Off the top of my head:
* Use Firefox, uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock on your computer
* Unsubscribe from all marketing emails
* Put a no junk mail sticker on your mailbox (if available where you live)
* Get rid of your TV
* Listen to your own music and not the radio
* Remove all shopping-related apps from your phone
* Turn off all but essential notifications
> Get rid of your TV
>
If you enjoy a TV free life, awesome. If you happen to like having a TV on occasionally, there are some steps that could be taken with varying degrees of results. Disconnecting your TV from the internet, using 3rd party devices [roku, firestick], or less legal means on another PC device that you watch on your TV.
I use Plex and don't have any subscriptions. I choose what I want to watch by my own preferences, rather than the utter garbage [IMO] being promoted. I only see TV ads out in the wild, so i'm usually out of the loop on whatever is going on and my life has been pretty hunky dory. You may have a friend with Plex as well, talk to them and ask if they're willing to share with you. Just be kind.
You can choose to "opt out" of ~~all~~ some algorithms. Either enjoy more physical media from your local library, or setup your own PC and media server that you control.
If you're tech savvy, setting up a Pi-Hole on your network can also be pretty nice. However, it has varying degrees of minimal effect on TV's. It will minimize ads while browsing on your network devices though.
Idk about the sticker thing but you can also turn off marketing mail to your address at dmachoice.org. You can also opt out of credit card offers at optoutprescreen.com.
In Canada where I live you can put a note on your mailbox: [https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/personal/consumers-choice.page](https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/personal/consumers-choice.page)
Also, on a mobile device, set up a custom DNS. Depending on the phone, it might work setting it under connection settings, or it might require the use of an app such as Rethink. I use Mullvad's ad blocking and social blocking DNS and not only do I not see ads ever, it also blocks all the facebook and twitter trackers placed across all of the internet.
>when you conquer the FOMO
I hadn't really thought about this, but it feels pretty accurate really.
A friend invited me to a superbowl party and I didn't know most people there. I don't shop amazon or have any subscription services, but.... apparently they all do. It was a startling amount of conversation (rivaled only by Swift news, and some football talk) that I just couldn't even begin to weigh in on at all. Finally my friend asked me if I've watched xyz and I said "I'm not familiar with that, I don't have any of these streams you're talking about"
My friend, on a dime, goes "OOOOoohhhh, so you're not part of the algorithms!?"
I didn't realize how "other" it was, but the reaction was hilarious. The whole time they're talking about these different shows, I can't help but think these sound like absolute drivel.
If you are a bit tech savvy, a good method I know of is called a pi hole. Basically you set up a raspberry pi which logs every DNS request to your network and compares it to a list of known advertisers. Any time an advertiser tries to connect, it blocks the information from being sent through your router before it even goes to your device. It's not perfect, but it stops a pretty good portion of ads. One of my favorite things is that there is nothing YouTube can do about it, they are trying to stop ad blockers from running on your PC, but they can't do anything about a raspberry pi connected to your modem. Admittedly I only have surface level knowledge about this, but there is a lot of documentation on the Internet about how to set one up.
PSA: Most VPN providers engage in blatant false marketing. VPN technology does absolute fuck all to "secure" you online.
You can think of it almost like if you were to dig a tunnel from your house, like a secret entrance. You come out someplace else, instead of through your front door. The tunnel does *not* add an extra lock to the front door.
The only reason I can think of for you to use a VPN is to appear to sit inside the EU. Privacy protection is so much stronger here. This is the equivalent of digging your tunnel under the border.
Tom Scott has an absolutely excellent YT-video about VPN, what it does and what it doesn't do. Originally, NordVPN was supposed to sponsor that video, but when they saw his script for it, they said they wouldn't sponsor it if he didn't change it. So, he put it up without a sponsor, because fuck false marketing.
(Fun fact from Sweden: Cortana is "not available in your region" because it turns out, it's fucking spyware)
In my experience it's not devoid of bloatware. Don't know how much, though, compared to America.
Spyware like Cortana is disabled in the setup-meny when you set your region to a country within the EU. For English speakers I recommend Ireland, though the system language does not have to be the same (I run my computer in English for googlability reasons).
