Computer General Discussion Thread

[Minoa]

I think what is happening is that my internet connection is very slow at the moment, and when my browser goes from the Duckduckgo homepage to load this site, there is a moment when it appears to Privacy Badger that there is a tracker.

Yes, that is definitely the NationStates Google Analytics script.

[Minoa]

If DuckDuckGo is going to be a viable replacement for Google, it needs to know that

"ink tag" -covid -coronavirus -china

means that I am looking for something else and I do not want information about the COVID epidemic. I am sick and tired of search results constantly being politicised.

[Cekoviu]

If DuckDuckGo is going to be a viable replacement for Google, it needs to know that

"ink tag" -covid -coronavirus -china

means that I am looking for something else and I do not want information about the COVID epidemic.

...Just looking up "ink tag" doesn't give you information about COVID-19, though, so why wouldn't you just do that and save yourself some typing?

[Minoa]

If DuckDuckGo is going to be a viable replacement for Google, it needs to know that

"ink tag" -covid -coronavirus -china

means that I am looking for something else and I do not want information about the COVID epidemic.

...Just looking up "ink tag" doesn't give you information about COVID-19, though, so why wouldn't you just do that and save yourself some typing?

Sorry about the minor revision to my post. One of the reasons that I use exclusion commands is that I want to filter out results that may worsen my already brittle mental health. For example, just searching for "hackney tower block" will likely return results about the impact of the Grenfell Tower disaster in Hackney, so I use "hackney tower block -grenfell" to omit such results.

[Saiwania]

I'm in a bit of a minor panic as of late. It seems the era of AdBlockers working as intended is over. On Youtube, ads are often appearing in spite of the use of NoScript and filter lists for Adblock Plus. For many years now, I could enjoy a lighter browsing experience with fewer disruptions and more security, but now it seems its impossible but to allow for ads to load for certain things like video.

In the arms race between websites and users who want to free ride, are the websites perhaps winning? What do people recommend for now if any changes are to be made? The reason I went to Adblockers in the first place, was to protect my machine given my past experiences with the "bad old days" of the internet in the early 2000s where ads more often than not, infected Windows XP on a regular basis. Not wasting time on advertising I'd usually skip/ignore anyways was a happy accident.

And in all the time I was able to rely on AdBlockers to surf as I wanted with impunity, I had fewer problems and hassle overall, and saved a good deal of bandwidth.

[Cekoviu]

I'm in a bit of a minor panic as of late. It seems the era of AdBlockers working as intended is over. On Youtube, ads are often appearing in spite of the use of NoScript and filter lists for Adblock Plus. For many years now, I could enjoy a lighter browsing experience with fewer disruptions and more security, but now it seems its impossible but to allow for ads to load for certain things like video.

In the arms race between websites and users who want to free ride, are the websites perhaps winning? What do people recommend for now if any changes are to be made? The reason I went to Adblockers in the first place, was to protect my machine given my past experiences with the "bad old days" of the internet in the early 2000s where ads more often than not, infected Windows XP on a regular basis.

And in all the time I was able to rely on AdBlockers to surf as I wanted with impunity, I had fewer problems and hassle overall, and saved a good deal of bandwidth.

I'm wondering if your issue is a result of using ABP, which has previously made exceptions for particular websites. I haven't experienced issues with YouTube ads while using uBlock Origin. The only issues I've experienced are the occasional annoying website showing me a message about how they've detected I'm using an adblocker and pleading to disable it (in which case I leave the website), and disruptions from Hulu where it replaces ads with a message about turning off my adblocker, which only sometimes happens.

One other possibility if you refuse to use uBO but want to continue watching YouTube is to search the YouTube site for videos you want to watch, then youtube-dl those videos and mplayer them. A sh implementation of this might be:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
mkdir -f ~/tmp
cd ~/tmp
youtube-dl $1 -o $1.mp4
mplayer $1.mp4
rm $1.mp4


[Cisairse]

I'm in a bit of a minor panic as of late. It seems the era of AdBlockers working as intended is over. On Youtube, ads are often appearing in spite of the use of NoScript and filter lists for Adblock Plus. For many years now, I could enjoy a lighter browsing experience with fewer disruptions and more security, but now it seems its impossible but to allow for ads to load for certain things like video.

In the arms race between websites and users who want to free ride, are the websites perhaps winning? What do people recommend for now if any changes are to be made? The reason I went to Adblockers in the first place, was to protect my machine given my past experiences with the "bad old days" of the internet in the early 2000s where ads more often than not, infected Windows XP on a regular basis. Not wasting time on advertising I'd usually skip/ignore anyways was a happy accident.

