Re:Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]
by choathedolls on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @11:55AM
(#22248632)
Most extensions show a badge with how many ads have been blocked. From there, some of them also include loggers or similar tools to see exactly which scripts, assets, etc. are being blocked (personally, uBlock's "overview panel" is fantastic for this). All without having to disable your adblocker to check.
So no downside, other than being even more frustrated with the current ad-hellhole.
Re:Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]
by dspillett on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @12:30PM
(#22249034)
> Most extensions ...
This is fine for client based blocking, but it not possible for network level blocking, such as using a pi-hole instance as your main local resolver.
Re:Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]
by basilgohar on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @11:52AM
(#22248594)
How is this a downside to using an ad-blocker? I think it's quite the opposite. An ad-blocker would prevent most of this external JS from being loaded.
Re:Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]
by lozaning on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @11:57AM
(#22248673)
I've so successfully created a personal technology environment that hides ads, that I have no situational awareness about what these companies are up to.
If someone out there is selling my healthcare data and running ads around it directed towards just me, I'd never know, but I'd want to.
Re:Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]
by JohnFen on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @01:04PM
(#22249416)
So block tracking, not ads.
Re:Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]
by dspillett on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @01:09PM
(#22249467)
Unfortunately the two are often intimately linked, so that is not really practical.
Re:Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]
by JohnFen on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @03:39PM
(#22250750)
I'm not sure what you mean. You're right that the two are usually intimately linked. What I've found by blocking tracking is that as a result of this intertwining, blocking tracking usually also blocks the advertising engaging in the spying.
I don't use an adblocker. I block tracking. It's pretty nearly as effective as an adblocker, so that seems practical to me.
Re:Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]
by dspillett on Thursday February 06, 2020 @09:46AM
(#22256312)
"block tracking, not ads" - given the strong links between tracking and ads, saying which one you intend to block is nothing more than wordplay. Practically speaking if you block tracking you likely also block more ads than you don't, whether that is your intent or not.
It sounded like not blocking ads was a goal.
Re:Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]
by dspillett on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @01:08PM
(#22249455)
A key concern I have (though it doesn't stop me blocking ads) is that I won't know if a site is normally full of the worst sort of ads (malware install attempts, auto-playing video & audio, tracking up the wazoo & back, ...) and I could send a link to people who are going to be affected because they are not protected by similar blocking.
So not a downside directly, but a risk of lacking awareness.
Re:Surveillance on UK council websites [pdf]
by pavel_lishin on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @12:02PM
(#22248722)
Can't wait for the bite if you don't hear the bark.
It's literally never occurred to me, as a user of these websites, that local government websites would even have adverts on them -- let alone Google AdSense / junk from Google's Display Network.