How I imagine life without an adblocker must be like

I use an add blocker to such an extent im horrified every time I'm on an unfamiliar device and have to deal with copious adds.

I can't even imagine raw-dogging the internet like that...
I’m to the point that if whatever I’m watching/doing pops an ad at me, I reflexively make a snap judgement on whether I want to continue watching/doing whatever it is. Often the answer is ‘no’ and I’ll just bail entirely.
Basically me every time I open a website on my work laptop, where I cannot add browser extensions because of IT policies.

I honestly cannot fathom why large companies don't include at least simple adblockers in their browser configurations. I don't even need to block youtube ads, the banners on stackoverflow are bass enough). Would probably save fairly significant amounts of bandwidth, too.
- because then things would just shut down... The poor suckers that don't use adblockers are what pay the bandwidth and hosting costs for those of us that do. If it becomes the default, things would either shutdown or go paywall.

I remember life without adblockers. Back when they were not needed, because web sited did not have ads.

- Those were one of the later plagues, too.
did you use the internet in '92 or something? because even in mid to late 90s the ads were so cancerous that pop-up blocking eventually became a standard feature of browsers before ad blockers were even a thing.
- My first contact with the web (I had been in the internet for some time already) was when a collegue at university told me about the Arena browser, and this new system, "like Gopher, but with Hypertext and pictures". And yes, I've seen the CERN website, served from Tim Barners-Lee's NeXT cube, too.
  
  So yes, I knew the web before there were ads, the internet when services were normally open to all sides, and when people on the internet that were actually much smarter than average.
- Up to early 00' most webs didn't really have many ads. Some may have abusive advertisement but it wasn't everywhere like now.
- Seriously. Someone never clicked on the "you are an idiot" popup that auto-played music, moved around the screen, prevented task manager from opening and cloned itself if it was closed.
- The installers for every major software company riddled every single computer with adware. And you needed a compsci degree to get rid of it. Weren’t there lawsuits over that shit, that led to regulations? I remember that happening. It’s not like they were going to stop doing that of their own accord.
I, too, have a sore back when I awake.
Ah yes, the less than three years before banner ads showed up, and exploded, everywhere
- At least those were a) just banner ads and b) not as annoying as modern JS/HTML5/popup/popover ads are. You just scrolled down a few pixel, and had 100% information.
I remember when I first noticed YouTube had ads. They've had them a while but before they got ads I had installed an ad blocker. So when I was setting up a new laptop and just testing if everything worked I loaded up a YouTube video and suddenly there was a pre roll playing and I wondered "What the fuck is this ... Ah yes still need to install an ad blocker"

Edit: Toni? Who the fuck is he? ;)
- Man, took me too long to figure out who Toni is.
pepperidge farm remembers
- FDunny, though, that I only know Pepperidge Farm from memes. I assume that is/was an American brand, right?

Camara zooms out revealing a third guy looking down into his face youtube requiring a Webcam so they can track your eyes

I'm convinced Mark Zuckerberg had a wet dream about pupil tracking when he bought Oculus.
- He saw that Black Mirror episode and found it to be aspirational.
- im convinced his business model if AR/VR ever takes off will involve pupil tracking yes

After going nuclear against ad blockers, at some point google is going to introduce a new “feature” where YouTube uses AI with your phone’s camera to automatically pause videos when you look away from your phone.

Then they’ll make it so you have to buy a subscription to turn it off during ads.

writers of black mirror's 15 million merits laughing crying maniacally in the distance
Me if that happens:

jk, i barely use YT as it is. I'm waiting for the YT ToS update that causes a mass migration to peertube
- Yea, that mass migration is not something I see happening...
Hey, don't give them ideas.
- Tbh I figured they have bots crawling social media to find out what people are using to avoid their annoying, intrusive, abusive practices and use that to get ever more obnoxious.

I remembered a scene of a black mirror episode: if the person looked away the ads will stop until the person watch it again and it's unavoidable ... I wonder if this will be a reality one day

Yes, the technology to do this is here, and they're just waiting for the consumer to be able to put up with it.
- This is why I just set up a media server at home.
  
  It's mine, you can't pump it full of ads. All the media is mine and those companies can go fuck themselves.
  
  Sail those seas folks
- Reading your reply made me think ... it's possible that implying such technology might help rising Free & Open Source culture more ... given that FOSS apps are usually ad-free and with no tracking
- They know if they do that people will just disable their cameras or put tape over it like they already do. If they make it so you can't disable the camera without losing functionality then people won't buy the product.
  
  If they try to push it by making a gentleman's agreement with their competitors to make all tvs or phones use camera eye contact during ads well have to have fight back with more ad blockers and such.
Please drink a verification can

On my Roku TV I can't block ads, when they play I mute the TV and look away. I am absolutely the level of autistic that I think I'm "winning" by doing this.

if you mute ads on Spotify they pause the ad.
I'm so glad I'm not alone.
With a pi-hole you can block the adds of all your house. You only need a raspberry pi.
- I have a 3b somewhere, how complicated is setting it up? I only have the router/modem from my ISP.

