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Comment by zahlman | Hacker News Reader

>prevent your browser from requesting the advertisers' JavaScript code. Your browser not only won't show the ads, it won't run the code that was supposed to show them or even send a request to the advertisers' servers.

Incidentally, just blocking JavaScript with NoScript kills quite a lot of ads (obviously, not first-party ones if you've white-listed their JavaScript for site functionality; but I try to avoid that when there isn't real demonstrated value) without any need for an explicit ad blocker.

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NoScript is indeed very effective at blocking tracking, but it also breaks a lot of websites.

If that is an acceptable compromise, you could also try ditching the Internet altogether, as that not only blocks all online tracking, it also blocks a lot of fraud, misinformation and all kinds of harmful content.

That’s always my problem with NoScript being suggested. For some people who consume stuff off RSS feeds or static sites and Wikipedia that probably works. But for literally anything more than that you can’t do that.

It's not about living like a caveman. You can enable 1st party JS without JS from 20 ad/tracking hosts.

> But for literally anything more than that you can’t do that.

You literally (actually literally) can.

> NoScript is indeed very effective at blocking tracking, but it also breaks a lot of websites.

Sure, images may no be present without JS lazy-loading them. Accidentaly, NoScript also fixes a lot of websites. Publishers are often paywalling posts via JS and initial HTML is served with full articles.

Except for non-negotiables (eg: bill paying, government websites, etc.) a website that fully breaks when blocking js is just a worthless site which is not worth my time.

Anubis (https://anubis.techaro.lol) requires Javascript and is required to view some otherwise static websites now because AI scrapers are ruining the internet for small websites.

Next release will have a no-JS check: https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/configuration/challeng...

AI scrapers are a weak excuse for slapping on malware on your website.

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