Keywords: VanguardLH,VLH

"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

sites rendered and scripted just fine in Chromium variants -- and a
Chromium variant does NOT mean you are kissing Google's ass.

(Edge is a Chromiun variant, yes?)>

Yes. Chromium. Not Chrome.

So, according to Hank, what's the other choice? Kiss Mozilla's ass? Or Apple's?

I used uBlock Origin (MV2) in Firefox for a long time. The only reason
why I stalled on dropping Firefox to move to Chromium variants was
solely due to wanting uBlock Origin (MV2) to have all the features of
the full-blown version of that extension. If not for uBO (MV2), I
would've dropped Firefox a year sooner. Eventually I grew weary of
switching to a secondary (Chromium) web browser to compensate for
Firefox's failings, and made the switch. With uBlock Origin Lite, Ping
Adblocker, Adguard Adblocker, and Privacy Badger, all of which are MV3
versions, I had all the features of old uBO (MV2) in Firefox, but none
of the increasingly fails of Firefox. After monitoring the effect of
disabling some of the extensions regarding what was not blocked, I
decided all 4 extensions were overkill, and kept to just 2.

[]

Even on my old 7 machine, where Chrome was my default browser with
Firefox also available (and IE though rarely used), I don't think I had
a lot of adblockers - certainly not all those listed above, and
_possibly_ not any - might have had one. I had AVG. My main action
against them was a fairly substantial hosts file.

Since moving to this 10 machine a month or two ago, although I
downloaded the installers for Firefox and Chrome, I've not got round to installing them; I'm just using the Edge that (I think) comes with W10.
(Not sure if IE is present - haven't tried to use it.) I also haven't installed _any_ ad-blockers, nor carried over my old hosts file, though
will at least do that next time I do a backup (because it's on the drive
I use for backup). So, apart from AVG, I have nothing. (Well, I have
Unhook, but that's mainly to control _how_ YouTube presents itself,
rather than an ad-blocker.)

The thing is: I'm not aware of being overly _bothered_ by ad.s. Sure, I
see some, but usually can scroll past them, dismiss them, or whatever.
The only place I can think of where they're really _irritating_ is on YouTube, but I accept that as the price of using it for free (same as watching commercial TV channels live [yes, I know lots of people record everything then skip the ad.s]).

I've hit sites (I think one was Softpedia) where the "ad" was a
misleading large green "Download" button that had you downloading
something OTHER than the software in which you were interested.

I've hit many sites where the ads are interspersed within an article,
also misleading the reader into thinking that content was part of the
article.

Then there are the ads that flash, or are otherwise obnoxious attempting
to force attention to them instead of the rest of the web page.

The block lists aren't just for ad content. They can also eliminate
malicious sites, so you don't get a popup claiming you are infected.
Adblockers are also content blockers, and some content could be
untoward.

As for Youtube, adblockers can rid of ads that are outside the videos,
but not those "inside" the videos whether they be incorporate to the
video itself, or another stream (the video stream gets paused, the ad
stream plays, and the video stream resumes). That's why capture
software that works on snagging streams can get rid of the in-video ads
while screen capture software (captures what you see on the screen) will include the ads, along with any artifacts during playback (stutters,
your mouse cursor moving across the screen, change in volume from
blaring, etc).

Then there is Google shoving their "switch to Chrome" popup when you
visit their site with a non-Google web browser. With uBlock Origin
(MV2) in Firefox, or Adguard Adblocker (MV3) in Chromium, you can add an element rule to get rid of the obnoxious popup; however, Google isn't
stupid, so they change the element ID in their web pages, so your
element rule fails to block, and a generic rule might fire on more than
the Google popup.

Ad/content blockers aren't just about eliminating unwanted content in
web pages. They also deter tracking. Do you know on every click on a hyperlink in a web page that you are being tracked for where you go?
Those are called hyperlink pings, or hyperlink auditing beacons. uBlock
Origin (MV2) but not uBO Lite (MV3) has an option to block hyperlink
auditing. So does the Brave web browser. Chromium variants do not, and
why I add the Ping Blocker extension. Personally I feel uneasy should
someone be peering over my shoulder to see to where I navigate which is different than me discussing something with someone to point at the
screen to focus on a topic.

CSP (Content Security Policy) reports are another means of tracking.
The feature was given a benign title to belie its intent. A white
intent with a black reputation. While CSP has been deprecated, so has
using <b> and <i> for font styling to be replaced with CSS, but they are
still usable.

It is not the polite ads that users rail against. If web devs had been courteous in the presentation of their ads, and not polluted their web
pages with more ads than substantive content, users wouldn't bother with ad/content blockers. If the ads were local to the server to which you
connect, you wouldn't be wasting time and bandwidth to retrieve from
CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) along with expending the CPU cycles and
memory to execute scripts for ad content.

I know a lot of Adblock Plus users whine about the whitelist in that
extension that was enabled, by default, for allowing "good" ads. It was
an attempt to lure bad actors into behaving politely: do the right
thing, and you'r polite ad gets seen, but behave rudely or spy, and you
get blocked.

https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads
https://acceptableads.com/committee/

If ad content was polite and never untoward, yeah, I wouldn't bother
blocking it, either. After all, the web sites aren't free to their
owners, only to use freeloaders visiting them. Ad revenue helps offset
the cost for manpower and resources to design, operate, and maintain a
web site. Purely altruistic web sites have a nasty habit of
disappearing when their owners become disinterested, or run out of money
to pay for all the freeloaders. It's not like we have to buy stamps or
points to visit web sites which would fund those web sites, and asking
for donations does not work.

