Unfortunately not using ad-blockers is a no-go for me. Not necessarily because I’m anti-Ad but Ad networks (even vetted ones by major companies) have been well known as a security attack vector that I’m not willing to allow. Even Stack Overflow has had malicious ads sneak onto their network several times.
Even outside the security risk, most of these ad networks have tracking systems in place that I find reprehensible. It’s not just cookie tracking but more in-depth fingerprinting to try and correlate your online and offline life.
It’s just easier to ad-block everyone and not deal with them, and a lot of sites you can’t patreon with even if you wanted to. I did not agree to be tracked by your ad-network and I did not agree to have you mine cryptocurrency on my PC just because I visited your website.
You want to show me ads without targetting or tracking, then I’m good with that. Unfortunately that’s not where the ad money is (since it’s all based on data acquisition) so nope.
And this is the other piece for me as well. I run uBlock origin to not only block ads but also all sorts of scripts and things. It’s just another thing I don’t want to have to worry about.
I personally don’t use browser based ad-blockers, but I do use pi-hole as my DNS service. I have it running in a docker container in my Synology, but it can be installed in any server/raspberry pi. It doesn’t allow dns lookups of known ad services and other questionable sites. I love it and don’t even notice the missing ads now.
Also, I pay for YouTube and Patreon for most creators I follow, as well as paying for other content sites like news, magazines and such. If you are using a browser based ad blocker, I really recommend trying to get pi-hole working instead.
Yup, the worst virus I ever got came from a sight I trusted implicitly, but their ad provider let something slip through. I’ve no interest in going through that again.
I had two users at work get ransomware from MSN.com according to my anti-virus logs, so I ended up blocking msn.com. It happens to any site, even those you would never expect, so no - I block all ads, sorry people that rely on ad revenue. :(
That is my read as well. If you run a YouTube channel with content advertisers won’t touch this gives YouTube an excuse to shut you down without having to bring politics into the conversation.
@Galadin: Browser-based adblockers are dramatically more effective than pihole. A lot of the conversation about Chrome’s new Manifest v3 is that it will stop adblockers like uBlock Origin from functioning, instead forcing all Chrome users to use content blocking like Safari. And Safari-style content blocking is much more effective than a host-based adblocker like pihole too!
Don’t get me wrong, pihole is very useful and I run it myself-- to block ads inside apps.
There’s pretty much no chance of this happening. A story like this was going viral a month ago, but the original source was inconsistent in a bunch of ways and there was eventual consensus on it being a hoax. But of course on the Internet a good hoax will live forever.
If Google actually wanted to make sure nobody could adblock on YouTube, they’d just bake the ads into the video streams. That’d be simpler than trying to detect ad blockers, and would not have the massive PR hit that would come from completely disabling accounts for something that hundreds of millions of people are “guilty” of.
This. Although it doesn’t apply to YouTube, since they know anyway. I should consider not blocking there, but they’re also incredibly annoying on their timing. Assuming they don’t get content blocked.
I hope SpaceGameJunkie is commercially viable. @BrianRubin Have you prepared by getting a business or communications degree? You may need one to ensure your viability, commercially. Derp.
In my company we do something similar - using youtube as an easy repository for films we’ve made for other companies. I’m rather curious what this means? also - there are a LOT of niche videos on Youtube. Like, old danish childrens TV someone uploaded back in 2010?
Antenna TV in the sense I’m talking about doesn’t exist anymore, since the bands in question have been reallocated for cellphone, emergency broadcast, and military uses. There is, of course, “free” digital TV broadcast, but you still need a converter box to get those - no more rabbit ears.
