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Comment by DeIlliad | Hacker News Reader

This goes beyond Youtube. Most ads are absolutely malicious and the web is unsafe and unusable without an adblocker. The FBI themselves recommend using an adblocker to stay safe online https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221?=8324278624

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> Most ads are absolutely malicious and the web is unsafe and unusable without an adblocker.

I haven't used an ad blocker in a decade. The web is perfectly safe and usable. What do you believe makes it unsafe and unusable?

The few times I turned it off I started getting fullscreen highjacking adverts: one was convincing enough that unless I knew to tap F11/esc I wouldn't have noticed.

> The FBI themselves recommend using an adblocker to stay safe online https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2022/PSA221221?=8324278624

That's nice for them. They also recommend paying attention to what you're clicking on, as a dot point above that.

I was going to use my authority as a front line tech in a past life but I'll just link to Wikipedia : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising

I'm aware of malvertising, and have also spent time in front line tech support. Why does this make the web "unsafe and unusable" without an ad blocker?

From the Wikipedia page you linked, it's clear all vectors for automatic intrusion and traditional pop-up fakery are well blocked. Even malicious spoof sites are being blocked at record speeds on the browser level.

In addition, ads are not the only (or even the primary) method of malware delivery. At best if you think an ad-blocker makes you "safe", this is a false sense of security.

If you apply common sense, there's no scenario where normal web browsing is "unsafe".

I haven't seen any ads actually try to exploit browser vulnerabilities (although I do believe many are engaging in illegal fingerprinting attempts - see how some web sites suddenly pop up a video DRM prompt if you aren't allowing DRM by default, even though they contain no DRMed video content).

But the amount of social engineering (trying to trick users into installing malware), scams, and obvious misinfo (the "you won't believe what car Greta is driving" ads for example) is mind-blowing. Even shopping ads often turn out to be worse-than-Temu "sell the worst piece of undersized crap China can crank out, promising a money-back guarantee that turns out to be worthless" scams.

Making sure tech-inexperienced friends and relatives have an ad blocker makes a night-and-day difference in the amount of damage control and cleanup you'll have to deal with.

> Making sure tech-inexperienced friends and relatives have an ad blocker makes a night-and-day difference in the amount of damage control and cleanup you'll have to deal with.

I understand there are people who need safety rails (or shouldn't be using computers at all), but that doesn't really negate my point.

Most ads are not malicious, and the web is perfectly usable and safe without an ad blocker, providing you use common sense.

LMFAO I refuse to believe this comment was written by an actual human

Nah, the GP probably just forgot that it's polite to disclose that they're a googler working on ads.

I've personally been hit by malicious ad(s) at work. Definitely embarrassing as an engineer, especially when I wasn't looking at anything work-inappropriate (it's been ages, don't recall what I was looking for).

Google can spin this however they like, but this is blatantly anti-consumer behavior only enabled by their monopoly position. The FTC should already be investigating over this, but, alas, they seem distracted by other issues.

I've not tried Firefox in years, but this will likely be the catalyst to me switching. I assume Edge follow will follow suit (and I've no reason to see why they won't since it's chromium based).

I've switched to Firefox a couple of years ago because I was increasingly uncomfortable with Chrome effectively becoming the new IE, and honestly I find it works just as well in vast majority of cases. Now that Chrome is starting to become overtly hostile to users, I'm very glad I made the jump already.

I have never worked at Google or in any company with ad driven revenue. I have no vested interest.

I'm not sure why I need to be to think that the web is not "unsafe and unusable" without an adblocker.

People with this opinion should be legally mandated to work 1 week at a computer repair or IT position.

I've worked for decades in such positions.

Open any "news" site on mobile. Pop ups, redirect loops, 50% of the screen is unusable, ads that try to download random executables.

None of the news sites I read have that. I haven't seen an automatic download attempt in almost a decade - all major browsers block that by default and have done for some time.

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