The (Ads) are Back in Town
Something horrible happened. Something truly repulsive and downright gross. It caused something I love to be something sluggish and clunky and a why-would-I-ever-use-this type of thing.
Ads were back on my browsers.
Both on my iPhone and iPad.
Every site I went to had them everywhere.
I couldn’t escape them.
Big banners spanning across the width of the page reminding me to kick Trump out of the White House this November (with quite the humorous animation of a super orange Trump flying through the air like he was DJ Jazzy Jeff during the intro each week of The Fresh Prince), which others argued that my personal freedom depends on Trump getting another 4 years (including a demonic looking Joe Biden and Hillary chasing after me). A handful of them moved, almost as if they were tracking where my finger was going to touch the screen. Some were minor little popups nagging me to join a mailing lists, some thoroughly blurred the line between an ad and a piece of the article — like a dangerous chameleon. Others were pretty explicit about what singles in my area were interested in doing with me.
Having had pretty serious and effective ad blockers for years, I had the added issue of going from no ads, to more advanced ads all of a sudden. No frog having the water temperature slowly turned up on it until its boiling (seriously, why does this idiom exist? Was there a time in history that people were having a hard time boiling frogs and they needed a story on how to teach people to do it properly? Like a lot of things, its best not to think of it too much. Disturbing). I haven’t witnessed the gradual addition of more and more pervasive ads like so many of you. I was elite and above them. My visits to websites were pure and clean. Everything in its place as their creator meant it to be.
Sure, they wanted the ads and wanted me to see them, that’s how they make their money, but their sites certainly weren’t designed with ads in mind. They are signed up for as an after thought. As a suggestion by a friend or partner as a way to make more money. “Just put this code into your site, and we’ll handle the rest.” They said, “and it will be great in that your readers will only see ads that are relevant to them! (And by relevant to them we mean things that we’ve overheard them talking about on the phone or in any room the phone happens to be in)” — I’m kidding about that last part. Kinda. Mostly.
On both of my main browsing devices, my iPhone and iPad, I’ve use a paid app called 1BlockerX to block ads, as well as other annoyances (comments, social media widgets, ads, trackers). The app is free if you only wish to block one type of item, but is a few bucks to unlock the full suite. It’s fantastic and does its job, sometimes a little too well. I have encountered some sites where I needed a popup to complete an order, only to sit there with nothing until I remember to whitelist (exempt the website from all of the ad and other protections I put in place) the domain.
If the people who created the site intentionally put ad blockers on their site and its a major stream of income for them, why do I use ad blockers? To be honest, a huge part of it is the annoyance of ads. They are used too much and get in the way of the information I seek on a site. But its more than that — a good percentage of ads on a website also contain malware. Little bits of code that if clicked upon, can infect the computer or device using the site. While using an iPad or iPhone is more secure in this regard, they aren’t bulletproof. With as much as I rely on my devices and the information I put into them, any risk is too much of a risk.
Outside of the annoyance factor, another major reason to have and use an ad blocker is that it will make your browser and device faster and use less data. Some of the most popular websites on the planet are made up mostly of ads (looking at you Facebook) and trackers (little bits of breadcrumbs that are used to track where you go on the web and what you search for…to better serve your relevant ads). Once you install a decent ad blocker, you’ll be shocked how quickly sites load, and if you’re someone who doesn’t have unlimited data, you’ll find that you use a ton less data web browsing.
Now there are some websites that I have added to the before mentioned whitelist, allowing some ads to be seen. I do this because I specifically want to support them and, most importantly, they have ads that are not obtrusive and annoying. They are creators I trust to not want to make the quick easy buck and allow non-reputable ad companies to have control of their website and possibly damage their customers.
So what happened? From best I could tell, it was either an iOS (the operating system on the iPhone and iPad) update, or an update by 1BlockerX that reset all of the content blockers inside of the web browser. A minor fix to reenable them, but what I saw was eye opening. A reminder of why I have ad blockers and why they are important.
1BlockerX is free for a single type of blocking, but a few bucks a year for a subscription that enables you to stay up to date with the latest ad definitions and to block more than one type of annoyance. Granted, it is only for iPhone, iPad , and Mac. There are other content blockers available, for both your computer and your mobile devices that are cheaper and/or work in different ways. For your computer, I highly recommend uBlock Origin. Its free and the fastest, most complete, and most reputable ad-blocking software out there. For Android devices, I highly encourage you to download Brave Browser to replace Chrome and just use it for all web browsing — it has powerful ad and tracking blockers built in.
Do you have to use an ad-blocker to be safe on the web? Not necessarily, but just like you don’t have to have functioning airbag to be safe in your car on every trip, having one does make you safer than without.
Stay safe out there.
