Is there a middle ground between block all ads and each user individually white-listing sites?
Anyone which produced a curated list of "allowed" ads would hit a similar narrative.
I'd support a tool which gave me the opposite of that: I'd like to see the ads at first to give the benefit of the doubt, but then be able to blacklist the site if it turned out I didn't like them.
When I say "blacklist the site" I mean the domain I'm viewing the content on, not the domain the ads are being served on. Otherwise you're "punishing" poor sods who just happen to be using the same ad network as an abusive site.
I'm not sure any tool allows that right now. They all block-by-default and have a whitelist instead.
>I'd like to see the ads at first to give the benefit of the doubt, but then be able to blacklist the site if it turned out I didn't like them. When I say "blacklist the site" I mean the domain I'm viewing the content on, not the domain the ads are being served on. Otherwise you're "punishing" poor sods who just happen to be using the same ad network as an abusive site.
If the ads are being served from the same ad network - then you will be served more or less the same shitty ads you didn't want to see on Site A when you visit Site B. Because it is the ad network tracking you and deciding which ads you see with very little, if any, input from Sites A or B.
Furthermore, since advertisements are a security risk they should be blacklisted by default and only whitelist sites you trust. Which is still no guarantee you won't get infected by the 3rd party Ad Network of that site.
> If the ads are being served from the same ad network - then you will be served more or less the same shitty ads you didn't want to see on Site A when you visit Site B.
Not true.
> Because it is the ad network tracking you and deciding which ads you see with very little, if any, input from Sites A or B.
I don't care about "tracking". I think that's extremely overblown paranoia.
> Furthermore, since advertisements are a security risk they should be blacklisted by default and only whitelist sites you trust.
That is your opinion; I do not share it.
Regardless of what you "think" I should be doing, the simple fact is that I want a program that does X, and a program that does X does not exist.
The second statement that you separated from the first statement was to explain to you why the first statement is correct. I used some weasel words there ("more or less") because there will be some targeted ads based on A or B - but the ads served from the same ad network will be largely the same ads except when a placement ad wins the bid. That is how ad networks work. Especially Google. [0] [1]
The Ad Network tracks you and knows which ads to show you. It doesn't give a damn if you visit Site A or Site B it is going to show you the ads it thinks it should be showing you because it knows who you are. If Site A is about cars and Site B is about cleaning supplies, you may see more ads for cars/cleaning supplies on the respective sites - but any "irrelevant" ads will be shared between the two sites based on your user profile. I'm not bringing up the tracking aspect as a reason for blocking because some people don't care about that, as you mentioned you don't yourself. I'm bringing it up because it is what determines what advertisements you see - and no matter what site you visit, as long as they are using the same Ad Network, you will receive advertisements based on your personal profile with that Ad Network.
The company I work for exists to get people like you to click ads. Every large Ad Network works like this.
>That is your opinion; I do not share it.
I hope you have absolutely nothing important on your computer, are never the target of ransomware, never have any of your personal accounts compromised, etc. You're probably the first person I've ever met who doesn't care about personal security. For many people it is even a concern of financial security (identity theft) with the rise of online banking, but I'll assume you don't do any of that and you never make any purchases online.
Except Site A could be consuming only text ads, and Site B could be consuming mostly rich media ads.
Even though I'd prefer Site A, because it doesn't have those nasty takeovers or anything, if I blocked the ad exchange I'd be fucking over both Site A and Site B. Site A would become collateral damage, in effect.
Believe me, I worked for Atlas for 5 years. I know how ad networks work.
> I hope you have absolutely nothing important on your computer, are never the target of ransomware, never have any of your personal accounts compromised, etc.
So do I.
> You're probably the first person I've ever met who doesn't care about personal security.
I do care about personal security. I don't see what blocking ads has anything to do with that.
> For many people it is even a concern of financial security (identity theft) with the rise of online banking, but I'll assume you don't do any of that and you never make any purchases online.
I've never seen or heard of anybody who's ever lost any money due to an ad load. It's just irrational paranoia.
>I do care about personal security. I don't see what blocking ads has anything to do with that.
Do you have absolutely zero personal information tied to or stored on your computer? A compromised computer would be compromised security in such a case.
>I've never seen or heard of anybody who's ever lost any money due to an ad load. It's just irrational paranoia.
Look into malvertising and especially ransomware. Just because it hasn't happened to you or someone you know doesn't mean it hasn't happened. It's also happened on big name and high trafficked sites like The New York Times, Yahoo!, the Huffington Post, and more. We're talking hundreds of thousands of people who have been financially impacted due to malicious ads on otherwise "trusted" sites. Even sites that specifically requested they disable their ad blocker, like Forbes.
Have blocklists configured and activated. Then you can set a global "allow all external resources" rule, which ignores the blocklists. You can then deactivate that global rule on a per-site basis, directly from the extension menu.
What you're telling me is it's not designed around that use at all but it has a really strange and weird workaround that kind of does something slightly similar maybe...
No, how about I use an actual product that does what I actually need? Problem is: none exist. The kind of jerks who write ad-blocking programs can't even imagine a universe in which a person may not want to block every ad everywhere ever.
