Firefox's built-in "Block Audio and Video" in Settings -> Autoplay seems to do a good enough job for most sites (with exceptions whenever it breaks something).
I know of a very popular newswebsite in my region which somehow works around this: When overscrolling the video window on their site, ALWAYS the video starts to play - I have the option disabled in FF settings, nontheless its not working in this case :-X
That’s interesting. I guess Firefox is taking the scrolling as user interaction, allowing the video to play. There’s a chance Firefox would fix this, if reported.
Does that help with "auto"play & PIP thats triggered by scrolling? I have not managed to completely deactivate PIP videos in Firefox settings/about:config.
I keep running into autoplayed videos in Firefox even with all the relevant settings turned up to 11. My solution to this is for the entire website to go straight into the DNS blocklist. TrashCrunch is one of those sites, and for even better reasons than just obnoxious ads.
Years ago I had a discussion with a guy from "AdTech" company: Their companies was pushing out ads on several large websites - he said the first thing on a new computer is an Adblocker to get rid off all the shit his company is distributing across the net :-D
Disabling JavaScript by default makes this a non-issue on most sites. Just checked TechCrunch and it’s great without it. Likely like the designer intended.
On iOS, Brave browser makes toggling JS particularly easy.
90% of my mobile web browsing is without JavaScript. It’s much faster, cleaner, safer. And for the occasional website that needs JS, I can toggle it.
Similar to many here in the thread, I then tend to not visit sites anymore that require JS/are too bloated.
In uBlock Origin, I allow everything except 3rd party frames, then I use uMatrix to whitelist acceptable domains and requests. These are the only privacy add-ons I use and they are amazing.
All of the ad-driven internet is on a timer anyways. We-re less than 5 years away from the release of the AdsAreSlurs Browser, the browser that uses a small local model to actively remove all advertisements from web content.
Sorry my question was “what does using an LLM do that ublock doesn’t?”
I see you’re saying that it obviates the needs for manual central curation. But surely we would move to (stronger) LLMs doing the curation centrally while using existing infrastructure, before trying to insert a LLM round-trip before every page fetch.
If you just want to read the text body of an article, there's plenty third party scripts you can block on Techcrunch through the advanced settings in uBlock Origin:
I know I didn't wake up in 2011 because uBlock Origin exists. Yet someone is talking about TechCrunch, so the most likely conclusion is that uBlock Origin existed long before I thought it did, like 2011.
Also a great practice if you do any amount of browsing on mobile as it’s practically impossible to read any mobile website through all the stupid ads. Just today I was trying to read an article on my phone in a browser without ubo and was basically blocked from doing so by a full screen video ad that kept popping up on its own even after dismissing it
Firefox's built-in "Block Audio and Video" in Settings -> Autoplay seems to do a good enough job for most sites (with exceptions whenever it breaks something).
I know of a very popular newswebsite in my region which somehow works around this: When overscrolling the video window on their site, ALWAYS the video starts to play - I have the option disabled in FF settings, nontheless its not working in this case :-X
That’s interesting. I guess Firefox is taking the scrolling as user interaction, allowing the video to play. There’s a chance Firefox would fix this, if reported.
Does that help with "auto"play & PIP thats triggered by scrolling? I have not managed to completely deactivate PIP videos in Firefox settings/about:config.
I keep running into autoplayed videos in Firefox even with all the relevant settings turned up to 11. My solution to this is for the entire website to go straight into the DNS blocklist. TrashCrunch is one of those sites, and for even better reasons than just obnoxious ads.
The first thing I do when I get access to any computer is install uBlock. A friend comes for tech support, first install then anything else.
Years ago I had a discussion with a guy from "AdTech" company: Their companies was pushing out ads on several large websites - he said the first thing on a new computer is an Adblocker to get rid off all the shit his company is distributing across the net :-D
The first thing I do when I get access to any PC is install Firefox, then ublock ;)
The internet has been unbearable without it for years now. I can't imagine having to face it every day as most people do.
Disabling JavaScript by default makes this a non-issue on most sites. Just checked TechCrunch and it’s great without it. Likely like the designer intended.
On iOS, Brave browser makes toggling JS particularly easy.
90% of my mobile web browsing is without JavaScript. It’s much faster, cleaner, safer. And for the occasional website that needs JS, I can toggle it.
Similar to many here in the thread, I then tend to not visit sites anymore that require JS/are too bloated.
In uBlock Origin, I allow everything except 3rd party frames, then I use uMatrix to whitelist acceptable domains and requests. These are the only privacy add-ons I use and they are amazing.
The solution for shitty web design is not to come up with clever workarounds.
The solution is to stop visiting these sites entirely, as traffic emboldens them further.
It's like deliberately going into The Worst Toilet In Scotland so you can read the news scribbled on the walls.
All of the ad-driven internet is on a timer anyways. We-re less than 5 years away from the release of the AdsAreSlurs Browser, the browser that uses a small local model to actively remove all advertisements from web content.
Is this satire I’m not understanding? We already have Firefox+ublock that does that.
uBlock does not contain a local LLM, but relies on manual human labor.
Sorry my question was “what does using an LLM do that ublock doesn’t?”
I see you’re saying that it obviates the needs for manual central curation. But surely we would move to (stronger) LLMs doing the curation centrally while using existing infrastructure, before trying to insert a LLM round-trip before every page fetch.
If you just want to read the text body of an article, there's plenty third party scripts you can block on Techcrunch through the advanced settings in uBlock Origin:
cloudflare.com
connatix.com
d34azmi6bxg5fz.cloudfront.net
videos-cloudfront-usp.jwpsrv.com
facebook.net
google.com
googletagmanager.com
gstatic.com
jwpcdn.com
jwplatform.com
jwplayer-dualstack.map.fastly.net
assets-jpcust.jwpsrv.com
jwplayer.com
jwpltx.com
jwpsrv.com
parsely.com
sail-horizon.com
servenobid.com
wp.com
I've just stopped visiting websites that make it impossible to read their articles. It has gotten completely ridiculous.
I know I didn't wake up in 2011 because uBlock Origin exists. Yet someone is talking about TechCrunch, so the most likely conclusion is that uBlock Origin existed long before I thought it did, like 2011.
I feel dirty browsing the web without that extension
With the amount of times ad networks like googles have spread malware etc it's a basic internet security practice these days.
Also a great practice if you do any amount of browsing on mobile as it’s practically impossible to read any mobile website through all the stupid ads. Just today I was trying to read an article on my phone in a browser without ubo and was basically blocked from doing so by a full screen video ad that kept popping up on its own even after dismissing it