Firefox + uBlock origin, nextDNS + a shit ton of blocking lists, revanced, metrolist and now i forgot that ads even exist.

con:
I always get traumatised when I use a device that isn't mine.

Teach 👏 your 👏 kids 👏 to 👏 hate 👏 ads 👏

Remember kids, advertising is just the graffiti of the rich.

Don't claim your relationship with ads is "actively hostile" if your actions can be described as "skipping" and "muting".

You should be blocking. I don't skip or mute anything, ever, because I don't allow ads into my life.

I have very few ads in my life, because I hate them with a passion. As an autistic person, ads don't even work on me to the same extent, and I hate having to sit through them.

I have opted into a government program, that means I don't recieve ads or "free newspapers" in my letterbox. I use special webapps with integrated adblock and curator extensions on my browsers, and even custom scripts using scriptmonkey to get it away. On my TV I run SmartTube, which not only removes ads, but also automatically skips sponsor and other filler from videos, as well as removes clickbait titles where possible using DeArrow.

I run Linux, I have set up all my devices to use adblocking DNS, and I have run a PiHole for years. The only thing in my home that shows ads at this point, is my google TV that will suggest a show on viaplay or prime or whatever, and it is the only thing I cannot get rid of.

The reason I dislike ads, is that these corporations are fucking scum. They collude to ruin people's self-esteem, and to overflood the market with needless materialist bullshit that we don't need, by exploiting our deepest insecurities. As AI becomes more normalized, it will get even more insidious. People talk to their chatbots like they are their friends, and soon those chatbots will subtly manipulate them into buying hair products that don't work, because they see a picture in your photos gallery of you slightly balding, and see you talked to it about feeling insecure about your appearence lately.

Ending my rant with a quote by banksy:

“People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.”

Agree. Honestly, websites just feel so much cleaner without ads. Like, ads are literal visual pollution and I hate it.

If you block ads from loading, you are using less processing power and thus less energy. Everyone should make the green choice of adding adblock to every browser. Save the planet.

[stands on soap box]

Advertisment is theft.

It is theft of my time and attention, the neurons that have to fire for my brain to process the message and then mentally bin the thought. I value the messages of people trying to sell me things so little, I would request they pay me to sit through their drivil. I have only so many hours on the moist spinning mud ball we call earth that I wish 0% of it being told to buy things.

Back in the day, when the internet was wild and free, advertisment online was a means of allowing hosts and websites to keep the lights on becore e-commerce had its sea legs, and that was the social agreement. Your site hosts ads, I get access to the site, captialism still happened, but it was simple. Then ads loaded by third party sources were not vetted by the trusted site you were visiting and became a vector for malware.

Now, you had ad and ad-free tiers of paid services, you pay your cable bill to watch 22 min. of content every block, 26% of the content on cable is not the content your paying for. Its sick, and now its infested the digital social spaces where people just make the infomericals at home in exchange for free stuff further poisioning the well of trust for interacting online.

[/Gets down from soapbox]

Sorry, I hate ads, moreso that most, but on the level amongst this crowd. To quote the great Miracle Max from the Princess Bride (RIP Rob Reiner) "Life is pain highness. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something"

Advertising is one of the most prolific environmental pollutants of economic activity, and needs to become as socially acceptable as smoking.

I actively avoid products I see to many ads for

This is why I stopped using Twitch(among other things). Kept making it harder and harder to block ads, content experience got worse because of it, so I just stopped using the platform entirely.

Had a gas pump that I couldn't mute the ads at and they played so loud that I'm sure the people inside could hear. Despite having some of the cheaper gas in town I will never go back

Adnauseum for firefox (both pc and android), and PiHole for network-level. When my dad comes over, hes always surprised that his tablet’s crossword game doesnt have ads inbetween levels!

If the product/service needs this much invasive convincing for you to use it - it's mostly likely not worth your money.

I remember going on a date with a girl that was majoring in marketing. She was really sold to the idea that marketing is "essential for everything! It's everywhere!" - I understood her point that even factually correct information needs to be "properly marketed", especially nowadays, but come the fuck on, the entire industry built itself around shady manipulation and dirty psychological tricks

AdNauseam

Its a fork of uBlock:Origin with a fun twist.

I just block them

In addition to all of those strategies, I also make a mental note to never buy whatever product is being hawked, or any other product from that company. It's automatic; I have an almost Pavlovian vomit response when I see/hear certain brand names thanks to their advertising. I'm also weary of competitor's products, because I wouldn't put it past those slimy bastards to own both companies and present them as alternatives to each other.

I block ads almost always, but when I do see ads, on billboards and whatnot, I purposefully don't buy their products.

Yup, right this here

I'm extremely hostile to ads, always have been

I'm arring my ways over the seas because it's impossible to watch videos normally without ads, even when paying. Even Netflix every now and then manages to annoy the fuck out of me even while paying.

I do not want to watch what you want me to watch

I do not want to know about your bullshit products

I invest actual money and time into actively avoiding any and all ads, and happily do so

Fuck marketing, it should be prohibited

Advertising is a mental hazard that must be constantly managed. It's draining to defend against as it is almost everyone at all times. I keep advertising to a minimum in my home and I can feel the invasiveness of it when I'm not there, I've definitely lost tolerance for advertising over the years and will discard something every quickly if it shows up. Adblock at all times on the net.

When playing free app games and ad rolls cannot be skipped, i put the phone down and use the time to give my eyes a break and focus on the horizon.

No ads in my life except when i go into town. Difficult to block IRL ads... Yet

It's not piracy to shut your ears and plug your eyes whenever an ad is playing ... at least not yet. Give the lobbyists a few weeks.

I met someone who didn’t want to use an internet adblocker because it made the screen feel too empty /:

See also: people trying to convince me to give websites money to avoid the ads after I tell them how to block the ads entirely.

My brother keeps trying to get me to get a youtube subscription. I just told you I don’t get ads! Why would you give google money? It is your moral obligation to bleed as much money from that company as possible!

Use Ublock Origin in your browser and PiHole on your network. Ads are a serious malware risk (never mind the scams) and should be treated as the security threat that they are.

I genuinely haven't seen any ads for 20 years now except in the odd waiting room or someone else's house. It's surprising how creepy and strange they are once you're a few years removed from them. You start to notice parallels between cult members and people who don't avert their eyes from ads.

I got banned from twitter for a week back before it went nazi by shit talking every ad it put in front of me.

I fucking hate ads! Nothing makes me want to buy something less than seeing an ad for something I never asked for in the first place. If I need something I will look it up myself!

The worst is the unmutable advertisements at the gas pump.

Some you can mute, if you press the correct hidden button. But more and more I'm finding them without the mute button. So I start pressing random buttons and combinations of buttons, until something works.

The pump by my house goes into a maintenance mode when you press a certain button combination, and then it tells you to go inside to pay (as if I hadn't already swiped my card). But the ads are muted, and the charge still shows up on my account, the correct amount and everything, so it's paid for. I don't go in. The pump automatically leaves maintenance mode when I finish pumping. No harm no foul.

I try to avoid stations I know have ads, but I travel a lot for work, so it's hard.

I was talking about this with my wife the other day. I just can't understand how people are as OK with ads as they are.