if ads were just static PNGs with a link you went to if you clicked I wouldn’t have ever bothered. but ads became a major malware and tracking risk so plugging that security hole became mandatory.

It’s true. I work in a computer shop and we see literally thousands and thousands of dollars lost from people clicking on ads that look like normal buttons (things like “Download”, “Next”, etc). And not just the elderly either. Everyone has a a combination of inputs to get scared and comply. Folks that are otherwise extremely competent and savvy can get scammed too.

The best security you can have online is adblockers, only beaten by using trusted websites.

Edit, fair points with sites being slimy these days. I meant using legitimate versions of websites rather than copy/fake websites designed to steal credentials.

Definitely. Ads are eye cancer at best, and infiltration channels for malware at worst. Compromised ad networks pumping out executable code via javascript (or back in the days, Flash) are still a major source of trojan infections.

And just to add to your important point, Ad Blockers are really Content Blockers. They allow the user to delete annoyances that have nothing to do with advertising. We should all start calling them Content Blockers.

I have said it before, snd I will repeat it as many times as it takes.

Adblocking is security, untill website owners take legal and financial responsibillity for the harm that a hacked ad spreading malware or attenpting any kind of deception, I won’t even consider removing my adblocker.

If this changes, I will consider it, but will still not do it, the risk to my data is too large.

Yeah, there’s no proper screening process and companies aren’t help liable for malicious advertisements. It’s the Wild west out there, and companies take money from anyone due to there being no consequences. Internet advertising has no proper screening process like network television.

Oh yeah aunt Greta, I’m still friends with you, but it’s so weird how I can’t see your anti vax “facts”

I took a peek at my feed for the first time in years. It’s all junk lol, no one I care about is posting anything

The only thing worth seeing is my local Buy Nothing group, but there are other services popping up which do something similar.

It sure might be, but the one friend who got blocked is just casually posting stuff from his personal life, nothing spammy going on there. Either facebook is screwing with me, or they are playing out some friend’s posts in the ad-network stream so you are actually losing some genuine content. That would be evil (and totally something Meta would do), but I really couldn’t care less.

My Facebook is hardly even friends these days. It’s basically ads, suggested posts, and posts in groups. Maybe because none of my friends really post anymore, I dunno.

Even if they were blocking posts, it’ll be because FB purposely wrapped them to look like an Ad

Yeah, Facebook can not know when your adblocker is blocking those posts, unless they did it themselves.

Facebook has groups, and unfortunately, that’s a pretty important feature. The car groups I belong to are hardcore track drivers and DIYers that share knowledge (problems and resolutions, alignment specs, tire and wheel experiences, custom parts, parts swaps, etc) and independent manufacturers who make stuff that isn’t otherwise easily available.

Until there is a solid replacement for that, I can’t get rid of Facebook proper.

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Boom boom boomers

There are a few countries where Facebook is still pretty popular. The Philippines, for example

One of my parent’s dozen+ facebook bots that steal their pictures/identity, because they are too dumb to know how to configure FB privacy settings. It’s disturbing how many of them just scour profiles, replicate, and impersonate to scam.

Averyone who wants to have social life in my country

In Brazil, it is useful to contact people that you know in real life, family and friends…

Plus, it sorta works like a Craigslist here. People sell and buy things from Facebook everyday, and people advertise their business and services here (e.g: restaurants, plumbing services, gift stores, etc)

My ASD brother, who prefers to be contacted through it. I want to maintain what little relationship I have with him.

Exactly and I think what we are seeing here is that the other companies are now helping build a very frustrating user experience to break down the everyday user. We will likely see Twitter and others joining in the coming weeks

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They have already succeeded.

Yes same for me, whatsapp is pretty much the only “genuine” communication channel. I only keep a presence on facebook since I have to move countries frequently for work, and the “expats in $city” groups are quite helpful to find people, and then move the discussions off-platform :-)

I’m trying to encourage people to move to peertube. Not much content there, but i’ll reward what intersting content I find. You should too

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Someone on here linked to odysee.com which appears to be a better version of YouTube so far, even Louis Rossman is there talking about YT’s new adblock situation as one example: https://odysee.com/@rossmanngroup:a/youtube’s-adblock-war-is-backfiring-in:c

It’ll end well enough. People will just stop using their shitty platforms. They’ll start looking for alternatives, from which there are loads, find that there are platforms that don’t require ads, and go there.

Those that stay deserve the shit they get

The thing is, if they get really stupid with it I could just go ahead and install pi hole. I haven’t already because it’s a bit of a fiddle on and I don’t apparently don’t need it yet. There’s no way for the government to mandate against that, unless they actually want to ban me from owning a computer, Which obviously won’t really work.

Eventually they will just use server side authentication that the ads were displayed properly and the best an adblocker can do is draw a grey rectangle over it and mute your tabs sound.

I left reddit for like two weeks before joining lemmy.

I felt like I wasn’t so attached to my phone anymore.

Then I downloaded Sync for lemmy knowing full well that I’d end up addicted again… The internet is the hardest habit to break.

Holy shit that’s devious.

They also use all those uglified class names so you can’t easily target a class to block. They’re total bastards. The Facebook Purity plugin is hip to all these tricks though. There are some very dedicated and talented developers who have put in a lot of time and creativity to circumvent these assholes.

The algo doesn’t determine what YOU want to see, it’s to determine what the ADVERTISERS want to market themselves to.