Online tracking and ads too - do you use any blockers?
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So what do you think about online tracking? And ads in websites? Two issues that sadly are pretty closely linked.
Personally I'm fine with ads as long as they are non moving, static images that are a link directly to the vendors page.
Tracking is another thing altogether. While I appreciate the claim that advertisers are able to give me ads that are more tailored to things I'm likely to be interested in, the truth of the matter is I rarely click on ads on purpose (not sure that I ever have actually). Also, from my understanding the claims that the more relevant ads bring them more revenue seem as far fetched as the NSA saying they need to collect all of our personal phone calls/emails, web traffic etc because it makes us safer, yet when pressured by congress they can't provide even one single example of something in the past that was thwarted because of the surveillance.
I heard about ublock orgin and have been using it for about 2 weeks now. It's much less obnoxious than NoScript (which blocks on JavaScript on a page, unblocked per domain manually) and allows me to surf the web more attuned to doing so say 5 or even 10 years ago (way fewer ads, and faster loading pages).
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A discussion was posted here a few days/weeks ago about how to monetize this forum. I definitely want to see that this forum continue to grow and at least be self sustaining financially. I hope whatever method is choosen is something that if we don't use an ad blocker on the page we won't become bogged down by tons of tracking and ad crap.
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Let me give you one example of something which is currently used right now.
Your external IP address is tracked and then looked up against a list of businesses, to work out how big you are, who you are, what industry, ect.
Then the time you spend on a paticular page is watched, if you spend 20 minutes reading about printers, you'll them get some targeted marketing about printers to your business.
Just by tracking your external IP, no cookies or invasive scripts.
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This is my IP, and unless my IP is registered with a website I control, it doesn't specifically track to me personally, it tracks to my ISP.
This is mostly blind tracking, which is something I'm fine with. This type of tracking also requires that the website you are visiting has to do something (and expense) in order for there to be any gain.
Something that grinds my gears is that my web surfing experience is often significantly hampered by the ads and generally even worse by the trackers. It's an undeniable fact that websites that employ trackers and ads will load substantially faster when those things are blocked, prevented from being downloaded.
Today ML loads pretty quick. But if ML brings in ads via something like Google Ads, Yahoo Ads, etc, we the end users will notice a difference in performance of this site. I'm just talking about ML as an example, no slight is meant here.
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@Dashrender said:
Today ML loads pretty quick. But if ML brings in ads via something like Google Ads, Yahoo Ads, etc, we the end users will notice a difference in performance of this site. I'm just talking about ML as an example, no slight is meant here.
No plans for that. There are talks of ads but only ones that would be fully integrated into the forums.
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I don't mind non-obstructive adds.
As soon as it starts to obscure what I am trying to read / review / watch etc. It gets blocked. I've used Ad-Block Plus, but recently it seems to be more of a gimmick tool than anything else.
I need to find a new one.
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@DustinB3403 said:
I don't mind non-obstructive adds.
Agreed - and the slide show pages are about the worse.
Give ublock origin a try. skip ublock, their development has apparently stalled.
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uBlock origin is great. It blocks pandora ads once you add the right filter lists, and it is easier to add custom blocking. AdBlock Plus has gotten iffy when you right click -> block element... sometimes it works, sometimes not. uBlock lets you block it all.
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@RojoLoco said:
uBlock origin is great. It blocks pandora ads once you add the right filter lists, and it is easier to add custom blocking. AdBlock Plus has gotten iffy when you right click -> block element... sometimes it works, sometimes not. uBlock lets you block it all.
My problem with uBlock has been trying to whitelist a site that is in the blacklist of one of the default lists.
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@JaredBusch said:
@RojoLoco said:
uBlock origin is great. It blocks pandora ads once you add the right filter lists, and it is easier to add custom blocking. AdBlock Plus has gotten iffy when you right click -> block element... sometimes it works, sometimes not. uBlock lets you block it all.
My problem with uBlock has been trying to whitelist a site that is in the blacklist of one of the default lists.
To me, it sounds like the problem is that you are trying to whitelist ads. (seriously, wtf???) Those sites have been blacklisted for good reasons.
I have a serious problem with the entire advertising and marketing industry. I will not watch their propaganda. Even though I am immune to it, others are not, so I install the strongest, most block-ifying ad blockers on anything I put my hands on, and encourage all others to do the same. No, I do not feel bad for not helping sites "monetize". If I ever willingly wanted to see adverts of any kind, I'd seriously need to re-evaluate my direction in life.