As for the bloatware situation, the first thing you should do with a new computer is to download windows fresh from Microsoft and reinstall your computer before you start using it. You don't need to import it from the EU.
> PSA: Most VPN providers engage in blatant false marketing. VPN technology does absolute fuck all to "secure" you online.
This is a little disingenuous IMO.
>Tom Scott has an absolutely excellent YT-video about VPN
A [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVDQEoe6ZWY) for anyone else. I wasn't familiar with Tom Scott but I checked it out to understand this more.
There are circumstances where VPN's DO secure you and Tom says that. Sure, they're potentially niche situation for the average person, but not giving your browsing data to ISP or whatever network you're on at the time, is no small peanuts IMO.
Example : Marijuana is legal in some, but not all places within the US. If you're nervous about discussing details, looking up, or messaging friends about something that may be legal next year, then a VPN can help ease your fears.
The VPN is also an extra layer of encryption on HTTPS websites. Is it redundant? Probably. Personally I enjoy a weighted blanket though.
Thank you for posting the link. I'm not able to browse for it at the moment.
And yes, you're right. If the country you're in, or the owner of the network is untrustworthy, a VPN is an option. As a Swede, I'm able to take quite a lot for granted that Americans can't.
In China, for instance, a VPN is practically necessary.
The point I was trying to get across, is that VPNs don't do most of the things the vendors want to imply or outright claim.
I'm sure there is a library out there to do that, but the more traditional (and likely easier) way is to just connect your router directly to a VPN service. That way your whole network is going through a VPN instead of just your specific device. But in the situation where your specific router is not able to do that, setting it up on an external pi could be a good option, but I am not familiar with something like that.
We have a pi-hole and I'm surprised to see ads when I'm out of the house. I'm so used to not seeing them. I also discovered months after the fact that our TV displays ads on the main menu. People are living like this??
There is a whole lot more information out there but this is what I found from a quick search, it should get you started.
Documentation:
https://docs.pi-hole.net/
Written guide:
https://dietpi.com/blog/?p=564
Video guide:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cE21YjuaB6o
Here's a sneak peek of /r/pihole using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/pihole/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Me after setting up Pi-hole + Unbound today](https://i.redd.it/06owmblu0uhc1.jpeg) | [68 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/1anrvu2/me_after_setting_up_pihole_unbound_today/)
\#2: [Samung TVs are insane.](https://np.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/194d782/samung_tvs_are_insane/)
\#3: [Reminder for June 12-14th, you can use your PiHole to help yourself and Reddit be better](https://i.redd.it/2yn9cepevz4b1.png) | [52 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/1455dyc/reminder_for_june_1214th_you_can_use_your_pihole/)
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If you're not super tech savvy/you've had issues with PiHole (mine was responding way too slow) and you're happy to spend a couple dollars per month, I'd recommend NextDNS. They offer a free tier which is great for one person, but will probably reach the monthly block limit before the end of the month if you have more people. It's worth considering if you don't have the technical know-how. After about 5 years, it'll work out to be more expensive than a PiHole
It is very difficult nowadays to escape ads since they're everywhere and have multiple forms: banner, product placements, paid reviews and so on. I use AdGuard Home (a self-hosted filtering DNS) and an adblocker in my browser that helps me avoid ads in a more comprehensive way. But it's never enough.
Aside from using Ublock Origin and firefox, for mobile (assuming you have an android) check out r/revancedapp. It's a patcher that lets you patch apks that you can get of common apps like youtube, reddit, and tiktok (i haven't gotten tiktok working though) to remove ads and other things. On top of that, paying for only one subscription service like spotify for music will cover the music. I can't say anything about watching movies though, especially since piracy is completely illegal and you shouldn't do it.
It's so difficult these days. I've been trying for years to reduce the ads I have to deal with because they're overwhelming and make a lot of platforms unusable.
