this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2025
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[โ€“] InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I try to educate my less tech literate friends and family to use ad-blockers and never click on ads. The issue with browser based ad-blockers is that as soon as people visit a site that doesn't work (due to the ad-blocking) or that shows them a warning about "you're using an ad-blocker", they want the blocker gone. That little bit of a bump in the road is too much for them. It's one of those things where they have to do it so infrequently, that they'll never remember how to temporarily turn it off or make bypass rules, so to them it just becomes an inconvenience to use a blocker.

And as for the ads, a surprising number of people are defensive about being told not to click them. I'll hear things like "I get all kinds of cool stuff that way" or "I'm using virus protection so it doesn't matter what I click" and other frustrating responses. Viruses aren't the only concern even if your protection is 100% perfect.

About the only thing that's been effective (at least temporarily) is when people DO get these scam ads. "Help, my computer is yelling at me that I'm breaking the law and need to call Microsoft now" pretty much tells me that this person was clicking ads on Facebook. They basically allow(ed) ads to serve up obfuscated code via Microsoft Azure (which means they have microsoft.com domains in the link that "look" safe). I'm sorry, but ads don't need to run code, there's no excuse for having ever allowed that kind of implementation at all. Video, images, audio, text -- and even several of those are entirely optional and up for debate.

I used to be all about fixing peoples shit and educating them.

Now i think they're all sloppified americhildren who do not treasure their autonomy. I point and laugh and call them retarded little hogs who did this to themselves and need ro suffer because if not for idiots like them falling for this shit the internet would be a better place.

Weirdly; this works better.