living adfree is so great. sometimes it's jarring to hear an ad in the wild, but it's a nice reminder of how much better I'm living
this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2025
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I do not understand how anyone uses mobile apps with ads. thats just so dystopian to me
I was watching some TV with friend. Show on prime and on Hulu.
Both had ads. Granted they were far less than actual television is but I do not miss ads at all. They really spoil the experience. Especially for a paid service.
It's my computer isn't it? I can discard packets I don't care to receive
"It's my ccomputer" has already been mentioned, but it's my bandwidth and my home network too. Ads can stay off it.
It would be much harder to block ads if they were more like newspapers and just a part of the page you were viewing, instead of imported from a different source.
But in order to do that the site themselves would be responsible for the ads they display instead of blaming their ad service, and they would lose out on all their tracking data.
So fuck em.
Maladvertising and scams just make that a surefire thing, especially since there's a chance that just loading an ad could infect your machine.
And for less tech-savvy family members, it cuts down on the risk of them falling for scams or suchlike.
Advertising needs to become as socially acceptable as smoking.
It arbitrary pollutes any environment it’s conducted in, and causes secondary harms to non-participants by incentivising insecure hoarding of private information with the intent to better target individuals.
I’d personally start with billboards but instead now the billboards are screens too, not adjusted for night time to avoid distracting or blinding drivers and zero consideration for neighbors that have their backyards illuminated.
Here's why it's okay to block ads in pretty simple terms:
Ads can contain ransomware; that is to say, a seemingly innocent ad can deliver a payload which will run on your computer, lock your files, and demand you pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars anonymously.
Now if you go to the website that served the ad and tell them, "I allowed ads on your site because I support your right to monetise your content, and now I have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars, will you help me pay that" or "will you pay that for me since your site served the ransomware," you know what they will tell you, every single time, without fail? Whether they actually answer you, or more likely, just delete your email. They're telling you that it's your problem. That you should have secured your computer better.
So secure your computer better now. Block all the ads.
Getting a little more technical, use Firefox or a fork of it. Use Linux if you can. Use a Mac if you can't. If you really must use Windows, know how to secure it. I use Windows 11 at work, I'd never use it at home, but I had a talk with the IT guy, and he let me do a few things to it. I know more than he does, but he's the one with the job, so I told him what I'd do before I did it, I did exactly what I said I was going to do, nothing more nothing less, and I still think my home computer is more secure, but I'm a lot less worried about using the work machine. I think it's wild that so many companies just use Windows. I'm not trying to hate on Windows. It's good for gaming and it's accessible. I'd love to see more companies roll their own *nix or just use Macs (which run macOS which is UNIX certified).
Here's why it's okay to block ads in even simpler terms: It's my fucking computer.
Advertising should be illegal. It should be considered harassment.
If you want people to find your product then we need to log that in a public database site. If you want to find a product go there, nobody ever wants to find a product while driving or watching movies or existing in public.
I have a personal rule to never buy from brands that harass me by spamming annoying ads left and right.
I can't believe people actually pay for branded clothing. I avoid branded clothing like the plague. If companies like Nike actually want someone to walk around plastered with their brand on them they should be paying them.
But companies have convinced people to pay enormous amounts of money to wear their brand as a "style" or as "self-expression". Just wow.
Leave my star trek branded clothing alone, I want a better future!
Star Trek branded clothing excluded.
I agree, it's just a net negative for the world.
If nobody advertised, the world would be better off
They’re unnecessary, distracting, some try to track you and others can have malware. No thanks.
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Isn’t ad blocking, as the industry magazine AdAge has called it, “robbery, plain and simple”?
Robbing corporations is based, though, actually.
Isn’t ad blocking, as the industry magazine AdAge has called it, “robbery, plain and simple”?
No. Find a way to make money that doesn't require showing ads online if you have a problem with it.
Yeah. I don't have a contract with the site, agreeing to pay them in any way, shape or form. They voluntarily show me their content, but that does not obligate me to also accept their ads.
It's my network. I control what does or does not go through it.
It has never even occurred to me that it might not be okay to block ads on connections or devices that I own -- or even those that I don't, for that matter.
I think all ads should be blocked. If billions in funding is going to be put to use it should go towards offsetting environmental impact and developing products that are actually better, instead of just convincing people to settle for a cute jingle
Ad-blocking is as legal as a lock on the door.
I used ad blocker but I cannot imagine a world without ads. What does discoverablity look like in a world without ads?
I think ads have the same issue as content recommendation algo, that being that they're bad but useful.
@Auth @floofloof
IMHO: Advertisment is another word for recommendation. While advertisment is seen as bad a recomendation isn't.
So what advertisment never made happen is making themself usefull to the consumer. Most consumer want maybe a !!! usefull recommendation !!! but not someone trying to force you to buy a certain product.
So what was the time before ads ... it never existet ... even before tv radio had advertisment. Even back in this day people hated the advertisment and did music recordings cutting the advertisment and talking out.
Some old people might remember press record ... press stop ... rewind a little bit ... and all of this.
The alternative was to pay alot of money for music ...
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Still true a decade later.
It's not like these ads have any respect.
Because even US secret services (multiple of them) say so.
The same reason why it is ok to not eat shit.
Right? These companies act like they are selling food and we are stealing it.
In reality, they put a big "free beer" sign up, we go and happily accept the beer, and then they act outraged that we refuse when they try to piss in the mug after handing it to us.
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