Perhaps only enables js when user clicks something.
setTimeout(() => {
// fuck up all future javascripts
setTimeout = setInterval = requestAnimationFrame = () => {};
Element.prototype.appendChild = () => { throw new Error("Blocked"); };
document.addEventListener = () => {};
window.addEventListener = () => {};
Object.defineProperty(document, "readyState", { get: () => { throw new Error("No JS"); } });
document.write = () => {};
// fuck up canvas
if(window.HTMLCanvasElement) HTMLCanvasElement.prototype.getContext=()=>null;
// fuck up webgl
if(window.WebGLRenderingContext) window.WebGLRenderingContext.prototype.getParameter=function(){e=>{throw new Error("Blocked")}};
// fuck up webgl2
if(window.WebGL2RenderingContext) window.WebGL2RenderingContext.prototype.getParameter=function(){e=>{throw new Error("Blocked")}};
// fuck up websockets
window.WebSocket=function(){e=>{throw new Error("Blocked")}}; window.EventSource=function(){e=>{throw new Error("Blocked")}};
// fuck up popups
window.open=()=>null;
// ...
}, 500); const iframe = document.createElement("iframe");
document.body.append(iframe);
iframe.contentWindow...By farbling I mean making the data look like it's the most common Windows configuration, for example.
You will have messed up layouts and unneeded quirks. Moreover, banks are using fingerprinting to detect fraud so you will have a hard time on those websites as well.
And more importantly.
I have been thinking about some kind of render proxy that runs all the JS for you somewhere else in a sandbox and sends you the screenshot or rendered HTML instead. Or maybe we could leverage an LLM to turn the Bloated JS garbage into the actual information you are looking for.
That’s a pretty crazy statement. How often do you see loading a CSS stylesheet fail to load? Most sites are completely unusable without their stylesheets and I don’t recall the last time I saw a stylesheet fail to load.
Often. It might have something to do with my adblock settings though...
> Most sites are completely unusable without their stylesheets
Those sites are generally completely trash anyway.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/22/fbi-ad-blocker/
https://web.archive.org/web/20230219020056/https://www.ic3.g...
Malware is absolutely distributed through ads. In the case of more reputable ad platforms that don’t allow arbitrary scripts, it’s by linking to malware, but they’re also used to serve drive-by exploits.
> You have higher chance of getting a malware from `pnpm add` than seeing an ad on the web.
If you’re a normal computer user who browses the web without an ad blocker and never runs `pnpm add`, the relevant chance is a little different. (Fun side fact: current pnpm wisely doesn’t run install scripts by default.)
Ads are basically running a program they wrote on your computer. If there’s any exploitable feature in your browser’s JS sandbox, count on someone sending you an ad that will exploit it.
Banks, Defense, etc.
Do your part.
Of course highlighting this fact that the presence of an adblocker is detectable, unfortunately only results in escalating the cat-and-mouse game further.
I have also considered popularising a script that replaces the whole page's content with "JavaScript detected, please disable it to view this content and improve your security".
This is exactly what most dark net markets do.
Whether it is technically enforceable in your particular case may be the question. But historically, it has been enforced outside the EU.
As you live in the Bay Area - the CCPA and the CPRA, which are similar in many ways and seem to require an opt-out mechanism (e.g. if you operate a commercial website with >100k devices accessing it during a year).
Talk to a lawyer, don't take advice from strangers on the internet.
And attention and privacy.
This notice is a great idea.
I might remove the "like" from the notice, since "uBlock Origin" is good, but some others are questionable or even outright malware.
BTW, note that the `ublockorigin.com` Web site that is linked to isn't by Raymond Hill, leader of uBlock Origin. It looks well-intended, and is nicely polished UX, but good practice would be to be careful (since it doesn't appear to be under Hill's control, and is an additional point of potential compromise in what would be very valuable malware). Hill seems to operate from <https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock>. One link that isn't too bad to view <https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/README.md>. Another that isn't great but OK is <https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki>.
As for YouTube, blocking their ads is basically a part-time job at this point. On the desktop it breaks once a month, on Android NewPipe stopped working recently, and soon you won't be even able to install third party clients.
90% of my YouTube use is on my smart TV. There's not really a straightforward way to block ads there. Used to be many years ago that a PiHole or similar would work, but they clued onto that years ago.
