Yeah, that's the main reasons why I rarely use the Web on my phone. It's just horrible, for every new site I load I have to click at least 2-3 dialogs before I see the content.
It's part of the scam now. Most use is on mobile because the web is dead (temporarily), and they (site owner and Google) want thousands of people a day to accidentally click on ads.
Anytime I need to use the browser on my phone, I'm shocked how bad and unusable the web is. I move back to my laptop with an ad blocker if I want to do anything other than a quick Google search. A few mainstream sites like Google and YouTube are alright, even if the ads are annoying, but most sites are just downright hostile to be on.
It really is shocking as you said. I think every single time I try to use the web on my phone, I think “how did this happen?” … because it truly is unusable. I was trying to read an article about a game my friend and I were playing and it had so many popups/popovers/ads/bullshit/etc and the worse thing ever where the page was jumping all over the place as I was trying to read it (what’s happening here? Other content loading in? It can’t know where my phone screen is though?). So I literally gave up, wrote it off as basically impossible to use. Went to the computer with Firefox and ublock and read the page. Unbelievable.
Imagine the bubble we live in at our house: everything, phone or otherwise, goes through the pi-hole. You can come to our house with your random phone or laptop, ad blocker or not, and you won't see ads, either, thanks to network-wide DNS blocking. And we both mostly WFH, and therefore rarely venture out into the wild, wild Internet outside of our home network.
And then I have to look something up while we're camping, expecting the same experience as I get every other day of the week, and...I would seriously curtail most of my non-work-based Internet use in a major way if that's what I had to put up with every day.
Me too, although in a sense I kinda like it because it makes me use my phone less.
Reddit is now completely unusable on a phone now unless you download the app, which I refuse to do. So I now spend far less time on Reddit, which has turned out to be a great choice.
Sometimes I wish that more of my favourite distractions had more friction, not less.
Ublock origin is much better than a DNS level blocker. It can block lots of junk inside a page that doesn't come from a different server.
I use a combo of both and many custom filters but just DNS blocking isn't enough and work the rise of DoH and ads served on-domain it's only going to get worse.
DNS adblocking is not at all the same as browser level adblocking. Also setting your dns provider to adguard.com entrusts them to see what domains you visit, which you may or may not care about.
As others have pointed out it's mostly noticeable on mobile, I only consider looking something up on mobile if I know I can append my search with a domain that I trust to be ad-free or ad-light. Recipe... too risky to go on a random site (because of ads and also proliferation of fake recipes that are just stock images and Ai generated copy to garner pageviews), so I do "{dish} + seriouseats.com". Movie or TV trivia... "{movie} wiki"... etc.
News is the worse, I rely on twitter for headlines or go straight to my paid app (NYT + WSJ) if I hope to read more than 140 character on any topic.
I particularly enjoyed the reply of "those ads feed a lot of families, including mine". Man, I don't want to get all Godwin here, but that can be said about a lot of things I wouldn't want my name attached to. Please find a better rationalization than "I'm in it for the money".
Who decides what "something useful for society" is? Is it the case that Google engineers optimizing ads are not doing something useful, but game developers creating games that some people play for 8+ hours a day are doing something useful? Is online shopping development useful? Google search and Gmail engineers are doing something useful but the Ad engineers aren't?
There are other jobs out there that are not creating social engineered advertising or spammy malware games.
Online shopping could be considered useful for humanity.
I can see on LinkedIn right now there are jobs for a company that will identify and help you reduce your companies carbon footprint, there are a couple looking at Vision based Machine Learning for automated sorting of recycling. And then there is a university startup wanting software engineers to help them with their bio-scientists get going with some new cancer research.
I would agree with the grand parent post that most ad development has not been beneficial to society.
Respectfully, posts like yours and the parent make me very thankful we don't have Arbiters of Usefulness dictating to the rest of us what is and isn't worthwhile to spend our time doing.
For the record, I am not, and have never been, an ad developer/product manager/anything of the sort.
>I can see on LinkedIn right now there are jobs for a company that will identify and help you reduce your companies carbon footprint, there are a couple looking at Vision based Machine Learning for automated sorting of recycling. And then there is a university startup wanting software engineers to help them with their bio-scientists get going with some new cancer research.
Online shopping could be considered useful, but ad development isn't useful? You do you realize what the online shopping business model is built upon, right?
And what is the revenue stream for Linkedin Jobs? What allows them to provide this product, for free, to you?
