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That argument only holds if the ads have an effect - i.e. they make me spend money on some service or product. If I am presented for a hundred ads in, say, Thai, it is just a waste of bits and pixels - it makes no sense to me. It is just garbage. So I want it off my screen.
Same with US companies selling US products/services on the US market: Even though I can read the English words, I would never have any reason to react to the ad. So it is garbage, in a similar way.
You could say "But the news site gets paid for throwing a pile of garbage on your doorstep" - it is none of their business that it is of no intererst to you". Nevertheless, all that garbage annoys me. I can't even consider it product/market "information"; it is not avilable to me.
My reactions to "relevant" ads are quite different from all those irrelvant ads. Proposals like "People who bought that product you are looking at, also bought so-and-so" may actually be fine.
Also, I think paying for access to news articles is fine. But I see references to at least fifty different news sites a day, maybe a hundred over a week. I cannot pay a hundred subscriptions! But if there was some sort of syndication, maintaining a single account for me, and whenever I read an article on one of the syndicated news sites, a small amount (half a USD? one USD for in-depth articles?) would be charged to this account. But I see not traces of such a mechanism coming up.
But I ask myself: Why don't we have browsers that pretend (to the web site) that they show the ads, but simply "forget" to display them on the screen? It would certainly be technically possible to return exactly the same response to the web site, whether the ad was displayed or not.
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if you are talking about overlays you can use behind the overlay addon to disable it
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/behindtheoverlay/ljipkdpcjbmhkdjjmbbaggebcednbbme
on chrome
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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That works for some but more and more sites have gotten wise to the tactic. Instead they load a single screen's worth of content so it LOOKS like the real article and then slap an overlay on the top. If you disable the overlay (or just delete it using dev tools in Chrome) you discover that the rest of the content was never actually provided.
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javascript switcher to switch off.... js.... such sites usually i conclude are not worth it and just close it ...
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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I have so many items in my hosts file that some sites refuse to load as a result. I'm constantly renaming that file to _hosts, using the web site, and then renaming it back to hosts to block other stuff that may come along. Not ideal but it suffices.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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This site : Blocking Unwanted Connections with a Hosts File[^] has tools, batch files, and powershell files to help manage the hosts file.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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I'd never use an ad blocker. If a site is free, the ads are paying for it.
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You could consider one like ABP, the have a policy for acceptable ads[^] that I think is pretty reasonable.
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I just CBF. Ads don't bother me.
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I think ads have a place however there is a point where, for me,they make a site unreadable.
Flashing, moving brightly coloured ads on the left and right of a screen when I am trying to read text in the centre of the screen makes it impossible for me to take in any information. Quite literally I am unable to read some pages as I am unable to filter out the ads(particularly animated/video ads) down the sides of the pages.
It's a bit like how I am unable to concentrate in noisy offices or when people are loudly banging their cereal bowls in the office.
Perhaps it's just me but a simple couple of ads at the top and perhaps bottom of a page is plenty and not distracting.
So I use an ad blocker not to remove reasonable ad displays but to remove what, to exaggerate a little, I consider a form of visual abuse.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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I don't look at the sort of pages that do those. The one thing I find is sometimes I click a social media site and it comes up insisting I won an iPhone, then I just close it and walk away
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Christian Graus wrote: I don't look at the sort of pages that do those.
If by social media you mean Facebook, I don't think I have opened a Facebook page for around a year.
Some business sites have adopted this spam you with adverts philosophy and unfortunately sometimes the articles are interesting but ruined by those ads.
However from what you are saying it sounds like you too have what I would call a reasonable expectation of how ads should be used.
I use an adblocker not to block those sites that have an ad at the top or bottom of the page, but to block those sites that are littered with ads.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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I know what you mean - one of the "nice things" about uBlock is that it tells you how many ads it removed: For CP that would be low (I whitelist, but I'm guessing two or three per page) but when the counter gets over twenty there is no way I'll whitelist - I'll just go elsewhere, it's not as if they are the only site with the material. And a high number indicates a much higher interest in "me as advert consumer" than "them as information provider".
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Yeah, I just don't read those sites  Once I see those ads, I know the page was written to encourage clicks, not to tell me something true
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A lot of those sites will also assume you're using an ad-blocker if you disable JavaScript. I just wish there were some way to make those sites not show up in search results.
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Marc Clifton wrote: We need a blocker for the "you're using an ad-blocker!"
Also for the popup "XYZ wants to send you notifications. Allow Block".
Almost every website you visit starts with this BS.
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I think the latest versions of the browsers allow you to disable this.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Any browser that doesn't allow you to disable notifications shouldn't be used.
Major security-risk stuff.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I may need to update my browsers then because I do not see it.
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Mozilla-based browsers have a "Dismiss the overlay" plug-in, which kills most of them.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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ABP has a filter list specifically to block that crap.
Known Adblock Plus subscriptions you want:
ABP filters
Specialization: Removes circumvention ads in Adblock Plus
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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@Forogar and I were having a chat about unintended programming features (ahem) due to things like:
Javascript's truthy:
"1" == 1 is true
Rexx:
" Hello " == "Hello" and 0.0 == 0 is not the same as 0 == 0.0
SQL:
Len("hello") = Len("hello ")
I'm just wondering what other family favourites there are out there.
(Edited because clearly I’ve lost track of what’s up and what’s down)
cheers
Chris Maunder
modified 18-Apr-19 9:27am.
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Quote: Len("hello") = Len("hello ")
I was thinking how char vs. varchar are treated in SQL and messed around trying to get the LEN('HELLO ') != LEN('HELLO')
It's like an incorrect passing/appenidng/using VARCHAR(MAXLEN): if it passes through anything not of MAXLEN it's truncated (to 8K or, to 'HELLO').
Lesson learned, although I've not declared an actual char field [ >char(2) ] in years, and even that, only rarely.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Of those, I use only SQL, and it's worse than that. (Transact-SQL at least.)
Remember that RTRIM and LTRIM remove only SPACEs, not all whitespace.
Basically, LEN (and RTRIM and LTRIM) work on bytes, so it does the same things with VARBINARY as it does with VARCHAR.
So I should not have been surprised when performing LEN on a VARBINARY ignores 0x32 at the end as well. 
modified 17-Apr-19 23:47pm.
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Also remember that T-SQL != SQL.
Just saying.
Having been working with SQL server for a couple of years now I have to say that the string handling have a lot more to wish for. 
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