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Even with an ad-blocker, there are still huge cookie and "join our email list" banners. Banner blindness is just the way things go for most people. Fun little anecdote, in high school I had to work at a pizza joint but the screens where they showed the orders had a gui that looked just like a website. Thanks to banner blindness, I missed important info all the time because it was in places that brain had internalized as looking like ads. I had to really focus on it.

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Last year I was building a "Cookie Consent" banner for one of my sites. I wanted to be transparent as possible with it so I had this box come up in the corner to ask for permission, big blue button for OK, big red button (of the same size) to decline, zero dark patterns.

Looking at the analytics after the fact made me realize why these cookie consent boxes use so many dark patterns. My acceptance rate for the box was like 4%, I tossed out cookies (and the banner) in the next update.

I never click on cookie consent banners, period. It has nothing to do with me not noticing them. I just leave them where they are unless they are too intrusive. If they're too intrusive, I leave the page.

The reason that I don't click on them is because I've had bad experiences clicking on them in the past.

Zapping them with uBlock is also a good option.

True.

I've been using an old version of Waterfox until recently, when I finally had to change to a modern browser. Looking at the alternatives, I chose Firefox as the least bad of the available options. On the plus side, this means that uBlock/uMatrix is an option for me now.

Big game changer that, right-click what is bothering you and choose "Block element", then drag sliders to get it perfect. Done.

Nice, hadn't seen those sliders before. Must be a new feature.

It's been around for some time. Not sure how long, but I don't remember it ever not being there.

I still don't see those sliders. Is it something you have to enable in the preferences? Is it mobile-only or something (I don't use a browser on my phone at all, so I wouldn't know...)

I see them now with Firefox on desktop, didn't enable anything specific. They definitely weren't there when I last used the blocking feature, which was probably some time last year.

The best cookie banners have a small neutral button labeled OK to accept only required cookies and then, on the right, a happy big blue button to Accept All. Transparency!

https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/

There are cosmetic filter lists that filter out most of that stuff, e.g. Fanboy’s Annoyances.

The best way to prevent that is by disabling JavaScript. Generally, JavaScript is what enables such banners to popup and obstruct your vision with newsletter requests.

The best way is to install uBlock (or your preferred ad blocker), not to disable javascript.

Javascript is like a knife. Do I want people who know how to use a knife in my house? Yes of course. Do I want people that stab other people in my house? No. Nowadays there are tools to leave those people outside your door.

It's time to end the association between javascript and bad web practices.

I use uMatrix. It allows me to block all third party scripts by default, easily unblock them one by one if I need to, and save my changes for sites I visit often.

And well upwards of 95% of all Web users (and I'm willing to bet closer to 99%) ... will not or can not use such tools.

(I support several. Tuning sites where uMatrix or even uBlock breaks stuff is a constant chore.)

Yes, many people can't or won't use uMatrix. And yes, it's a chore to tune sites. But we live in a digital jungle, it's program or be programmed.

An answer to a systematic and institutional abuse relying on individual actions which the overwhelming majority of the population will not or can not undertake ... is inherently unjust.

I use uMatrix. I appreciate the hell out of uMatrix. uMatrix is not the solution to the present level of abusive dark Web patterns.

NoScript goes a long way to fixing this. Yes, it's a chore, but it's less of a chore than the modern web.

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