How does the B2B carbon footprint reduction company find its clients?
What business model does HN leverage in order to provide a discussion forum about how ad development is useless? (The irony here is especially amusing)
And surely you realize how the universities and CV researchers that you approve of are able to use Google to further their knowledge…
Kidding. But with a little research one finds a fairly widespread consensus about professions such as doctors, nurses, utilities engineers (energy/water), teachers, waste disposal, that sort of thing. That literally keep us alive, healthy, and in comfort.
Would anyone really argue that "provide a means of shopping in comfort and convenience from one's own home" is really less useful than "makes tiny incremental optimizations to the display and profitability of banner ads in a mind-boggingly complex ecosystem" though?
Another way of putting it - who would notice, friends and family aside, if all the ad engineers got Thanos-ed tomorrow?
.... wait "most of the highest paid programmers ($750k/yr)"
a) WT ever living F. How many programmers are making that much. Like really. Discounting CTOs, VPs, etc.... like actual "i write code for a living" people.
Are there even 100?
b) even if there are _none_ of those people are writing freaking ad software, or anything even remotely close to it. They're prolly doing seriously brainiac next level AI and quantum computing stuff. Sure, some of them may work at google and thus get paid for it but.... no. just ... no.
Yes, programmers make ad software. Yes, programmers mostly use ad blocking software and are thus unaffected by their creations.
but WTF is with this perception of $750k/yr being anywhere even _remotely_ near what the average programmer gets? Like. that's not only not in the same neighborhood, it's not in the same planet.
> WTF is with this perception of $750k/yr being anywhere even _remotely_ near what the average programmer gets?
They said "highest paid programmers", not "near average" programmers. This is fairly typical total comp for the senior staff level at a FAANG. Around 5-10% of engineers at these companies will make that much (and a smaller percentage make even more).
This in addition to the months of legal work required to actually read all the terms from the hundreds of tracking companies that I'm expected to individually allow or disallow, before being able to see the page, only to realise it's not what I was looking for.
A few years ago, my father-in-law asked me to fix his computer. He only said it was "slow".
When I got there, he had a serious malware infection. Multiple spyware/hijacker browser extensions, a service running on the desktop that would pop open ads, the works.
He said it started doing this stuff after he installed an iTunes update. It took me way more effort than it should have to convince him that the ad that claimed to be an iTunes update was fraudulent and started the mess.
After I managed to clean up the mess, I installed uBlock Origin. It's been smooth for him ever since.
I prefer to call them HTML Firewalls rather than Ad Blockers. IMO they're a good computer security practise as much as anything else.
I'm near the end of reading Blindsight[0] and coming around to the idea that they are also a necessary self-defence tool to try and stem the tide of things trying to take up real-estate in my brain.
I recently started reading Peter Watts novels because of a HN thread that mentioned Blindsight. It's been a few weeks at this point and I've finished Blindsight, Echopraxia and Starfish and I'm halfway through Maelstrom.
You want to reference a Watts novel to make a point about adblocking software, wew buddy it's Maelstrom!
Without spoiling much of anything, the title refers to the contemporary name for the internet, given because the open net has become an insane jurassic-like free-for-all of digital virus on virus carnage. Basically people added genetic algorithms to their ad-blocker-blockers to make them be able to react in real time to updates in their opposition, and the result was the accidental creation of very dumb, very invasive-species-y digital life that is constantly infecting all the things. To point that people start training smart gels (think deep learning on synthetic neurons in a big cube of jello) to identify and destroy viruses. But that has its own drawbacks, of course!
Ah, if you follow the link I provided, you'll see I'm talking about a different book called Blindsight by Matt Johnson and Prince Ghuman, the sub-title of which is, "The (Mostly) Hidden Ways Marketing Reshapes Our Brains."
While it is mostly crouched in terms of how marketing can exploit it, the discussion regarding the neurological ways your brain works is more interesting to me than the marketing aspects.
Without an ad blocker? Nah, it's not a thing. The question you should be asking yourself is what are all these bad sites you're browsing. And of the few that do have some ads and stuff, I don't even notice them in sidebars and stuff anymore, it's not interfering. Stay off of most of the news sites except for maybe like NYTimes. Get your news from shared links (like on HN) and click into pages, and so what if there's a sidebar, why look there -- look at the content!
