I just think it’s crazy a six year old is even on a device instead of being a six year old playing and what not. I was writing code at 11 but the only screens I was on until double digits was playing video games a few hours a week under parental supervision. Even that didn’t start until I was 7

Between uBlock in the browser, ReVanced apps[1] (YouTube, Twitter/X, TikTok), DNS ad filtering[2], and Spotify Premium, I don't see ads. It takes some effort but isn't that hard for an HN poster.

Also, I'm quite skeptical of caffeine and aspartame being bad for health (in adults at least).

[1] https://revanced.app/

[2] https://mullvad.net/pl/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls#...

So why Spotify premium and not YT premium?

not op - but I have been doing YT premium for about a month now, and find the music thing lacking immensely.

If I wasn't doing 30 hours of training / learning each week with YT I would not pay for premium. Yet I have paid for premium https://DI.fm for years and everyone tells me that spotify is really good at curation / playlists / discovering new stuff..

I could see if just using YT for random entertainment stuff not seeing real value in it overall - it could easily be replaced with videos hosted on FB or Insta or anywhere else basically for a lot of people.

ReVanced integrates SponsorBlock in addition to omitting regular ads and has some cool features like custom/definable playback speeds.

Yes… but you aren’t supporting the creators or the devs or servers that run the videos…

Would you pirate all your music if it was easier?

> Caffeine is bad for health People who drink those are addicts

Imagine teaching your kids intolerance based on pseudo-science.

The badness is up for debate (thankfully for my sake) but the addiction is not

Teaching kids that "everyone who drinks Caffeine/Energy drinks is an addict" is whack, it's an absolutely massive generalization that others a huge swath of society. We should teach kids compassion, not animosity.

Addiction isn't binary, and either some people don't get addicted as easily, and/or different people perceive addiction differently. All I know is that some people can pick up and drop substances and be unfazed, and other people can't stop even as it kills them. I have a bunch of friends who can only drink coffee for a few days before it makes them too anxious. They definitely aren't addicts, but they will buy and drink an energy drink if they need the boost badly enough.

I have no doubt that Caffeine saves lives every year by keeping people alert in dangerous jobs.

It's fine if you don't teach addiction as a moral failing.

I was baffled at the whole idea of letting a 6 year old browse the internet.

I do not have kids but the education first approach always sounds like the best one

That being said NextDNS is pretty awesome and will get a ton of it (plus has other features great for kids) and can be installed on any iOS device using a Profile (no local VPN needed). On Android you can simply use the built in OS DNS feature. And of course it's easy on Windows and MacOS as well.

That combined with either Orion browser (either using the built in blocking or installing Firefox Ublock in Orion) is pretty damn good on iOS. On Android or Windows then Firefox plus Ublock Origin is also an awesome combo.

This won't block the inline YouTube ads but you could of course pay for YT premium or find other ways around it. And Spotify family at 15$ is not a bad deal to get 5 people no add full premium for music.

+1 to using NextDNS. I'm using it on my home network and it has worked quite well. I also use it as my DNS on my Android devices and covers mobile networks too, which is why I switched from a PiHole.

It does struggle at times where something is blocked and needs to be on the allowlist for a website to work, but I blame this more on the website rather than NextDNS (mostly affiliate links).

I have problems with my partner. She keeps falling for these scams and it is so tedious explaining to her why I think something is a scam (usually various coach programmes, how to get wealthy and so on) and often times scammers use quite clever manipulation techniques, so that she believes them more than myself. She gets upset and say "everything is a scam to you!" and I say "no, it happens that you are being attracted to these kind of offers and so the Facebook / whatever algorithms keep pushing more of these at you". She goes "you just don't want me to succeed in life!" and so on. She even got to some (probably a cult) meeting telling her how she could invest her money without paying tax. When I told her that these things are illegal and not going to work, she says that I am just stupid and everyone does it. Then I showed her analysis of one of such schemes done by a reputable accountant, she says that it's just a smear campaign. It's so so exhausting. I wish advertising was more regulated. I am probably going to install some sort of ad blocking on the network level. Does anyone know about good PiHole tutorial? How can I hook it up to the router?

I also been thinking about contacting Trading Standards, but I have a feeling they are not doing anything about it. Technically those scams are not illegal in the UK. Anyone can pretend to be an adviser and they can sell any sort of pie in the sky schemes without bearing any liability.

Jesus dude just leave

You don't wish advertising was more regulated, you wish your partner wasn't so gullible.

If the poster upthread is telling the truth (and I believe he is because I have a 4 year old), your partner reasoning at the level of a 5 year old.

You're in for a world of hurt if you stay with her.

all you can do really is to teach to beware. reckon doing so won't just help with ads, but the internet in general. that "cute gal" messaging you may just be looking to butcher a pig.

> All energy drinks are sugar water Caffeine is bad for health People who drink those are addicts

wtf? how is this even related?

> If online exposure is hard from 5 years or above, there should be some level of ads education from 5 years itself

maybe we shouldnt advertise to children? my kid shouldnt need "ad literacy" while theyre learning their "abc's"

Some of the worst problem of society derive from this attitude that wants kids not being educated but be put in isolation from stuff

I would argue the opposite. Some parents now seem to treat children like small adults. 6 year old on the internet? How did this become normal?

Kids are not small adults. They need time to fully develop before they are ready to comprehend and understand "stuff".

It's less "People who drink those are addicts" and more "we've designed this product to make it more addicting to a certain subset of people who are statistically likely to become addicted to products like these"