- I download all my music from a spotify/YouTube to mp3 converter and import it to my phone (I've been doing this since the 2010s)
- If I'm watching YouTube video on my phone I use CleanTube and skip the sponsor
- read more books
- block anyone with a blue check mark
- no subscription services unless absolutely necessary instead I use a vpn browser extention on 🏴☠️ sites or keep physical media and skip ads manually
Apparently not a popular choice, but I've just trained myself to tune out most ads, or occasionally just click away in rebellion.
YouTube ads I just watch the bottom corner for the Skip to appear, and my brain almost never registers the audio while I wait. (Or if it does, I've trained it not to store it past short term memory, so I couldn't tell you 10s later who it was.) Infrequently I let ads run and just mute and ignore, so my favourite content creators get paid (at least those that I don't just sponsor directly).
Billboards barely catch my attention. Junk mail goes straight from mailbox to blue bin, unviewed.
Facebook and Reddit ads I tend to spot the "sponsored" tag quickly enough for it not to register much if at all.
Spam blockers in email catch most of my email spam.
It took a few years to reach this point, but I consider myself almost entirely "immune" to advertising at this point.
Run your own Plex server. It’s like building your own personal Netflix, but it’s free and there are no ads and you get to control what’s on there. It’s great not to be beholden to what the corporations want you to see and be in charge of your own eyeballs. I’m shocked these days when I’m at a hotel or somewhere the tv’s on, and it is SO MANY ADS!
I quit watching all sports besides soccer. In that case the ads are restricted to jerseys and stadium billboards and I find those easier to ignore than an audio/video ad that interrupts game play.
Thanks, I never heard of SponsorBlock.
Popular sports are horrible with ads, there's ads on the outfits, the sidelines, the stands, in between shots, overlays,...
I feel you. One of my favorite Podcasts started reading gambling ads and even though I never had a gambling problem, it's blatantly insensitive to a lot of people that do. I can't imagine thinking of this as an acceptable business choice.
Get a duck.com email address. It’s free, it relays all emails to your real email and it tells you how many trackers they stopped. I give it out to any and all businesses that ask for my email. Check it out!
Adverts are unfortunately a relentless spam we endure nowadays.
You can slow the flow somewhat by using ad blocking DNS
A few examples:
https://www.makeuseof.com/best-dns-servers-to-block-internet-ads/
For the home, you should research how to change your broadband router DNS to an adblock one. This will then cover all connected devices.
When out and about, research how to use an alternative DNS server other than the one provided by your data provider.
Thanks for the link! Someone else already mentioned a Pi Hole so I'm eagerly waiting for my raspberry pi to arrive. It's a bit ironic to purchase something out of this thread, but if the pi doesn't work for me I have someone who it would make a perfect gift for.
to stop those adverts 1-2-3
here's a brand new way that's trouble free
it's got paul anka's guarantee
(guarantee void in tennessee)
just don't look, just don't look.
just don't look, just don't look.
Outside of reddit, no real social media anymore. Get my news from a paper magazine subscription (the economist) got rid of all streaming TV, have dvds/blue rays of my favorite shows. Spotify premium for music (still relatively cheap, if they jack up the price it will be on the chopping block.
Well, free content is funded by ads.
So, the first step would be for only use news sites, music streaming, social media, and podcatchers that have a paywall. Pay for all media for ads arent needed.
Billboards and giant bus ads will be harder to avoid.
there are also people who have no sponsorships used to push any products and their content is funded via patreon (or similar means, or not funded at all), but publicly available.
there may not be that many of them, but they are there.
There's a difference between funding the content and milking every last penny out of it by blasting it with ads or even putting ads into paid content. I understand the need for content to have ads to survive in a capitalist system, but the amount of advertising we are subjected to (even without consuming any content) is ridiculous.
On my Android phone I have YouTube Vanced, Reddit Vanced and Twitter Vanced. No ads. I use Firefox with an ad blocker. I don't use apps I can't use ad blockers.
I don't work too hard at it. Instead, I avoid content where I cannot block advertising effectively.
Reddit's ads are easy enough to block on the browser (I don't use reddit on mobile) and I pay for advertisement free Youtube - I get a lot of guides on how to build some of the things I like to build there, and I have a family plan that my wife uses for her hobbies.
