if ads were normal and unobtrusive. We wouldn't need ad blockers. Instead we get an almost unusable internet where ads take up more and more real estate. I had been running an ad blocker for so many years that when a friend (who doesn't use an ad blocker) showed me a website, the unfiltered experience was horrifying.
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
1166 points (99.2% liked)
Technology
66103 readers
3555 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I love this movie but honestly it's getting to the point where I can't even watch it without getting upset.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
uBO is not just an ad blocker, its almost a firewall against malware and a tracking filter
Im old enough to remember the internet before ads, and with ads became a thing and you had to make sure to keep your speakers low/off all the time less some screaming loud ad popped up somewhere to burst your eardrums at 2am.
There were so many obnoxious, visual cancer ads.
Then they became actual digital cancer by being injection points for viruses and malware, and thus adblockers became a necessity.
And they remain a necessity to this day, for the same reason as they were 20+ years ago.
and yet the ad servers want to blame the end user for adblocking.
not their absolute refusal to moderate or police any of the content they deliver.
load more comments
(5 replies)
This is probably the single thing that got me to switch to Firefox. Privacy whatever, I don’t care about my data or the morality of my tech company or whatever, but mess with my adblocker and goodbye.
Can I have your bank account username and password?
load more comments
(8 replies)
Use firefox
And if you don't like Firefox, use one of the Firefox forks. Some of them are very Chrome-like.
load more comments
(4 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
I swapped to Chrome years ago because YouTube stopped working right on Firefox.
I've started the process of swapping back to Firefox after 10 years with Chrome over this.
There were a few extensions you could run in firefox that told youtube that it was totally for reals being accessed by a chrome browser.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
I take this as a sign that it genuinely still works to block ads and hasn’t sold out and become malware like those others that used to be popular.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Google is not an IT company. It’s an advertising company. Surprised Pikachu, it blocks ad blockers.
It's been an ad company for a long time, though, and blocking ad blockers is new.
load more comments
(4 replies)
laughs in Firefox
Cries in only Chrome and Edge at work 😢
Tell your IT.
Yeah. What company wouldn't allow it?
When I was working for an ad exchange, everyone had adblock installed in their browsers, I found that quite ironic.
I would argue it's a security issue not to have any ad blocking. Many scams online start with popups or fake ads.
So if you get the opportunity to talk to IT that's what I would mention.
load more comments
(6 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(8 replies)
load more comments
(18 replies)
load more comments
(9 replies)
the what store now
And that is why I went to Firefox once Google announced this bullshit.
Swapping is pretty painless. It even brings over all your passwords and stuff these days. Best get to swapping before Google disable that as well. They'd just love to keep you hostage.
Use a third party password manager, don’t rely on browser default ones
Some suggestions:
- Bitwarden (US based but with EU hosting, free tier, open source)
- proton-pass (Swiss based with free tier)
- Keepass (open source system, free “self-hosted” through cloud saves)
- 1pass (Us based, paid tiers only)
- Lastpass (US based, free tier. Lots of breaches in the past so I can’t recommend)
load more comments
(3 replies)
But ublock origin lite is by the same dev.. Not as many features but it conforms to the new rules and is still much better than not having a blocker if you use chrome or edge.
Missing critical features:
Filter lists only update with the extension, you cannot update them dynamically
No making your own filters and thus no element picker for blocking annoyances on a webpage (a feature so good apple literally baked it into safari)
No support for external lists (which means if you back up your own filters into a list you cannot easily reimport)
No changing behavior on a per site basis
A number of other features as well that are more strictly power user features but still really handy like dynamic filtering and strict blocking domains.
If you have the option stop using chrome and edge, they are some of the worst options you could choose. Even outside of adblock and manifest v3 chrome is horrendous for data harvesting bullshit and edge isn’t great. If you don’t have the option because of an overzealous it dept or whatever and are forced to use it ubo lite is your best option probably and my heart goes out to you
load more comments
(6 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Not surprising, Google is an ad company at this point.
It never was anything else
Didn't consider chrome before and still wont
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ublock-origin-lite/ddkjiahejlhfcafbddmgiahcphecmpfh
Doesn't cover 100% of what uBO did, but it still works just as good IMO with DNS based ad-blocking on top.
Yeah, I heard someone say a week or so ago that they straight disabled it in the browser, and now only the gimped version that works with Manifest V3 works now. Thankfully I switched to Firefox when all this Manifest V3 stuff was announced. As far as I know it's the only browser out there that isn't based on Chromium (which Google also controls, so browsers like Brave will likely be affected by this soon as well, unless a bunch of those smaller browsers get together and fork Chromium and maintain it themselves, which I'm not very hopeful about) and so doesn't have to worry about these shenanigans.
load more comments
(7 replies)
view more: next ›