The ad/content war would never have started if there had never been
abuse. There are some marketing organizations that follow rules on
proper advertizing. Then there is the rest of the world (most
marketing). It is THEIR content, THEIR resources, so, yes, they can
shove anything they want at you, and track you all they want. However,
YOU still a choice of what you view, and how you are tracked, and some protection against the malicious crap.

Oh, and then there is the time to render a web page that has many
off-domain or CDN resources that have to get retrieved. Web pages
without ads load faster than those polluted with ads and associated
scripts. If ad/content blockers made web page loads slower, few would
bother with them.

So - is it just that I don't visit the websites that are ad-sodden? Or
is it that, really, we've reached a situation where ad.s aren't as much
of a problem as they used to be, and continually chasing them has become
a hobby in itself, rather than a necessity?

Yes, depends on where you visit, and your sensitivity to ad content. If
ad content was always polite, comprised less than 10% of the web page
content, were separate instead of intermixed within the article content,
were not flashy or otherwise distracting, never led to malicious
content, and did not entail tracking mechanisms then ad/content blocking
would be superfluous. That's has not been the state of web content for
many years, and will not be in the foreseeable future. Would you want
an intruder to your home rifling through and recording all documents in
your house as a cost to paying a mortgage? Or a hover cam following you around, even to the toilet? Or someone listening to your phone
conversations?

--- MBSE BBS v1.1.1 (Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: Usenet Elder (3:633/280.2@fidonet)

Keywords: VanguardLH,VLH

"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

I've hit many sites where the ads are interspersed within an article,
also misleading the reader into thinking that content was part of the
article.

Yes, those are irritating, I agree. But on the whole, I can tell the ad. text from the page text. Again, if I feel I can't - or, sometimes, just
if it's getting _overly_ tedious _finding_ the page text - I tend to
close the page. These days, there are usually more than one page telling
me how to do what I'm looking for, or equivalent.>

Sometimes the reader view mode, if available, in the web browser can
eliminate the intermixed ads. Integral reader view mode is not
available unless the site has specified an alternate view, or the
integral reader code can detect primary content from other content.
There are extensions to force reader mode, but I've not tried any to see
how well they perform.

https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/reader-view/lpmbefndcmjoaepdpgmoonafikcalmnf

That one is based on the JS code incorporate to Firefox, so you should
see the same primary content in its reader view as you would see in
Firefox. Some web pages can be displayed in web browser's reader mode,
if available at a site, so you don't need an extension, but there are
lots of web sites that don't provide an alternate page layout, or the
integral reader mode doesn't activate, but an extension can still
simplify a web page. That doesn't mean the modified web page in reader
mode will be as pretty, only that a lot of noise gets filtered out.

The block lists aren't just for ad content. They can also eliminate
malicious sites, so you don't get a popup claiming you are infected.
Adblockers are also content blockers, and some content could be
untoward.

The good hosts file is quite good at that.>

Alas, the hosts file can only specify domains. That means you block an
entire domain to get rid of just some content at some web pages or
subdomains there. A hosts file is a very coarse means of blocking
content. Also, if you need to temporarily disable the blocking by the
hosts file, you have to rename 'hosts' to, say, 'hosts.old', and exit
and reload the web browser, or possibly "ipconfig /flushdns", reload the
web browser. And repeat when you then want to reactivate using a hosts
file. Easier to simply disable an adblocker extension, or use its own
toggle to switch off/on its blocking.

Also, from what I've seen with hosts files, they can be overly
aggressive, and are not as often updated as block lists. Adblockers
already can incorporate hosts files (e.g., Dan or Peter Lowes), and are
far more easily to disable/enable when needed, or add an exclusion when
you don't want the blocking at a particular site, like your bank,
pharmacy, ISP, workplace, etc.

Those are called hyperlink pings, or hyperlink auditing beacons. uBlock
Origin (MV2) but not uBO Lite (MV3) has an option to block hyperlink
auditing. So does the Brave web browser. Chromium variants do not, and
why I add the Ping Blocker extension. Personally I feel uneasy should
someone be peering over my shoulder to see to where I navigate which is
different than me discussing something with someone to point at the
screen to focus on a topic.

I don't like the idea either - I just don't dislike it enough for the constant effort involved in fighting it to be worthwhile - at the
moment.

Pings aka beacons on hyperlinks are part of the HTML code, and easy for extensions to block. YOU don't do any expend any constant effort other
than the initial and one-time decision to block hyperlink auditing and
CSP reports.

https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads
https://acceptableads.com/committee/

Any such gets abused sooner or later )-:.>

Actually that would be "abused already for a long time, and will
continue to be abused" by bad actors.

The one that bugs me most at the moment is one you may even not see:
it's the ones where I get a popup asking which cookies I'll allow.

Cookie banners. Blocks lists can get rid of those, too, or you could
add a block rule on the element if just wanting to remove from
particular sites. uBO (MV2) had element blocking, uBO Lite (MV3)
apparently does, too, and Adguard Adblocker (MV3) lets you block
elements. I'd rather let the block lists get rid of the cookie banners.
Or, you could add the cookie banner block list by itself to those to
which the ad/content blocker extension subscribes.

https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/abp/

Or, the adblocker may already list the Easylist/uBO Cookie Notices block
list you can enable, if it wasn't already. The above cookie anti-banner
block list has over 24K lines (each line is a filter) versus the
EasyList anti-cookie banner block list of 2071 network filters (which
have to get converted to 1726 static files due to MV3 restrictions).
Adguard has their own cookie anti-banner block list, too: over 44K of
them. Since Adguard's Adblocker (MV3 version) can subscribe to that
cookie notice (anti-banner) block list, I don't bother trying to add the
one from i-dont-care-about-cookies block list.

--- MBSE BBS v1.1.1 (Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: Usenet Elder (3:633/280.2@fidonet)