If you have a big problem with advertising, I recommend re-evaluating your hobbies and activities. If your they are just passive consumption you are going to become an advertising target. If they are working on making something, ESPECIALLY something that will help out your community, then you will be far less of a target. For instance, my Mom HATED television. She spent the last decade of her life making pillowcases and altering clothing for a children's hospital - she did this despite having severe arthritis in her shoulders and hands. She'd sit at the sewing machine and listen to NPR, then she'd get sick of the advertisements and put on a CD. Some days she'd do this for ten hours or more, just because she wanted to.
I can say that rubbed off on me. I can't sit still through a 30 minute television program. I do occasionally take in a movie (most recently I watched The Quiet Man on St. Patrick's Day and then we watched the first Dune movie a few weeks later), but I watch it in 10-15 minute bursts then I have to go get up and do something else for a little while. I need my hands to be busy. A two hour movie will take me all day to watch. It drives my wife insane a little, but it's just how I am.
Develop your creative hobbies, where you are making something, then put those to use in your community. Whatever it is that you are making. By shifting your focus to creation and service you won't notice the advertisement as much and you won't feel the draw to just spend money on shit.
I've got most ads blocked but the small things annoy me so much too
like when I'm sharing a file on outlook or am they're like "use OneDrive instead :D" and "your file is a little big, use one drive" (its a 20MB file, we didn't invent internet capable of several GB/s and transistors small enough to fit a terabyte in a toonie for no reason)
Google raspberry pi, become familiar with that, then make what's called a Pi hole. It takes all the ads on your networks, and shows them to the pihole not your actual device.
Personally I'm a fan of physical media as a way of avoiding ads. I have a CD player in my car, and check out CDs from the library or buy them used, which is a great way around radio ads/whatever music subscription service. I do the same with DVDs.
Libraries in general are a great way to entertain yourself in a space that doesn't normally cater to adverts. Check out books, some have puzzles or games. Community events. Our library doesn't allow anything on the community message board that costs money.
uBlock Origins, Firefox and a lot of Distance to almost all social media. Also mute every commercial break when watching linear TV, I visually block out ads in newspapers, I turn down the volume of my radio as soon as ads start. My brain capacity is way to precious to be used for that capitalistic shitstain on society
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Consider paying for the no-ad premium version of whatever services you use on the internet. I haven't executed this practice, but I've often thought of it. All of the free platforms we use on the internet are such that advertising pays for the platform. If you subscribe to those services for an ad-free experience, you are more intentional about what services you use, and you are paying for what you want to use, instead of being the product. Typing on mobile, so I'm not sure if I'm making sense.
1. Pay for Youtube Premium, then manually skip "sponsorship" segments embedded within the content itself anyway.
2. Don't watch television shows from past 2000. They are filled with product placement.
Off the top of my head: * Use Firefox, uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock on your computer * Unsubscribe from all marketing emails * Put a no junk mail sticker on your mailbox (if available where you live) * Get rid of your TV * Listen to your own music and not the radio * Remove all shopping-related apps from your phone * Turn off all but essential notifications
[удалено]
One of the first things I do is tell firefox not to allow any requests to do anything pretty much
Happy cake day.
> Get rid of your TV > If you enjoy a TV free life, awesome. If you happen to like having a TV on occasionally, there are some steps that could be taken with varying degrees of results. Disconnecting your TV from the internet, using 3rd party devices [roku, firestick], or less legal means on another PC device that you watch on your TV. I use Plex and don't have any subscriptions. I choose what I want to watch by my own preferences, rather than the utter garbage [IMO] being promoted. I only see TV ads out in the wild, so i'm usually out of the loop on whatever is going on and my life has been pretty hunky dory. You may have a friend with Plex as well, talk to them and ask if they're willing to share with you. Just be kind. You can choose to "opt out" of ~~all~~ some algorithms. Either enjoy more physical media from your local library, or setup your own PC and media server that you control. If you're tech savvy, setting up a Pi-Hole on your network can also be pretty nice. However, it has varying degrees of minimal effect on TV's. It will minimize ads while browsing on your network devices though.
There's a no junk mail sticker?!?
Idk about the sticker thing but you can also turn off marketing mail to your address at dmachoice.org. You can also opt out of credit card offers at optoutprescreen.com.
