Maybe the ISP should start charging the ad network instead of the user for ad traffic. Then they can start blocking the ads of people who don't pay.<p>The user, who pays for the service, is getting no value out of the ads and the advertiser is freeloading the ISP's technical infrastructure and userbase.
Surprising they don't mention what I imagine has to be the obvious culprit: video ads.<p>It's not even about advertising for me -- static ads don't bother me that much. But whenever there's autoplaying video in the corner of a page, I hate it so much. Whether it's an ad, or a news site that inexplicably thinks I want to multitask and watch their news channel at the same time I read their article. It's genuinely hard to read the article when there's constant motion an inch or two away at all times!
A lot of web pages only work for me on my iPhone if I use reader mode. Otherwise, the page keeps resetting over and over again. Firefox, but I assume Safari is probably the same, since Apple mandates they all be based on WebKit.
(Video portals aside)
The text you want to read: a few kilobytes.
The (oeconomical, an economical) cost of the ads surrounding it:
several dozen to a hundred megabytes.
You cannot convince me that this _isn't_ unsustainable quackery that got out of hands really, really bad.
AFAIK, a lot of mobile ad blockers work by proxying your traffic through their servers.<p>There may be more, but the only one I know works totally local is Firefox Focus.<p>You can install it, set it as the ad blocker for iOS Safari and never actually use it as a browser.<p>It’s not 100.0% effective. But, it makes a big difference with minimal hassle.
It is not only the data amount but also power. Those who display ads on your computer are stealing these things from you, so they are the thieves. However, it is not only the ads, but also other stuff, such as spyware, inefficient programming, excessive animations and fancy effects, etc.
Ads? Which ads? None on my devices at least. Block the filth already, there is no reason to subject yourself or your family to it. Get a device which is under your own control - nothing made by Apple, get an Android device on which you install something like LineageOS or GrapheneOS or another similar AOSP-derived distribution, do not use unmodified stock Android distributions - and install several layers of content blocking. Use a VPN with an endpoint at your own router on which you have more content blocking, that way you can safely use public WiFi hotspots. I never see advertising and would not accept anything else.
This is the #1 reason for ad blocking in Eastern Europe and Asia (eg dolphin browser). It’s also why the current “solutions” big tech is providing viz. privacy and non-annoying ads doesn’t move the needle there.
I assume the worst offender in this is youtube. It’s awful because ads ALWAYS load immediately, but the actual media i want to watch always lags or is buffering.<p>When i’m on mobile data advertisements are always super clear and in super high resolution, but i often get pushed low-res versions of the media.<p>I really hope some better company comes and dismantles YouTube as a business.<p>Edit: i’m using plain YouTube on plain iOS, so it’s all on google/YouTube.
Worst example I've seen is an app called Foodora here in Norway (like Uber Eats, Door Dash, etc). On the order confirmation page where you're following your order status, following the driver on the map, etc, they would have video ads playing _uncached_. It was literally using like 1 MB/s of traffic continuously while you were checking the order page.
Honestly, just stop using your phone most of the time. You can try to keep up with the adblocking arms race, but it is ultimately a losing battle. It's not actually difficult (in principle) to avoid mobile ads: don't use your phone in the first place, don't browse to web pages, and don't install apps. For anyone who says "but what if I'm out and I need to?" -- that's a fine exception if you're not actually using your phone the other 99% of the time.
Ads are ok if they’re fixated on a page and aren’t intrusive but holy crap, some sites just takes to other sites when you click something and then when you come back it’s not the same page so you got to go back again and the cycle resets. I can’t imagine places where internet is super expensive and you deal with daily
I finally took the time this weekend to get the family switched over to using NextDNS. I use uBlock Origin on my laptop but it's nice to have something for mobile too. I've been getting heated when my partner hands me her phone to show me a recipe and it's completely covered in ads.
