5mo ago

How “test your adblocker” websites can harm users and the adblocker ecosystem

brave.com

How “test your adblocker” websites can harm users and the adblocker ecosystem | Brave

11 comments

Surprise, the company that has shady adblocking practices doesn’t want you to use a tool to compare ad blockers…
- They aren't say anything crazy in that post. But I already know that the sheep mentality and hypocrisy of the "community" only accepts the existence of the crappy Mozilla's browser, which stays afloat precisely thanks to the biggest ad company in the world.
  
  In terms of vibes, firefox and brave give off the same queezy "we care about your privicy" half trueth. Read as uncharitably as possable, mozilla gives off a neglectful abusive father vibe where brave has a potential crypto scammer vibe. Being so jumpy about software as I am, following KISS and appearing to have less unknown background machinery is comforting. (caugh I hate "safe browsing" caugh) Firefox probably in reality fails to be properly privacy focused but sells the illusion effectively, and thats a bad thing. Also defaults are powerful and now switching costs are high for me.
Seems like they are making a big deal out of nothing. This isn't one of those instances where a false sense of security is being presented. If whatever tool that the user is using to test their ad blocking capabilities isn't adequate. They will very quickly figure that out when they still get ads. How does any of this result in "Doing more harm than good"?
- if those sites are gathering information about adblockers to find ways to make them not work, they are harmful.
  
  Don't most advertising sites already do that?
  I always assumed that they did.
The colour scheme looks quite painful.
Who uses an adblocking testing site rather than just the sites they want to block ads on?
- Me when I develop something or test something with another ones tool or want a quick comparison: I don't want to use something in production for a while just to see if the basics are met.
  Those sites give me the opportunity to bomb me with all kinds of scenarios and I check what's working for me and where not.
  It's not about a few sites that I could quickly check but about patterns.

11 comments