The web is becoming unusable
I am having more and more trouble visiting sites I read because of advertising-related browser problems. Many sites simply kill my computer; I can barely close a browser to escape. Is this a good business strategy?
You quickly realize how much useless scripts are loaded in the page. You'll also realize that these scripts sometimes add other scripts to that page.
For example, gizmodo.com filtered by Ghostery blocks 12 trackers. When it's disabled it detects 17 trackers.
"Badly-done advertising is making the web unusable." That's better, but it still makes it sound like inanimate things are causing it.
"Advertisers are making the web unusable by trying ever-more-intrusive things to try to get us to pay attention."
But even that is only half the story, because people want to get paid for the stuff that they put on the web. You know, the parts that you're actually going there to try to find. So either someone needs to figure out how to get more money out of ads, without the ads ruining the experience (and with users desperately trying to ignore the ads, because it's not what they came for), or the model needs to change. This will probably less top-quality free content on the web.
micheleincalifornia.blogspot.in/2015/11/surviving-and-thriving-amidst-adblocker.html
The problem for news content is the same problem facing software: what if this stuff just isn't that valuable?
If it is ad-supported it is not free: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773
Advertising as a way to get paid for whatever it is you are offering people isn't very honest, a way around your product not being valuable enough that people will pay for it. If you make it feel like it is free, people will go "But if it is free, what the hell, why not?" What they do not know is you are taking more from them than if you charged them straight up.
These articles get picked up by teachers and professors for students to study via search engines.
How is it not honest?
These articles have no chance of being commercialized in current world. No one would buy them and person behind them has no means to market...no money, no knowledge in marketing...maybe that person is not interested in commercialization of his/her product and just wants to earn a buck or two for coffee on each article...
How is it not honest?
Please don't generalize and project your view onto others.
If you're not a Firefox user, https://www.mozilla.org/firefox
uBlock Origin exists for Chrome as well, but Google gets your lucky charms when you use Chrome, no matter what you configure to try to prevent it.
Info page: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
Raw file: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt
ZIP: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.zip
It's periodically updated with the hostnames of all servers currently known to serve ads (almost all ad companies are locked to using hostnames, they for some/whatever reason don't use IPs).
I see no ads. When I do, I redownload the file, and I'm all set again. It's great.
This also blocks things like Google Analytics, which I personally appreciate too. If you want to track me, your web server has an access log somewhere, and if you want a second-by-second breakdown of my activity, distill a set of functions into your site's existing (hopefully well-optimized) JS codebase.
Remember, there are things ad servers cannot do because they're pushing a product designed to serve millions of customers, not integrate with every single site architecture.
I just thought of this, too - keep in mind that these are advertising companies we're talking about here. Their job is to sell product, and their second-layer job above that is to sell their own viability. I fear that our gullibility to being sold acid rainbows has started to go too far.
My Firefox profile uses uMatrix, NoScript (scripts globally allowed), HTTPS Everywhere, and a good hosts file.
Kills 99.9% of germs.
People will pay for content - but that content needs to be worth paying for.
Email me if you'd like to participate.
http://idlewords.com/six_fixes.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/what_happens_next_will_amaze_you....
http://practicaltypography.com/effluents-influence-affluence...
Just the fact that you're right though, that we'd have a big problem if we just got rid of money, goes to show we really, really should find a way to get rid of money. Preferably without breaking everything else in the process, of course.
I bet there are firefox extensions to make a hotkey to enable JS.
Many users experience similar problems, so they are switching to ad blockers. Several sites reported 50%+ ad blocker usage, so if you're trying to view the web like other users, using ad blockers is probably fine now.
Are you a representative of the people in some way that requires you to make this great sacrifice?
Do you give up your income because most of the users don't earn as much income? Do you give up your food because some people don't have as much food? Do you refuse to study because most people know less about subject matter X than you could know if you studied it?
I run Thinkpad T61 (old, old) + Debian 7 and have 20+ tabs open in Firefox and rarely I see issues you are describing.
I have no adblocks or any other sh!t installed. I like to see ads and support people who are writing content. I know those ads are the only way they get compensated.
Just to get more information. Can you tell me which sites are firing up your second fan?
I can't even remember the last time a site did that, regularly or unintentionally with or without an adblock.