I wish there was a middle ground where I could block ads like the ones you mention, while allowing privacy-respecting ads that don't ruin my browsing experience. I know Adblock Plus have their "Acceptable Ads" policy [1], but that just meant letting through ads from companies that paid them, like Google [2].

[1] https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2013/7/5/4496852/adblock-plus-eye-g...

Ads are only easy to block because they load from centralized, third-party domains. Physical print publishers don't leave blanks in their newspapers and send them off to advertisers to fill in. They approve and print the ads, just like any other content. If digital publishers made similar agreements to embed static ads, they would not be affected by ad blockers.

My approach today is Firefox with Enhanced Tracking Protection and then keeping Google, Meta/Facebook, and Amazon logins sequestered to individual containers. At that point a lot of the worst ad networks will complain that you are using "an ad blocker" simply because most of their trackers fail and won't even bother showing ads.

(Then on mobile, similarly using Firefox on iOS, being heavy and fast on the "ask app not to track" buttons and keeping logins to first party apps only and almost never in either Safari or Firefox.)

Again, I use no real "ad blocker", just the above steps.

It's probably not an approach for everyone, and entails a bit of paranoia to operate, but I think it sends the right message that I don't mind untracked/untargeted ads and don't think companies deserve my unfiltered data.

Do people still use bookmarklets?

I wrote this one to remove all <iframe> elements, which is where most of the worst distractions live. I mostly only use it when a site has gone too far.

    javascript:(function () {
        const rm = () => document.querySelectorAll('iframe')
            .forEach(f => f.remove());
        let timeout;
        const debouncedRm = () => {
            clearTimeout(timeout);
            timeout = setTimeout(rm, 100);
        };
        rm();
        new MutationObserver(debouncedRm)
            .observe(document.body, {
                childList: true, 
                subtree: true
            });
    })();

Privacy respecting ads are those on TV and printed newspapers. Targeted ads are where the money has been for a quarter of a century.