Pi-hole dot net and hardware ad blocking

An Interesting thing to come up in my feed.

quote:

PRIVACY: Inside the Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers.

Anyone who works in the $200 billion digital advertising industry
should be scared of people like Mark Drobnak, because the ad blocker
he uses is way more powerful than yours. The college freshman says it
feels as though everyone at Rochester Institute of Technology, from
his roommate to his professors, has installed some way to ward off
online ads. Drobnak is one of the die-hards who goes further, working
with a handful of comrades to build what they call “a black hole for
advertisements.” His parents say the one he built them works great.

Pi-hole (as in “shut your?…”) is a free, open source software
package designed to run on a Raspberry Pi, a basic computer that’s
popular with DIYers, fits in the palm of your hand, and retails for
about $35. Most ad blockers have to be installed on individual devices
and work only in web browsers, but Pi-hole blocks ads across an entire
network, including in most apps.

Interesting. I get similar results taming the most obnoxious sites
using a customizable JavaScript blocker, but it can be tedious to set
up and the results aren’t always easy to predict. I’ve thought about
picking up a cheap PC and setting it up as a Ubuntu-based web server
with ad and tracking firewalls installed, but the effort-to-reward
ratio still breaks on my lazy side.

But Pi-Hole installed on a $35 Raspberry Pi is awfully tempting.

Endquote.

https://pi-hole.net/

Comments from the technoratti?
--
pyotr filipivich
The question was asked: "Is Hindsight overrated?"
In retrospect, it appears to be.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

pyotr filipivich wrote:
An Interesting thing to come up in my feed.

quote:

PRIVACY: Inside the Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers.

Anyone who works in the $200 billion digital advertising industry
should be scared of people like Mark Drobnak, because the ad blocker
he uses is way more powerful than yours. The college freshman says it
feels as though everyone at Rochester Institute of Technology, from
his roommate to his professors, has installed some way to ward off
online ads. Drobnak is one of the die-hards who goes further, working
with a handful of comrades to build what they call “a black hole for
advertisements.” His parents say the one he built them works great.

Pi-hole (as in “shut your?…”) is a free, open source software
package designed to run on a Raspberry Pi, a basic computer that’s
popular with DIYers, fits in the palm of your hand, and retails for
about $35. Most ad blockers have to be installed on individual devices
and work only in web browsers, but Pi-hole blocks ads across an entire
network, including in most apps.

Interesting. I get similar results taming the most obnoxious sites
using a customizable JavaScript blocker, but it can be tedious to set
up and the results aren’t always easy to predict. I’ve thought about
picking up a cheap PC and setting it up as a Ubuntu-based web server
with ad and tracking firewalls installed, but the effort-to-reward
ratio still breaks on my lazy side.

But Pi-Hole installed on a $35 Raspberry Pi is awfully tempting.

Endquote.

https://pi-hole.net/

Comments from the technoratti?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...le-ad-blockers

I think you're saying, you want a "full time hobby" ?

Paul

"pyotr filipivich" wrote

|
| https://pi-hole.net/
|
| Comments from the technoratti?

Less than meets the eye. You need to set it up
on something Linux, and it's nothing really new.
It uses several HOSTS-type files, found in
adlists.default, in the download package:

https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/archive/master.zip

A HOSTS file on Windows does similar. Windows
also has DNS proxy software available, such as
Acrylic. (pi-hole is a DNS proxy. A set of scripts,
with no finished interface as far as I can tell. You
just run the install command and then their list
decides what you block, without your intervention.)

Acrylic allows wildcards in its HOSTS file, so it's fairly
easy to set up a very efficient blocking list. And it's
easy to edit. No command line nonsense. Acrylic also
has the appeal of not having a crass name invented
by a teenager.

