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Comment by lynx97 | Hacker News Reader

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It's not elitist to expect people to be able to perform a google search and a couple of clicks to install an ad blocker. This level of paternalism towards adults is insulting.

The solution is making adblockers more user-friendly, not making them illegal.

Ads are categorically bad, it's not just about being "fraudulent". Their stated purpose is to manipulate people to buy things - things they didn't intend to buy before, wasting their money and our planets limited resources.

Not even just buy specific products. There are massive campaigns to support whole industries which should've failed a long time ago. Every time Climate Town digs into the history of something like this https://youtu.be/NQiLly6Z1xs it makes me angry about the advertisement as a profitable business.

Dairy industry going for school kids isn't really US specific. We have the same weird stuff here in the middle of Europe. It used to be worse in the 80s, but the milk industry is still strong with ads and lobbying. I still remember noticing the contradiction as a child. "School milk" ads at the same time as my first biology teacher explained to us that cow milk isn't really a good idea. Those are the small moments where you learn, as a kid already, that the world is full of manipulation and dishonesty. One of the thausand cuts that tells you "public" society can't really be trusted.

That is a long way from the strongest possible interpretation of the comment you're replying to. What they're saying doesn't have any bearing on your thoughts - both can be true.

> only a select few are capable of installing and maintaining an adblocker.

You mean the select few 31% ? https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users

There's no maintenance either.

Elitist? I beg your pardon? It is literally a couple of clicks and some fuddling with the settings.

Installing an adblocker is trivially easy. I just checked, and it took me 5 clicks total, and typing in "Ad blocker" in the addons search.

Tell that to my mom.

Be a good kid and install it for her.

Yes, especially if you ignore all the risks - does that solution you googled in 5 seconds steal your data after 5 clicks - it is easy

The risks of installing an add-on inside Firefox using their own Addon store?

What's Google got to do with that?

I assume parent is linking at googling being absolutely ass nowadays with sponsored links leading to malware. Then again that's not an adblock issue but an ad issue.

I wasn't talking about your personal case where a tiny browser is relevant, but a huge search engine isn't (this is the same mistake that led you to believe it's trivially easy), but about the "non-elitist" general public

It's just as easy in Chrome.

And over 30% of the population use an ad blocker. So clearly not as hard as all that.

https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users

Well not a lot of people are good at self-defense either.

Thats pretty much my point. Imagine politicians going "The world is insecure, we can't do anything about it, please attend a self-defense course to fix it yourself."

Well... You might find this read interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Sta...

You can always just use a browser that has one built in...

To paraphrase the words of the lady in the political scene: "keep your filthy hands off my computer."

I will run on my PC whatever I want and you don't dictate it I want to run adblockers or not.

I don't think anyone minds the ads. I think we all mind the tracking, data brokers, and that OUR data and OUR profile are mishandled by a bunch of greedy thugs. So yeah, cat and mouse till the end of time.

I don't know about you/others, but I prefer the thousands of books from Gutenberg (and spend my remaining years reading from the ancients) that having some bunch of a-holes trading what I like and what I won't, without my knowledge of approval.

It's the opposite, ads are what everyone sees with their own eyes and wants to remove since they interrupt consumption. All the tracking is something a small % is even aware of.

No, I mind the ads. I mind the online banner ads. I mind the ads inserted into videos from hosting platforms or from creators. I mind the ads on physical billboards. I mind the ads people wear. I want none of them.

Ah no - literally everyone absolutely *DOES* mind the ads, let's get this clear. Not sure if you're trolling or not.

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