Fuck.
A lot of ads just seem like AI advertising made-up products that don’t exist, gambling, or payday loans. Or sometimes totally normal things like a local college.
Normal college that makes you take out loans, or worse, sketchy technical schools that promise they’ll help you find a job if you just sign up for a 20k loan
Surprisingly just the local community college that’s been around for decades. ~$1000/semester for full-time in-district residents or ~$1600/semester for in-state but out-of-district). Not sure why they’re doing ads like they’re a scam, unless there’s been some changes such that they are.
The ads on some podcasts, like anything NYT, are shockingly conservative lately.
I’m the “tech guy” in my family and friend groups. Every time I need to help someone with something I have this experience and it’s crazy.
Yeah dns blocker will give out you in a different world. Apps don’t have intrusive ads anymore
And then they blame the IT department for their slow computer, or request a new one. Or put one in the fridge to cool it off—I’m not kidding.
I love humans in their creative endeavours, but once they start taking life/work too seriously, or the opposite, have no moral backbone, then god I hate their dung-brained behaviour.
I set up firefox and ublock for my inlaws, but they only use edge.
They like to read some rag newspaper website and the difference is STAGGERING, the ads it has everywhere, I can’t describe it. They always use edge, on purpose. Deliberately.
My mom is the same, she uses Firefox but I was hesitant to add ublock because if it break something she would have no idea on how to fix it. So I installed Librewolf and changed so it remembers login to make it simpler for her, she never uses it. I think she is so used to the ads that she believes something is wrong when the ads are no longer there.
my work laptop didn’t come with an adblocker for some reason unfathomable to me. the first time I realized there were ads on, like, everything was certainly humbling.
On the other hand, we should be thankful for the masses. If most people used adblockers that shit would get choke slammed off the Internet so hard our heads would spin. It’s only because like 10% people use it that it stays under the radar.