In Canada where I live you can put a note on your mailbox: [https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/personal/consumers-choice.page](https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/personal/consumers-choice.page)
You're absolutely right with the recommendations. I will do this next, thanks!
Also, on a mobile device, set up a custom DNS. Depending on the phone, it might work setting it under connection settings, or it might require the use of an app such as Rethink. I use Mullvad's ad blocking and social blocking DNS and not only do I not see ads ever, it also blocks all the facebook and twitter trackers placed across all of the internet.
Also install revanced and make YouTube ad free.
This is the way. To avoid the billboards, bus ads, and the rest of the crap that pollutes my space, I'm moving to the country.
If you're tech savvy, add pihole to the list
when you conquer the FOMO, you laugh at their desperate attempts to make you pay for what you don't need.
>when you conquer the FOMO I hadn't really thought about this, but it feels pretty accurate really. A friend invited me to a superbowl party and I didn't know most people there. I don't shop amazon or have any subscription services, but.... apparently they all do. It was a startling amount of conversation (rivaled only by Swift news, and some football talk) that I just couldn't even begin to weigh in on at all. Finally my friend asked me if I've watched xyz and I said "I'm not familiar with that, I don't have any of these streams you're talking about" My friend, on a dime, goes "OOOOoohhhh, so you're not part of the algorithms!?" I didn't realize how "other" it was, but the reaction was hilarious. The whole time they're talking about these different shows, I can't help but think these sound like absolute drivel.
"Someone is telling me I should buy this to solve a problem i didnt know I had, and I was not in the process of researching how to solve? DO NOT BUY!"
If you are a bit tech savvy, a good method I know of is called a pi hole. Basically you set up a raspberry pi which logs every DNS request to your network and compares it to a list of known advertisers. Any time an advertiser tries to connect, it blocks the information from being sent through your router before it even goes to your device. It's not perfect, but it stops a pretty good portion of ads. One of my favorite things is that there is nothing YouTube can do about it, they are trying to stop ad blockers from running on your PC, but they can't do anything about a raspberry pi connected to your modem. Admittedly I only have surface level knowledge about this, but there is a lot of documentation on the Internet about how to set one up.
Would you be able to run a vpn on a raspberry as well?
PSA: Most VPN providers engage in blatant false marketing. VPN technology does absolute fuck all to "secure" you online. You can think of it almost like if you were to dig a tunnel from your house, like a secret entrance. You come out someplace else, instead of through your front door. The tunnel does *not* add an extra lock to the front door. The only reason I can think of for you to use a VPN is to appear to sit inside the EU. Privacy protection is so much stronger here. This is the equivalent of digging your tunnel under the border. Tom Scott has an absolutely excellent YT-video about VPN, what it does and what it doesn't do. Originally, NordVPN was supposed to sponsor that video, but when they saw his script for it, they said they wouldn't sponsor it if he didn't change it. So, he put it up without a sponsor, because fuck false marketing. (Fun fact from Sweden: Cortana is "not available in your region" because it turns out, it's fucking spyware)
Dumb guy question: So if I buy a computer in Sweden (or EU) will it be sold devoid of all bloat/spyware?
In my experience it's not devoid of bloatware. Don't know how much, though, compared to America. Spyware like Cortana is disabled in the setup-meny when you set your region to a country within the EU. For English speakers I recommend Ireland, though the system language does not have to be the same (I run my computer in English for googlability reasons). As for the bloatware situation, the first thing you should do with a new computer is to download windows fresh from Microsoft and reinstall your computer before you start using it. You don't need to import it from the EU.
> PSA: Most VPN providers engage in blatant false marketing. VPN technology does absolute fuck all to "secure" you online. This is a little disingenuous IMO. >Tom Scott has an absolutely excellent YT-video about VPN A [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVDQEoe6ZWY) for anyone else. I wasn't familiar with Tom Scott but I checked it out to understand this more. There are circumstances where VPN's DO secure you and Tom says that. Sure, they're potentially niche situation for the average person, but not giving your browsing data to ISP or whatever network you're on at the time, is no small peanuts IMO. Example : Marijuana is legal in some, but not all places within the US. If you're nervous about discussing details, looking up, or messaging friends about something that may be legal next year, then a VPN can help ease your fears. The VPN is also an extra layer of encryption on HTTPS websites. Is it redundant? Probably. Personally I enjoy a weighted blanket though.