Put a pi-hole in my rooter filtering all adds of all webs and apps was the best thing I ever did.

put a pi-hole in my rooter

Giggity What would be the definition if it was in the urban dictionary?
- Allot of my phrases tend to be like this without noticing... Its like a power I think

mute

So I have a conspiracy theory around that. Android used to put the volume slider at the top of the screen. At some point they moved it to the right side, and now blocks the skip button on YouTube. I won't doubt this was done on purpose, so if you lower the volume for an ad, you will be forced to watch more of it.
- That is one nefarious dark pattern.
- That is absolutely intentional!! Wow!

uBlock origin carries my browser ngl

I have adblock on my Mac, but not on the PS5. Whenever I watch YouTube on my TV via PS5, I have to open and close videos sometimes 10 or 15 times before they just play the video I've clicked on and not some obnoxious 45 second long advert for some bullshit I don't want and won't use. Honestly not sure why YouTube finds it so hard to play the video I clicked on and not random other videos. I also tend to stop watching vids as soon as an ad break happens.

I work with a marketing department full time and they're exactly as annoying as expected, always pissing about on tiktok or Instagram creating shit that nobody could possibly feasibly care about.

Is there an alternative to YouTube on PS5 that doesn't have adverts? Or is there some way to get adblocking on there?

Easy fix: HDMI cable from the laptop to your TV to watch youtube.
I believe you would need a pihole, is like a ad block but in the entire network, so you could even use the official youtube app on a tv and not get any ad
- I think they serve the ads from the same domain so DNS blocking wont work. And I heard they are testing baking the ads into the actual video.

If I'm watching YouTube on my TV, I mute it when anything longer than a 5 second ad comes on. If what I'm watching is less than 10 minutes, I'll just back out and start in again, usually it will come up without the ad, then seek to where I left off. Although oftentimes lately, I'll be watching a 5 minute video, and I'll get 1 minute in and get hit with an unskippable 2 minute ad, I just quit YouTube for the day.

dude use SmartTube on your smart tv https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube
it has adblock + sponsorblock
- I think I tried that once & had trouble getting it installed... Don't remember what kind of trouble though, I suppose I should try it again.

Yes, I someones forget how people live.
Disgusting.

On Linux or Windows? Firefox + uBlock origin (there’s nothing better than that)

On Mac? Firefox + uBlock origin (worse alternative: Safari + AdGuard, since you might synch browser with iPhone)

On Android? Firefox + Privacy Badger + uBlock Origin

On iOS? Safari + AdGuard + Vinegar + Baking Soda

On SmartTV it’s different.

Hardest overall solution: Get yourself a Pi-Hole https://pi-hole.net/

For WebOS TVs use this: https://github.com/webosbrew/youtube-webos

Android TVs should get SmartTube: https://github.com/yuliskov/smarttube#smarttube-old-name-smarttubenext

RokuTVs got either this thing: https://channelstore.roku.com/en-ca/details/840aec36f51bfe6d96cf6db9055a372a/playlet or the open source alternative: https://github.com/iBicha/playlet

I look forward to the day apple is forced to allow other browser engines to run on iOS.

Unfortunatly, they were smart. To the average lawmaker, Firefox, chrome, edge, etc all run on ios, so there's no issue.
Why use privacy badger on Android?
And for Samsungs tizen os smart TV's tizentube for YouTube with a pi hole for the ads in the interface.

If you click the ad does the company have to pay like a fraction of a cent or something for a click through? Like if I always click on the ads can I make them pay for having waisted my time if it’s only a little bit?

you'll enjoy a fun browser addon then! - adnauseum

it clicks on every. single. ad both doing what you're doing, but also poisoning the data Google has on you. From their website:

As the collected data gathered shows an omnivorous click-stream, user tracking, targeting and surveillance become futile
- That's a cute idea but it completely ignores that it isn't 2005 anymore. Algorithms are good enough to detect that.
That's the idea behind the AdNauseum browser extension. "Click" on every single ad so that the data becomes worthless and the companies that are advertising have a negative return on investment. But it does mean that the ad server company gets more money.
Might be contraproductive if google earns more with longer ads.

Also, frantucally turning down the sound of my phone

That's me

Truly awful

Not even kidding, my dad watches YouTube on this smart TV and when an ad pops up he covers his eyes and screams until he finds the mute button. He then keeps covering his eyes until he can fully skip the ads.

I don't use an ad blocker anymore but I do pay for a bunch of services and I always pick ad free. I never see ads really.

If I were to use an ad blocker I would set up a pie hole or similar. I had that before and it worked pretty well but with the server side ads on YouTube you would still see those.