The pi-hole approach is highly inefficient. Example:

Here's the list of HOSTS-type files they use:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/St...s/master/hosts
https://mirror1.malwaredomains.com/files/justdomains
http://sysctl.org/cameleon/hosts
https://zeustracker.abuse.ch/blockli...omainblocklist
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disco...e_tracking.txt
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disco.../simple_ad.txt
https://hosts-file.net/ad_servers.txt

That's 7 HOSTS-like files ll fed through their
script. The last one alone is 1.68 MB. It has
over 12,000 entries for Doubleclick! Over 3,500
entries for atdmt.com. Though most seem to
have an odd format ending with 302br.net. I've
never seen 302br.net before. Yet that block list
has some 15,000 versions of its URL. Similarly,
there are lots of 2o7.net, which is a Google
spyware/adware alias.

Many advertisers will have a separate URL,
or more than one, for each client. Things
like 32441.nyt-ads.liveclick.net (I just made
that up.) You only need that in your list if you
like to go to the NYT website. Then you'll probably
also need dozens of others. 32442, 3243k, and so
on. A new one every time they generate a new
randomly named subdomain. But with Acrylic you
can stop all that with just a few lines:

127.0.0.1 *.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.com
# There's all of doubleclick in 2 lines.
127.0.0.1 *.302br.net
127.0.0.1 *.2o7.net
127.0.0.1 *.atdmt.com

I occasionally download especially commercial
pages to check for new spyware companies, but
mostly it's the same culprits on every site. Google/
Doubleclick, scorecardresearch, etc.

What about fonts.googleapis.com? You may
want to allow web fonts and you may want
to allow that domain. If so then you're
giving Google enough data to track most of
your activity online. Does pi-hole block that?
I don't know, but probably not. Does it block
Facebook and Twitter tracking bugs? Probably
not, since most people want to be able to
reach those websites.

In other words, with a basic Windows DNS
proxy that blocks with wildcards, you can
easily block almost everything that matters.
And you don't need to buy a raspberry pi or
get into a mess of Linux scripts.

I don't remember the last time I saw an ad,
and all I use is Acrylic. But I never saw ads even
before Acrylic, with about 300 entries in my
HOSTS file. It's efficient to use that method
because the spyware and ads are extremely
centralized. (That's also what makes them so
pernicious. There are numerous domains that
can track almost everything you do because
they load something on almost every page you
visit.)

Paul on Fri, 18 May 2018 17:09:18 -0400 typed
in alt.windows7.general the following:
pyotr filipivich wrote:
An Interesting thing to come up in my feed.

quote:

PRIVACY: Inside the Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers.

Anyone who works in the $200 billion digital advertising industry
should be scared of people like Mark Drobnak, because the ad blocker
he uses is way more powerful than yours. The college freshman says it
feels as though everyone at Rochester Institute of Technology, from
his roommate to his professors, has installed some way to ward off
online ads. Drobnak is one of the die-hards who goes further, working
with a handful of comrades to build what they call “a black hole for
advertisements.” His parents say the one he built them works great.

Pi-hole (as in “shut your?…”) is a free, open source software
package designed to run on a Raspberry Pi, a basic computer that’s
popular with DIYers, fits in the palm of your hand, and retails for
about $35. Most ad blockers have to be installed on individual devices
and work only in web browsers, but Pi-hole blocks ads across an entire
network, including in most apps.

Interesting. I get similar results taming the most obnoxious sites
using a customizable JavaScript blocker, but it can be tedious to set
up and the results aren’t always easy to predict. I’ve thought about
picking up a cheap PC and setting it up as a Ubuntu-based web server
with ad and tracking firewalls installed, but the effort-to-reward
ratio still breaks on my lazy side.

But Pi-Hole installed on a $35 Raspberry Pi is awfully tempting.

Endquote.

https://pi-hole.net/

Comments from the technoratti?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...le-ad-blockers

I think you're saying, you want a "full time hobby" ?

Well, yes I do.

But I do not think that is the one I really want.

Not yet anyway.

Paul
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

"Mayayana" on Fri, 18 May 2018 18:34:59
-0400 typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
"pyotr filipivich" wrote

|
| https://pi-hole.net/
|
| Comments from the technoratti?

Less than meets the eye. You need to set it up
on something Linux, and it's nothing really new.
It uses several HOSTS-type files, found in
adlists.default, in the download package:

Thanks for the input. I will read it more thoughtfully.

