I use ad blockers and open source privacy focused software whenever I can but occasionally I have to use computers that don’t belong to me or an older phone where my usual applications aren’t installed and seeing all the advertisements just feels dirty and dystopian.
I think the worst ads are the text to speech ones that say “Download this app today”. The unblinking energenic people saying you can make a living at home are probably a close second.
Same, it’s so weird seeing normal TV or using the internet without blockers. Feels like living in Idiocracy.
Ads nowadays are little more than psychological assault and it can’t be healthy to be exposed to it regularly. My Home Ec teacher back in the day had a whole unit about the different manipulations present in advertisements and it was really enlightening and upsetting. Modern advertising should be banned or severely regulated.
The person who was instrumental in the development of modern advertising was also involved in the notorious little Albert experiment. That really says a lot about how unethical modern advertising is on a psychological level. As a psych major myself I am constantly disgusted by how manipulative and toxic advertising is. It actually troubles me how we’ve essentially just accepted this as part of our society now.
“The aim of Watson and Rayner was to condition a phobia in an emotionally stable child.”
Whenever I see someone’s computer who doesn’t use adblocker it blows my mind. I can’t imagine going back to that shit.
“Jarring” would have also been acceptable.
Most people are so desensitized to ads that they barely register. So the advertisers ramp up the attention-grabbing. Repeat. So when I actually see an advertisement it nearly knocks me out of my chair because I’m not desensitized anymore.
Yeah I agree.
It’s made me very intolerant of ads. It’s kind of surprising how much effort I will invest to avoid ads, and avoid supporting people who make a living from advertising revenue.
people who make a living from advertising revenue
That’s a lot of people, lad…
…just imagine if they were all doing something productive instead.
Props to @DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de for helping to discourage their parasitic behavior and ushering them toward career paths that might actually utilize their potential in a positive way!
its really jarring, and to see people just accept it, kinda hurts my soul.
I gave up trying to get my wife to use anything that blocks ads, and she won’t switch away chrome. When she bakes, she leaves her tablet or phone open, with multiple video ads destroying her battery. Seeing this thing just turns my brain to mush as I don’t see any ads. I don’t know how she puts up with having ten video ads on one page.
My condolences on the divorce
Pihole was the best thing I ever set up for home Internet consumption
so of course I have ublock origin on my computer, AdAway on my phone and pihole on my network, but the school computers actually prevent you from installing any adblocking extensions
anyway at school I see a lot of “download Wave Browser/OneLaunch/PC app store/other random crapware” ads and videos in the corner and I can barely read anything on the site
Absolutely. And it’s getting even worse, since some ad networks also broadcasting executable code in the form of javascript snippets intended to make interactive banners, where e.g. you move the mouse cursor over it, and an in-ad mouse button moves along. A bunch of those have been used to run malicious code on the machines and actually cause harm to the user, from crypto miners to keyloggers and trojans.
In this day and age, I consider a system without adblock to be compromised by default.
I use a VPN which has an excellent ad & bs blocker. But occasionally some sites need me to turn it off to pay for things or whatever and I forget to turn it back on and end up browsing the internet in its normal state.
And wow… welcome to commerce central. It’s not that all the ads are obnoxious though some are, but the quantity of them is out of control on some websites.
To be fair, I’ve found it’s a good rule of thumb that the quality of a website is usually proportionate to the less amount of ads they have.
I also reviewed mobile games for a while and had to play without a VPN to get the same experience most players would get - game ads are the worst. Unrepresentative of the games they’re trying to sell, but also often sexist (veering towards misogynistic), obnoxious and with false endings.
My latest ad-shock was over at a friend’s house. I’ve not had cable since probably '03? They have cable because a parent lives with them and insists/pays. Just having the TV on playing random things felt weird. Weirder still is having the movie interrupted by ads every 5 seconds. And the ads are just gross. The only thing that was decent was using it as a discovery service. The movie, one of the X-Men that was not one of the good ones, was what we stumbled upon. We watched for a bit, then ended up switching to watching it elsewhere to dunk on it. In ad-free, interruption-free, 4k with surround. Paying for the cable experience (which is rapidly the streaming experience) seems entirely anachronistic.
but occasionally I have to use computers that don’t belong to me
Do them a favor and install an adblocker.
Most people don’t appreciate it when you install software on their personal devices without their permission.
Boy would this be the quickest way to make sure I never allow you to touch my electronics again.
Does anyone have recommendations on how to block ads on Android without rooting? I’ve tried AdAway but it doesn’t seem to be terribly effective. I’m pretty tied into Chrome and would prefer not to change browsers but I understand I might have to.
You’re pretty much gonna have to switch browsers. There are other options, but they don’t work as well as uBlock Origin. The best alternative to that is a VPN that blocks ads, like Proton. But they aren’t as good at blocking. They will, however, remove most ads, and from other apps as well.
Try adguard. Its a system wide blocker(blocks ads in most apps too) and needs no root. Its paid. For free you can use blockada version 5. Get it on fdroid. Or just use adguard dns.
Firefox with uBlock origin, setting your DNS to “DNS.adguard.com”, and using ReVanced with MicroG for YouTube has worked best for me on a non-rooted phone.
Change your dsn to dns.adguard.com
Edit: Firefox on Android has unlocked origin as well nowadays
