Synthead

joined 1 year ago
[–] Synthead@lemmy.ml 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

This message is displayed in the browser because Google asked your browser to do it, and your browser got the message and put it there.

When displaying ads, the end user experience is 100% client-side. You are using your screen and speakers to observe it. You can turn off your speakers and screen if you want, which will effectively "block" the ad.

But that is silly. Not only do you own your screen and speakers, but you have control of what you're browser is doing, too (if you use a respectable browser). When HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other content is downloaded, just that happened: file downloads. After it has been downloaded, your browser then consumes it.

When it is consumed, a lot happens, but ultimately, the code in the browser displays content. Your (respectable) browser does all of this, and will change the look depending on local fonts, accessibility options, etc. With an ad block add-on, it will also remove these ads.

However, when ads are removed, the DOM is mutated with deleted or replaced content. It is possible for a website to then write ad block detection scripts to see if the ad contents have been removed or not. There are many ways to do this, and this screenshot is the result of one way of doing it.

However, enter the cat-and-mouse-chase of ad block block blocks. You can block your ads, then block the ad block block like this screenshot. These types of ad block rules are less common, but many public ones are available. Check the uBlock Origin lists in the setting page. By default, only about a third of the lists are enabled, and these extra blocks are in there.

Another avenue of determining that ads were not loaded is for the server to inspect if client-side (you) requests were made to fetch the ads. Even if this is in place, the server cannot determine if you have actually watched the ad or not. It could try to do more client-side attempts at validating that you somehow displayed it, but again, that's client-side.

Imagine if you were sent a letter and a pamphlet in the mail. Imagine if the letter said that you could mail them back for a free sample of their product, but only if you read the pamphlet. They would have to trust that you read it, because you are reading your mail in the privacy of your own home. However, you could opt to toss the pamphlet (like an ad blocker) and never read it. It's your mail, your home, and your choice.

[–] Synthead@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If this is expected and everything is peachy, then why does Instacart say to not give the receipt to the customer? You don't see this as something to hide?

[–] Synthead@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Some printers detect when cartridges have been refilled by the user and are programmed to stop working then.

This is absurd. I would like to hear how this benefits the consumer without attempting to talk about "quality" or something. This would be like my car not starting cause I didn't use Shell gas.

What's more upsetting is that printers are client side all the way. There is nothing about them that needs to reach out to the Internet to print pages. The printer itself handles the "letting you print." So the thing sitting on your desk, that you own, is choosing this for you.

[–] Synthead@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I agree. That would be absurd.

However, I don't like not having the option of using HTTP if I want to use it. It's okay if the webserver redirects me, but I don't like if my browser does it when I didn't tell it to. I might want this when doing development, port tunneling, VPN stuff, etc. In most cases, it won't matter, but when it does, it will be a pain in the ass.

[–] Synthead@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I disagree. While in practice, this is often the same website, it is a different protocol and a different port. It just happens to use the same DNS address. You're explicitly giving your browser a FQDN, and it is ignoring it and doing something else.

I hope this feature can be disabled. Google has been ignoring the W3C and has shipped proprietary, insecure features in their chromium engine for a while now, so it wouldn't surprise me if they made it permanent 🤷

[–] Synthead@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For real. It's so much better to think about using the screen space you already have. People can do what they want, but I am happy with one screen, a tiling window manager, and workspaces. I can have a dozen or more things going on, and have it packed on a workspace. Fullscreen a window of I need to, then pop it back.

It's incredibly efficient. I see stuff like this, and I imagine what it's like to have text several feet away, screens covered by other screens, lots of neck fatigue, all the monitor borders... like it's truly bad. It feels like someone watched a lot of TV and "felt" that this was the best way to do it without trying it.

Butt I digress. It's not my setup. If they're efficient with it, more power to them.

[–] Synthead@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Synthead@lemmy.ml -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

How time passes. This was not the case when down-votes were there. It used to be easy to identify when videos were full of shit, even with lots of views.

This might help others. It's crowd-sourced and uses averages, but for what it "feels" like, it seems pretty accurate:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/return-youtube-dislikes/

[–] Synthead@lemmy.ml 104 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

Oh hey, YouTube has a mechanism for that! Simply down-vote the video, and any future viewers will know that the video is likely ineffective because of the visible down-vote count that Google didn't remove to make more money from advertisements. They didn't remove it because they value the health of people suffering from cancer more than money. Good on them.

[–] Synthead@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Wow, what a horrible setup.

view more: next ›