Forbes asked readers to turn off ad blockers then immediately served malware | Hacker News Reader

Forbes asked readers to turn off ad blockers then immediately served malware

engt.co

23 pointsdavidgerard10 comments

I haven't whitelisted a site from ad blocking in over a year, nor will I again, this is mostly why. The only financial incentive I think we can leverage against supporters of unscrupulous advertising networks is refusing to browse their sites or view their ads.

I used to make exceptions for polite site operators who aren't needlessly rude to people who choose privacy and security, after evaluating their choice of ads. Never again. It is not our responsibility to support bad business practices out of guilt, perceived value of consumed content, disabling security features "to enable content" or otherwise. Crying that their business model is failing doesn't get any sympathy from me when it has been a problem for years.

Is there an ad network out there which you would trust to serve you content?

This is hypocritical, You still consume content. You visit websites, read content, generate traffic that cost real money in servers time. But still You refuse to pay a dime to people working hard to sell their content.

It is like going to strip club, watching but not paying tips or buying drinks even requesting special service.

I'll tip a stripper directly before I'll invite malvertising to infect my devices so she can get 5% of what her performance is worth is what I'm saying. I subscribe to services worth their salt.

And no, I wouldn't tip a stripper if she tried to break into my house, or steal my things. I've given up cable television, browsing most ad supported sites, using Windows, Twitter, FB, the convenience of hands-free voice search, et al., and I've been targeted by real state actors, and have real world concerns about security for myself and my family. For me, malware is more than merely an annoyance, I have a responsibility to protect my family. I've run advertising based businesses and have since stopped doing that. I ran my own ads for years and never once ran a campaign with a network who allowed popups, popunders, any content blocking graphic or video ad, never Flash content, and probably made a lot less money for it. I instead pay for services after evaluation, such as choosing Spotify over YouTube since the average payout to artists is more than double YT and they don't harass me with half baked marketing bullshit as a subscriber or bait-and-switch users. I deal with harassment from civilian friends nearly every time I have to say 'I don't use X social network' and miss out on some things. I rid myself of threats at the cost of losing the use of some important and expensive software I've paid for, hardware investments, friends, and years of studying my aft off. I sleep good knowing I'm not feeding that industry and I'm exercising my right to choose, one of the rights I personally fought to protect and have the scars, lost comrades, and fscked up life to match. Hypocritical... lol wtfever

Then you should not visit website you don't subscribe. Most websites do not provide a way for this kind of subscription.

You statement is also a lie because the website that posted this article serves adds. I am also using ad-block but at least I am not claiming moral high ground.

"I haven't whitelisted a site from ad blocking in over a year" where does that say HN isn't on my whitelist? Liar, lol.. where? I never made any statement about your morals, comparisons or claims that it was "right", I said it was the only option I see. So far I've been downvoted, called a hypocrite and a liar, by you. Run an ad based site with poor revenue or something? Haha

If you feel strongly about it, you can donate on his behalf.

Project Wonderful have a pretty good rep. And they're actually nice people. I unblock sites that use them.

> both are hard to get rid of. You know, like those gross toenail and skin condition ad-banners found at the bottom of every cheapo blog you've ever seen, forever burned into the "can't unsee" section of your brain.

Actually, when a blog I follow switched to Disqus-with-ads, I kept seeing the same disgusting ad every time I visited any post. I liked the blog enough to file a complaint in the hopes of something being done about it. (Disqus provides a method for doing so right in the commenting UI.) And I never saw that ad again.

Does anyone have a link to the proof from the researcher? The twitter posts and image seem to have been deleted which makes me wonder if it was retracted.

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