YouTube isn't a big deal once in a while , skip after 5 seconds, so what. Like what are we talking about here? Twitter? Takes a bit of training it but they're not really int he way (protip also: tweetdeck has no ads). Instagram? Same, there's some but after a bit of 'Don't like this ad' flagging, they're not really there)
I know this is an unpopular take around here but Ad blocker users are super paranoid and impatient I find, and again, why are you surfing so many sites that have ads where they're in the way? The general public could care less about installing ad blockers like freaks. They just need to learn how to choose better content sites.
> They just need to learn how to choose better content sites.
Just terrible advice. You're saying I should train my grandma to get her news on just some "safer" website instead of giving the entire ad industry the middle finger and installing uBlock?
If we adblock users are paranoid, some of you go through some serious mental gymnastics not to admit the modern ad-riddled web is awful to use.
Not saying it isn't ad-riddled. Saying you shouldn't, as power users, be surfing the ad-riddled parts / and/or not care about a sidebar or a few animated gifs halfway down a page. There are businesses there trying to make money and we haven't come up with a better way yet, not giving those sites traffic might start to change minds about the strategy.
Grandma can stay in safe zones as they already do, Facebook what? And we can influence them to surf less ridiculous riddled sites (recipe sites? Instead of 500 page ad recipe sites, use NYT Cooking for example, no ads).
Installing add-ons to browsers like it's 2003 is not necessary.
> The question you should be asking yourself is what are all these bad sites you're browsing.
One of the most helpful websites I've ever been to is trumpexcel.com (Excel tips, nothing to do with 45). It is absolutely ridden with ads however, so much so that it slows down my browser when I access it via the company computer.
So I just visit it now with adblock on. Perfect experience, everything still works. I'll likely sign up for one of their sold courses just to show my thanks, even though I really only get value for the articles.
(opens blog posts on trumpexcel, since front page has zero ads) -- content is totally readable, so what if there's a few square ads between some of the paragraphs and sidebar. Like we're talking about a few animated GIFS here c'mon. The content value is all the same.
I use the web without an ad blocker, and I don't personally think it's too bad. Sidebar and topbar ads have been common since the 00s.
But to be honest I think it's a combination of the websites I visit, and that I refuse to use sites with intrusive ads anyway. Anything with a popover ad, I just leave the site straight away
Luckily most of the websites that are covered in intrusive ads are just tabloid/clickbait crap sites anyway, so I feel like I use ads as an indication of the site's quality.
This is virtue signalling IMO. I work in ad tech and don't use ad blockers. I can surf just fine. I don't think this is what the disadvantaged people (sounds bit like "think of the children to me) care about. They have more important problems to worry about.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] thread(Use Firefox for Android, with uBlock Origin add-on.)
I have about a dozen sites I access on my phone outside home. I use pi-hole at home.
1. https://pi-hole.net/
And then I have to look something up while we're camping, expecting the same experience as I get every other day of the week, and...I would seriously curtail most of my non-work-based Internet use in a major way if that's what I had to put up with every day.
Reddit is now completely unusable on a phone now unless you download the app, which I refuse to do. So I now spend far less time on Reddit, which has turned out to be a great choice.
Sometimes I wish that more of my favourite distractions had more friction, not less.
I use a combo of both and many custom filters but just DNS blocking isn't enough and work the rise of DoH and ads served on-domain it's only going to get worse.
News is the worse, I rely on twitter for headlines or go straight to my paid app (NYT + WSJ) if I hope to read more than 140 character on any topic.
Online shopping could be considered useful for humanity.
I can see on LinkedIn right now there are jobs for a company that will identify and help you reduce your companies carbon footprint, there are a couple looking at Vision based Machine Learning for automated sorting of recycling. And then there is a university startup wanting software engineers to help them with their bio-scientists get going with some new cancer research.
I would agree with the grand parent post that most ad development has not been beneficial to society.
For the record, I am not, and have never been, an ad developer/product manager/anything of the sort.
>I can see on LinkedIn right now there are jobs for a company that will identify and help you reduce your companies carbon footprint, there are a couple looking at Vision based Machine Learning for automated sorting of recycling. And then there is a university startup wanting software engineers to help them with their bio-scientists get going with some new cancer research.
Online shopping could be considered useful, but ad development isn't useful? You do you realize what the online shopping business model is built upon, right?
And what is the revenue stream for Linkedin Jobs? What allows them to provide this product, for free, to you?
How does the B2B carbon footprint reduction company find its clients?
