I personally disagree with "forward thinking" description for what AdNauseam does, hence why I disagreed when the AdNauseam authors asked me to implement hooks in uBO[1].
To me the ideal for many reasons[2] is to reduce as much as possible the number of connections to 3rd parties on any given web page.
I care about privacy in absolute terms. The difference to me, personally, between the advertisements I'm served after using AdNauseum and TMN running in a tab for 6 months vs the ads I was seeing using other blocking protocol (such as UBO and Privacy Badger) for longer periods of time have me convinced that the only way to gain any amount of privacy on the web these days is through obfuscation. I couldn't care less about page load time(as long as the hit is <500ms), bandwidth consumed or CPU/memory load on my desktop.
I hate the tracky nature of the web nowadays, and feel that AdNauseam is fighting fire with fire. UBO is fighting fire with CO2, fine unless the fire has it's own oxygen supply, which I would argue the online ad industry has in the form of copious numbers of inattentive and uncaring users.
> it automatically clicks all ads your browser encounters hundreds of times
I think it would be hard to deny that clicking every ad hundreds of times is straying into uncoordinated DDoS territory, considering the installed userbase. I don't see that as enlightened or forward thinking.
I agree with gorhill on this and would rather decrease connections to 3rd parties. After all, part of the reason the web is so slow is that browsers make so many 3rd party connections! With that in mind, my approach to ad blocking is to combine DNS blocks, MVPS /etc/hosts + my own entries, JS blocking, and uBlock Origin. This setup catches more junk and is more likely to work while transitioning or temporarily changing my setup.
I would say the goal of AdNauseam is obfuscating ad profiles. It not necessarily clicks all ads, the rate can be set in the preferences.
Personally, I would welcome similar extensions for social media, automated follows/likes/post/retweets, let facebook backup GBs of generated pictures per users for facial recognition or Gmail mine random emails. A more noble use case for lifefaker if you will.
Sites that offer paid and ad sponsored alternatives are fine. It’s sites that don’t offer subscriptions that should just change their business model, if it’s now based on intrusive tracking ads from ad networks.
And no, I don’t mind consuming contents from hundreds of ad financed sites while simultaneously wanting the majority of them to simply disappear because they could likely never sustain a different business model than ads.
There are other ways to fund content that doesn’t involve slapping a bunch of third party trackers and running retargetted display ads.
Some examples other than subscriptions would be sponsored content and creating a product such as an ebook or selling products that are related to your content.
AdNauseum essentially defrauds advertising networks. That is not the righteous path.
"Acceptable ads" allowed by default (opt-out) are inherently and OBVIOUSLY the right idea, but the acceptable ad list should be maintained by a disinterested party, not an advertiser or ad agency.
Problem is that disinterested parties are just that-- nobody cares enough to do it. Who wants to go to that effort to _allow_ ads?
One solution would be for Google and other large advertisers to fund a not-for-profit company to build acceptable ad lists, and then convince adblock addon developers to enable the lists by default through sheer benevolence.
Enforcement is easy, if they play games like AdBlock and start allowing intrusive ads, Gorhill (uBlock Origin developer) and those like him will instantly disable the lists and their entire model falls apart.
The goal is to make the web a markedly less hostile place to visit by eliminating intrusive ads while still allowing sites to support themselves through advertising.
"The goal is to make the web a markedly less hostile place to visit by eliminating intrusive ads while still allowing sites to support themselves through advertising."
That's not my goal. My goal is to eliminate unsolicited advertising.
I don't want it, and if websites have to find other, non-advertising-based business models to support themselves, so be it.
This mostly just makes it so less tech savvy users would have to be exposed to more advertisements. Even after they've gone out of their way already to install an ad-blocker.
If I'm installing an ad-blocker I want it to block all ads.
> "Acceptable ads" allowed by default (opt-out) are inherently and OBVIOUSLY the right idea, but the acceptable ad list should be maintained by a disinterested party, not an advertiser or ad agency.
That's silly. If a person is installing an ad blocker, the "obvious" thing is for it to block advertisements. You may not like it, but everybody is fully capable of making up their own mind on whether they think certain advertisements are acceptable or not.
this is purely sophistic. It is shady to block ads and sell ads at the same time, but for me at least "ad blocker" meant "stop redirecting me to crap sites while clicking on your menus".
It was about being literally unable to use some sites, I don't care about still images at the bottom of a page.
> It was about being literally unable to use some sites, I don't care about still images at the bottom of a page.
For me it's about privacy and security too, but most of all, I just don't want to see any ads whatsoever. I don't watch ad-supported TV, no ad-supported radio, no ads to my mailbox, won't use apps that show ads, and no ads are allowed in my web browser either.
Use your own definition "ad blocker" if you want to, but everybody else will see it as dishonest if a product claiming to block ads doesn't actually block ads.
mozzila is now trying to introduce non tracking ads in their browser. how are non tracking ads different from posters on the street? (minus security concern, honestly i trust mozilla on that)
When walking down a scenic street, you know who says to themselves, "What this street really needs to make it truly pleasing is more flyers and posters"? No one.
When watching TV, who yearns for more ads? No one.
This is all junk no one needs except the advertisers themselves. The rest of us don't want their garbage.
