@alice Yup, I've been clearing and cleaning up computers infected via adware and malware delivered by ads for more than two decades. Ad blocker is the first thing that gets added any computer I work on.

@alice Browse the web? I haven't done that in forever. I doomscroll, and I might click a link someone shared here. There's a few RSS feeds I follow. And a couple of pages I bookmarked to go to directly.

There is no browsing.

@alice I'm a teacher, I use adblockers, automatic cookie decliners and similar addons. Sometimes I assign my students online grammar exercises. When I see the same website I always get a shock and try to gently suggest that maybe they should look into getting an adblocker. Similarly, my heart drops everytime they just click "accept all" to get the cookie banner to disappear as quickly as possible.

@alice very... very carefully

@alice I don’t install an ad blocker on my work computer because…internal software reasons…and I *loathe* looking at web pages on it.

I guess it’s a good way to keep me from browsing the web on work hardware.

@alice @eldersea
That was a handy feature. Also excellent for hotel rooms where they've chosen to provide the room with a remote that doesn't have certain features like menu access (all I want from my hotel TV is accessible wifi and an HDMI so I can plug in my own device).

I've been known to pay them back for the inconvenience by blocking right wing news channels.

@alice Pi-Hole https://pi-hole.net

@starlily pi-holes are awesome.

@alice And don't even get me started on how people use and want smart TVs

What's extra crazy is that this would've been 30% of my *monthly* mobile data, and it was racked up in a day or two!

@calvin always use protection; these days you don't raw-dog the internet, it raw-dogs you.

@alice @calvin What's your protection of choice these days?

@alice

Not to mention the additional power consumption/battery drain

At times I am "forced" to use a regular browser with no extensions, hosts file, pi-hole or similar. And I actually audibly curse every. Single. Time.

Also, countdown till someone boasts about their datacap

@alice
The last time my wife handed me her phone to look at something in her web browser I asked if she needed anything in the open tabs. There were so many that Chrome no longer listed the number. I then had to disable notifications from who knows how many websites. It's probably time for me to do that again for her.

She's resistant to any kind of change, so changing browsers or adding a VPN is out of the question for her.