this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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I cannot understand how some people are living with this. It is unbearable

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[–] [email protected] 226 points 1 year ago (13 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 169 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I get so pissed off when I try to play sudoku on the bus and it forces me to watch 30 seconds of ads between each game. And then during the game I have to ignore the flashing banner ad at the bottom of the screen.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just pay for a good offline sudoku app. It probably costs less than a cup of coffee. Then we'll all be happier.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago

or get an open source, free and privacy friendly one from f-droid in case you haven't tied your hands with an iphone

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Simple games don't need internet access. Can't you block network connection for that app?

A better option even is getting something like what [email protected] suggested, or this other one https://f-droid.org/packages/org.moire.opensudoku/ or this other one https://f-droid.org/packages/org.secuso.privacyfriendlysudoku/

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Then pay 99 fucking cents for the app.

If the ads annoy you enought to post online, but the app is good enough that you keep playing anyway, then pay the developer for their work.

I swear to God some people around here have heard the term FOSS and thought "I don't have to pay for software, hur dur it's free and writes itself!"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

The thing is with a small app ads pay f all compared to the ongoing development costs. $100usd a year for Apple developer license, recent Mac and time spent developing it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Lol at all of these comments coming up with ways to not pay someone $1 for a sudoku app.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

There's TrackerControl.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

It's a decent value to play the ad while you actually pay attention to the show you're "watching" for 30 seconds.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

You ever consider divorce? /S

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow. I never would have guessed that people would be upset that they couldn't watch ads.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People defend what's familiar, even if it's shit

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Same. My wife gets mad that her ad emails won't load on her phone. I'm like, hun, just delete them, we don't have money anyway.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 26 points 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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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! 😄

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't think so, it can only click the ads you're served, which you don't control.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (7 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

yeah you're right actually. I always use it combined with a local browser adblock and didn't think of that

[–] [email protected] 9 points 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.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

If you want to click on ads just install a mobile game

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How could she even see the Ad? I don't use facebook btw.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

My dad's the same way.

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