Is it legal/ethical to use an adblocker?

[marurun]

I paid for an ad blocker on my iPhone because the web is a cesspool of questionable advertising. Additionally, advertising is rarely if ever human-reviewed. Much like some other web content services, automated review processes and problem reports are used to weed out bad actors. Further, the amount of user-tracking that takes place to serve those ads is intrusive and ethically questionable.

Simply put, as DSH noted, the web was designed from inception to allow users to modify how they view and interact with it. Change the font? Block JavaScript? Reject cookies? Go for it! If content providers want a locked-down web they need to build a new one. This one is ours.

[Omerta]

If I’m on something that’s data capped like my phone, I’m strongly in favor of blocking ads - more so than usual. They’re essentially charging me to load up content that I don’t want by putting a bigger hit against my monthly usage limit. No thanks.

[Omerta]

Also - try checking out the Brave browser. It’s headed by Brendan Eich (creator of JavaScript language and co-founder of the Mozilla project) and has a pretty unique way of putting you in control of how content creators get paid from your attention to ads or you can block everything completely. It’s open source and based off of chromium.

[RCBH928]

No ad revenue no service

Not necessarily. Look at Backloggery, for example.

I loathe ads. I've turned away 11+ years of ad revenue on the Backloggery because I hate ads that much. We briefly tried putting them on the site for about a month, but I just couldn't stand it. We make a bit off of affiliate links, but the vast majority of our revenue has always been donations straight from the community.

I see where you are coming from, that service can finance themselves from other sources like sponsorships, affiliate links, community donations. That is one way to do it, but that kind of thing requires extra effort by the creator who is already too busy building or providing the service, I just don't like to give people hard time. Everyone knows its hard work to maintain a website and update it. But I get what you are saying...

I paid for an ad blocker on my iPhone because the web is a cesspool of questionable advertising. Additionally, advertising is rarely if ever human-reviewed. Much like some other web content services, automated review processes and problem reports are used to weed out bad actors. Further, the amount of user-tracking that takes place to serve those ads is intrusive and ethically questionable.

Simply put, as DSH noted, the web was designed from inception to allow users to modify how they view and interact with it. Change the font? Block JavaScript? Reject cookies? Go for it! If content providers want a locked-down web they need to build a new one. This one is ours.

This is a very nice way of justifying it. Using Adblockers so much so that it is a means of fighting back against tracking and enforcing privacy-friendly monetization of the internet.

Also - try checking out the Brave browser. It’s headed by Brendan Eich (creator of JavaScript language and co-founder of the Mozilla project) and has a pretty unique way of putting you in control of how content creators get paid from your attention to ads or you can block everything completely. It’s open source and based off of chromium

If I’m on something that’s data capped like my phone, I’m strongly in favor of blocking ads - more so than usual. They’re essentially charging me to load up content that I don’t want by putting a bigger hit against my monthly usage limit. No thanks..

I love Brave! I hope their BAT system actually is successful enough to keep them around. I am surprised why not Chrome users are flocking on to it. Its one thing if a company has a monopoly and you have no other options(Ex. Windows), but when a solution does exist and its free I just don't get why not people just make the switch.

At this point, all browsers are good enough and do the same thing. I don't have a reason to use FireFox specifically or Brave or Chrome. I avoid Chrome because its Google's spyware, I use Safari on MacOS because somehow its very light on the hardware usage. Firefox+Ublock Origin or Brave should be most people's choice.

As far as data usage, I have not tracked the amount ads are taking out of my data cap, I would like to see some numbers. Is it really that significant? I always thought it might be just 5-10% max.

If a site or vid uses stuff like pop-ups, auto-playing vids, suspicious cookies and hidden links I'll happily block. If a YT'er appears to be doing well I also don't really care, but I try to support people who do good work and appear to be struggling.
I know it's wrong in a sense, but there is a point where you don't need more money unless you're trying to do something crazy like Elon Musk and/or give a lot of it to charity. I've been both rich and poor in my life so I know through experience.

I am with you on supporting the people who seem to be struggling. If I donate I try to donate to lesser known services or sites. For example, I should but I dont donate to Wikipedia because I know they are so popular someone else out there is going to take care of them. I would rather support something like imgBurn.

I disagree though about the money part, I think if someone creates something he has the right to make money off it as much as possible. For example, if someone makes a good movie and they report that he made $5M in profit, I don't say "He made enough money already, I will just pirate it". If he keeps making up towards $100M that is still his efforts paying back. He deserves it. I know this how I want to be treated if I created something.

[RCBH928]

So I installed a PiHole, everything is working accordingly. I seem to have shaved 2 seconds off loading websites, small number but feels snappier. Will be glad to hear from others with similar setup and real numbers.

I feel bad for websites I would like to support, but unlike an adblocker, I can't whitelist them i have to whitelist the ads server.

[Anapan]

If you have a higher end router, you can install script versions of ad-blockers and also paid Proxy/VPNs. At one point I installed a script in one of my many routers (It's a gigabit one I think, I don't even know which one) that is a little too strict, and some sites I can't even geet on anymore. Still the speed with not receiving any ads and all is nice for my older devices.

[SpaceBooger]

I paid for an ad blocker on my iPhone because the web is a cesspool of questionable advertising. Additionally, advertising is rarely if ever human-reviewed. Much like some other web content services, automated review processes and problem reports are used to weed out bad actors. Further, the amount of user-tracking that takes place to serve those ads is intrusive and ethically questionable.

Simply put, as DSH noted, the web was designed from inception to allow users to modify how they view and interact with it. Change the font? Block JavaScript? Reject cookies? Go for it! If content providers want a locked-down web they need to build a new one. This one is ours.

I use uBlock Origin on my desktop and I love it. I turn it off for sites like this one where the ads are helpful and unintrusive.
The problem is my phone... I can not stand the number of mobile ads and how they almost cripple your phone by the sheer volume of them.

Marurun, you mention you paid for an app for your iPhone. Does anyone here have a recommendation for an Android adblocker?

[Ziggy]

Does anyone here have a recommendation for an Android adblocker?

I was wondering the same thing. When I browse Racketboy on my phone, an article on the main site, sometimes it will randomly load an ad page. The thing is, it's not a new window or a new tab, and I can't hit the browser back button to return. Very annoying!

[marurun]

There are some Android browsers that will block ads, like Opera and Brave, and Firefox will accept some adblock extensions. Chrome generally will not. iPhone added the ability an os revision or two ago to have a content blocker enabled for Safari. You download and configure the blocker as an app and then enable the blocker in prefs.

[isiolia]

I was wondering the same thing. When I browse Racketboy on my phone, an article on the main site, sometimes it will randomly load an ad page. The thing is, it's not a new window or a new tab, and I can't hit the browser back button to return. Very annoying!

That seems have been going on for a while, and impacts iOS as well.