For the nonce, let me say "Sounds cool, but sounds like more
'hobby' than I want.
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

pyotr filipivich wrote:

An Interesting thing to come up in my feed.

quote:

PRIVACY: Inside the Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers.

Anyone who works in the $200 billion digital advertising industry
should be scared of people like Mark Drobnak, because the ad blocker
he uses is way more powerful than yours. The college freshman says it
feels as though everyone at Rochester Institute of Technology, from
his roommate to his professors, has installed some way to ward off
online ads. Drobnak is one of the die-hards who goes further, working
with a handful of comrades to build what they call “a black hole for
advertisements.” His parents say the one he built them works great.

Pi-hole (as in “shut your?…”) is a free, open source software
package designed to run on a Raspberry Pi, a basic computer that’s
popular with DIYers, fits in the palm of your hand, and retails for
about $35. Most ad blockers have to be installed on individual devices
and work only in web browsers, but Pi-hole blocks ads across an entire
network, including in most apps.

Interesting. I get similar results taming the most obnoxious sites
using a customizable JavaScript blocker, but it can be tedious to set
up and the results aren’t always easy to predict. I’ve thought about
picking up a cheap PC and setting it up as a Ubuntu-based web server
with ad and tracking firewalls installed, but the effort-to-reward
ratio still breaks on my lazy side.

But Pi-Hole installed on a $35 Raspberry Pi is awfully tempting.

Endquote.

https://pi-hole.net/

Comments from the technoratti?

While most adblockers work as extensions to web browsers (and some web
browsers have them built-in) because that is obviously the most prone
vector for presenting ads from the web, it is not the only way to block
unwanted content. Adblockers can work as local proxies through which
your network (mostly web) traffic will get filtered. For example, there
are proxy adblockers for Android phones. Alas, you have to root them to
get them to work. For those that don't want to root their phones, there
is DNS66 which has your phone use an ad-filtering DNS server: DNS
requests to ad sources get blocked. Alas, while active, the Play Store
app won't work (can't get apps, can't update them). For obvious
reasons, DNS66 is not available in Google's Play Store because it
thwarts Google's Analytics revenue.

The claim to block ads across an entire network obviously means the
device with the adblocking as a filtering proxy must be upstream of all
other devices. That is, that host with the adblock proxy is the gateway
for all other hosts. Again, nothing new there.

"No client-side software required". Well, that just means the filtering
is done upstream, like with DNS66 where you merely reconfigure your
host(s) to use a different DNS server. OpenDNS, DNS66, and plenty of
other DNS providers already supply filtering. OpenDNS lets you choose
by categories of what you want to block (but I don't remember if ad
filtering are specifically supported). DNS66 simply uses the same
DNSBLs (DNS blocklists) that the web browser extensions use locally.

"Install by running one command". Huh? The site just said no
client-side software gets installed. So what does install.pi-hole.net
have for a script? The command gets piped into bash. That's is because
that web page presents a bash script, so the online script gets download
and piped into the bash interpreter. It's been about 20 years since I
last did any bash scripting and it probably wasn't as complicated as
this one, but my guess from the following line is that it changes the
DNS server assignment in your OS:

# We need to know the IPv4 information so we can effectively setup the
DNS server
# Without this information, we won't know where to Pi-hole will be found

So it looks like the same old DNS filtering that has been available for
a l-o-n-g time either via DNS providers, similar to DNS66 with their own
DNS server for the DNSBLs they choose to use. I suspect you could roll
your own using the Acrylic DNS proxy on your own gateway host on your
intranet rather than relying on the filtering definitions of a 3rd party
DNS provider, especially one that really isn't a commercial enterprise
but instead a hobby project.

On Fri, 18 May 2018 12:59:08 -0700, pyotr filipivich
wrote:

But Pi-Hole installed on a $35 Raspberry Pi is awfully tempting.

Endquote.

https://pi-hole.net/

Comments from the technoratti?

