I recently removed all advertising from OSNews, and one of the reasons to do so is that online ads have become a serious avenue for malware and other security problems. Advertising on the web has become such a massive security risk that even the very birthplace of the world wide web, CERN, now strongly advises its staff to use adblockers.
If you value your privacy and, also important, if you value the security of your computer, consider installing an ad blocker. While there is a plethora of them out there, the Computer Security Office’s members use, e.g. uBlock origin (Firefox) or Origin Lite (Chrome), AdblockPlus, Ghostery and Privacy Badger of the US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation. They all come in free (as in “free beer”) versions for all major browsers and also offer more sophisticated features if you are willing to pay. Once enabled, and depending on your desired level of protection, they can provide another thorough layer of protection to your device – and subsequently to CERN.
↫ CERN’s Computer Security Office
I think it’s high time lawmakers take a long, hard look at the state of online advertising, and consider taking strong measures like banning online tracking and targeted advertising. Even the above-board online advertising industry is built atop dubious practices and borderline criminal behaviour, and things only get worse from there. Malicious actors even manage to infiltrate Google’s own search engine with dangerous ads, and that’s absolutely insane when you think about it.
I’ve reached the point where I consider any website with advertising to be disrespectful and putting its visitors at risk, willingly and knowingly. Adblockers are not just a nice-to-have, but an absolute necessity for a pleasant and safe browsing experience, and that should be an indicator that we need to really stop and think what we’re doing here.
Lawmakers in the west only do what they are told to do – usually by instructions written on the backs of very large checks… (The EU mostly limits what it does to what the United States security apparatus – that’s the deep state to many – tells it to do, so they have that problem too.)
How about we leave the government out of this? Nothing good ever comes out of government intervention.
True… apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health… 😀
I make a point not to use an ad blocker, so I can avoid the worst offending sites. If everyone with a voice on the Web sees it through an ad-free lens, there’ll be no incentive for websites to improve.
So I can attest to the fact that large parts of the Web aren’t much fun with all the ads, especially if you value privacy. So far my plan doesn’t seem to be working.
As things stand, advertising on the Web will only drive people towards more use of LLMs. At some point advertising will start to affect those too and I’m fascinated to see how that will pan out, but we don’t seem to be there yet.
“Excellent question. Let’s explore it together. Can I ask you a question of my own first though? Have you considered Kellogg’s cornflakes for breakfast? They are very nutritious, packed with fibers and vitamins. All you need for a hearty breakfast. Now on to your enquiry.”
Luckily it hasn’t arrived yet…
I think we discussed this before.
But this is once again “be careful for what you wish for” situation. Since, you might actually get it.
More and more websites have “ad blocker” checks at front. And they give two options: remove adblocker, or make an account (“so that we can track you even closer”).
Make that option illegal, and you leave only one.
“But I won’t visit any such site”
Good luck staying away from 90% of news sites then. And that is the beginning.
I don’t share your experience. On my corner of the Internet, the 2 options most sites offer are: 1/ accept targeted advertising 2/ pay for content. When the sites are ones I visit regularly, I usually don’t mind option 2, which means an ad- and tracked-free experience.
And indeed, having an account on a site doesn’t help them track you “even closer”, as they only get to know what you do under their domain names. This is why they need ad companies to actually profile you: since these have trackers all over the web, they have far more information than any single company (that’s not actually in the business of profiling people) could ever hope to have. So, paying for content AND keeping the ad-blocker globally active is how one can work towards a better web.
worsehappens,
Actually paying is of course preferable.
Though, with the current state of things, it might lead you to have 20 different small subscriptions you have to manually track.
I know I am old, but I miss the old web. Not the blink tags, mind you, but those sites made by people that had something to show/say/teach/ask, not by people that want ad revenue.
When searches for the right keywords landed you into interesting sites and not into ad-ridden SEO optimised junk yards with no interesting content at all.
Social networks are even worse. This is such a failure of what was something awesome. It just saddens me.
Such sites are still around, it just takes a lot more effort to get to them. Maybe it is time to resurrect “Web Rings” of the old days to make it easier. 🙂
I hate to be so pessimistic, but even something like a new webring paradigm will eventually fall victim to injection of “AI” generated garbage filler sites designed to push more ads. The only solution I’ve seen that might be worth exploring is the so-called “small web”, things like Gemini and the various federated social media platforms which seem to be gaining traction among us GenX’ers and nerds, taking us back to those halcyon (and on and on) 90s cyberspace days.
Morgan,
Bring back geocities for the win 🙂
Good news, they already did!
https://neocities.org/
Morgan,
Oh joy! I should see if I can find my old pages and put them back up. Not sure if they allow arbitrary javascripts, but I built some pretty neat effects using javascript. The very sort that people love to hate, which makes it perfect for a site like that 🙂
Morgan,
That is actually pretty neat. Signed up for old times sake.
I wish they’d gone with a different name than Gemini, and especially using “capsule” as its name for a website.
It makes it unnecessarily difficult to find information on it if you don’t already know what it is.
Thom mentioned it in a different post. I hadn’t heard of it and had no idea it was an internet protocol, so it took a while to find results that weren’t the NASA program.
Drumhellar,
They will probably have to drop the name Gemini, as Google’s AI is using it, and that is the first thing that now comes to mind.
Huh? Do they mean there are still people not using adblockers? I never see any ads anywhere. If I cannot block ads on some app, I don’t use the app, that’s it. And of course I don’t pay for any subscription.
Anyone willing to use ads for revenue, is not worth paying a penny to.
I laude osnews for making the right choice, though I doubt it’s going to be viable in the long run.