@hacks4pancakes
I agree. I will pay for the services I use (I even pay for ad blocker plus) and keep my ad-blockers on. Including a DNS sinkhole version.

@hacks4pancakes and greatly reduce impulse online shopping too! 🤪

@hacks4pancakes and since Google is *THE* ad firm this wrecks all their credibility in the security space.

@hacks4pancakes I hadn't heard of watering hole attacks:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watering_hole_attack

TIL. Thanks. 🙂

@hacks4pancakes ya, but it kind of is about the ad firms.

"It's not you, it's me." -infosec

@hacks4pancakes this is the way!

@hacks4pancakes yeah I've been doing some ad engine design thinking lately. and its an interesting challenge trying to balance both ad/lead effectiveness with honoring user privacy/anonymity. inherently they tend to pull in *opposite* directions. though I know of ways to "square the circle", haha

@hacks4pancakes looking at you google ads

@hacks4pancakes maybe if the SOBs would conduct some oversight of their customers, we wouldn't feel compelled to filter them out.

@hacks4pancakes I’d happily return to classic, static, lovingly hand-placed on each page by the admin, banner ads.

Those were at least usually relevant to my interests!

@hacks4pancakes I'm a big fan of DNS filtering for this, but it can be a challenge for people who aren't comfortable running their own servers. Thoughts on AdGuard's free, public DNS? There is still a barrier for normal people in their private lives, but it's at least lower.

https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html

@hacks4pancakes I use Privacy Badger, which isn't an adblocker, but that doesn't stop websites from constantly telling me to turn off my adblocker.

@hacks4pancakes It's a moral duty to deploy ad blockers.

@hacks4pancakes great point! Ad blockers might be why attacks using ads aren’t more prolific.

@hacks4pancakes counter-surveillance. we need more of it.

@hacks4pancakes

@hacks4pancakes (but it is a lot about you)

@hacks4pancakes
I don't use ad blockers because I don't like advertising companies, I do it because I don't have any reason to trust them.

Suppose that you had a friend who claimed that they were a completely self-taught driver, had no driver's license and had still managed to be behind the wheel for several spectacular accidents within the last month. And suppose that they asked to borrow your car.

@hacks4pancakes its quite concerning how little online advertisers care about what content they are pushing

there are so many ads that are fake, malicious or otherwise not legal and apparently its not the companies job to police them before publishing?

@hacks4pancakes
To be fair, unblocked ads do tend to secure a web browser, by soaking up so much bandwidth that nothing else, malicious or otherwise, can get through.