I used to use ad blockers.

One day I visited DistroWatch.com. The site deliberately tweaked its images so ad blockers would block some "good" images. It took me awhile to figure out what was going on. The site freely admitted what it was doing. The site's point was: you're looking at my site, which I provide for free, yet you block the thing that lets me pay for the site?

I stopped using ad blockers after that. If a site has content worth paying for, I pay. If it is a horrible ad-infested hole, I don't visit it at all. Otherwise, I load ads.

Which overall means I pay for more things and visit less crap things and just visit less things period. Which is good.

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akdev1l 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Not safe, before even knowing if a site has the content you want you can be redirected to malware through ad networks

not even joking

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massysett 2 hours ago | parent [-]

On an up to date Safari on Mac, not a realistic concern, and if it were, I’d use security software, not an ad blocker.

	▲	akdev1l 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		0 days exist and they are exploited in the wild sometimes An ad-blocker /is/ security software. You don’t have to take it from me, you can read from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency > AT-A-GLANCE RECOMMENDATIONS > Standardize and Secure Web Browsers > Deploy Advertisement Blocking Software > Isolate Web Browsers from Operating Systems > Implement Protective Domain Name System Technologies Literally their second recommendation on this pamphlet about securing web browsers: https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Capaci... Moreover you don’t even need a 0-day to fall for phishing. All you need is to be a little tired or somehow not paying attention (inb4 “it will never happen to ME, I am too smart for that”)
	▲	sensanaty 27 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		At $JOB IT actually bundles uBlock in all the browsers available to us, as per CIA (or one of those 3-letter agencies, might've even been the NSA) guidelines it's a very important security tool. I work in banking. Modern advertisement is malware.