I cannot understand how some people are living with this. It is unbearable

  • elliot_crane@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    My retired parents live with me. I went ahead and put a PiHole on our home wifi. A day later my mother was literally complaining that she couldn’t click on ads on facebook. I told her those are ads and they track her and she says “well everyone likes to use the internet how they like to use it… can you put it back the old way? I want to look at these shoes”. Can’t fucking win.

    • jarredpickles87@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My wife turns off the WiFi on her phone to avoid the pihole. She does this so she can watch the ads in her games to get an extra life or whatever. You’ll never win on that front and I won’t either.

      • Name is Optional@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Spot on. I was incredulous when they told me they each sent their cheek swabs in to the “free to be me”, the population tracking group 🌊 👁️a. Now I understand that that same company’s entire database is on the dark 🕸️.

    • flameguy21@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      People actually CLICK on ads??? Genuinely never had even an iota of desire to do that. I forgot it was even an option.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Boomers that aimlessly surf facebook. They’re still trying to figure out what the use-cases are for the internet thingy they pay $60 a month for.

      • neanderthal@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I do when it is advertising something I hate. Publishers get dollars for clicks, pennies for impressions. That way I force someone I dislike to give money to someone I like.

        • Jamie@jamie.moe
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          1 year ago

          I use adnauseum on my computer so it blocks the ads, but also sends a request simulating a click to the ad network. Based on average CPM, I’ve cost advertisers like $300 so far.

            • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yep. The developer recommends to run it in stead of rather than alongside uBlock Origin, though, which is a dealbreaker for me 🤷

              • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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                1 year ago

                That’s because it’s built on top of uBlock. If you click on the extension it even has the uBlock logo. It’s literally just uBlock except it clicks on ads in the background. It even tells you how much projected money you cost them for clicking their shitty ads. And the websites gets paid. Only the advertisers get shafted.

                Honestly I’m astonished it’s not more popular.

                • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  So you’re saying that it does literally everything uBlock does AND fucks over advertisers?

                  If there’s an option to shaft specific sites run by people you dislike too, I’m in! 😄

            • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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              1 year ago

              Yes but Google banned them from the extension store so if you’re using Chromium you need to sideload it.

          • Knuschberkeks@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            Interesting. But wouldn’t that still decrease my privacy? Advertisers still won’t know which ads I’m interested in, but they will know what sites I visit and can still build a profile from that data.

            • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Some people care more about fucking advertisers than privacy, as long as they don’t have to suffer through the ads themselves. But yeah, blocking is more private than fake clicking.

    • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I got a lot of complaints from family, too. Especially because I block Meta. I just let them bitch and I tell them things like “those ads are broken because of malware” which isn’t entirely untrue.

    • gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.deOP
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      1 year ago

      but this means that she would see the ads but not being able to click? I don’t get it. They should had just disappeared, no? Or was she complaining that she wasn’t seeing the ads?

      • elliot_crane@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The ads still appear in the facebook feed but clicking them results in a “this site could not be found” or similar error, is how I understood it to work. I know the PiHole basically makes it so the routes from “whateveradwebsite.com” end up not resolving to an IP address. I’m not sure how FB is serving them; so the text/image content might be coming from an FB server and the link is just an ad URL with a bunch of tracking info on it.

      • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        PiHole just blocks the DNS. Facebook serves ads from their own DNS so it’s not possible to block them in that way. Same with YouTube, I believe.

        But if they click it, it usually ports you through a tracker link so they can track your clicks, and that’s easy enough to block.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I know it’s rare, but there have been times I intentionally clicked on an ad - if it genuinely seemed like a unique or useful product I had some interest in.

      I imagine the fake-social-post type of ads are worth blocking though since it’s based in dishonesty and deception.

      • Jamie@jamie.moe
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        1 year ago

        I block ads on all my devices, but I assume they’re scams by default when I do see them.

      • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Some shops I only used once still send me their written newsletters and I don’t mind checking them if they do them entertaining, or about some niche products, even if I don’t consider buying them at all. I miss well-designed full-page print ads in magazines, or just those with a catchy imagery\wording. Now these all feel like a vintage, premium product, akin to vinyl records, if compared to what garbage web serves today. Such a weird thing to be nostalgic about, but I hope oldschool advertisers\smm persons feel it on their end too.

