[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation

Shout out for pihole. Never ceases to amaze me when I end up on public data sources (cellular/wifi) and my phone is littered with ads and banners that squeeze the viewable area to a thin strip of screen. It's truly toxic. However, you can set up a personal VPN at home on the Pi and get your ads scrubbed by PiHole while you're away from home.

So yes, if I may offer my list (desktop browser):

PiHole (+ personal VPN to connect to when away)

uBlock Origin

Https Everywhere (for the odd site that isn't https by default)

Facebook Container ( if you use FB)

SocialFixer for Facebook - a godsend. I use FB for work and hobby groups. FB insists on cramming "suggested for you" content in everywhere. SocialFixer will filter and block FB posts based on text, and using "suggested for you" as a filter makes Facebook great again.

Duck Duck Go privacy essentials

EFF's Privacy Badger

uBlacklist - an app that lets you block sites in search results. A little tedious, but if you stick with it eventually you end up getting rid of many those awful boilerplate SEO worthless sites.

SponsorBlock for YouTube

EDIT: Guess I didn't answer the question? I despise ads. I will do most anything I can to avoid them. The aforementioned list of blocking and privacy add-ons is proof enough of that. There's nothing that I need to buy that I don't already know I want or need. I walk away from the TV (I can't remember the last time I watched network TV. Probably the primary election?), I put my phone down, and if it's that much in my face I simply close the site if I don't absolutely have to be there.

I believe advertising is a major mechanism for evil in our world. It's accepted brainwashing by definition. It MUST have wide reaching consequences on psychology of people, and it also has incredible power to steer how information is disseminated.

Best example is how media never says anything negative about advertising.

"Branded" is the only movie or media I know that broaches this topic.

I use ad blockers for everything and I'm bewildered when I see TV nowadays or try to use the web or youtube without it. I very rarely see ads and refuse to be brainwashed. FreeTube is awesome too. Resist!

We need other systems, something like a global patreon subscription that is automatically shared to content creators.

For anyone with toddlers who watch their cocomelon and the like when you just can't take it anymore - I've used yt-dlp to download some videos and just play it via plex. No ads, no tracking, no drama.

I don't see any ads anymore so I'm fine. It's poison to watch that shit.

FreeTube Newpipe Torrents

Are we going to be okay?

Not if we don't abolish capitalism, no.

I remember when I started hating ads.

HEAD-ON: APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD

I genuinely have fond memories of some ads before this time that I'll occasionally reference, https://youtu.be/R7vNn-utP8Q for example, which I didn't remember was a chuck e cheese ad before just rewatching it, and whose pizza was objectively criminally poorly made.

And now I've essentially cut them out of my life entirely, but I'll occasionally hear them during podcasts and such and they come across as so bleak, like who the fuck are you selling this Chumba Casino thing to? Did the directors for these ads tell their VA's to sound as dried up and worn out as possible? Is that the market they're aiming for?

I think advertisement is a part of commerce that isn't going away till we get that luxury gay space communism, but it would be nice if there was some kind of panel of artists who your ad had to pass in order to be displayed in markets of a certain size. But then the creatives who threw their lives away learning the most fundamental aspects of how we leave our mark on reality would have some aspect of control over the people who wisely and sagely learned the intricacies of how line go up.

Is this just an ad for Church's Chicken?!?

Reminds me of Bill Hicks.

"I know all the marketing people are going, “He’s doing a joke…” There’s no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend – I don’t care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations. Whatever, you know what I mean.

I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too: “Oh, you know what Bill’s doing? He’s going for that anti-marketing dollar. That’s a good market. He’s very smart.”

Oh man, I am not doing that, you fucking, evil scumbags!

“Ooh, you know what Bill’s doing now? He’s going for the righteous indignation dollar. That’s a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We’ve done research – huge market. He’s doing a good thing.”

Godammit, I’m not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!"

RIP

I don't see ads. I use uBlock Origin for the internet and view all youtube via browsers and pay for streaming services I want. I don't have cable and am absolutely baffled when I'm forced to watch it at other people's homes.

I occasionally use youtube for background music at work (I have headphones on, leave me alone) and can't install ublock there and holy fuck are youtube ads terrible. I'll never watch that crap.

I've felt this way for years now. Especially now that you can't watch a Youtube video without first watching some ad for Jardiance or something. And then being interrupted every 60 seconds to watch more ads.

To be honest, I've never felt compelled to buy anything or switch to any other brand just because of an ad. I'm not about to go out and buy a Ford Bronco because I just saw an ad where a guy is tooling over the sanddunes and rocky cliffs in one.

I wish there was an option for clepping out of ads once you've already viewed them once. But there would just another million more behind it.

online ads never do. but if i saw a billboard advertising even just the mere presence of a culver's at an exit 100 miles further down the highway.. and it was getting close to feeding time.. yea, we're stopping.

I've been ad-free for well over a decade (well, except some unavoidable real-life cases like billboards and such).

Get uBlock Origin.

I believe most of us here block as many ads as possible by any means possible. I so rarely see ads that every once in while when I do (on other peoples devices) I'm shocked and disgusted.

https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole

https://ublockorigin.com/

https://brave.com/

Is enough for me. If I watch YouTube on mobile it's in Brave browser as that block the ads on iOS.

If I watch YouTube on my TV it's in https://smarttubeapp.github.io/ which also blocks ads.

You don't have to live like that and I feel sorry for all the people that do.

All that being said I know what you mean, even the content itself is now saturated with ads, i.e. a word about our sponsor for five minutes at the start of any video...

I was actually fine with consuming ads maybe like 8 years ago but things have exponentially ramped up. Nowadays, it's pretty much essential to use ublock and dns level adblock filtering. Also a shame that it's physically outside plastered everywhere.

Not just on the internet, either. If you really want to drive yourself crazy, pay attention to each time you see an advertisement in real life, and imagine if instead there was a piece of artwork in that spot. How would that change how you feel in that moment?

https://xkcd.com/624/

Do people consider switching their car insurance?

Absolutely. I don't switch mid term, but I definitely look at switching at renewal time. Use a comparison site and check what's available.

Pretty much every year the comparison sites give me better prices than my renewal, sometimes by a massive amount.

Librewolf will block ads for you in addition to a fair amount of other nifty stuff

I used to pay for Youtube Premium for actually quite a while; out of all the cacophony of "it's only $29.87 a month you can afford that" voices it was actually one that had a pretty significant impact on my happiness. But now I just block the ads and fuck 'em.