It periodically has issues loading videos when Google change something, but the app gets updated every time within a day.
I spend less in nominal terms, let alone inflation terms, for my tv entertainment now than I did 20 year ago, even with Disney, Netflix, bbc, Paramount and YouTube subscriptions.
I use uBlock Origin, plus I've configured my Firefox to open YouTube always in a dedicated container, that logs me out of any Google-related stuff as I never upvote or comment anyway. Browsing YouTube anonymously might have helped.
I'm surprised they haven't gone for the "refuse to serve the video stream for 20 seconds or however long the ad would take" card yet, although it's probably a matter of time.
If that happens to you, this thread [1] is sometimes updated with manual workarounds that sometimes work:
www.youtube.com##+js(nano-stb, resolve(1), *, 0.001)
www.youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.web_enable_ab_rsp_cl, false)
www.youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.ab_pl_man, false)
||googlevideo.com/videoplayback$xhr,3p,method=get,domain=www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com/watch##+js(set, ytInitialData, undefined)
I would gladly pay for an independent alternative but I will never pay for Youtube Premium on principle [1]. If these workarounds stop working I'll just use third party clients all the time, I already use SmartTube on TV.
[1] If I give you my money, I want you to respect me as a customer. Google will continue tracking me, abuse my personal information, and almost certainly re-introduce ads at some point in the future in pursuit of infinite growth. It's never going to be enough, the only winning move (with them) is not to play.
Thanks, that explains a lot, why i sometime have trouble with youtube, while having perfectly fine internet connection.
I sat on calls with teachers at my previous job and they had no extensions installed. My own sister (a milennial) wasn't aware. Before that, I was at a place where devs could join UX interviews; it was even worse given the generational divide: older folks couldn't even tell when a link was obviously malicious.
We either install good browsers/extensions for our relatives, or let them be easy prey to the current state of affairs.
How people put up with ads is a complete mystery.
There is an unwritten social contract here. Websites are willing to host and organise a vast number of content because that'll attract an audience for ads. If there are too may freeloaders resisting the ads then services won't host the content, and on the path to that the freeloaders are really just leeching off a system in an entitled way (unless their goal is to destroy the services they use in which case good on them for consistency and for picking a worthy target).
If people aren't going to be polite and accept that contract then fine, enforcement was always by an honour system. But strategically if a service's social contract doesn't work for someone then they shouldn't use that service - they'd just be feeding the beast. They should go make their own service work or investigate the long list of alternative platforms.
If the ad was delivered without cookies and without tracking, as just a stationary gif, I'd be more okay with it.
But without tracking, back in 2008/9 ish before the real estate crash, the Simpsons made a reference to the dancing cowboys ad for selling mortgages. These were the adjustable rate mortgages that went sky high shortly after closing on the house.
https://trailers.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/1f73a011-858b-418b-940...
The technical details do not matter. Social contacts are about societal expectations, not about your personal ones. Do you think a thief has a meeting of the minds about not stealing something from a shop keeper? It's not the theifs world view that matters here. Similar to your example the physics of the world say it's possible for a human to pick up an item without paying for it, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
Or (back on topic) when I'm watching cable TV and they send an ad over the wire. There's no societal expectation that I watch that ad. I could hit the mute button. I could get up to take a piss or grab a beer. I could record the broadcast and watch it later, fast forwarding through the ads.
This is not like a store where there's a clear societal expectation that I don't go in and rob them. I don't think anyone would equate leaving the sofa during a commercial with robbery.
Yes, there is. If you had a group of 100 people and asked what google.com should look like and showed them how Chrome renders the page and your 80x24 modification does that all 100 would say that yours is not expected. You are still too hung up on these technical details of how things are implemented than how the average person thinks of these things.
There is no more honour involved as when someone pays the mob for protection. I strongly reject this argument. I am bound by honour but they can do anything and change the contract unilaterally? Fuck them, that’s no contract at all.
And there is no alternative to YouTube, for example, including for videos that were uploaded before they went completely overboard with ads.
So no, I am not giving up on my ad blockers.
Mega corporations that have been sucking up personal data for a couple decades now are not people. There is no social contract with them. They just sell your data.