To those who make adverts: If there is an afterlife, I weep for the torture you all will suffer after death. You are the minions of the devil. You are a large part of what is wrong with the world (politicians are the remainder). I hope that, on your deathbed, you still feel good about your life's work.
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@RojoLoco I share your sentiments on adds but as someone starting up a website I don't know how to monetize it. Maybe paytreon? Something where people could voluntarily give me $0.10 / mth times 100 people = hosting costs covered.
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RojoLoco - are you willing to pay all of the websites you visit so they don't have to use ads to make the money needed to have those websites?
That right there is the rub. I don't mind static none blocking/interfering ads. But the advertisers know that those ads are skipped over 99.99% of the time or more.
The big 4 network stations (ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox) are all ad based stations. Of course now days the cable and satellite companies pay them too, but the majority of their money comes from advertisers. And it's a medium where it works well enough.
So I don't have an issue with their being ads on the page. But when an ad free page takes .7 seconds to download and an ad riddled page takes 45+ seconds even on 50+ Mbit/s internet connections, we have a problem.
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@Dashrender said:
are you willing to pay all of the websites you visit so they don't have to use ads to make the money needed to have those websites?
Yes. Yes I am.
This is what micropayments are perfect for
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Biggest problem with blocking ads is that ads are the most obvious, easy to identify form of marketing. Take that away and marketing must because more insidious. Instead of running a paid ad, you get vendors paying for fake reviews or for discussions about them to only be positive and everything else to be edited or whatever. Or news articles to actually be ads. Things that most people have no ability to identify.
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@MattSpeller said:
@RojoLoco I share your sentiments on adds but as someone starting up a website I don't know how to monetize it. Maybe paytreon? Something where people could voluntarily give me $0.10 / mth times 100 people = hosting costs covered.
Google is doing this as well, it's called Google Contributor. You have to pay a minimum of $5/month to have some fewer amount of ads (no clue how good the different levels are).
Boy it would be great if there was some way to have our ISP take care of this for us, yeah sure it would mean we pay a higher ISP fee, but I'd rather have that and get my faster speeds back and keep the free, errr.. I mean ad supported pages remain.
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@scottalanmiller sips on a Coke
Hmmm, that's interesting.
scratches at his knee featuring Jeans brand Jeans!
I see your point.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Biggest problem with blocking ads is that ads are the most obvious, easy to identify form of marketing. Take that away and marketing must because more insidious. Instead of running a paid ad, you get vendors paying for fake reviews or for discussions about them to only be positive and everything else to be edited or whatever. Or news articles to actually be ads. Things that most people have no ability to identify.
We have that already, so what would be different?
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@Dashrender said:
Google is doing this as well, it's called Google Contributor. You have to pay a minimum of $5/month to have some fewer amount of ads (no clue how good the different levels are).
Does this money go to the sites you visit or Google?
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@Dashrender said:
RojoLoco - are you willing to pay all of the websites you visit so they don't have to use ads to make the money needed to have those websites?
That right there is the rub. I don't mind static none blocking/interfering ads. But the advertisers know that those ads are skipped over 99.99% of the time or more.
The big 4 network stations (ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox) are all ad based stations. Of course now days the cable and satellite companies pay them too, but the majority of their money comes from advertisers. And it's a medium where it works well enough.
So I don't have an issue with their being ads on the page. But when an ad free page takes .7 seconds to download and an ad riddled page takes 45+ seconds even on 50+ Mbit/s internet connections, we have a problem.
"All those sites I visit" that aren't already subscription based (netflix, et al.) can get their scrilla from everyone else. I refuse to participate in the ad-based dumbing down of the planet. I never visit those TV sites you mentioned (fox, abc, etc), so I feel no guilt. Why should I feel bad if an industry I would see burned alive doesn't get 0.0000472% of their "due" revenue because I'm smarter than their ads?
FK YOUR ADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FK THEM RIGHT IN THE A$$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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@MattSpeller said:
@Dashrender said:
Google is doing this as well, it's called Google Contributor. You have to pay a minimum of $5/month to have some fewer amount of ads (no clue how good the different levels are).
Does this money go to the sites you visit or Google?
The sites you visit, otherwise what would be the point.
Instead of seeing an add you see some simple graphic, which apparently after a while you'll realize is the indication that an ad was not displayed, and the placeholder is there instead.
What I don't know or understand is how you're tracked so the Google ads are replaced.. do you have to be logged into chrome, does it only work with Chrome, etc???
