Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users
pressgazette.co.uk
'Dark traffic' up by 49% in three years, according to new study.

They call it “dark traffic” - ads that are not seen by tech-savvy users who have excellent ad blockers.

Not surprised that its growing. The web is unusable without an ad blocker and its only getting worse, and will continue to get worse every month.

  • stoy@lemmy.zipEnglish
    43·
    4 months ago

    I have said it before and I’ll say it again.

    Adblockers are a critical part of any modern computer’s security suit, and everyone should use them.

    I won’t even consider removing mine unless the owners of a site with ads take full responsibility for any dammage to my computer coming from visiting their site with out an adblocker.

    This is due to the fact that ads can be hijacked and infect your computer with malware just by accessing the site.

    I have also experienced my browser being hijacked by clicking a link that was compromized, it redirected my browser in a loop, then opened a javascript password popup box that took all focus from the browser window and refused to go away, while the page below displayed a message that I needed to call tech support.

    It was very annoying to resolve, Firefox would by default restore any pages that was open in a tab if the browser crashed, and since the password prompt was stealing focus from the browser window, I had to kill it through the Task manager, which restored the page on start up…

    I had to create a new profile, then it it solved it

    • felsiq@piefed.zipEnglish
      18·
      4 months ago

      I don’t know if anyone reading this will ever have this problem (if you got this far without installing an adblocker, this is your wake up call - go get one now), but ctrl+W is the shortcut to kill a tab and that should work regardless site focus or popups

      • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        Unless the lovely javascript detects that you’re trying to close the tab and hijacks that to ask you if you are sure you want to forcefully tell them to fuck off and die leave the page. It’s only one extra click, sure, but I remember some from the old days that wouldn’t let you close shit. Ugh, thank god for better modern standards and adblockers.