The Internet

[Achtung Englander]

Internet advertising is getting out of hand. So many pages have almost half or more than half of their real estate taken up with advertising and crap.

YouTube without an ad blocker is reaching a point of becoming unwatchable with ad break every 2 minutes.

If its bad now, what the hell will the web be like in another 10 years from now

Note to self in 2030 (if I am alive) - dig up this thread

[Rossell]

It'll be like times square.

[Mantis]

Now's probably not the greatest time, but seems relevant. The forum is actually going to be swapping over to an ad revenue based format in the new year to cover the rising server hosting fees.

Happy 2021!

[Raid]

Can we not just donate the server fees? There aren't a great many sites I'd happily pay to avoid adverts on, but this is definitely one of them. I've honestly no idea how much hosting a site like this costs.

[Sly Boots]

Same

[Mantis]

That may have been a wind up.

[Raid]

Well, now you've forced it because I've changed my mind and won't be donating because you're a bastard. Nyerr.

[Sly Boots]

That may have been a wind up.

Too subtle for me

[Mantis]

Well, now you've forced it because I've changed my mind and won't be donating because you're a bastard. Nyerr.

Well jokes on you, because I haven't asked for any money for the last three years. So nyer... wait...

Incidentally, more to the point, Achtung asks what the internet will be like in the next ten years. For me, I imagine it will largely be the same, as I religiously use adblock extensions on everything. Sometimes I watch Youtube on my TV and it's a reality check when I have to watch an ad every 15 minutes. But 90% of the time I completely avoid them as I utterly loathe not being able to access content that I want to see whilst being bombarded with things that direct you away from it when you inevitably accidentally misclick.

I think ads actually have the opposite effect on me than their intended effect. If you shove something in my face when I'm trying to look at something else it makes me resentful and even less likely to ever buy your thing.

[Raid]

In all seriousness though, yeah, there are some sites that are just horrendous if you don't run an adblocker. Eurogamer is my go-to gaming news site, and I'd rather click away the popup asking me to disable my ad blocker on every single page load rather than have 50% of the page taken up by ads that noticeably reduce the speed of my browser (and I'm running this on a pretty beefy PC).

Honestly I feel kinda shitty about it; these sites rely on ad revenue, but the solutions they're finding are so utterly overbearing (I know for a while Eurogamer had auto-playing videos with sound - I think they rapidly got removed after reader backlash) that I either use an adblocker or I don't use their website - either way they're not getting anything from me.

I don't know what the solution is really. I would be willing to pay small fees for certain sites that I use a lot, but I don't want a hundred tiny subscriptions that each have their own cancellation methods and individual appearances on my bank statement.

[Animalmother]

What is the best adblocker these days anyway? Most websites now won't run unless you disable whatever you have running. My solution for YouTube is to use DuckDuckGo and watch videos through that site, it stops the ads from playing, mostly.

I'm actually amazed games like Fortnite don't have ad breaks between the rounds since the age demographic is more accepting of that shit. If VR gaming really takes off prepare to be eye ball fucked into oblivion by adverts.

[Mantis]

I use uBlock Origin on Chrome and pretty much nothing gets through.

[Maturin]

I use a combination of AdBlock Plus and NoScript on Firefox. It's amazing how many scripts run on sites that you just don't need. Noscript acts as some extra insurance.

Also, I use them everywhere - even sites with less intrusive adverts can potentially carry exploits so I don't take any risks. For casual internet browsing I don't see the logic in willingly leaving the door ajar, even for sites I really like.

[Animalmother]

I do use Privacy Badger on Firefox which is pretty good at stopping trackers and such.

[Abs_McBain]

Another +1 recommendation for uBlock Origin for Firefox on both desktop and Android phone. Yes, ad block on your Android smartphone.