FWUPD/LVFS (Linux Vendor Firmware Service) has made it remarkably easy to update a lot of system firmware and device/peripheral firmware under Linux. Prior to widespread LVFS support it was often a daunting chore for Linux users to update device firmware with frequently needing to boot into a Microsoft Windows installation, resorting to FreeDOS for system BIOS updates in the olden days, or go without updating firmware.
My ad blocker turned off at some point and I loaded that link without it… holy shit was that obnoxious. The ads moved things around, blocked the article, autoplayed videos… and that’s what we’re supposed to be appreciative of and turn off our ad blockers for? 🤢
Haha, yeah … where’s the article?
Holy moly that is an absolute sh*t ton of ads!
This is what a ton of links end up being. I don’t know how anyone thinks that is an even acceptable user experience. Shit just popping up and covering the actual content. Actual content spread out like you are supposed to search for where the next paragraph is. The current state of most websites is just absolute shit. I end up going in and turning off javascript, since that seems to be the herpes that is behind most of this. I am not sure who or how people are making money off this advertising, but it needs to end (without having to resort to adblockers or disabling javascript). Ads have just absolutely fucked most web browsing and that’s sad.
Ads have just absolutely fucked most web browsing and that’s sad.
It is actually much, much worse than that. Ads have pretty much fucked up
- our privacy since most tracking of your personal life is ad-related (pretty much all besides government surveillance)
- our health (smoking, alcohol, sugary foods,… are all heavily pushed by advertising)
- our climate (dito with fossil fuels, cars and other climate killer technologies)
- our politics (Cambridge Analytica and similar propaganda campaigns as well as closely ad-related propaganda in movies and other types of media)
- our attention spans and emotional stability (content optimized to keep us watching/clicking/… tends to be super-short and enraging)
- our freedom of speech (“advertiser friendly” (self-)censorship and demonitization)
- our news (what gets ad clicks gets reported and in the way to optimize clicks)
There are probably a few things I forgot but this should give you an idea of the scope of the problem.
I 110% agree with you on all points. I have been complaining and telling people about privacy till I am blue in the face, and it just seems like the general public doesn’t care. They just do not care that every second of their life is under surveillance and the data is sold to the highest bidder.
I said this about 2 weeks ago. I was trying to support Phoronix and was browsing on mobile. The site was unusable. They need to get control of that. I have websites and I refuse to ever run ads. Then again, I am not in it for the money.
On the other hand the number of websites that are using ChatGPT to create content, images, and links solely to push ads for profit is getting larger every day. It does not take any effort either. You can pay a monthly fee to have a service auto update your site and the ads are automatic too.
I am beginning to not trust sites that run ads.
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