Thank you for posting the link. I'm not able to browse for it at the moment. And yes, you're right. If the country you're in, or the owner of the network is untrustworthy, a VPN is an option. As a Swede, I'm able to take quite a lot for granted that Americans can't. In China, for instance, a VPN is practically necessary. The point I was trying to get across, is that VPNs don't do most of the things the vendors want to imply or outright claim.
Yeah you can do with some VPNs or with WireGuard.
I'm sure there is a library out there to do that, but the more traditional (and likely easier) way is to just connect your router directly to a VPN service. That way your whole network is going through a VPN instead of just your specific device. But in the situation where your specific router is not able to do that, setting it up on an external pi could be a good option, but I am not familiar with something like that.
We have a pi-hole and I'm surprised to see ads when I'm out of the house. I'm so used to not seeing them. I also discovered months after the fact that our TV displays ads on the main menu. People are living like this??
Where can I find such info?
There is a whole lot more information out there but this is what I found from a quick search, it should get you started. Documentation: https://docs.pi-hole.net/ Written guide: https://dietpi.com/blog/?p=564 Video guide: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cE21YjuaB6o
Thx
r/pihole
Here's a sneak peek of /r/pihole using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/pihole/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Me after setting up Pi-hole + Unbound today](https://i.redd.it/06owmblu0uhc1.jpeg) | [68 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/1anrvu2/me_after_setting_up_pihole_unbound_today/) \#2: [Samung TVs are insane.](https://np.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/194d782/samung_tvs_are_insane/) \#3: [Reminder for June 12-14th, you can use your PiHole to help yourself and Reddit be better](https://i.redd.it/2yn9cepevz4b1.png) | [52 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/pihole/comments/1455dyc/reminder_for_june_1214th_you_can_use_your_pihole/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
Thx
Thank you!! I'm going to look into this!
If you're not super tech savvy/you've had issues with PiHole (mine was responding way too slow) and you're happy to spend a couple dollars per month, I'd recommend NextDNS. They offer a free tier which is great for one person, but will probably reach the monthly block limit before the end of the month if you have more people. It's worth considering if you don't have the technical know-how. After about 5 years, it'll work out to be more expensive than a PiHole
Love my pi hole! My internet is much faster because of it.
Not using social media helps. Instagram (last time I had the app in 2021) showed me 1 add every 3 posts. Absolute madness.
I turn off personal ads, now Reddit only shows random crap that isn’t of interest
Pinterest is the newest fallen travesty! I used to love that app now I can’t stand
It is very difficult nowadays to escape ads since they're everywhere and have multiple forms: banner, product placements, paid reviews and so on. I use AdGuard Home (a self-hosted filtering DNS) and an adblocker in my browser that helps me avoid ads in a more comprehensive way. But it's never enough.
There is ads for apple music subscription in the system settings of IPhone now🤡
another reason to not buy on iPhone lol
Aside from using Ublock Origin and firefox, for mobile (assuming you have an android) check out r/revancedapp. It's a patcher that lets you patch apks that you can get of common apps like youtube, reddit, and tiktok (i haven't gotten tiktok working though) to remove ads and other things. On top of that, paying for only one subscription service like spotify for music will cover the music. I can't say anything about watching movies though, especially since piracy is completely illegal and you shouldn't do it.
On androids you can use Firefox plus unlock origin and on iPhone Firefox focus has adblock built in.
Thanks to your recommendation, I'm writing this in my new ad-free reddit app!
Hell yeah!
It's so difficult these days. I've been trying for years to reduce the ads I have to deal with because they're overwhelming and make a lot of platforms unusable. - I download all my music from a spotify/YouTube to mp3 converter and import it to my phone (I've been doing this since the 2010s) - If I'm watching YouTube video on my phone I use CleanTube and skip the sponsor - read more books - block anyone with a blue check mark - no subscription services unless absolutely necessary instead I use a vpn browser extention on 🏴☠️ sites or keep physical media and skip ads manually
What programs do you use to download from Spotify?
