Getting rid of all the ads (on youtube, websites, pretty much everywhere)

[blunix]

The last time I have seen an ad was round about when wham was famous and I thought I'd share with you guys how to do that.

1) Install this privacy optimized firefox: https://librewolf.net/ (I'm reasonably sure that already does it for the most part)
2) Click an account here (I'm sure other VPNs work too) https://mullvad.net/en and setup the VPN-client to block ads (this happens via DNS, as in when you visit a site and the site tries to load ads, your browser generates DNS requests, which are routed to mullvad, which returns 0.0.0.0 for domains that serve ads / tracking / what not)

You can also locally install https://www.dnscrypt.org/. That doesnt have anything to do with ads by default, but it encrypts all your DNS traffic and it has a very cool blacklist feature. You can download adserver lists like this one https://github.com/anudeepND/blacklist or this one https://github.com/anudeepND/blacklist and parse them with sed to fit the syntax of the dnscrypt-proxy blacklists. Then you just setup your /etc/resolv.conf file on your workstation to use dnscrypt-proxy.

Any of these options alone should pretty much rid you of ads. I use all three on my workstation and I haven't seen an ad in a LONG time on any website.

 

[blunix]

fun fact: on this forum the first time I saw an ad is since yesterday. theres some dude selling ribs or whatever xD

 

[f33dm3bits]

fun fact: on this forum the first time I saw an ad is since yesterday. theres some dude selling ribs or whatever xD

That's the owner/admin of linux.org, @Rob. He has a forum for barbecue enthusiasts as well but I forgot the domain used for that.

 

[Aristarchus]

I think that one can install uBlock origin and this may solve adds problem too. I don't see adds on youtube or anywhere else.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I think that one can install uBlock origin and this may solve adds problem too.

Indeed, but you need to spend some time figuring out which static filters to use.

 

[Condobloke]

I take the simple approach.

Brave browser.

Adds?....what adds.

 

[Hillbilly H]

That's the owner/admin of linux.org, @Rob. He has a forum for barbecue enthusiasts as well but I forgot the domain used for that.

i dont know about his barbecue forum but his youtube will make your mouth water!

https://www.youtube.com/@RobsBackyardBBQ/videos

P.S. i did not see any barbecued penguin.

 

[ML_113]

I use MX which blocks adverts using Hosts file.

 

[blunix]

whats MX?

 

[blunix]

..? https://mxlinux.org/

at two letters those abbreviations get hard to google

 

[f33dm3bits]

fun fact: on this forum the first time I saw an ad is since yesterday. theres some dude selling ribs or whatever xD

You can just hide the element if you're using something like Ublock Origin.

 

[MikeRocor]

fun fact: on this forum the first time I saw an ad is since yesterday. theres some dude selling ribs or whatever xD

I'm using stock firefox with a few extensions loaded:

• AdBlock Plus free ad blocker
• AdBlocker for YouTube
• Privacy Badger

and I get no ads on most any sites, although some of them detect ad blockers and complain about them. Those that are adamant about it, I've found through experimentation, are ones I can do nicely without. I look at the mentions of ads on this forum and wonder what they're talking about.

A local news site pops up a big red ad blocker alert (complete with helpful instructions on how to disable your ad blocker) that obscures the content on each page but will let you click through it two or three times. On the rare occasion when I want to see more of their propaganda than that, I just run "firefix", my firefox refresh script, and read a couple more articles - though really, I'm mostly there for the crossword puzzle.

I have "Ghostery Tracker & Ad Blocker" installed but currently turned off because it interferes with something I actually -do- care about (I don't remember what right now). I also use the "I don't care about cookies" extension to avoid those idiot cookie agreements because I refresh with "firefix" often enough (*) that I really -don't- care about cookies.

*: "often enough" meaning, at least, "before and after browsing facebook, bbc.com, etc"

---
Darn! I could go for some ribs right now but it's 3:30 in the morning. I wonder if Rob delivers.

 

[MikeRocor]

whats MX?

It was kind of a hot topic from about 1985 to 2005. Link: MX

I feel like that would be overkill for removing ads. It would just be mad.