Technology

68600 readers

3968 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related news or articles.
Be excellent to each other!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

852

AdNauseam is a uBlock fork that goes further: it actively attacks marketers by auto-clicking every ad before blocking (adnauseam.io)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

180 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It garbles advertisers' data as a result, but you must disable uBlock Origin to run it; they can't work simultaneously. I recently moved to it and, so far, am never looking back!

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't know, just sounds like I'd be contributing to the marketers metrics so they can show "it works". it'll only make them invest in ads more. if anyone thinks capitalists are these genius level manipulators who know how everything works I only refer to the richest person alive being the least charismatic, least knowledgable, unfuckable troglodyte who keeps making an ass of himself.

if any of these companies suffer any losses or reduced profits they'll just fire hardworking people, not one of them will turn around and say maybe the ads aren't working when you actively work to show them that it is working.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

... until they keep having to dismiss people and go, "... huh." This is a marathon we're playing. You certainly don't have to use it, but I think the philosophy makes sense, especially given how AdNauseam doesn't click on acceptable ads that don't track you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

they will never go "huh". you give way too much credit to corporate management.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I've used this for a while. Also, I love filling out corpo surveys because I feed them bad data. It's the little acts of chaos.

Another great extension:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fake-data-haterapps/

If they want real information, they can pay me, and even then, well... :) Don't work for free.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ha, this is as hilarious as it is creative. Interesting find; got any more?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Depends on the situation really, it makes me feel the joy of a naughty child. Roll with it. Where you can feed people bad data, do it. Where you cannot, strip it and block it. Obtusify and randomise how your computer connects to the internet (browser spoofs, VPNs, SPN, etc.), use containers (Firefox), support others breaking rules (https://snowflake.torproject.org/), contain your applications (https://safing.io/), spoof things like location etc. This is my little everyday act of anarchism. If people want to fight back against this bullshit, they should learn to stop complying with the folks putting everyone and everything in boxes. People are so used to mindlessly complying. It's my nerdy kind of fun. Make your phone & computer a poisoned apple when you have time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Dang, I had no idea of Portmaster! I wish I talked to you years ago and will check these out, thanks, and I fully agree with your stance as well.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Just curious- if ads are for something illegal, couldn't this expose me to liability for theoretically "clicking" it from my IP/device? And if ads are for something unsavory ( like a "chat with local cougars" site or something similar), wouldn't they start to deliver me more such ads, thinking, wow this IP is the only one clicking every sex chat ad, send them more!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How many websites do you browse with links to truly illegal content?

If you live in a country with truly abysmal human rights, definitely don't bother with this plugin, but in most cases you should be fine on the illegal side.

Even if somehow the website you're browsing has some super sketchy ad to buyillegaldrugshere.com or whatever, to get in trouble with the law in most civilized places you'd have to actually buy the illegal drugs, not just ping the illegal drugs IP. Especially since you can pretty easily prove to a judge that your system fetches ad links automatically and without further engagement.

Not saying it can't happen, just that it's really unlikely you would be served an ad for something so illegal just clicking on it is a liability. The literally only case I can think of coming close is CSAM, but even then, if you're regularly browsing websites that advertise CSAM, maybe find other websites to occupy your time? And I can just about guarantee any website serving CSAM ads is already doing illegal shit, so you should probably be more worried about that than an ad-click...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

I'm not sure how many ads on different sites are sketchy. I don't feel like finding out, that's why I block it. There have been plenty of reasons that all sorts of illegal stuff gets inserted on well-meaning sites, so it seems like it's inviting all sorts of trouble to automatically click stuff without consideration.

load more comments