You can use Firefox focus on iPhone or Firefox +unlock origin on Android for adblock. Works great and you can even use background play on android.
Apparently not a popular choice, but I've just trained myself to tune out most ads, or occasionally just click away in rebellion. YouTube ads I just watch the bottom corner for the Skip to appear, and my brain almost never registers the audio while I wait. (Or if it does, I've trained it not to store it past short term memory, so I couldn't tell you 10s later who it was.) Infrequently I let ads run and just mute and ignore, so my favourite content creators get paid (at least those that I don't just sponsor directly). Billboards barely catch my attention. Junk mail goes straight from mailbox to blue bin, unviewed. Facebook and Reddit ads I tend to spot the "sponsored" tag quickly enough for it not to register much if at all. Spam blockers in email catch most of my email spam. It took a few years to reach this point, but I consider myself almost entirely "immune" to advertising at this point.
This is the real solution. Instead of hassling with ad blockers and remaining sensitive to the remaining ads, the real ad blocker is ignoring them.
Pi hole
Run your own Plex server. It’s like building your own personal Netflix, but it’s free and there are no ads and you get to control what’s on there. It’s great not to be beholden to what the corporations want you to see and be in charge of your own eyeballs. I’m shocked these days when I’m at a hotel or somewhere the tv’s on, and it is SO MANY ADS!
+1 for this! plex is great
[удалено]
I quit watching all sports besides soccer. In that case the ads are restricted to jerseys and stadium billboards and I find those easier to ignore than an audio/video ad that interrupts game play.
Thanks, I never heard of SponsorBlock. Popular sports are horrible with ads, there's ads on the outfits, the sidelines, the stands, in between shots, overlays,... I feel you. One of my favorite Podcasts started reading gambling ads and even though I never had a gambling problem, it's blatantly insensitive to a lot of people that do. I can't imagine thinking of this as an acceptable business choice.
Unsubscribe to news letters and turn off notifications
Get a duck.com email address. It’s free, it relays all emails to your real email and it tells you how many trackers they stopped. I give it out to any and all businesses that ask for my email. Check it out!
Adverts are unfortunately a relentless spam we endure nowadays. You can slow the flow somewhat by using ad blocking DNS A few examples: https://www.makeuseof.com/best-dns-servers-to-block-internet-ads/ For the home, you should research how to change your broadband router DNS to an adblock one. This will then cover all connected devices. When out and about, research how to use an alternative DNS server other than the one provided by your data provider.
[https://pi-hole.net/](https://pi-hole.net/) It takes a bit of reading a some computer basics to pull off, but its worth it.
Thanks for the link! Someone else already mentioned a Pi Hole so I'm eagerly waiting for my raspberry pi to arrive. It's a bit ironic to purchase something out of this thread, but if the pi doesn't work for me I have someone who it would make a perfect gift for.
to stop those adverts 1-2-3 here's a brand new way that's trouble free it's got paul anka's guarantee (guarantee void in tennessee) just don't look, just don't look. just don't look, just don't look.
Outside of reddit, no real social media anymore. Get my news from a paper magazine subscription (the economist) got rid of all streaming TV, have dvds/blue rays of my favorite shows. Spotify premium for music (still relatively cheap, if they jack up the price it will be on the chopping block.
Well, free content is funded by ads. So, the first step would be for only use news sites, music streaming, social media, and podcatchers that have a paywall. Pay for all media for ads arent needed. Billboards and giant bus ads will be harder to avoid.
there are also people who have no sponsorships used to push any products and their content is funded via patreon (or similar means, or not funded at all), but publicly available. there may not be that many of them, but they are there.
There's a difference between funding the content and milking every last penny out of it by blasting it with ads or even putting ads into paid content. I understand the need for content to have ads to survive in a capitalist system, but the amount of advertising we are subjected to (even without consuming any content) is ridiculous.
Yes, there's an ad at the top of this post. It pays for this thread/sub/platform to exist. If you don't want to see it put down your phone.
