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AdNauseum sounds like a terrible idea. I wouldn't want to reward sites by having it auto-clicking on any ads it encounters.

If you block ads to begin with, how can ad companies construct a profile?

Even the Lifehacker author couldn't get AdNauseum to work properly:

I confess, I couldn’t get AdNauseum to produce effective results on my Firefox installation—nothing appeared “clicked” in my vault—but the extension’s adblocking capabilities worked wonderfully. However, I have a pretty unique adblocking setup at home, which could explain my issues.

The author did like the adblocking capabilities, which is basically built on uBlock Origin, so that doesn't say anything new. Just stick with uBO and that should be enough.

freakazoid wrote:AdNauseum sounds like a terrible idea. I wouldn't want to reward sites by having it auto-clicking on any ads it encounters.

Your choice, which I respect. Myself, I couldn't care less.

freakazoid wrote:If you block ads to begin with, how can ad companies construct a profile?

I fail to grasp your intended implications, care to explain them?

freakazoid wrote:Even the Lifehacker author couldn't get AdNauseum to work properly:

I confess, I couldn’t get AdNauseum to produce effective results on my Firefox installation—nothing appeared “clicked” in my vault—but the extension’s adblocking capabilities worked wonderfully. However, I have a pretty unique adblocking setup at home, which could explain my issues.

The author did like the adblocking capabilities, which is basically built on uBlock Origin, so that doesn't say anything new. Just stick with uBO and that should be enough.

It's working alright on this side, as the previous screenshot confirms.

Freedom of choice is what I like most about freeware.

I'm sure ad-blocking also sounded terrible to some people at inception. So, here's a few quotes I find apropos...

AdNauseam is a free browser extension designed to obfuscate browsing data and protect users from tracking by advertising networks. At the same time, AdNauseam serves as a means of amplifying users' discontent with advertising networks that disregard privacy and facilitate bulk surveillance agendas.

As data hoarding corporations keep sabotaging the constitution of the Do Not Track standard, and ad networks keep selling our profiles behind our backs, we are left with no choice but to fight back. From the studios that brought you TrackMeNot, the browser extension that keeps searching to obfuscate your search queries, comes yet another data obfuscation plugin.

You can try to combat data-collection in all kinds of fun ways, including manually blocking or clearing the data companies have on you and preventing yourself from being tracked as much as possible with various adblockers, anti-tracking extensions, and privacy-themed browsers, but considering the number of systems out there tracking you, those methods can only be so effective. AdNauseum works on a different principle. As Lee McGuigan writes over at the MIT Technology Review:

AdNauseam is like conventional ad-blocking software, but with an extra layer. Instead of just removing ads when the user browses a website, it also automatically clicks on them. By making it appear as if the user is interested in everything, AdNauseam makes it hard for observers to construct a profile of that person. It’s like jamming radar by flooding it with false signals. And it’s adjustable. Users can choose to trust privacy-respecting advertisers while jamming others.

@ www.technologyreview.com
/2021/01/06/1015784/adsense-google-surveillance-adnauseam-obfuscation

To throw ad networks off your trail AdNauseam "clicks" blocked and hidden ads, polluting your data profile and injecting noise into the economic system that drives online surveillance. The interactive AdVault allows you to visualize and explore the ads that AdNauseam has captured.

In January of this year, the Chrome store kicked out AdNauseam, an obfuscation and anti-tracking tool that unblocks ads from websites that have adopted the EFF's Do Not Track policy and promised to respect user demands for privacy.

Plenty of further reading stuff at https://adnauseam.io/press.html.

Midas wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 5:04 am

In January of this year, the Chrome store kicked out AdNauseam, an obfuscation and anti-tracking tool that unblocks ads from websites that have adopted the EFF's Do Not Track policy and promised to respect user demands for privacy.

that might be the best endorsement of all

Midas wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 4:41 am I fail to grasp your intended implications, care to explain them?

The whole point of AdNauseum is to confuse ad companies by providing fake interest data via ad clicks. If you block the ads or don't click on the ads, ad companies can't construct an accurate profile without some form of browser fingerprinting so that's what I'm referring to. Granted that preventing browser fingerprinting is a neverending battle.

This extension is by the same authors of TrackMeNot, which floods Google search results with false info. This is also not a technique I recommend unless you don't use a VPN or something.

Like you said, if you believe that an option for a problem fits your needs, then by all means, keep using it.

I see. Sure, there'll be some downsides like the ones you point and they have to be considered.

I was never a user of TrackMeNot but can easily understand it may cause the unintended polluting of search results, something that is not a desirable outcome for most people.

But that result depends on a significant number of users engaging the add-on, a scenario I doubt very much has ever been the case. I have a hunch search engines would quickly take action should that come to be, plus I don't fool myself believing the power lies with the people on these matters.

Ads, OTOH, although generators of business revenue, are not something most people want to willingly engage with. For me, they are little more than parasitic noise bogging down my information channels, so I'd better not have to deal with them.

Two really solid add-ons ...

Zoho Annotator

You don't have to be logged into their servers to use it but there's a solid browser screen capture / editor tool with all the basics:


https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... annotator/

Block Site


I'm a little embarrassed but I have a tendency to haunt particular sites like imgur and news.ycombinator and this keeps me focused.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... k-website/

uBlock Origin has just undertaken Adblock Plus as the most popular Firefox add-on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30641159

SYSTEM wrote: ↑Fri Mar 11, 2022 11:49 am uBlock Origin has just undertaken Adblock Plus as the most popular Firefox add-on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30641159

Well deserved.

On a related note, I found some interesting browser add-ons and config tweaks I hadn't seen before, including some for uBlock Origin: https://smcleod.net/software/2022/05/16 ... dons-2022/ care of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31405147

This has just crossed my path and I thought it might interest the community:

The tool, named Firefox Translations, uses a machine learning-based process that works using your computer's local resources in order to provide translations of web pages or documents you're using the Firefox web browser to view. Though it requires an initial download of language resources in order to function at the start, it uses artificial intelligence machine learning to improve as it translates instead of requiring an Internet connection in order to link up to an external server for the translation work to be processed.

Firefox Translations provides automated translation of web content. Unlike cloud-based alternatives, translation is done locally, on the client-side, so that the text being translated does not leave your machine.

I've tested Firefox Translations on-and-off over the past month or so and it does remarkably well. It's still alpha/beta quality, but it's getting better. You might need a decent CPU for translations to render quickly though.

Midas wrote: ↑Fri Dec 12, 2014 10:35 am

• I don't care about cookies (IDCAC, http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-about-cookies/)

  Get rid of annoying cookie warnings from thousands of 'infected' websites!

Minor topic update: After all these years, I still use IDCAC and a recent announcement tells me it's now been acquired by Avast...

After exactly 10 years of maintaining this project and dealing with cookie/GDPR pop-ups on my own, I am proud and happy to say that Avast -- a famous and trustworthy IT company known for the wide range of products that help secure our digital experience, has recognized its value!

Aaaaand... IDCAC has been forked:

Why fork? This extension has been acquired by Avast and simply I don't trust Avast with my data. Also having it on Github allows us to improve the code & add support for websites faster.

Current fork release is 'IDCAC_2022.09.16_15_00'.