What business model does HN leverage in order to provide a discussion forum about how ad development is useless? (The irony here is especially amusing)
And surely you realize how the universities and CV researchers that you approve of are able to use Google to further their knowledge…
Kidding. But with a little research one finds a fairly widespread consensus about professions such as doctors, nurses, utilities engineers (energy/water), teachers, waste disposal, that sort of thing. That literally keep us alive, healthy, and in comfort.
https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=3316274&itype=CMSI...
Would anyone really argue that "provide a means of shopping in comfort and convenience from one's own home" is really less useful than "makes tiny incremental optimizations to the display and profitability of banner ads in a mind-boggingly complex ecosystem" though?
Another way of putting it - who would notice, friends and family aside, if all the ad engineers got Thanos-ed tomorrow?
Please keep this rationalization. If your justification is; I really want to connect people or some deriavative then you can f' right off.
a) WT ever living F. How many programmers are making that much. Like really. Discounting CTOs, VPs, etc.... like actual "i write code for a living" people.
Are there even 100?
b) even if there are _none_ of those people are writing freaking ad software, or anything even remotely close to it. They're prolly doing seriously brainiac next level AI and quantum computing stuff. Sure, some of them may work at google and thus get paid for it but.... no. just ... no.
Yes, programmers make ad software. Yes, programmers mostly use ad blocking software and are thus unaffected by their creations.
but WTF is with this perception of $750k/yr being anywhere even _remotely_ near what the average programmer gets? Like. that's not only not in the same neighborhood, it's not in the same planet.
They said "highest paid programmers", not "near average" programmers. This is fairly typical total comp for the senior staff level at a FAANG. Around 5-10% of engineers at these companies will make that much (and a smaller percentage make even more).
Not true at all, ad software pays a lot better than "next level AI and quantum computing", unless you're talking about AI for advertising
When I got there, he had a serious malware infection. Multiple spyware/hijacker browser extensions, a service running on the desktop that would pop open ads, the works.
He said it started doing this stuff after he installed an iTunes update. It took me way more effort than it should have to convince him that the ad that claimed to be an iTunes update was fraudulent and started the mess.
After I managed to clean up the mess, I installed uBlock Origin. It's been smooth for him ever since.
I'm near the end of reading Blindsight[0] and coming around to the idea that they are also a necessary self-defence tool to try and stem the tide of things trying to take up real-estate in my brain.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52225003-blindsight
You want to reference a Watts novel to make a point about adblocking software, wew buddy it's Maelstrom!
Without spoiling much of anything, the title refers to the contemporary name for the internet, given because the open net has become an insane jurassic-like free-for-all of digital virus on virus carnage. Basically people added genetic algorithms to their ad-blocker-blockers to make them be able to react in real time to updates in their opposition, and the result was the accidental creation of very dumb, very invasive-species-y digital life that is constantly infecting all the things. To point that people start training smart gels (think deep learning on synthetic neurons in a big cube of jello) to identify and destroy viruses. But that has its own drawbacks, of course!
While it is mostly crouched in terms of how marketing can exploit it, the discussion regarding the neurological ways your brain works is more interesting to me than the marketing aspects.
That does sound interesting; I'll check it out.
I know this is an unpopular take around here but Ad blocker users are super paranoid and impatient I find, and again, why are you surfing so many sites that have ads where they're in the way? The general public could care less about installing ad blockers like freaks. They just need to learn how to choose better content sites.
Just terrible advice. You're saying I should train my grandma to get her news on just some "safer" website instead of giving the entire ad industry the middle finger and installing uBlock?
If we adblock users are paranoid, some of you go through some serious mental gymnastics not to admit the modern ad-riddled web is awful to use.
Grandma can stay in safe zones as they already do, Facebook what? And we can influence them to surf less ridiculous riddled sites (recipe sites? Instead of 500 page ad recipe sites, use NYT Cooking for example, no ads).
Installing add-ons to browsers like it's 2003 is not necessary.
One of the most helpful websites I've ever been to is trumpexcel.com (Excel tips, nothing to do with 45). It is absolutely ridden with ads however, so much so that it slows down my browser when I access it via the company computer.
So I just visit it now with adblock on. Perfect experience, everything still works. I'll likely sign up for one of their sold courses just to show my thanks, even though I really only get value for the articles.
The people who made adtech what it is today are your (our) colleagues, friends, bosses, peers.
This didn't happen by itself.
Luckily most of the websites that are covered in intrusive ads are just tabloid/clickbait crap sites anyway, so I feel like I use ads as an indication of the site's quality.
It's fine. Really, it is.