this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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They call it "dark traffic" - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.

Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.

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[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yo bro. Looks like you are looking at some information without 15 things popping up in your face. I see you are into the "dark traffic"

[–] Jimmycakes@lemmy.world 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

When piholes go mainstream they are fully cooked. Even tech illiterate in your family won't get the ads

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[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What's frustrating to me is the idea that law makers and advertisers believe I don't have a right to alter data that comes onto things I own. And nobody chime in with the brain dead "☝️🤓 actually you don't own it." Because even if you wanna waste time with that stupid distraction, I own my computer. I built it from parts.

Controlling my perception is my right. If I wanna use things that block ads that's my right. PERIOD. I NEED TO BLOCK ADS BECAUSE OF MY DISABILITY.

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[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 weeks ago

AdBlocker is the one who should get the Nobel Peace prize.

[–] Xenny@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

Let me know when you can't inject malware via ads....

[–] johncandy1812@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Ads on websites are deals the sitemaker made with themselves. The internet is free.

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[–] arc99@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Sites are lazy and greedy. They throw dozens and dozens of 3rd party javascripts into their headers, that punish and annoy people for not using an ad blocker - they slow the site down, bloat the memory, consume energy, track the user and festoon the page with garbage. As soon as people hear that an ad blocker is a thing, then of course they leap at the chance of using one.

It would be straightforward for sites to insert ads into their content - make the ad urls, images and links indistinguishable from actual content. i.e. serve them up from the same domain, from non predictable paths and use html structure where ads and content are intermingled. Even if an adblocker wanted to block the ads, there are no patterns that work and every single site would require different rules. But that requires effort. I suppose we should be glad that sites don't do it.

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[–] salacious_coaster@infosec.pub 9 points 2 weeks ago

Good 🖕🏻

[–] MITM0@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

I'm wondering if Gopher should make a comeback ? Gemini is a thing so, well you know.....

For those who don't know, they're alternative internet protocols similar to HTTP

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[–] thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

Good. Hopefully the advertisers will realize that it's not profitable to advertise online anymore, and then we'll be left the hell alone.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 8 points 2 weeks ago
[–] zanyllama52@infosec.pub 8 points 2 weeks ago

Whatever number it is, it ain't big enough yet.

More power!

[–] lemmie689@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Damn people, enshitifying the internet for the advertisers.

I switched to GrapheneOS which uses Vanadium browser by default, which doesn't support any content blocking yet. I use ProtonVPN which seems to block everything.

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[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is easily solved by not using 3rd parties and tracking data for ads. If the ad was just part of the page (similar to an ad in the newspaper) then ad blockers would not be able to detect them at all. A YouTuber saying "before we get started, this video is sponsored by [relevant related company]" does not get blocked by ad blockers.

However, in order to do that websites would be responsible for the ads they display. If they don't do their due diligence they won't be able to pass it off as "we're not responsible for it, it's our ad company that put it there." They don't want to be responsible for the ads they show, but they want you to be responsible for the ads you don't watch.

[–] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

A YouTuber saying "before we get started, this video is sponsored by [relevant related company]" does not get blocked by ad blockers.

Well, there's sponsor block which uses crowd sourced timestamps to skip those segments, but yeah you're right.

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[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I actually like how people are again on the wave of understanding that anarchism is right even if you've voluntarily consented to hierarchy. And other similar things.

Sometimes you need to break rules. Entropy and life are more important.

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[–] JayGray91@piefed.social 7 points 2 weeks ago

I confess that I don't have the money to frequently donate and fund the services that I use (if they allow to donate) and recognize long time ago ads would be an okay alternative. but like everyone said, ads just became a lot more cancerous and have to block it. despite the shortcomings of the FBI, even they advise to use adblockers.

though I guess I just have to suck it up and donate once in a while as well.

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