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"When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before." Mae West
«... thank the gods that they have made you superior to those events which they have not placed within your own control, rendered you accountable for that only which is within you own control For what, then, have they made you responsible? For that which is alone in your own power—a right use of things as they appear.» Discourses of Epictetus Book I:12
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To paraphrase, "When choosing between two evils, I prefer to try the one that's most likely to feel good."
Will Rogers never met me.
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And not blocking ads is stealing my concentration and time. Should I sue?
If you don't use an ad blocker, at least with ads, they are visible. How many websites tell you "this website contains an embedded miner, would you like to proceed with having someone else make some profit while you're visiting our website?"
Even worse, according to fhwa.dot.gov:
it requires the Federal Highway Administration to ensure that the State transportation departments maintain "effective control of the erection and maintenance" of signs, displays, or devices...
So yet again, I'm actually paying for ads through my tax dollars.
As an aside, given the text in the quotes (no, I really didn't make that up, it's actually on their website) one could have a field day with that.
The thing I don't understand is when people say it's stealing, or even here on CP, that ads help pay for the site. My understanding is that ad blockers remove the ad after it's been downloaded from the server, so exactly how is costing the website money? The ad is downloaded, what happens on the client side, whether I use an ad blocker or masking tape, shouldn't affect the website's revenue, right? If revenue is generated only when clicking on an ad, well, sorry folks, but being of at least some intelligence, I never click on an ad. So, where's the "theft"?
Latest Article - Code Review - What You Can Learn From a Single Line of Code
Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
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The problem with ads is they are often served with much nastier stuff, even if you don't click them, like trackers, unsecure code or even old-fashioned malware. I haven't seen a single site notifying me that it's going to track me what I do (even when I visit other sites) or make my system insecure. So in the end, they are not much different than malware.
In the end, every user has the right to determine what is running on the machine, any other way is just ridiculously unsustainable. #MyBrowserMyChoice
Marc Clifton wrote: My understanding is that ad blockers remove the ad after it's been downloaded from the server
There are two kinds of filters: network and cosmetic. Ads are blocked on network level (ad blocker prevents requests to known ad networks) whenever is possible. Some ads cannot be blocked in this way because they are not that different from normal traffic on network level. So these kind of ads are blocked on DOM level where ad blocker removed part of HTML known to contain ads.
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Marc Clifton wrote: it requires the Federal Highway Administration to ensure that the State transportation departments maintain "effective control of the erection and maintenance" of signs, displays, or devices...
So yet again, I'm actually paying for ads through my tax dollars.
Those signs are not ads, they are street signs. 
Marc Clifton wrote: My understanding is that ad blockers remove the ad after it's been downloaded
Some may work that way but others claim that sites are much faster using an adblocker which would tell me it prevents it from being processed by the browser altogether. Don't know really.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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011111100010 wrote:
Marc Clifton wrote: My understanding is that ad blockers remove the ad after it's been downloaded
Some may work that way but others claim that sites are much faster using an adblocker which would tell me it prevents it from being processed by the browser altogether. Don't know really.
Even an ad blocker that downloaded (but did not render) the ad would speed up the display of the page. However, if it "knows" that a certain site is to be blocked, why bother downloading it in the first place?
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Marc Clifton wrote: it requires the Federal Highway Administration to ensure that the State transportation departments maintain "effective control of the erection
I had no idea that ADOT was in control of my erections. Should I complain about being shortchanged?
Will Rogers never met me.
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Mladen Janković wrote: Should I block anything else?
Ports 80 and 443.
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Mladen Janković wrote: Since blocking ads is stealing according to some, why blocking miners is any different, or even blocking malware?
Sorry, but this is a ridiculous question. 
IMHO it's all about intent...If the goal is to steal, extort, or install something without notification (with the exception of MS  ), then the authors of such content should go die in a fire. :fire: (isn't there a symbol for fire?)
That said, I don't use adblocker or special hosts file, but I understand why others do. As others have asked, how is it stealing when the adblocking is done on the client?...the server doesn't know or care if the ad was blocked or viewed?...the website has done it's job and sent the ad.
If you/they mean that the 'theft' is that the audience/user was denied the clever marketing blurb/video that some big name company paid money to produce and disseminate, then all I can do is laugh, since that is also a ridiculous argument as I just ignore them anyway! (except of course those famous Carls Jr./Hardee's ads...I mean who doesn't like a good burger!)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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kmoorevs wrote: goal is to steal, extort, or install something without notification
What miners do? They don't steal, extort and install anything? Same with trackers. Adware is malware as well, even though ad-ablocking-is-stealing-dude refuses to acknowledge this 
btw. I'm not advocating that we should't block miners and malware, but that ads are in the same category, a category that is subject to user's will and judgment to let them run on his system.
kmoorevs wrote: website has done it's job and sent the ad.
As I explained previously, ad blockers filter HTTP requests from browser that are sent to server to serve ads. Example
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kmoorevs wrote: What do I get if my processor is hijacked to perform cryptocurrency algorithms?
What do I get from ads? I get higher internet bill on my metered connections*, less privacy and less security (and more CPU time wasted, knowing how the code for these ads is written). So you're not arguing the principle here.
Proponents of #BlockingIsStealing would argue that you get the content. They are vocal when it comes to ads, but strangely silent on subject of CC miners, even though those are not different in principle.
* - as you saw in the screenshot: 7% of request are blocked since installation. This does not include cosmetically blocked ads and it's percent after most of JavaScript code has already been blocked by NoScript, so I would say real number is greater than 10% or requests.
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In my opinion, we should default to block all ads, miners, etc.. and only opt-in if it's meaningful to us. If sites go offline/broke.. so be it.
In my experience, sites that don't thrive on ad revenue, for whatever reason, put out much higher quality content and are curated to a much higher degree. Quality is used attract people and generate profit.
Sites that run on ad revenue are in the business of wasting my time for money.
Money is far less valuable to me than time, so I hate those sites with a zealous passion.
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 Block it all and let Adam Smith's invisible hand sort it out. WAY too much crap on the Net. Death to click-bait.
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Just send them an urgent email!
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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I'm kinda screwed - going to have to move - maybe MS 365 or similar.
SmarterASP.Net and other providers are great until they're not and right now they are not!
Keep your friends close. Keep Kill your enemies closer.
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I have been using Prohosting for some 20 years, and cannot remember ever having your kind of issues. They are very reliable but they are not cheap (some $18 / month).
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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Anything with asp in the name is sure to turn and bite you.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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I really want to laugh at that but I still have got no further. I am submitting a ticket every hour to see what happens. Once I can access I'll preserve any email still on the server and move elsewhere.
Keep your friends close. Keep Kill your enemies closer.
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maybe they are running the Intel patch on their servers. Though, I read last night that you're not supposed to run the patch now because it has bugs in it.
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Motorhead guitarist 'Fast' Eddie Clarke dies at 67[^] And so goes the last one. 
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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True, the last of the Classic 'Head  Sorry I didn't see this post ealier, saw old Eddie had gone...
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They're probably sending you lots of updates on your support requests - by email!
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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