If you know what they are doing, know how to block it, and refuse to, you are complicit in making the world a worse place. Corporations are not people that should be treated with the respect you are talking about.
The reality is very much the opposite, they're about maximising revenue for monopolies. I see no social contract here.
IMHO this is a very wrong take. Mega corporations are people. Demonstration: nobody goes to work at Google for a while. Everything stops, technical stuff and non technical stuff. No people, no corporations, small ones and large ones.
The trouble is the ad-blockers will block their ads as well. Visit somewhere like John Gruber's Daring Fireball site which has the least offensive ad placement possible yet his adverts are still blocked.
* Autoplay videos that preemptively take my bandwidth.
* Autoplay audio that takes over my speakers unexpectedly and interrupts other things.
* Forms of pop-ups that clutter or disrupt my tab/window control.
* Being spied-on by a system that tries to aggregate and track all of my browsing habits.
* A mostly unaccountable vector for malware and phishing sites.
* Just a genuinely horrible experience whenever a page is one part content to three parts blinking blooping ever shifting ads that would make Idiocracy blush.
They try to pretend customer resistance is just over the most innocent and uncontroversial display of ads, but it's not true, and it hasn't been for decades.
The actual freeloaders are the ISPs, because they don't share the profits with the networks they provide access to.
In a better world, Browsers would all be peer to peer, and share their caches end-to-end, with verifiable content hashes, so that websites don't need to provide the majority of bandwidth.
But here we are, Google not giving a fuck because they actually like being a monopoly that does not need to create a healthy ecosystem because everyone involved is paying them anyways. With resources, and with money. Who would have thought?
Their behavior is abusive, and our behavior is self defense.
Let the ads networks do the hard work of 1) cleaning up their act, and 2) rebuilding trust before you worry about your end of the social contract.
[1]: https://www.pcmag.com/news/fbi-recommends-installing-an-ad-b...
The context is that the courts have found Google holds two illegal monopolies within the online adtech market [1], the remedy for which has yet to be determined. Furthermore the DoJ has sued Meta for holding one as well and that trial is now underway. [2]
I don't know about you, but to me, if the counterparty breaches a contract, that contract is now null and void. Same goes for a social contract, and if someone tries to kill me or rob me, whatever social contract we may have had, is now null and void.
Fortunately Google and Meta aren't actually taking hits out on anyone as far as I know, but the fact remains that the market makers for these online ads, are either outright convicted criminals, or being sued by the government for such. I don't see that we have any social contract to respect or allow any of this. It is right, just and moral to oppose the very existence of online advertising in my opinion, until the illegal abuses are corrected.
If the court has resolved that Google's breaking the law, how about we get an injunction ordering them to halt their ad tech business until the remedies are implemented. Why are we going so easy on them?
You don't owe crooks anything, neither do I.
This isn't about being cheap or breaking a fair deal. It's about asking that law and order be restored within American business and society. What's the point of this society, what moral justification does it have to exist as it is, if it keeps on breaking its own laws to protect the most powerful?
Now it's unfortunate that publishers (websites) get caught in the crossfire of this, they might not agree with me when I say you should oppose all online ads full stop until the problem is corrected, but they are getting screwed by Google and Meta and they would be more than happy to see justice done.
[1] https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/04/18/court-ruling-agains... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTC_v._Meta
They're totally right of course and my question is - how bad would all this be if the biggest ad market maker wasn't an actual literal convicted-by-multiple-courts criminal with the second biggest market maker not far behind? What if these guys had just followed the existing laws that are on the books?
Well I don't know but I bet it would be better somehow and the only way to find out is to finally start enforcing the law.
I'm sure ads would be better somehow if there were fewer criminals involved. One obvious theory is that Google is underpaying the publishers and the publishers have resorted to dirtier tricks in response. Another is that Google implements stuff everyone else hates because hello monopoly, where else are you going to go? Maybe the lawbreakers cause the slop.
If ads weren't profitable, you wouldn't find no results for your search about which kitchen knife to buy, you would would find better, less weaponised, more relevant results. If you don't block ads then you are directly contributing to a world with more ads and less content.
Ad networks have been that invasive since the early 2000s. They now only support more channels. It is a stone old business and literal the source of Google finances for a very long time.
