Hey @leo glad to hear in the latest episode of #securitynow :steve: (Episode 949) that #adblock is not just a way of reducing annoyance but also a #security feature because of the proliferation of #malvertising.
I say all the time on here that using an #adblocker is a way of protecting yourself because ad delivery platforms are a huge vector for malware and #phishing. This would be largely fixable if the owners of these platforms cared, but they don’t.
I'll be interested to see how this plays out. Especially with the #EU and it's #legislations. Give it 10 years, and the US becomes a data farm. And the EU becomes a haven for tech and regulations 😆😆😆
And so it begins (again). Good thing I haven't used Chrome in years! This will be a huge test of how much power and influence Google really has online, especially when the "enemy" they're up against is... literally everyone online.
「 I'm not even mad about Google making my artificially wait 5s for using firefox.
I'm mad that such a big company with suposelly decent engineers, are making me wait 5s with literally a sleep, how is even possible to do such thing in such a rudimentary way? I would be like damn that was smart, this feels like, seriously this is the level? 」
Okay. It seems YouTube loading videos 5 seconds slower isn't specific to Firefox, but is really just related to adblockers. (This was confirmed by Mozilla as well.)
Every time I see anyone complain about YouTube or any other media site blocking Adblock users, I see entitled people who refuse to compensate their content creators and hosting providers. I wonder how many of you bother to fund your mastodon fediverse instances.
I often use an adblocker. I get it. I respect anyone who denies to serve me as a result. This is working as intended.
Netflix revenue and subscriber numbers went up after they got real about account sharing anti-freeloader enforcement. Clearly a lot of people admitted that value existed and they had been freeloaders just because they could.
@gpshead@brettcannon I have a hard time sympathizing with this, because adblocking is also a security feature. Online ads remain one of the most prevalent delivery vectors for malware. Often this takes the form of advertisement for software -> download site purportedly serving installer for said software -> installer executes malicious code.
For this reason, a lot of corporate IT environments push out adblock extensions to browser installations on endpoint machines, or do DNS-based blocking. Therefore, using an adblocker often isn't even the choice of the end user; it's something that's mandated by their IT department on their work computer.
CISA and NSA both have public advisories highlighting this issue, and recommending that organizations deploy adblockers. Note that in their advisories, they explicitly mention the ability of malicious actors to target advertisements towards specific groups of users or demographics when purchasing ads; this is of course a feature baked in to how modern online advertisements work.
Adblockers and alternative frontend will only get you so far in this. It's literally just a matter of time until step it to yet another level. Want some real change? Stop giving them power. #Boycott these fuckers.
"Youtube has started to artificially slow down video load times if you use Firefox" -> https://archive.is/yAdak (link to avoid direct #reddit)
Bring down closed data silos like #YouTube. Empower #foss federated platforms like #peertube.
I'm already only using Chrome for work these days (still prefer their dev tools) but without working ad blocker it's days may well be finally numbered for me...
YouTube’s Ad Blocker Detection Believed to Break EU Privacy Law
A complaint filed with the EU’s independent data regulator accuses YouTube of failing to get explicit user permission for its ad blocker detection system, potentially violating the ePrivacy Directive.
Last month, YouTube extended its ad blocker detection to users in the European union.
But privacy campaigners say that the adblock detection techniques used by YouTube (and almost everyone else) could be illegal under the EU’s ePrivacy Directive.
For WIRED, I looked at at the legal and technical arguments and spoke to privacy advocate Alexander Hanff (@thatprivacyguy) and MEP Patrick Breyer (@echo_pbreyer) about their work in this area.
If you'd like to get a rough feeling on how well your ad-blocking strategies are (uBlock Origin, Pi hole, AdGuard, AdNauseam, ...), give this test tool a try:
@kuketzblog
Bin so gut geschützt, dass bei mir die Seite überhaupt nicht funktioniert 😂 Nicht einmal Javascript in NoScript freischalten hilft, weder Menü, noch Kompabilitätsliste werden angezeigt.
YouTube warns it might make your viewing experience worse if you don't turn off your ad-blocker (www.businessinsider.com)
YouTube has been cracking down on people using ad blockers. Now, a spokesperson says that using ad blockers could lead to "suboptimal viewing."