And in all the time I was able to rely on AdBlockers to surf as I wanted with impunity, I had fewer problems and hassle overall, and saved a good deal of bandwidth.

AdBlock Plus was sold to the ad industry ages ago. You should never, ever use it, as it whitelists ads from companies that have paid its owners. I haven't seen any ads on any website, including YouTube, for years using uBlock Origin.

[Cisairse]

I'm in a bit of a minor panic as of late. It seems the era of AdBlockers working as intended is over. On Youtube, ads are often appearing in spite of the use of NoScript and filter lists for Adblock Plus. For many years now, I could enjoy a lighter browsing experience with fewer disruptions and more security, but now it seems its impossible but to allow for ads to load for certain things like video.

In the arms race between websites and users who want to free ride, are the websites perhaps winning? What do people recommend for now if any changes are to be made? The reason I went to Adblockers in the first place, was to protect my machine given my past experiences with the "bad old days" of the internet in the early 2000s where ads more often than not, infected Windows XP on a regular basis.

And in all the time I was able to rely on AdBlockers to surf as I wanted with impunity, I had fewer problems and hassle overall, and saved a good deal of bandwidth.

I'm wondering if your issue is a result of using ABP, which has previously made exceptions for particular websites. I haven't experienced issues with YouTube ads while using uBlock Origin. The only issues I've experienced are the occasional annoying website showing me a message about how they've detected I'm using an adblocker and pleading to disable it (in which case I leave the website), and disruptions from Hulu where it replaces ads with a message about turning off my adblocker, which only sometimes happens.

One other possibility if you refuse to use uBO but want to continue watching YouTube is to search the YouTube site for videos you want to watch, then youtube-dl those videos and mplayer them. A sh implementation of this might be:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
mkdir -f ~/tmp
cd ~/tmp
youtube-dl $1 -o $1.mp4
mplayer $1.mp4
rm $1.mp4


mplayer is ancient. Mpv, which is much better, supports a youtube-dl backend by default so you can just run

mpv "https://youtu.be/whatever"

and it will work.

[Cekoviu]

I'm wondering if your issue is a result of using ABP, which has previously made exceptions for particular websites. I haven't experienced issues with YouTube ads while using uBlock Origin. The only issues I've experienced are the occasional annoying website showing me a message about how they've detected I'm using an adblocker and pleading to disable it (in which case I leave the website), and disruptions from Hulu where it replaces ads with a message about turning off my adblocker, which only sometimes happens.

One other possibility if you refuse to use uBO but want to continue watching YouTube is to search the YouTube site for videos you want to watch, then youtube-dl those videos and mplayer them. A sh implementation of this might be:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
mkdir -f ~/tmp
cd ~/tmp
youtube-dl $1 -o $1.mp4
mplayer $1.mp4
rm $1.mp4


mplayer is ancient. Mpv, which is much better, supports a youtube-dl backend by default so you can just run

mpv "https://youtu.be/whatever"

and it will work.

Ooh, fancy. Thanks. (I've gotten accustomed to ancient tools since using Slackware.)

[The Cosmic Mainframe]

I somewhat recently looked into Fedora Linux 32 Beta, which uses GNOME 3.36, and it is excellent (at least in comparison to previous GNOME releases). The UI has been revamped, and is better in every way. The changes to Settings and Music are also very cool. There are a lot of application features I couldn't test yet, but from the release notes it seems that they are putting some work into documentation, which is a tragically neglected part of open source.

[Saiwania]

Significantly more users still use ABP for whatever reason. Here is to hoping that uBlock Origin will do a better job for my purposes. It is only as good as the filter lists and whatever technology its able to bypass or intercept. With at least some things, you have no choice but to whitelist an ad to get past a wall that thwarts ad blockers in general.

[Cisairse]

Significantly more users still use ABP for whatever reason. Here is to hoping that uBlock Origin will do a better job for my purposes. It is only as good as the filter lists and whatever technology its able to bypass or intercept. With at least some things, you have no choice but to whitelist an ad to get past a wall that thwarts ad blockers in general.

That's when you just disable JavaScript.

Or start using uMatrix, if you want to make internet browsing high-maintenance. uBlock Origin should be fine for most purposes though.

[Minoa]

I would say uBlock Origin and uMatrix together. uMatrix is mainly for the scripts and such, while uBlock Origin does the element hiding.

