Users don't care about ads, but users care about the things that ads fund. If publishers go out of business, users will be worse off.
Do you think the browsers should block all ads by default?
Do you think the browsers should block all ads by default?
Browsers, after all, are user-agents designed to serve the user and not corporate interests. Technology as a whole should be there to make our lives easier, not waste our time.
Publishers will not go out of business don't worry. Clickbait will die off because the cheap nasty ads that currently make it viable will disappear. Tasteful, pleasant ads tailored to the current content, negotiated directly between the publisher and the advertiser will remain, and will be harder to block because they are just content served just like the rest of the content on the page instead from a nasty ad network domain.
Resounding yes. Such a thing would be the single greatest security improvement a browser could implement. It would also completely destroy pretty much the only vector online scammers have to reach you.
Most forms of advertising are totally fine. Hell I’m even favor of targeted advertising so long as it’s targeted to the content demographics instead the literal individual following them around.
> I’m even favor of targeted advertising so long as it’s targeted to the content demographics instead the literal individual following them around
Then you might like FLoC (https://github.com/jkarlin/floc) and TURTLE-DOV (https://github.com/michaelkleber/turtledove). These are both ways of implementing targeted advertising without letting the advertiser or ad network follow you around.
Types of ads that I don't like but I won't be up in arms about from a security perspective.
* Paying for sponsored reviews.
* Affiliate links and partnerships.
* Paying promoters and influences to push your product.
* "One way broadcasts" like billboards, commercials, magazines.
* In house ads like Kroger sending you coupons based on your purchase history at Kroger.
* Corporate press events like E3.
* Paying to post on the community billboard.
* Paying have a booth at professional/enthusiast conferences/trade shows.
* Stuff like E3/NintendoDirect/PAX/BlizzCon.
* Selling air time on radio, podcasts, online videos.
* Sponsored articles/announcements on blogs/news sites.
* Native advertising a la Buzzfeed where they would get paid to write a listical "top 10 things you should order off the secret menu at Taco Bell."
* Generic direct mailings and coupon books.
* Paying employees to suggest and guide customers through the sale provided they're upfront about it. I've seen Lululemon do it somewhat tastefully on Reddit when people post topics looking for recommendations.
But ads that come from ad networks/exchanges are nothing like these while simultaneously being the bulk of what ad blockers actually block.
So I don't see it as a contradiction. The kinds of ads that ad blockers block aren't usually these and are instead are the spyware/malware kind.
(i am a user; i don't presume to know what is best for others; speaking as a user that talks to others like me; i don't need to speak about 'users' as a third party entity; i am a significant sample of the set)
At best the ad revenue is taking money away from other web business models by instituting that kind of mentality that drives people away from donations and paid accounts.
Please, consider a paid account/membership when you read the guardian, the intercept, or look for the donation page of quality content articles in wikipedia or any of the loads of blogs written by authors with patreon accounts.
Estimate how many websites you visit each month; people would need dozens of monthly subscriptions if such a system was set up.
Instead, they will rather go to and pay google news, facebook press or apple information to get all their news content. Where would money be taken away then? Content publishers.
For example, I want to disable WebRTC as it can be used to collect my IP address, or disable WebGPU APIs or anything that can be used to finger print me.
JS has far, far, far too much broad access to information that might seem mundane but can be used to profile a user.
Android is the same - you can get the entire list of installed packages on the system and various other pieces of information to build a unique, persistable tracking ID.
There's also a lack of accountability: What information is being sent to what servers? I want a detailed JSON formatted breakdown of EVERY single piece of data that is being sent from my device.
I should be able to block anything that is outside my own determined comfort zone.
But most OS' just make requests to US IP's without much thought now - just turn on Windows 10 in a VM and watch as it sends so many requests with no insight into the data, which many companies (including Google) don't tell you about.
Ask me about a recent GDPR request to Google which I just got a generic response about (and they didn't action my request to delete information, so now I need to complain to the regulator because it was also late).
So yes, blocking ALL tracking by default is sensible.