Others have provided some of the cons, with which I don't disagree. One
of the pros, however, is that it's positioned as a single solution that
works with every web-enabled device on your LAN, including smartphones
and smart TVs, and none of your devices has to know how to use it other
than pointing their DNS entry at it. No hosts files to play with, no
multiple configurations for multiple browsers, etc.

The one thing I didn't see mentioned is the increasingly common and
obnoxious behavior of sites that are configured to notice, in a big way,
that you're downloading their content but not their ads. Some of them
replace the content with a big message that says, in effect, "Hey, we
see that you're using an ad blocker. Cut it out!" I'm not sure how this
solution addresses that, but I didn't read very far into it. If it was a
full proxy, it could download ads and drop them on the floor rather than
passing them on to you, but it's only a DNS proxy so it can't do that.

--

Char Jackson

On Fri, 18 May 2018 20:27:58 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

pyotr filipivich wrote:

An Interesting thing to come up in my feed.

quote:

PRIVACY: Inside the Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers.

Anyone who works in the $200 billion digital advertising industry
should be scared of people like Mark Drobnak, because the ad blocker
he uses is way more powerful than yours. The college freshman says it
feels as though everyone at Rochester Institute of Technology, from
his roommate to his professors, has installed some way to ward off
online ads. Drobnak is one of the die-hards who goes further, working
with a handful of comrades to build what they call “a black hole for
advertisements.” His parents say the one he built them works great.

Pi-hole (as in “shut your?…”) is a free, open source software
package designed to run on a Raspberry Pi, a basic computer that’s
popular with DIYers, fits in the palm of your hand, and retails for
about $35. Most ad blockers have to be installed on individual devices
and work only in web browsers, but Pi-hole blocks ads across an entire
network, including in most apps.

Interesting. I get similar results taming the most obnoxious sites
using a customizable JavaScript blocker, but it can be tedious to set
up and the results aren’t always easy to predict. I’ve thought about
picking up a cheap PC and setting it up as a Ubuntu-based web server
with ad and tracking firewalls installed, but the effort-to-reward
ratio still breaks on my lazy side.

But Pi-Hole installed on a $35 Raspberry Pi is awfully tempting.

Endquote.

https://pi-hole.net/

Comments from the technoratti?

While most adblockers work as extensions to web browsers (and some web
browsers have them built-in) because that is obviously the most prone
vector for presenting ads from the web, it is not the only way to block
unwanted content. Adblockers can work as local proxies through which
your network (mostly web) traffic will get filtered. For example, there
are proxy adblockers for Android phones. Alas, you have to root them to
get them to work. For those that don't want to root their phones, there
is DNS66 which has your phone use an ad-filtering DNS server: DNS
requests to ad sources get blocked. Alas, while active, the Play Store
app won't work (can't get apps, can't update them). For obvious
reasons, DNS66 is not available in Google's Play Store because it
thwarts Google's Analytics revenue.

The claim to block ads across an entire network obviously means the
device with the adblocking as a filtering proxy must be upstream of all
other devices. That is, that host with the adblock proxy is the gateway
for all other hosts. Again, nothing new there.

It's a DNS proxy, so it doesn't have to be upstream. It just has to be
reachable. It doesn't even have to be on your LAN. No actual content
traffic runs through it. It only sees DNS traffic.

"No client-side software required". Well, that just means the filtering
is done upstream, like with DNS66 where you merely reconfigure your
host(s) to use a different DNS server.

Right, as a DNS proxy, its role is to filter/block/deny any requests for
what it thinks are ads, apparently using DNSBLs.

"Install by running one command". Huh? The site just said no
client-side software gets installed.

That's to install it on your shiny pi, not on any of your hosts. All
your hosts need is to swing the DNS server over, or you could do that in
your gateway device if you want a one-and-done solution.


--

Char Jackson

"Char Jackson" wrote

| The one thing I didn't see mentioned is the increasingly common and
| obnoxious behavior of sites that are configured to notice, in a big way,
| that you're downloading their content but not their ads. Some of them
| replace the content with a big message that says, in effect, "Hey, we
| see that you're using an ad blocker. Cut it out!"