[Valentine Z]

I would say uBlock Origin and uMatrix together. uMatrix is mainly for the scripts and such, while uBlock Origin does the element hiding.

Cool, thanks a lot, Minoa!

Sincerely from the guy who's still using AdBlock because... I gotta be honest, when it comes to ad-blocking, I just use the very first result without looking for better alternatives.

[Cisairse]

I would say uBlock Origin and uMatrix together. uMatrix is mainly for the scripts and such, while uBlock Origin does the element hiding.

Cool, thanks a lot, Minoa!

Sincerely from the guy who's still using AdBlock because... I gotta be honest, when it comes to ad-blocking, I just use the very first result without looking for better alternatives.

Ad companies pay a lot of money to be first on the list.

[Valentine Z]

Cool, thanks a lot, Minoa!

Sincerely from the guy who's still using AdBlock because... I gotta be honest, when it comes to ad-blocking, I just use the very first result without looking for better alternatives.

Ad companies pay a lot of money to be first on the list.

Such is life and its many, many ironies.

Also, the combination that Minoa recommended me worked wonders, thanks again! ^^

I tried it on this site in particular, which was bugging me with "WE SEE THAT YOU ARE USING ADBLOCK." With that combination.. no more.

[Outer Sparta]

Ad companies pay a lot of money to be first on the list.

Such is life and its many, many ironies.

Also, the combination that Minoa recommended me worked wonders, thanks again! ^^

I tried it on this site in particular, which was bugging me with "WE SEE THAT YOU ARE USING ADBLOCK." With that combination.. no more.

I don't use AdBlock since I am using Ecosia and clicking on those ads gives them revenue.

[Cisairse]

Ad companies pay a lot of money to be first on the list.

Such is life and its many, many ironies.

Also, the combination that Minoa recommended me worked wonders, thanks again! ^^

I tried it on this site in particular, which was bugging me with "WE SEE THAT YOU ARE USING ADBLOCK." With that combination.. no more.

Free software is pretty amazing.

[Minoa]

Using "about:reader?url=[url]" removes irrelevant elements from most pages, including ads. The Reader Mode feature has become an essential part of measures aimed at trying to control worsening instability in my mental health.

[Cisairse]

Using "about:reader?url=[url]" removes irrelevant elements from most pages, including ads. The Reader Mode feature has become an essential part of measures aimed at trying to control worsening instability in my mental health.

If this is FF there's a button to enable reader mode in the URL bar. I know Safari has the same thing, not sure about Chrome though.

[Cekoviu]

Using "about:reader?url=[url]" removes irrelevant elements from most pages, including ads. The Reader Mode feature has become an essential part of measures aimed at trying to control worsening instability in my mental health.

If this is FF there's a button to enable reader mode in the URL bar. I know Safari has the same thing, not sure about Chrome though.

There's one in Vivaldi too, but I don't use it because it makes websites look horrible.

[Cisairse]

If this is FF there's a button to enable reader mode in the URL bar. I know Safari has the same thing, not sure about Chrome though.

There's one in Vivaldi too, but I don't use it because it makes websites look horrible.

That's disappointing. The FF version has a ton of settings you can configure for the look and feel of Reader pages, and it remembers your changes so they're persistent globally.

[Cekoviu]

There's one in Vivaldi too, but I don't use it because it makes websites look horrible.

That's disappointing. The FF version has a ton of settings you can configure for the look and feel of Reader pages, and it remembers your changes so they're persistent globally.

There appear to be a good number of settings available in Vivaldi (as is the case for virtually every feature), I just haven't cared to change them because regular view works fine for me.

[Cisairse]

That's disappointing. The FF version has a ton of settings you can configure for the look and feel of Reader pages, and it remembers your changes so they're persistent globally.

There appear to be a good number of settings available in Vivaldi (as is the case for virtually every feature), I just haven't cared to change them because regular view works fine for me.

Fair point. I mainly like using reader mode for news articles or blog posts there the design of the website is ass or there's too many unneeded scripts. I find it works best on those types of websites with really obvious "content" and "not content" differentiation, as FF just grabs the content and shows it to me unobstructed and in a pleasing, dark-mode display.

[Minoa]

Using "about:reader?url=[url]" removes irrelevant elements from most pages, including ads. The Reader Mode feature has become an essential part of measures aimed at trying to control worsening instability in my mental health.

If this is FF there's a button to enable reader mode in the URL bar. I know Safari has the same thing, not sure about Chrome though.

Not all sites support it, so sometimes I have to prefix the URL to force through Reader Mode, if you know what I mean.