How to sink Twitter, Facebook/Meta and Google in weeks. (posted in GD, Computer Help and Support)

[usonian]

EVERYONE GET AN AD-BLOCKER.
THESE ARE ADVERTISING COMPANIES, PERIOD.

(AND DONATE TO D.U.)

For everyone?
Opera Browser, on whatever platform you can get it, blocks ads.

For Windows users:
uBlock Origin ( https://ublockorigin.com/ ) works on
• Chrome
• Firefox
• Microsoft Edge, and
• Opera

LINUX
Sourceforge says:
https://sourceforge.net/software/ad-blockers/linux/
* uBlock Origin
* Adblock Plus.


For Mac Desktop Users:
• uBlock Origin, on Firefox and Safari

For Mobile Safari Users:
• Purify ($2) https://www.purify-app.com/. ( I paid to support the developers )
• Ka-Block! http://kablock.com/
• AdBlock Pro https://adblockpro.app/ ( free, don't subscribe to extras ) Also has a Mac Safari version.


Android Users:
Best info I could find (add your preferences in replies)
https://joyofandroid.com/best-android-ad-blockers/
They favor
• AdGuard - Free
• AdBlock Plus For Samsung Internet – Free, and
• Block This! – Free

NOTES:
I don't use them, but Twitter, FB and Google Apps are traps, and probably prevent you from blocking ads, ( except by advanced means such as VPN, and DNS blocking. )

Advanced users may want VPN and DNS blocking, but this post is for "Keep it Simple" users.


EDITORIAL CONTENT:
Musk should stick to things that he has lots of experience with, such as exploding cars that take hours to extinguish, and running into pedestrians and buses with his self-driving software.

WARNING
Doing so may negatively affect the California economy.

Corrections and additions are welcome.

[CousinIT]

1. I use Ublock Origin + DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials. n/t

[Simeon Salus]

2. I had not tried Opera, but like it a lot.

Much faster than the relentlessly cookie-clogged browser I have been using.

I'll test it out. Thanks very much for the suggestion.

[usonian]

3. My brother uses Opera. On LINUX!

Not the techie at all. He just got fed up with windows updates that trashed his settings and stopped peripherals from working every time.

Tech note: IIRC, Opera is built on the chrome engine, so chrome plugins work. I recall that it has a VPN of sorts, not real fancy, but good for spoofing location. Correct me if I am wrong. It has been a while. I've been using Firefox, and I'm getting tired of nags.

Lately, even Ubuntu has a nag in the apt app installer, raising hell with users.

[Simeon Salus]

5. I was using Firefox for years but now it's practically useless to me.

Reverted to Safari, which I loathe. Was considering Chrome, but Opera seems like a workable solution. I'll test it for a week or two.

Thanks again!

[Conjuay]

6. used opera

for years. Now you tube has figured out how to get ads past opera. firefox w/ duck,duck,go seems to work okay in that regard.

[ForgedCrank]

4. If I may

add to this:
for facebook users, there is a browser plugin called "Facebook Purity" that I have been using for quite a few years that will kill off most facebook ads. It is a continual battle as facebook changes the code sometimes to circumvent it, but when the author fixes it, it auto-updates and the ads go away again. The end users doesn't have to do anything. It also gives you a ton of control over what you want to see or hide in facebook.

[wackadoo wabbit]

7. Firefox + the NoScript add-on will work, too ... n/t

[Lancero]

8. Chrome is going to be heavily restricting Adblocker functionality next year.

So it's not really a good option now. Frankly, neither is anything Chromium based given the significant role that Google plays in its development.

[Wednesdays]

9. K&R.

[burrowowl]

10. K&R! Great suggestions

[Sympthsical]

11. I blend Ad Block Plus with uOrigin on Firefox

Works a peach with just about everything.

And you can just flick it off with a button for a page you want to support or can't read unless it's turned off.

The main amazingness of the system is no YouTube ads. A few months back, my partner - who is not computer savvy - bought a new PC and I saw him sitting at his desk sitting through YouTube ads. It was like he was living in some horrifying internet dark ages. Fixed that one up real quick. He had no idea you could block it all.

We've been together how many years? It's like I didn't even know him.

[Takket]

12. Those don't work on twitter

Twitter doesn’t have ads as you know them on DU. they have “promoted tweets” which are tweets they put right in your timeline. So things like ublock, which I use, don’t know a promoted tweet from a normal one.

[usonian]

13. Thanks for the info. I don't use twitter.

I'll post a "few" reasons shortly.

[brooklynite]

14. Other than annoyance, why do you object to ads?

DU gets ad revenue from exposure to non-contributing members.

[usonian]

16. Advertising is a poison.

In my post, I exhort users to contribute to DU.
NOTHING IS FREE
Your internet costs plenty. What do you get? A wire.
None of the (exorbitant, monopoly or duopoly) money goes to creators. IMO, it should.

When services are free, You are the product.

I used the internet before it was an internet, or a "dot com" world.
It was research and general discussion (netnews)

George Monbiot says it better than I could.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/24/advertising-poison-hooked

Advertising is a poison that demeans even love – and we're hooked on it

A MUST-READ

As a techie with an altruistic bent, I really dislike the use of technology to coerce people.
I was strongly influenced by the writings of Lewis Mumford: "The Myth of the Machine", "The Pentagon of Power", "Technics and Human Development" and so on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Machine

Also by Bucky Fuller, trying to create more efficient and usable things.

And not by Henry Ford, https://allthatsinteresting.com/henry-ford-nazi

The dark truth of Henry Ford's Nazi sympathy and anti-Semitism looms over his legacy as an influential American industrialist.

By "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" by Ted Nelson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Lib/Dream_Machines

And lately, by Jeff Hammerbacher's essay in Businessweek, April 2011.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-04-14/this-tech-bubble-is-different

After a couple years at Facebook, Hammerbacher grew restless. He figured that much of the groundbreaking computer science had been done. Something else gnawed at him. Hammerbacher looked around Silicon Valley at companies like his own, Google (GOOG), and Twitter, and saw his peers wasting their talents. "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads," he says. "That sucks."

NOT TO MENTION, that as a physics major, physics was used to create the deadliest weapon to date. Regardless of where you stand on that matter, it was used on two civilian targets, NOT on the emperor's palace, not on an isolated spot as a display of force, nor any military target, making it a war crime in my own conscience.

It's not the technology, it's the application by either kind people, nutballs, or people WHO CAN'T SELL A DAMN THING (Yes, things have a price, and I pay for good things) and resort to the lowest form of income generation, a sandwich board.

Untargeted ads are useless time and bandwidth wasters
Target ads are surveillance capitalism

Lose-lose proposition.

[brooklynite]

17. The "poison" goes back more than 2,000 years...

I'm not an anti-capitalist, and I can pay attention to or ignore advertising as is appropriate.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. ad blockers can produce their own problems

Various sites detect you're using one, and refuse to serve you a page until you've disabled it.

It would be simpler to advise people who want to sink Google etc. "don't use them".

But the thing to realise is that 99.999% of the world will never see your message, because DU is a tiny corner of the internet.