On my Android phone I have YouTube Vanced, Reddit Vanced and Twitter Vanced. No ads. I use Firefox with an ad blocker. I don't use apps I can't use ad blockers.
R/adblock
I don't work too hard at it. Instead, I avoid content where I cannot block advertising effectively. Reddit's ads are easy enough to block on the browser (I don't use reddit on mobile) and I pay for advertisement free Youtube - I get a lot of guides on how to build some of the things I like to build there, and I have a family plan that my wife uses for her hobbies. If you have a big problem with advertising, I recommend re-evaluating your hobbies and activities. If your they are just passive consumption you are going to become an advertising target. If they are working on making something, ESPECIALLY something that will help out your community, then you will be far less of a target. For instance, my Mom HATED television. She spent the last decade of her life making pillowcases and altering clothing for a children's hospital - she did this despite having severe arthritis in her shoulders and hands. She'd sit at the sewing machine and listen to NPR, then she'd get sick of the advertisements and put on a CD. Some days she'd do this for ten hours or more, just because she wanted to. I can say that rubbed off on me. I can't sit still through a 30 minute television program. I do occasionally take in a movie (most recently I watched The Quiet Man on St. Patrick's Day and then we watched the first Dune movie a few weeks later), but I watch it in 10-15 minute bursts then I have to go get up and do something else for a little while. I need my hands to be busy. A two hour movie will take me all day to watch. It drives my wife insane a little, but it's just how I am. Develop your creative hobbies, where you are making something, then put those to use in your community. Whatever it is that you are making. By shifting your focus to creation and service you won't notice the advertisement as much and you won't feel the draw to just spend money on shit.
I've got most ads blocked but the small things annoy me so much too like when I'm sharing a file on outlook or am they're like "use OneDrive instead :D" and "your file is a little big, use one drive" (its a 20MB file, we didn't invent internet capable of several GB/s and transistors small enough to fit a terabyte in a toonie for no reason)
Google raspberry pi, become familiar with that, then make what's called a Pi hole. It takes all the ads on your networks, and shows them to the pihole not your actual device.
Personally I'm a fan of physical media as a way of avoiding ads. I have a CD player in my car, and check out CDs from the library or buy them used, which is a great way around radio ads/whatever music subscription service. I do the same with DVDs. Libraries in general are a great way to entertain yourself in a space that doesn't normally cater to adverts. Check out books, some have puzzles or games. Community events. Our library doesn't allow anything on the community message board that costs money.
uBlock Origins, Firefox and a lot of Distance to almost all social media. Also mute every commercial break when watching linear TV, I visually block out ads in newspapers, I turn down the volume of my radio as soon as ads start. My brain capacity is way to precious to be used for that capitalistic shitstain on society
Ask on r/piracy, they are masters of this art
Pi hole stops most ads before you even get them
Stop consuming unpaid media.
Turn off your screens. Spend sometime with your own thoughts. No app required.
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Revanced for youtube on mobile, ublock origin and Firefox for PC. For social media, I haven't seen any ads on Bluesky, Cara, Pillowfort, or Cohost.
I use the brave browser on my phone, it is awesome.
Brave browser
Consider paying for the no-ad premium version of whatever services you use on the internet. I haven't executed this practice, but I've often thought of it. All of the free platforms we use on the internet are such that advertising pays for the platform. If you subscribe to those services for an ad-free experience, you are more intentional about what services you use, and you are paying for what you want to use, instead of being the product. Typing on mobile, so I'm not sure if I'm making sense.
I do pay for most. It becomes problematic when services still show ads (Prime Video) or ads for their own products (wow tv).
Brave Browser and Duck Duck Go
adblock or pay the multi-billion dollar companies monthly, you can pick
Brave internet browser…game changer.
1. Pay for Youtube Premium, then manually skip "sponsorship" segments embedded within the content itself anyway. 2. Don't watch television shows from past 2000. They are filled with product placement.
Why don't you try simply reading a book? You'll get no (you'll get no) you'll get no commercials.
Oh fuck off
It's from willy Wonka , chill
Sorry