I feel like a lot of people including the big advertising companies have forgotten the three main reasons we started this ad-blocking war:
Ads are a vector for malware/bloatware/scareware/scamware. This was as true in 1998 when they were already getting bad through to today. I keep seeing fairly disgusting ads in the YouTube app that try to convince me that my iOS settings or my storage are in need of service. It's 2026, clearly this tactic is still paying off if I'm seeing it.
Too many ad platforms allow ads to very disrespectfully block or interrupt the content until you engage with the advertising. I did not come to this news website to have my access to an article about a local emergency blocked by your ad for a fucking vacuum cleaner (this happened to me in 2003 and was when I went absolutely scorched earth on ads, which I had previously tolerated as "the cost of a free website")
And of course we can't oversell the surveillance state tracking that goes into these things. Yes my phone itself is a beacon in the network and tells Apple everything they could ever want to know about me, but Apple is a large corporation and a singular target we can fight with laws. Advertisers and databrokers are smaller targets that are more nebulous, and adblocking and privacy enhancing makes their jobs more difficult and frustrates them more, and that's a good thing.
If ads weren't sleazy, were respectful, and weren't a vector to selling all of my personal information I'd be okay with them. But they aren't so I'm not.
Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker - ~tech - Tildes
https://tildes.net/~tech/1vlt/firefox_for_ios_now_has_a_native_adblocker
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Ads are a vector for malware/bloatware/scareware/scamware. This was as true in 1998 when they were already getting bad through to today. I keep seeing fairly disgusting ads in the YouTube app that try to convince me that my iOS settings or my storage are in need of service. It's 2026, clearly this tactic is still paying off if I'm seeing it.
Too many ad platforms allow ads to very disrespectfully block or interrupt the content until you engage with the advertising. I did not come to this news website to have my access to an article about a local emergency blocked by your ad for a fucking vacuum cleaner (this happened to me in 2003 and was when I went absolutely scorched earth on ads, which I had previously tolerated as "the cost of a free website")
And of course we can't oversell the surveillance state tracking that goes into these things. Yes my phone itself is a beacon in the network and tells Apple everything they could ever want to know about me, but Apple is a large corporation and a singular target we can fight with laws. Advertisers and databrokers are smaller targets that are more nebulous, and adblocking and privacy enhancing makes their jobs more difficult and frustrates them more, and that's a good thing.
If ads weren't sleazy, were respectful, and weren't a vector to selling all of my personal information I'd be okay with them. But they aren't so I'm not.
Firefox for iOS now has a native adblocker - ~tech - Tildes
https://tildes.net/~tech/1vlt/firefox_for_ios_now_has_a_native_adblocker