I've yet to see that. Maybe it requires javascript
to work. (Which I generally don't enable.) That seems
like poetic justice: They need javascript to spy on
you but they also need javascript to check whether
you're letting them spy.

But I do come across an increasing number of sites
that are broken without script. Some are not usable
at all but many work fine if I also disable CSS. They
do things like cover the page with a gray rectangle,
or pile things on top of each other, or make some of
the content non-visible. Then those deliberate
screw-ups are fixed by script when the page loads.
It's a rather odd strategy. Those sites never tell me
I need to enable script. They just try to make sure
the page is broken without script.

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
Acrylic allows wildcards in its HOSTS file, so it's fairly
[]
127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.com
# There's all of doubleclick in 2 lines.
[]
I think I asked once before couldn't it could be just _one_ line,
0 *.doubleclick.*
(or possibly without the dots), but I don't remember the answer.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I remember a lot of questions on a vocalist forum about the problems singing
"There is a balm in Gilead" without making it sound like a security alert. -
Linda Fox in UMRA, 2010-11-19

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| 127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.net
| 127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.com
| # There's all of doubleclick in 2 lines.
| []
| I think I asked once before couldn't it could be just _one_ line,
| 0 *.doubleclick.*
| (or possibly without the dots), but I don't remember the answer.

Yes, that sounds familiar.
If I remember correctly, it turned out that Acrylic
can handle RegExp, so you can do all kinds of things.
These two samples are included in its HOSTS file:

# 127.0.0.1 ad.*ads.*
# 127.0.0.1 /^ads?\..*$

In general I don't know how useful RegExp would
be here. Or even multiple wildcards. I find a subdomain
wildcard is adequate and I like to keep it simple.
Filtering on strings like "ads" or "banner" used to be
common, but that was back in the days when ads
were coming from the same URL as the webpage.

But, yes, there seems to be no limit to how much
you can customize and specialize with the Acrylic
HOSTS file.

Mayayana wrote:

: Char Jackson wrote
:
:: The one thing I didn't see mentioned is the increasingly common and
:: obnoxious behavior of sites that are configured to notice, in a big way,
:: that you're downloading their content but not their ads. Some of them
:: replace the content with a big message that says, in effect, "Hey, we
:: see that you're using an ad blocker. Cut it out!"
:
: I've yet to see that. Maybe it requires javascript to work. (Which I
: generally don't enable.) That seems like poetic justice: They need
: javascript to spy on you but they also need javascript to check
: whether you're letting them spy.

No, you have a connection to them so your IP address is known during
your session with the site. If your client refuses to get their ad
content using that IP address during your session with them, they can
detect your client is not retrieving all content and only some of it.
The site will cooperate with the off-domain site (theirs or someone
else's) to see if you went there to get that content. They can do that
whether or not Javascript is enabled/available in your client or not.

A problem with the server-side detection is the assumption that CDNs
(content delivery networks) seldom go down. If the CDN doesn't notify
the target site that you visited the CDN then the target site assumes
you blocked that content and pukes out its alarm. If the CDN is down,
the site might not yet know and puke out the same alarm despite you are
not using an adblocker. Also, Javascript is lightweight versus server-
side cooperative detection requires more effort to setup, maintain, and
to operate - but ad content is big business representing lots of money.

The backend detection requires more effort and cooperation than using
Javascript within the delivered web page. For example, the page may
encapsulate an ad within a div where the ad content then specifies the
size of the div element. If the Javascript sees the div has zero
height then the Javascript knows the ad content did not get retrieved.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/new...block-scripts/

Of course, you could modify the page's Javascript hoping not to break
it. You could also disable Javascript but we all know the effect of
that: the page is empty or nearly worthless. Sites have moved to
dynamic page content which replies on scripting to decide what the page
will contain.

For sites that rely on only Javascript, there are adblocker-blocker
DNSBLs and extensions that modify the page to remove the checker script
(since often the sites are investing in a 3rd party to give them the
adblocker detection). I've tried a couple of the adblocker-blocker
DNSBLs but they don't seem very effective probably due to the server-
side detection and cooperation with the CDNs to see if you retrieved
that off-domain content.