        • Flax@feddit.uk
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          1 year ago

          I get Royal Mint and Royal Mail news leaflets. I just like looking at pictures of stamps and coins lmao

    • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      “I’ll try to fix it. Now that I put it in taking it down brings the Internet down. Sorry, let me think how to fix this”

      And literally put up excuses until they get used to it. I’m sorry but they made you do stuff you didn’t enjoy for your own good while telling white lies, it’s time for payback.

    • Flax@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      Great aunt was talking about all of these anti-aging pills that she was going to get

    • Orionza@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Hi, butting in here, hope you don’t mind a question - is there a place to go with basic I instructions on how I can set this up too? Thanks!

      • elliot_crane@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah for sure. I’m no expert by any means, but I can talk through what I did.

        I used the instructions directly from their code repository: https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/#one-step-automated-install (I used option 1, the automated install). I did this on an old RPi2B that I had laying around.

        After I set up the pi, I got its MAC address. I used this to set a static IP address in my router settings. This is important to make sure the pi keeps the same IP at all times. Then, also in my router settings, I set the DNS server to be the pi’s static IP address.

        After all that was done, I just plugged the pi into a dedicated power supply and rebooted the router.

      • nave@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        The ads on Facebook (and many other sites) are served from the same site as the actual content. So if you try to block ads with pihole it will stop the website from loading any posts.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      You forgot the endless popups in the 2000s, which led to every browser integrating a popup blocker since then (and which often fail to stop actual malicious popups, no less)

      • Zerush@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yes, in these years are a lot of pop ups, pop unders among other crap in some pages, but normally in most pages there was, apart of an ocassinal Banner not much else to justify an adblocker. But nowadays, between ads, clickbaits, cookie consent, adblocker detections and ant-adblocker, paywalls and other shit like these, you need a lot of extensions and scripts if you don’t want that the page fills your browser and HD with all kind of PUPs and unwanted scripts, apart of an ad/trackerblocker. It’s a cats and mouse game between companies which want to track and profile you with all kind of dirty tricks, and the user and devs continuos searching contrameasures to show them the middle finger.

    • Y|yukichigai@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Almost, but needs a few tweaks:

      • Content should be border-to-border in the 2000 panel.

      • Needs to be 3 lines of content in 2010 and only two lines of content in 2018.

      • 2018 needs a slide-over autoplay video on the bottom-left of the content space.

    • Bluefruit@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Me everytime i use a broswer without ublock. Ill open a link here in lemmy without opening it externally to firefox and dear god my eyes.

      Ublock makes the internet a better place. Or at least it shoves the bad stuff under the bed lol.

    • Squirrel@thelemmy.club
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      1 year ago

      I always forget about my adblocker until I need to use a browser without one. It’s really pretty miserable.

      • Jamie@jamie.moe
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        1 year ago

        I helped someone I know out with a thing on their computer and got blasted by ads because they didn’t use an ad blocker.

        Those two minutes on the Internet really had me questioning how anyone manages to use it raw without going insane.

        • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Maybe if we tell them uBlock Origin is a condom for their browser, they’ll understand?

          What a sentence to type out

          • Jamie@jamie.moe
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            1 year ago

            I see it that way. You don’t dive into some strange without protection, don’t let your computer do it with websites.

            • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              It’s always difficult with digital matters, since there isn’t anything tangible and concrete to show.

              Like, there’s no shady person following them with a notebook and reporting back to their boss all day, but that is kinda what’s happening, just invisible to the user.

              My pihole is pretty good at showing family how many connections their apps make are completely unnecessary to their actual functions. That’s a good illustration to start with.

  • Rolando@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    As I recall, back in the late 90s there was a story in the Wall Street Journal about a man who loved receiving email spam. After a long day’s work he would go home and relax by looking through his email spam and order things.

    Some people are just like that.

    • Khrux@ttrpg.network
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      1 year ago

      I don’t like spam but I do like a good scam email, especially if they’ve actually given it some plot.

