[DaveW]

I know a few of us run into sites that have fits about your ad blockers* or posts that link to paywalls
So I figured a thread on countermeasures would be good.

This thread on Mastodon has a few good tips at the start.

Vi (@vi@mastodon.gamedev.place)

I probably shouldn’t tell you that whenever you encounter a paywalled article on the Internet, or a popup that blocks the article from you unless you sign up or disable your adblocker, you can put the URL in archive.is and read it there comfortably, so I won’t.

mastodon.gamedev.place

*FWIW I don't mind ad's but I run an ad blocker as most adverts now run trackers to follow your browsing.
showing me adverts is one thing, breaching my privacy is totaly another thing, and I won't willingly allow it.

 

[SkaredShtles]

Yep - just recently discovered "https://archive.ph/" and it works for most anything...

 

[rideit]

There is a new Denver Post article about Palisade Peaches. It is behind a paywall. I just pasted the url into that site, and BLAMMO, there it was!
It worked a peach, I tell ya!

https://archive.li/9jpWn

 

[binary visions]

I find the whole advertising ecosystem to be horrible.

I agree that websites need to make money. I agree that advertising is the best way to accomplish this because most users simply won't pay for the service directly.

Unfortunately, ad networks continue to be rife with malware, intrusive ads, and invasive tracking measures. And so, even though I know that Ridemonkey would have collapsed under its own weight 15 years ago without ads, and even though I read content from sites that support themselves through ads, I still run an ad blocker everywhere. I've only turned it off on Ridemonkey because I need to know if you guys are seeing anything bad.

I'd love a useful and easy way to pay small amounts of money for content. I don't want to spend $4-10/month for every site whose authors occasionally produce something I want to look at, but I wouldn't mind regularly paying a buck for an article that I enjoyed.

https://12ft.io also does a lot of useful paywall unblocking.

 

[6thElement]

I have zero ad blockers installed in Edge Chromium, but it seems to block most ads on it's own, so much so that most news sites try to prompt me to disable my adblocker...Not sure how when I don't have one

 

[canadmos]

This is more so on the phone, but sometimes I find that switching to the easy to view mode or simple web view version that pops up, is enough to get around some paywalls and also eliminates ads (or I at least don't see them).

 

[binary visions]

This is more so on the phone, but sometimes I find that switching to the easy to view mode or simple web view version that pops up, is enough to get around some paywalls and also eliminates ads (or I at least don't see them).

Yep, a lot of browsers have a "reader" or "reading" view even on the desktop that can bypass a lot of rudimentary paywals.

 

[Westy]

I find the whole advertising ecosystem to be horrible.

I agree that websites need to make money. I agree that advertising is the best way to accomplish this because most users simply won't pay for the service directly.

Unfortunately, ad networks continue to be rife with malware, intrusive ads, and invasive tracking measures. And so, even though I know that Ridemonkey would have collapsed under its own weight 15 years ago without ads, and even though I read content from sites that support themselves through ads, I still run an ad blocker everywhere. I've only turned it off on Ridemonkey because I need to know if you guys are seeing anything bad.

I'd love a useful and easy way to pay small amounts of money for content. I don't want to spend $4-10/month for every site whose authors occasionally produce something I want to look at, but I wouldn't mind regularly paying a buck for an article that I enjoyed.

https://12ft.io also does a lot of useful paywall unblocking.

I really don't have much problems with ads on websites. I even appreciate some targeted ads. Bookface constantly shows me Amazon ads for crazy contraptions that I actually click on a lot to see what the fuck they are, kind of fun to guess.

Other ads are easy to ignore but I really hate it when I get the Crypto or 2nd ammendment t-shirt ads.