Example of an adblocker-blocker (aka anti-adblocker) DNSBL:
uBlock Filters - Unbreak

Example of an adblocker-blocker extension:
https://github.com/reek/anti-adblock-killer
Greasemonkey or Tampermonkey (modify the scripts in the delivered page)

Neither of which will help with server-side cooperative detection. If
you don't retrieve it, they can know.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Mayayana WROTE:

Acrylic allows wildcards in its HOSTS file, so it's fairly

127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 *.doubleclick.com
# There's all of doubleclick in 2 lines.

I think I asked once before couldn't it could be just _one_ line,
0 *.doubleclick.*
(or possibly without the dots), but I don't remember the answer.

The hosts file lists *hosts*, not domains. That is why it is called a
hosts file. There is no wildcarding. The hosts file was not created
for the purpose of adblocking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file)

It was originally created to facilitate finding on intranet hosts
without having to access a DNS server, like having a short grocery
shopping list of what you want to buy rather than the entire grocery
store's inventory and checking off just the items you want to buy.

That Acrylic allows wildcarding is unique to that proxy in its
interpretation of the content of the hosts file. If you modify the
hosts file to add wildcarding, the DNS client or anything else reading
the hosts file won't know how to parse it because of the illegal syntax.

http://mayakron.altervista.org/wikib...d=AcrylicFAQ#3
"Putting a large number of patterns or regular expressions inside the
AcrylicHosts.txt file may cause Acrylic to slow down significantly."

So it is not the hosts file where you can use wildcarding. It is
Acrylic's own hosts file (acrylichosts.txt) where you can use
wildcarding. This is confirmed also at the following page:

http://mayakron.altervista.org/wikib...d=AcrylicHosts

Also mentioned in the first article:

"A domain name is free, a pattern is relatively cheap and a regular
expression is rather expensive."

I don't use Acrylic to know how it differentiates "pattern" from
"regular expression" (other than DOS wildcarding is *not* the same as
regex). "pattern" isn't mentioned in the 2nd article describing syntax
within the AcrylicHosts.txt file.

Maybe you could specify multiple wildcards but I've always found that
has side effects of matching on substrings you didn't intend.
Wildcarding tends to be sloppy. Instead you could use regex, as in
"^(\S+\.)?doubleclick\.(com|net)$". From the above wiki page, use of
regex is slower due to the parsing and substring functions. You can get
pretty damn complicated with regex.

"VanguardLH" wrote

| The hosts file lists *hosts*, not domains. That is why it is called a
| hosts file. There is no wildcarding. The hosts file was not created
| for the purpose of adblocking.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file)
|
| That Acrylic allows wildcarding is unique to that proxy in its
| interpretation of the content of the hosts file.
|
| I don't use Acrylic...

Yet you're determined to explain it. John understands.
And probably everyone else here does, too, without
needing links to the history of HOSTS files.

If you want to understand then why not just read
the instructions in Acrylic HOSTS rather than posting
all this stuff that everyone already knows?

"VanguardLH" wrote

| : I've yet to see that. Maybe it requires javascript to work. (Which I
| : generally don't enable.) That seems like poetic justice: They need
| : javascript to spy on you but they also need javascript to check
| : whether you're letting them spy.
|
| No, you have a connection to them so your IP address is known during
| your session with the site. If your client refuses to get their ad
| content using that IP address during your session with them, they can
| detect your client is not retrieving all content and only some of it.
| The site will cooperate with the off-domain site (theirs or someone
| else's) to see if you went there to get that content. They can do that
| whether or not Javascript is enabled/available in your client or not.
|

In theory. But that's unlikely. Sending data requests
back and forth to 3rd parties with every page request
would put a significant load on their traffic and processing.
It makes much more sense to just write script that puts
all the load on the visitor. Something like a heavily obfuscated
version of...

"Go to xyz, send them this data, and load the ad from
xyz.com. If that fails then show a nasty message."

