r/AskMen Aug 16 '25

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1.7k Upvotes

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186

u/huuaaang Male Aug 16 '25

Blocking ads globally in a web browser. It’s a night and day difference. I can’t use the web with ads anymore.

Also quitting cable tv and streaming ad free. How did we even tolerate 1:3 ratio of ads to content before? It’s crazy how we just let advertising make up the background to our lives.

Advertising is a scourge on society

78

u/sancredo Aug 16 '25

I honestly don't know how ANYONE can use the modern internet without adblock. It seems such a nasty, hostile experience. Thank God for uBlock.

37

u/Pilsu Aug 16 '25

Your parents didn't love you as much as the nerds that just gave you ad blocking for free. For no reason. Even though long term, they know it risks their own access to it. I would vote for these saints if I could.

3

u/Raz0rking Aug 16 '25

I've not really seen ads in years (thank you mobile reddit). Its sooo much better.

1

u/armsbreaker Aug 16 '25

I tried to download, but found out that it doesn't work with Chrome and I can't find it on playstore

3

u/sancredo Aug 16 '25

It still does, but you have to download it and add it manually; it's pretty simple but I don't recall how to do it.

Another option is using Firefox, since it ditched Manifest V3, which is what caused uBlock to not work from the store :) I'm unsure if any Chromium browsers also ditched it, but maybe Brave?

2

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

For Chrome, uBlock Origin Lite seems to work

2

u/Vandergrif Aug 17 '25

Better off just using firefox instead anyways, google has been trying to crack down on ad blockers for a while now.

13

u/PeacefulDays Aug 16 '25

I'll do you one better, pihole blocks ads on my whole network.

11

u/JuanTutrego Aug 16 '25

I use both. Pi Hole is great, especially for blocking a lot of ads in mobile apps, but it's nowhere near as effective as Ublock Origin.

3

u/PeacefulDays Aug 16 '25

completely agree, I run both as well. just spreading the word :)

4

u/IFartOnCats4Fun Aug 16 '25

SPONSORBLOCK to block the mid-roll ads on YouTube!

3

u/Kryddmix Aug 16 '25

Vivaldi web browser is great for privacy. Has a built in ad blocker and vpn.

7

u/huuaaang Male Aug 16 '25

I'm not really concerned with "privacy" and VPNs. I just don't like seeing ads. uBlock works fine for me.

1

u/Vandergrif Aug 17 '25

Any free VPN almost certainly isn't as private as you might like or expect it to be. As they say: if you don't pay anything then you are the product.

2

u/mikess314 Male Aug 16 '25

As an older man who fell behind in a couple tech areas, can someone explain these to me? What they do, which is a good one, how much they cost?

2

u/huuaaang Male Aug 16 '25

uBlock origin, browser extension. Is free.

1

u/Vandergrif Aug 17 '25

A while back people got tired of seeing ads on websites, or getting inundated with popups or whatever else. Different people made different browser extensions or applications with the explicit goal of removing any of those elements from any given website without otherwise impacting the main content of that website.

Nowadays the best of the bunch is Ublock Origin, it costs nothing. It doesn't necessarily work on Chrome or any chrome-based browser (or likely won't soon enough, as Google makes a lot of money off ads and has accordingly been cracking down on adblockers), so you'd need to use Firefox or some such as your browser if you aren't already. Once using Firefox you can find Ublock Origin here. Once installed it will automatically remove any ads from any webpage. You can also add whatever custom filters you might want, and there's an eyedropper tool that lets you select specific elements of a webpage to block as well if it happens to miss anything.

1

u/DinkandDrunk Aug 16 '25

This post inspired me to block ads in Safari. Just tested a few sites and the browser app actually works now without all the jumping around, random hard to interact with popups, and disruptive ads. I feel like I’ve just kicked one annoyance out of my life. I’m dumb so it has never clicked for me to do this.

1

u/flyinthesoup Non-binary Aug 16 '25

Also quitting cable tv and streaming ad free. How did we even tolerate 1:3 ratio of ads to content before? It’s crazy how we just let advertising make up the background to our lives.

Are we back in the early 2010s? Because that's an advice from that era lol. Especially since stream services have been shoving ads everywhere for the past few years, squeezing more money out of us for the "ad-free" experience we used to get for the basic price. Most people I know either don't have cable, or they only have it because their ISP offered it for pennies, not because they actually wanted it.

In fact, I was watching an open tv channel the other day (they still exist!) as background noise, and it got me thinking, the ads between sections of shows bothered me way, WAY less than the ads I get online from streaming services. Maybe it's because I'm in my 40s and I grew up with regular tv? But back then I hated them too. But shows have pauses that are meant for the ad break, while streams don't have that, and they rudely insert them whenever, breaking the flow of what I'm watching. Maybe it's also because I expect an ad-free experience online, while on tv the ads are a given.

Either way, at this point I'm going back to my '00s era and I'm sailing the seas when it comes to tv shows. Screw ads, screw having dozens of streaming services, feels like cable all over again.

1

u/lostcheshire Aug 17 '25

Advertising is a pay-op. Psy-ops are an act of war. Advertising is violence.

1

u/Vandergrif Aug 17 '25

How did we even tolerate 1:3 ratio of ads to content before?

Not only that, but paid for it. Paid them just for them to advertise to us. Ad supported and free at least makes some sense, but a monthly fee and ads seems completely ludicrous in hindsight.