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Should we gatekeep adblockers? (programming.dev)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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Genuine question as I'm having a dilemma.

I've seen many of my friends using Chrome without any ad blockers. Most of them don't even know that there are things called extensions that can be installed. Whenever I use their laptops, I want to throw them away. I want to tell them about extensions and ad blockers.

But as much as we hate ads, they fuel the internet. Without them, the internet wouldn't be what it is today. If ad blocker users increase, there would be a massive change in the web, and everything may be paywalled.

So should we gatekeep ad blockers and enjoy an ad-free internet as a minority? It's not like they know what they're missing.

I advocate for FOSS, though. I will tell my friends to try Linux and dual-boot it, and suggest alternatives.

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[–] 32 points 2 years ago (1 child)

Ad blocker is a terrible misnomer. Go to ublock's github and read the README. Ublock's primary purpose is to protect your right to privacy. Blocking ads is a consequence.

That given, your question could be reframed as "I don't have spyware and my friends do. Should I tell them how to protect themselves at the risk of being spied on again?" An ethical dilemma where only a coward makes the wrong choice.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    This exactly. It's more like a firewall for your browser. Because web browsers are incredibly crap software that's pretty completely ignored privacy and filtering along their development and it's being slowly patched on in tiny kludges and extensions instead of being set in policy from the start.

    Of course spam and malware is a hard problem in web browsers. It's been a hard problem everywhere else, too.

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