Just a crazy idea, but could it be that they don't dogfood their own stuff? I have Ublock Origin Lite on by default (RIP full Ublock Origin) and a lot of sites look clean. I'm often not even aware that if I send a link to an article via Whatsapp or whatever, it may reflect badly on me that I send such an ad-overloaded mess to them. I just don't know the mess is there except sometimes by accident.

I watched someone getting a livestream of an important (to them) soccer game going via the sort of thing usually reserved for "adult" content - that any given click, be it "play" or "fullscreen" or whatever, has a 9/10 chance of triggering a junk popup rather than the intended action, so you play whack-a-mole until you finally get it playing, whack-a-mole again until you get fullscreen, and then for heaven's sake don't touch it any more. Whereas with the adblocker, typically it looks completely clean, with no junk popups, and every click doing exactly what it should on the first try.

Anyway so could it be that the web having turned into such ad-overloaded garbage, that even its designers have adblockers running and don't even fully realize what a mess they're publishing?

▲

butlike 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

To be fair, I don't think the porn sites have ever had egregious UX/UI. It's mostly Sourceforge and image hosters from the early 00's that have my votes as the worst offenders.

To be fair to your point though, the pirate sports streams are AWFUL in terms of link landmines.

	▲	tredre3 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> I don't think the porn sites have ever had egregious UX/UI Pornsites and pirating websites have always been amongst the most egregious UX/UI designed to make you accidentally click or open ads. The only way I can explain your differing experience is that you only visit pornhub.com which is indeed the one well behaved beast in a pack of rabid possums.

▲

arcxi 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> RIP full Ublock Origin

it's alive and well

▲

suzzer99 13 hours ago | parent [-]

In Chrome?

▲

yjftsjthsd-h 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Get a better browser. If you use the browser from an ad company, that's on you.

▲

MichaelDickens 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No, but Chrome is not the only browser.

▲

uxjw 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm using Brave and Vivaldi - still the same chromium engine as Google's Chrome but both support ublock origin for now.

▲

suzzer99 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I do web development, it makes no sense for me to use a browser most of the public doesn't use. Also I have a ton of extensions that help with development. Firefox is painful.

▲

bloppe 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Actually, it makes a ton of sense for you to use multiple different browsers.

▲

Boxxed 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Firefox is painful.

What exactly is painful about Firefox? It's so painful that you'd rather go without an adblocker?

▲

suzzer99 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not used to its dev tools. It takes me a lot longer to find my way around.

	▲	Boxxed an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Every time someone complains about firefox it's something trivial like this... "I don't like the default download location." / "I don't like how the dev tools opens on the bottom." / "I don't like the way the tab bar looks." Absolutely wild to me that using a browser without an adblocker, forever, is better than spending a week or whatever getting used to the different dev tools.

▲

djeastm 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You can have two different browsers, one for work and one for non-work.

▲

bdangubic 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

it is 2026, you should not be using Chrome

▲

troad 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Just a crazy idea, but could it be that they don't dogfood their own stuff?

I am so convinced that this is the case. They're using their own product using some max-level sub that removes all the annoyances, and don't realise how unbearable the default experience is.

Speaking of the NYT: previously, I used to bypass the paywall, and I simply got the article with no nonsense. Now I subscribe, and every single day I get an obnoxious pop-up ad to upgrade my subscription to some higher family tier. Giving the NYT money has made my day a tiny bit more annoying than not giving them money. Lesson learnt.