It's all built into the javascript in that case. And as
I said, I've never had a site show me with a message
about blocking ads. I know you hate to have your
beliefs contradicted by other peoples' experience.
You find your beliefs so devilishly delicious. Second
only to your opinions in their ability to transfix you
with pleasure. But thems the facts.

Think about what you're claiming. I visit a site. They
contact their 6 ad servers and spyware partners to
see if I'm loading the ads. But I can only load ads
after I've loaded the page. Without script, how are
they going to block the page they just gave me while
they wait 3 seconds for the other servers to respond?
And who's going to wait 3 seconds for a page to load
these days? (The webmaster rule of thumb is that if your
page takes more than 1/4 second, people will start
to leave.)

I guess they could track me to take revenge on
the next page. But I've also never seen a blank
page that says, "AHA! Caught ya! You script-blocking,
ad-evading son of a gun!"


|
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/new...block-scripts/
|

This contradicts your original farfetched claim
that websites will get around my disabling script
by contacting the ad server from the backend
and asking whether they see my IP address. This
article is talking about adblock blocking scripts.
(This is hilarious. There's adblock, anti-adblock,
and anti-anti-adblock.)

|
| Of course, you could modify the page's Javascript hoping not to break
| it. You could also disable Javascript but we all know the effect of
| that: the page is empty or nearly worthless.

Now you're off on another of your huffy
pronouncements and not paying attention to
my original statement: I don't get blocked for
blocking ads because I don't enable script.
It's all in the script.

You live in a world of escalating arms war, using
ublock origin. I just use a HOSTS file. You may
insist that's not possible, but I'm doing it. I just
visited blockadblock.com and downloaded their
adblock blocker script. (The compound obfuscation
is stunning.) They're using script to block ad
blockers but it's all dependent on CSS. Without
CSS their pages are perfectly functional. You may
not want to view pages with No Style, but I
increasingly find it's often better.

Some examples of my browsing:
WashPo, npr.org, TheRegister, Slashdot, Wired,
alternet.org, infoworld, duckduckgo, Google,
stackoverflow and most other online programming
info sites....
They all currently work fine without script.

Theatlantic.com is a mess. Headlines on top
of each other. But it's fine with no style.
Similarly, Ars Technica redesigned their site
and I only see 2-3 headlines unless I disable
CSS. But then it's fine.

Some sites I visit are blank. Then I disable CSS.
That makes for a plain page, but actually I
find that I'm increasingly disabling CSS even
when I don't need to. Example: I go to WashPo
and see a normal homepage, with article links.
I click a link and see a normal article. But there's
one problem. The font is serif, 18px high, with triple
line spacing! It's like reading a billboard from
6 feet away. Why? I don't know. Maybe they're
catering to phones? In any case, I often find it
easier to switch to no style and read the article
in simple, 12px verdana.

A few sites are actually completely broken. I used
to sometimes read business articles at forbes.com.
Their site is now broken. The webpage content itself
is embedded in script! But Forbes was never a great
news source, anyway. Nothing lost there. WSJ takes
another approach. They let you read a teaser, maybe
2 paragraphs. Then they want you to sign up. So I
don't go to WSJ.

What this boils down to is that they're refusing to
allow access to their website unless you allow them
to run a rather large software program on your computer.
It's an end-run version of a push webpage. I'm not
going to allow push webpages. Good riddance to them.
It's one thing to pay for a newspaper. It's another thing
entirely to be recorded while you read the paper and
to have the article dynamically change in order to
get me to look at ads. Why would anyone put up with
that once they realize it's happening? (Well, OK,
millions of Facebookie addicts put up with it.

| Sites have moved to
| dynamic page content which replies on scripting to decide what the page
| will contain.
|
Bingo. So they decide what news you'll read, what
price you'll pay when you shop, what search results
you'll see.... Apparently you don't care if their page
is bull**** as long as you don't have to see ads? I do
care, and I'm not accepting this push-webpage
sleight of hand. I suggest that anyone who doesn't
want to live on a push-based, spyware Web might
want to consciously consider what their response
should be.
If you allow script then you're handing your browser
(and security, and privacy) over to the sites you
visit, along with "every Tom, Dick and Harry"
business partner they have.