    • semperpeppe@feddit.it
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      1 year ago

      Tbh, I can relate to some degree. Sometimes I really love watching TV commercials. My favorite is teleshopping

      • Rolando@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, when I watch sports events from other countries it’s interesting to see the commercials, even if I don’t speak the language. It’s when I have to watch 20 minutes of the same commercials every hour that it gets bad.

  • AutomaticJack@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I once had a user whose PC would freeze every time they tried to see their desktop. Like, you minimise something full screen and the PC would freeze for a few minutes and crawl while the desktop was in view.

    Turns out they had more than 4,000 items on their desktop.

    That day I learned where Windows puts icons that don’t fit on the desktop (it stacks them all on the first icon’s place, lol). And this wasn’t even the problem they called about! They were just grumpily blaming Microsoft and working around it for years.

    I guess my point is computer illiterate/belligerent people will find a way around the problems they cause and just blame something/someone else.

  • netburnr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I have it on good authority, if you type Google into Google, you can break the internet.

    • coffeesnob@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Wait a minute, the “Elders of the Internet”!? The Elders of the Internet know who I am!? You’ve got to let me have it!

      • macniel@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        no no. The Elders of the Internet would never stand for that! The Internet needs to get straight back to Big Ben.

      • Kumatomic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        All the better to track you with so you have no choice but to agree and agree to their arbitration clauses if you want to use their and their competitors’ products with no alternative to avoid it. Sometimes you can’t even use the mobile site when so many services and businesses have flat out broken their mobile sites just to force the app. I don’t like DuckDuckGo’s browser but I use it to block trackers in the background.

        • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          This is correct. I use ddg for the same reason, and the “Desktop site” option for those little shits that broke their mobile site to force the app. If that option doesn’t work, I leave the site.

          • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I found that Firefox mobile with adblocker solves 100% of my advlock issues, and usually fixes format and display issues with websites. Half the websites I view on chrome mobile don’t even fit on my screen anymore!

            • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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              1 year ago

              Last time I tried ff mobile, it was sluggish, and had no extensions. I’m guessing they fixed those issues? I like ddg mobile browser well enough, but I’d love to use ff on my mobile, too. And, yes, I did notice those formatting issues. I thought it was just bad design, but it’s the chrome engine? Interesting. Not at all surprising, though, but interesting.

    • flerp@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Ah this brings back the memories of the race to close pop-ups as you can hear your parents coming home. For every one you close, three pop up to take it’s place. You can hear the key in the lock. Sweat pouring down your face you finally do it, you hit the last X and nothing new pops up. You have defeated the pop-ups… this time.

    • Zerush@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Yes, typical screens from these years, from a user who, as a newbie in the Internet, clicked on these beautiful banners and animations that were on certain pages with nice freeware stuff, screensavers, games, funny Powerpoints, etc… Nowadays these things do not appear and you can only notice that the PC goes every time slower and you know that you belong to the big family of the botnet community.

  • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    I used this scene in a cybersecurity training session. I knew it got the point across, when our resident ad-clicker asked me for advice to avoid that situation.

    E: she asked for advice for her home computer, as she didn’t understand that “at home and at work” meant “at home and at work with any device, not just work’s”

  • lorez@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’m noticing some sites have become pretty unusable on mobile and I dunno what to do.

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Literally the Windows Desktops+Applauncher / Mac Desktop+Panel of people making waaay more Money that I am.

    Like Mac really, who thought just piling up apps in an always shown panel is a good idea?

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
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      1 year ago

      I have spent a lot of time around a lot of IT workers and I am literally the only person I’ve ever seen on a project that has an ad blocker installed in their browser.

  • Geo_bot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    I have a friend who has their entire center 5th of their laptops screen just dead. they move windows around it to deal with it. I look at the way they’re using their computer and like I can barely reach it at their window size but it’s better than paying the $500 MacBook repair to them

  • Radioactive Radio@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    My former co-worker was daily driving his browser without any extensions and didn’t see anything wrong with it. I was watching him work one day and he was literally fighting a battle against the unholy pop-ups just tryna download some free fonts. What could’ve been done in 2 clicks took him minutes to do trying to close all the ads and tabs kept opening, videos kept playing. It was painful just to watch.