This reminds me of the very first prosecution against "Hackers"
according to the lore of Bruce Stirling [0].<p>Since there were no cyber-laws to charge trespassers on digital estate
the intruders were charged with "stealing electricity".<p>Perhaps we forget that ads are also a crime of resource
misappropriation. Advertisers are not like vampires that are off the
hook if you invite them in.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hacker_Crackdown" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hacker_Crackdown</a>
Ad people also don’t even care about best practices. Many times years ago we’d see multi meg static banner ads. The situation isn’t better today, massive gifs are still used in place of video.
I've solved this by mostly not even using most sites on mobile anyway. The vast majority of whatever dreck is served up is purely worthless anyway, social network-powered chum, listicle nonsense, or whatever does load up reflows eleventy times and crashes the tab. This link included. What little is left beyond that is just shallow information that you can mostly get from the original sources (this link included).
Wipr has been pretty reliable for me on iOS. I know digital advertising has helped support many web innovations but it's just getting brutal out there.
A solution:<p>AdGuardHome and WireGuard running at home. WireGuard connects on-demand when I leave home.<p>I choose to run it at home because there are cases where services and/or sites block datacenter IPs, and I have complete control over what and how I block, no proxying through any blocking service.
Wireguard devices to home, where Pi-hole and NextDNS filter all ads. Noone in my family saw an ad over few years.<p>It's always shock to se how many ads grandparents has in TV, especially for kids that are rised in adfree environment.
I think the title needs 2016 since nowadays many ads transitioned from just pictures to even videos. Consisting much more than the text I read...<p>I would even argue this is a larger issue than the JS bloat websites are having...
I just turn on Ultimate Data Saving mode, and then I add some apps to the exception list. I always also have Power Saving mode on, and that restricts background data usage significantly.
ads aren't chewing though my mobile data. I generally don't go to any sites with ads. The few times I open a link and it's covered in ads I close the link.
iOS Safari has a setting that can use another app to do privacy controls and you can set Firefox Focus to be that app. It’s very nice. I got tired of how slow pages were loading on my phone, and got fed up one day and turned it on.<p>That and ads that resize and push down the content you’re about to click on to make you misclick were the final straws.
Aren’t browser-extension ad blockers (uBlock Origin, AdBlock, etc.) not helpful for solving this problem? As far as I’m aware, by the time the ad can be blocked by such programs, you have already consumed the data.<p>Wouldn’t a better solution be DNS sinkholing, like PiHole or AdGuard Home?
Be sure to read my follow up article, "How ads are funding the services you request the other half of your mobile data from, so you can use them without paying except with some mobile data and some pixels on your screen."
If you have an iPhone, NextDNS is free/very cheap and blocks all ads everywhere (except in the YT app, for this you need to route the YT traffic over to Albania, they get no YT ads there for some reason)
"Don't worry. Now that net neutrality is certainly no longer a thing, arrangements can be made for adtech companies to pay ISPs directly to zero-rate their traffic. You won't benefit from this with any less ads or tracking, but your Internet bill may increase slightly less over time, at least until it's as high as your cable bill used to be."<p>Ridiculous thoughts from my grandmother. I disagree. People still watch TV even though there are ad breaks, ads on top of the show you are watching, and product placement within the TV shows. People clearly want ads otherwise they would use alternate means to get the information, such as DVDs, books, libraries, non-online classes, or seminars. If mobile data pricing goes up and the cost of ads to the end user is too high, the free market can sort it out. Honestly it's hard for me not to believe that blocking ads is anti-capitalist and against the free speech rights of advertising companies.
Original is <a href="https://www.endersanalysis.com/reports/blocking-free-world-threat-online-ad-blocking" rel="nofollow">https://www.endersanalysis.com/reports/blocking-free-world-t...</a> but paywalled.
I question the methodology of this: Enders used a browser that mimicked an iPhone 6 and accessed a total of eight "popular" news sites (though they didn't confirm what these were)."<p>'iPhone 6', an phone that's 10 years old. A sample size of 8 and undisclosed.