For us who use ad blockers on our Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Mac browsers

[Rothman]

https://xkcd.com/149/

[mgk920]

Yea, some of my favorite websites are starting to look like the ribbon boards that are seen around the field when one watches a fútbol game on TV.



Mike

[hbelkins]

You mean people actually don't deactivate auto-updates?

Not only do I not have them on, but I decline most of them.

[Rothman]

You mean people actually don't deactivate auto-updates?

Not only do I not have them on, but I decline most of them.

Heh.  You didn't need those vulnerabilities patched up, anyway.

[kkt]

You mean people actually don't deactivate auto-updates?

Not only do I not have them on, but I decline most of them.

Heh.  You didn't need those vulnerabilities patched up, anyway.

I wait a couple of months for other people to experience the joy that the updates bring first.

[formulanone]

You mean people actually don't deactivate auto-updates?

Not only do I not have them on, but I decline most of them.

Heh.  You didn't need those vulnerabilities patched up, anyway.

I wait a couple of months for other people to experience the joy that the updates bring first.

For a phone, I betcha 99% of those vulnerabilities are on their side, not yours. Or the app's dev team creating a new feature had their contract expire about the same percentage of the way through.

[Scott5114]

You mean people actually don't deactivate auto-updates?

Newer versions of Windows don't let you. That's one of the reasons I don't use it as my daily driver OS—I need to be able to choose when a good time to update is.

[LilianaUwU]

You mean people actually don't deactivate auto-updates?

Newer versions of Windows don't let you. That's one of the reasons I don't use it as my daily driver OS—I need to be able to choose when a good time to update is.

Such bullshit should be illegal on the same grounds right to repair laws stand on.

[Bruce]

You mean people actually don't deactivate auto-updates?

Newer versions of Windows don't let you. That's one of the reasons I don't use it as my daily driver OS—I need to be able to choose when a good time to update is.

Such bullshit should be illegal on the same grounds right to repair laws stand on.

Ever deal with some elderly person's crusty, malware-infected PC?

Auto-updates are made for these people. Make it opt-out but only if the user knows what they are doing.

[Scott5114]

The problem is that I shouldn't have to prove to a machine that I bought and whose electricity I am paying for whether I really "know what I am doing or not".

I show it I know what I'm doing by erasing the operating system and installing one that isn't made by fascists.

[Rothman]

The problem is that I shouldn't have to prove to a machine that I bought and whose electricity I am paying for whether I really "know what I am doing or not".

I show it I know what I'm doing by erasing the operating system and installing one that isn't made by fascists.

...and those who don't know what they're doing turn off the updates and then wonder why their computer's performance goes kerplunk.

[vdeane]

The problem is that I shouldn't have to prove to a machine that I bought and whose electricity I am paying for whether I really "know what I am doing or not".

I show it I know what I'm doing by erasing the operating system and installing one that isn't made by fascists.

...and those who don't know what they're doing turn off the updates and then wonder why their computer's performance goes kerplunk.

Unfortunately, given how software tends to gobble up more resources over time, installing the updates will also cause a computer's (or phone's) performance to go kerplunk.  Planned obsolescence is wonderful, isn't it?

[hbelkins]

You mean people actually don't deactivate auto-updates?

Not only do I not have them on, but I decline most of them.

Heh.  You didn't need those vulnerabilities patched up, anyway.

I wait a couple of months for other people to experience the joy that the updates bring first.

This. I let others do the field testing. I will never update to an X.0 version of anything, or even an X.0.1 or an X.1 version. Yell at me when the bugs get worked out and X.2 or X.0.2 is released.

My iPhones (personal and work) are still sitting on the newest version of iOS 16. I'm hesitant to update to 17 without the option to go back to 16 if I don't like the new features and appearance.

[Duke87]

Ever deal with some elderly person's crusty, malware-infected PC?

Auto-updates are made for these people. Make it opt-out but only if the user knows what they are doing.

Nah, nah, follow the money dude. Microsoft does not want to let you opt out of automatic updates because they want the ability to take features away from you they don't feel like supporting anymore or don't feel like letting people have without paying extra for, and they also want the ability to shove new features down users' throats for the benefit of scraping data, advertising, or whatever other late-stage capitalistic bullshit they're up to.

They also know that the incumbency bake-in with an OS is extremely strong, so they can do whatever the fuck they want to their users and they'll just bend over and take it because what other choice do they have? Most people aren't technically savvy enough to successfully switch to Linux (though if you can, you really are better off), and any computer that is provided by your employer for work purposes, well, the employer picks the OS.


And well ultimately that's exactly the same mentality that Google is taking with YouTube. What are you gonna do if you don't like it? There's no viable competitor people can switch to. And most videos on YouTube cannot be found anywhere else.

That said I will also concede the point that Google actively loses money on anyone viewing YouTube without a premium subscription while blocking ads, so it does make business sense to not let people get away with that. But... the tactical mistake here is that Google went way too long doing absolutely nothing about this. Realistically, they should have started harassing people about ad blockers as soon as they started implementing video ads (well over a decade ago now). It wouldn't have been popular then either, but the general reaction would have been less "what the fuck" because at the time video ads were novel, people were only used to being able to block banner ads. So it'd have gone better if an expectation were established from the getgo that you cannot block video ads. Now, because people have been able to get away with blocking them for so long, an expectation of being able to do this has become entrenched and people are very understandably saying "hey, how come something that I've been doing for years without issue is suddenly a problem NOW?"

[Scott5114]

Honestly, I wouldn't care about YouTube ads so much if they hadn't gotten so damn greedy about them. When it was a five-second ad before a video, I was fine with that. When I get 20 or 30 seconds worth of unskippable ads before a 5-minute video, what I'm getting vs what they're getting feels so out of proportion that I feel like the adblocker is necessary to rebalance things to an acceptable state.