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Comment by dvngnt_ | Hacker News Reader

This practice has enabled scams. Many crypto sites now have a fraudulent version showing as a top result in ads which will allow the user to enter their seed phrase and empty their accounts.

at this point an adblocker is more useful than an antivirus software

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Here in Mexico we had a similar scam that ran for months, if not years. There was this site (or sites) pretending to be an official government’s passports website. It was the first link in the search result for “pasaporte mexicano”. I personally know people who fell for it, the page would ask for bank deposits to get your Mexican passport.

The page looked legit, it even had https and the url name looked fine, the only thing giving it away was that it missed the official .gob.mx domain at the end, but regular people don’t Pay attention to that. It was the first result link! And they didn’t remove it for months, amazing.

Edit: I thought that scam was removed already, but no! It’s still there, the first three links (the only visible ones on mobile) are scam websites.

https://ibb.co/PMHCQ31

Every time I get a new iPhone and forget to install an ad blocker, Safari crashes due to an ad problem and then I remember to install the ad blocker.

Which ad-blocker(s) would you recommend for iOS?

I use AdGuard. There free version is more than enough to block ads including YouTube ads.

For Safari on my Mac I use the Ka-boom extension

Firefox Focus is free, but I use Wipr on both iOS and macOS.

I use Firefox Focus, which includes an ad blocker that can be enabled for Safari integration.

It works pretty well for me, but then, I don't generally surf on my phone and only use Safari when I have clicked a link from messages or something.

I'm interested in other possible options on iOS as well, though. Hoping to see more replies.

AdGuard is pretty nice, you can also use other browsers like Firefox focus’ add blocker by installing them then turning it on in the extensions section of the safari settings.

Hyperweb is very nice. They even redirect Reddit links to Teddit so you can avoid their dark patterns.

AdGuard provides DNS servers that allow you to filter for the whole device, regardless of device type or which app you use.

Configure your home router to use it to filter for every device on your home WiFi network.

They have one set of DNS servers that just blocks ads and another set that additionally attempts to filter out adult content.

https://adguard-dns.com/en/welcome.html

It is not just crypto, it has been happening in gaming communities for a long time. Sometimes it's just fishing for more of their own page views, other times it it more malicious such as offering a trojaned game client that will steal your login details [0]. It is very cheap and easy to do because the communities are relatively small.

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/2007scape/comments/95zk30/psa_first...

My favorite search engine ad scam test query is "mapquest". It almost always returns sites that force you to install a malicious browser extension via the Chrome Web Store.

Reason why: Senior citizens go to MapQuest for directions because it's the term they associate with getting directions on the Internet.

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