
Ask HN: Do you use an Ad/Content blockers? - vopi
I am curious of the results from a (typically) technically minded group.<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.strawpoll.me&#x2F;20444819
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ghosty141
I personally find the web without ublock origin to be unbearable. Especially
youtube and newspapers make use of ads that really disrupt the user
experience.

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leandot
Same here, every time I use a browser without an ad blocker I am shocked by
the amount and the content of ads.

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gshdg
Ads are a distraction, a waste of bandwidth and CPU (and memory, and battery
—- and energy and thus harmful to the environment), a privacy nightmare, and
worst of all a malware vector.

Ad blocking is the first thing I install on a new device.

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mekster
You're only looking at it from your own perspective.

It's a revenue source for the content creators.

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gshdg
Yes, and if the price of their revenue is exposing their users to malware,
they need to find another revenue source.

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jamesponddotco
Yes, and I feel like the internet is no longer a place I can visit without
some form of protection. Things got so bad recently, that I had to switch from
GNOME Web to Firefox, because I simply needed more protection than the default
GNOME Web blocker could offer.

Right now I run a Pi-Hole[1] for my entire network, and on Firefox I use Clear
URL[2], Decentraleyes[3], HTTPS Everywhere[4], Old Reddit Redirect[5], Privacy
Redirect[6], and uBlock Origin[7], configured to block third-party fonts, and
JS as well — which I whitelist when needed.

When I just want to read something, without having any form of interaction
with the page, and I know it works well, I usually just use w3m[8] on the
terminal, which I found out because of aerc[9]. Pretty cool browser for the
terminal.

Am I super duper secure because of all these hoops I jump through? No. But it
does not get in my way, and make me enjoy browsing the internet again, so why
not?

[1] I have it set up on a dedicated server with Hetzner, with the server
itself being the DNS provider for Pi-Hole using DNSCrypt.

[2]
[https://gitlab.com/KevinRoebert/ClearUrls](https://gitlab.com/KevinRoebert/ClearUrls)

[3] [https://decentraleyes.org/](https://decentraleyes.org/)

[4] [https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere](https://www.eff.org/https-
everywhere)

[5] [https://github.com/tom-james-watson/old-reddit-
redirect](https://github.com/tom-james-watson/old-reddit-redirect) — not
really privacy, or blocker related, but I find the new Reddit interface a
dumpster fire

[6] [https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-
redirect](https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect)

[7] [https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock)

[8] [https://github.com/tats/w3m](https://github.com/tats/w3m)

[9] [https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/aerc](https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/aerc)

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tomjen3
Yes. In theory ads could be a good thing, in practice they are obnoxious and
only advertise bad products (perhaps because we have stopped inventing new
good things, or perhaps because they don't need advertising).

I tend to use a javascript block as well, because I can't stand websites that
are slow or take a up a lot of computer resources. Those do kill some of the
ads but not all.

I don't really do it for privacy reasons, I use Temporary Containers in
Firefox for that.

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jetti
I set up a pi-hole and just use that to block at the DNS level. I don't use
any browser addons or extensions for blocking ad/content.

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giantg2
Me too.

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dylz
It's completely unbearable without one. I have thousands of manually added
domains as malicious ad providers and invasive, abusive scripts try to bypass
adblock too.

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CM30
Definitely. The internet is almost unusable without it nowadays, especially
when it comes to large and more corporate sites and media outlets.

On a related note, this makes me wonder how many people both run ads on their
own sites and use adblockers at the same time. I'm certainly guilty of that
one, and I wouldn't be surprised if the people running these media sites and
social networks were in the same situation.

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zzo38computer
I don't use any of the described blockers, but I do block them in other ways,
such as disabling JavaScripts, blocking specific requests in certain domains,
redirecting certain requests in certain domains, and applying custom CSS to
hide things and change other stuff. This tends to have the effect of blocking
ads too, even though I do not actually have a ad blocker installed.

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Artlav
Unfiltered internet is too annoying to use. Got a Pi-hole equivalent for whole
network filtering, and uBlock Origin for the browser.

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simonblack
Absolutely.

I have had very restrictive quotas while travelling (2 gig per month, = 60
megabytes per day!) and to have a large proportion of your daily allowance
being taken up with megabyte after megabyte of unnecessary downloads is a
pain.

And that's apart from the clutter of unwanted crap that's scattered all over
your browser screen.

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leokennis
Definitely. When I browse the web without blocking for 10 minutes I already go
insane because of the inane and intrusive ads for bullshit I don’t want and
need. To not speak of the immoral tracking.

I use NextDNS + AdGuard, which filters out a good 99.5% of shit.

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mguerville
I use wipr on safari and nextdns at the OS level, uBlock Origin on other
browsers. When i have to turn one off to unbreak a site and then proceed to
the rest of the web I’m seriously appalled.

