joshchandra @ joshchandra @midwest.social

https://www.joshuachandra.com/

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Joined

4 mo. ago

I rather have them using AI to create it than having to go searching for real content.

A rebuttal to this that I've read is that the easy access may encourage people to dig into it and eventually want "the real thing"... but regardless, with it being FOSS, there's no easy way to stop it anyway... It's just a Pandora's box that we can never close.

Touché, but having the brains to do it is another matter!

Consider the decentralized family of https://trom.tf/ apps, such as https://search.trom.tf/ as a replacement (that's the only one I use of their stuff so far... but may poke around more later).

... until they keep having to dismiss people and go, "... huh." This is a marathon we're playing. You certainly don't have to use it, but I think the philosophy makes sense, especially given how AdNauseam doesn't click on acceptable ads that don't track you.

Dang, I had no idea of Portmaster! I wish I talked to you years ago and will check these out, thanks, and I fully agree with your stance as well.

Ha, this is as hilarious as it is creative. Interesting find; got any more?

To be technical, you mean "scammers," who are far, far worse.

Hmm, I thought I saw a similar picker existing in AdNauseam, but I may be wrong. I could definitely get on board with your approach; while Inspector can delete stuff, it doesn't remember them across page reloads or sessions, so this would be handy indeed!

Oh, what can it do that AdNauseam and NoScript can't?

Join me in leaving uBlock Origin for AdNauseam! I made a post about it that ended up gaining significant traction: https://midwest.social/post/25573927

omg, I'm using NoScript now and my eyes have been opened; I can't ever go back!! Thanks for the analogy; that was a much-needed, jolting wake-up call.

I was reacting to its GitHub:

This project is NOT currently being maintained. Code is made available for developers to fork. This is the FireFox version of the project, for Chrome see https://github.com/vtoubiana/TrackMeNot-Chrome.

So I'm wondering which active fork is best to go off of for Firefox. I could've been clearer; my bad.

Oops, right. For Firefox, though, it's tethered to Mozilla accounts for sync, right?

I'm also hoping to find a way to reach and use a whitelist more easily, although I suppose it's mostly one-time activation.

But I think I'm gonna go the NoScript route that someone else mentioned here, since that lets you selectively enable some JS while disabling others on the same website.

Thanks for the reminder about PeerTube... I've gotta look into that, too.

Careful: that then enters the world of ad fraud, which randos like us doing the clicking isn't considered as.

Fascinating, thanks for sharing! What is the best, current Firefox fork of this one, if you know?

You incorrectly use the term ad fraud, which addresses advertisers themselves automating clicks on their own links to generate fake income. There is nothing wrong with people-with-no-corporate-interest who click.

Oops, lol, I forgot about the date. This has existed for years.

Totally, it's up to you. The idea for fake-clickers is the long game: the marketers think they're landing clicks over months or possibly even years, but will may slowly realize (gotta account for the stubborn ones) that it's ineffective and eventually pivot to different approaches, hopefully ones that involve less tracking (I can't imagine what any worse approach could be, at least).

this will cause problems for independent website operators.

https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/wiki/FAQ#how-and-why-does-adnauseam-make-exceptions-for-non-tracking-ads

This may seem to be a legit criticism at first, but AdNauseam allows ethical ads so anyone using good, safe stuff should not get affected. There is an entire section in AN's documentation about not clicking on this specific ad group.

As for the vast majority of the rest who don't use ethical, non-tracking ads: let 'em have it! ⚔ AdNauseam users (and users of any similar tools; I don't know what else is out there) must first hold a fundamental view that the tracking world is extremely violating, of which ads are a subset. Long gone are the glory days when ads were funny, appealing, and well-made, and didn't track people; ad companies gather data on us and if they get hacked, that info flies out in the open: all without our knowledge or true consent. Is that something you're fine with? Additionally, more and more ads are proving to be entire scams, or otherwise shams that did not fully deliver, that have harmed consumers who legitimately click through.

The long-term goal is to teach those who use malicious ads that this is an unacceptable, unsustainable practice and that they need to market in better ways if they wanna keep doing this (again, going back to the pre-Internet glory days when Coca-Cola, etc. ran awesome TV ads and when there was no or nearly no account-tracking—or just any semblance of it).