And the reason that business model is viable is because people don't realize how literally valuable their attention is. And most people also think they're not heavily affected by advertising. Sites are actively exploiting this to deter competition. I would not be, in the least bit, sad to see this state of affairs end.
An advert is an investment: someone pays money to broadcast something and hopes that will generate awareness. Any investment is allowed to fail.
You know what's even uglier? The notion that because I got access to a bit of your free content, I should then be completely fine with utterly pervasive, deeply granulated parasitic tracking, measuring, watching, spying and recording of as many of my habits as possible. This is a sick notion, an idiotically, disgustingly fucked up concept of fairness and those who subscribe to it are either deluded or neatly entrenched in earning from it.
No, nobody has any "right" to expect people to submit to utter surveillance because that person created content that they can't get enough people to pay for directly. I'd rather see any sites on the web that can't sustain themselves without such ad garbage burn and die than make it somehow punishable to evade their shitty cookies and other trash.
With that said, unlike many on HN comments, I also don't think ads should be banned.
Those are the reasons tracker blockers were created in the first place. Advertisers went too far and now they lost control and weep.
My privacy, attention and digital security is not worth sacrificing for those greedy, unregulated people.
Literally nothing prevents a blog from having static images for sponsored content. Yet, nobody does it.
For instance, I'm fine with video creators having sponsored sequences because I can skip them if I want. And there's no way for them to know if I watched the ad. In fact, they don't care because they already got paid.
And yet, HN (a text-based website) has advertising. It is a small headline in the list. Do people block this? I don't, and I am quite an adblocking person.
I actually believe billboards are a net minus for public safety. Just like you wouldn't want all kind of unnecessary traffic signs.
That day instead, when i opened the page 3-4 other pages opened as soon as the website loaded, all serving loud and obnoxious virus alerts, porn and some other crap. But how? I disabled popups a long time ago.
That day i found out about self-clicking ads. That day i installed an ad blocker.
It is THEM that have broken the social contract. Screw them and screw ads.
(good thing that i wasn't on dialup anymore. Anybody remember that? scam sites that would make your dialup bill go up crazy, as if you were calling a courier's help line)
At this point I’d prefer it all to disappear entirely along with the content that “can’t exist” without it. I’m pretty sure we’d be ok.
[0] Sounds dramatic, but it’s basically true.
That hasn't been true for decades. In a way the race to bottom has already finished, we are at "100% clickbait" stage. I checked it very carefully and both Android build in "news" page and Microsoft's equivalent in Win11 Weather&News Widget are just that.
It's also deeply paternalistic: Even if it is meant well - and I assume that's the case here - it implies the site operator knows better than the user what is good for them.
Finally, this will also lower the guards of less technical users for installing random plug-ins on website demand.
From a subjective gut feeling: Please do not do this. Let people decide what they need, and what they don't need.
[1] https://home.cern/news/news/computing/computer-security-bloc...
We do not have to feel guilty to act against them.
Btw, yesterday Chromium told me Ublock Origin is no longer supported. Well, thank you, now I know why I wasn't using Chromium for anything other than MS365 stuff. It's working just fine on Firefox.
Before that point I'd already stopped that limitation, but there might be an easy solution: get a domain added to a common block list used by DNS based blockers. If you get the right content from a resource on a host with that name, show the message.
If course there will be false positives if the page goes down or if they're is some other network issue, but no test like this will be perfect.
Anyone want to save me the research to find out the easiest way to get a domain on the lists? I have no objection to sacrificing a few £ per year on a name to use and the pile of tiny requests that'll go through because people aren't running a blocker.
It's like a leech, and they want you to think it's a symbiotic relationship.
WD-42•6h ago
omoikane•5h ago
Instead of adblockers, I remember sites that are user hostile one way or another and just avoid those sites. Those sites that are heavy on ads usually aren't worth my time anyway, so the presence of those auto-playing videos in every corner ends up being a signal for me to go somewhere else.
giveita•5h ago
GuB-42•5h ago
I wonder if they actually watch the ads on purpose, even in private or if they turn their adblocker off just for the video, as not to give ideas to their viewers and potentially losing ad revenue.
creatonez•5h ago
The chance that he was using one the whole damn time? 100%
zem•4h ago
WD-42•5h ago