It's always been pretty fragmented by browser. The different only affect some edge case around tracking, don't really mind breaking evil websites.

It's good on long term. The infestation of ad is really really bad. My mother and my girlfriend can hardly browse the web anymore.

My mother and my partner's mother respond every time to those full page takeover ads that mimic a windows dialog box and play scary audio about viruses, tell her to call / give someone her credit card / let them remote into her computer. It's utterly infuriating these parasites are allowed to buy ads.

I aggressively install ad blocks and add domains to /etc/hosts to prevent having to remotely reinstall OSes every couple months.

These are the people google is trying to help with this move, imo. Because ublock still breaks pieces of the web, but they can't be trusted to browse the web without it.

There's a huge but subtle difference between the prevalence of ad blockers vs an ad blocker that is both backed by an ad company and built into the browser (presumably with no way to turn it off).

We've seen examples of ad blockers becoming problematic when they have too much market share (AdBlock Plus).

AdBlock is fine except for not blocking google top links and amazon recommendation. It's still blocking everything else, which is a HUGE LOT.

The fact that AdBlock receives money to break the very thing they're supposed to fix (at the user's expense) is pretty messed up. Sure, it's better than nothing, but that's really not saying much.

There are better options out there that (currently) give you fine-grain control over what goes into your machine, so there is pretty much no reason to give over that control to a corrupt group.

I agree that AdBlock getting paid is messed up. I can't say that it entirely ruined the purpose though.

My parents don't need fine controls. They just need something to block most of the malware, adware and popups. That's the world we live in.

I understand your point that they don't need fine grain controls, but does uBlock Origin require anything beyond the defaults? I'm just not seeing the benefit from using AdBlock Plus, anymore.

Depends what you mean by require. There are some important blacklists on both ublock and adblock that are off by default, they can be enabled.

i agree. i don't think it ruined the purpose. the purpose (in my eyes, yours may see it different) was to reduce offensive, dangerous, and just plain obnoxious advertising.

I don't mind a few unobtrusive ads. I really do mind those stupid ad overlays, ads that unroll themselves on top of the content I'm trying to read, and "scroll here for more" junk.

> Is it just me or the web is becoming more fragmented than ever

No, adblock has been around for a while now, this is just throwing around frivolous claims in an attempt at faux-intellectualism.

The internet is not going to end any more than it did when we put a stop to X-10 popup ads.

This is brilliant