this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
708 points (97.2% liked)

Technology

68189 readers
4702 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
708
AdNauseam is a uBlock fork that goes further: it actively attacks marketers by auto-clicking every ad before blocking (adnauseam.io)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
160 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It garbles advertisers' data as a result, but you must disable uBlock Origin to run it; they can't work simultaneously. I recently moved to it and, so far, am never looking back!

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I've been recommending this for awhile, it's nice to see someone else take up the mantle.

Yes, it clicks ads in addition to blocking them. Google removed it from its addon repository even though it wasn't breaking any rules. They just removed it and kept it removed because there wasn't sufficient backlash, the scumbags.

It's the main reason why I use Firefox these days. it's clear that the cabal will not allow anything that legitimately threatens their power structure, and make advertising less-effective for the same price is a gut punch they need.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Automated ad clicks probably are breaking the rules, TBF.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 hours ago

Monopoly money

[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Good start. Now make a version that clicks each ad a random number of times from randomly generated IP addresses.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Ad Networks use browser fingerprinting to detect duplicate clicks, which is tied to your hardware, system locale, installed fonts etc.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Sounds like a solvable problem

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 hours ago

Chameleon add-on for Firefox, randomly rotates your browser, OS, screen size, timezone, device type, language, and other customizable parameters every x minutes.

I've set it to do so every 5 minutes, and to omit desktop & tablet as device types (else some websites display the respective page) and timezones (messed up 2FA).

I also disabled blackberry and windows phone from the manufacturer ID, that would have the opposite effect from obscuring me.

For the rest of it, it's working great.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

Tell me how, then, because I don't know how to get around the font thing. Everybody's computer has a different set of fonts, and blocking browsers from seeing what fonts you have installed would help identify you even more.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 hours ago

A browser extension that limits webpages to default Windows fonts only would eliminate that factor from contributing to identification without flagging it as suspicious. A slightly more robust version could frequently cycle between multiple subsets of default Windows fonts. Say Windows comes with 100 fonts. So you could have thousands of configurations with different subsets of those.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

"Just" remove a random 2.5% of the fonts, a different random set per request (context).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

That one browser which everyone hates despite it being the best adblocker and anti-surveillance browser out there randomizes your fingerprint.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 10 hours ago (9 children)

That's not how IP addresses work.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

What if we use a Visual Basic UI to hack the IP address by netmask?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Yes, but this only works if you connect your VPN via 3 block chain proxies.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

maybe we can setup a botnet to poison advertiser data.

click all the ads, all over the planet!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

Feed it SQL injections?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Why are you people so concerned about "the data?" Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

This is an effective tool to charge advertisers money without having their ads shoved in our faces. It directly undermines the integrity of the digital advertising ecosystem, and you people are obsessed with "privacy" because your priorities have been decided for you by your oppressors.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago

I liked your post ❤️

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

what oppressors want me to worry about privacy? what planet are they in?

those people are literally using it to sell us fascism...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Nothing is random

In bot cases like this you would have a proxy list that it “randomly” picks from

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

No, he means that's literally not how IP addresses work. It's not about "nothing being random."

You don't just "pick an IP address" from a list lmao and send it as though it's not your actual IP. You would need to literally connect to a proxy and send the request through that proxy in order for ads to see an IP different than you own.

My god, are you people trolls or just the next generation taking hold? The dumbing down of Western society is in full force.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

You would need to literally connect to a proxy and send the request through that proxy in order for ads to see an IP different than you own.

Yes that is what was proposed, you’re the only one who seems unclear on it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 54 minutes ago

Where is it being proposed?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Have it form connections to all the other browsers using the extension and they all send a click.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

now you've broken the law by creating a botnet.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

"He who save his country does not violate the law" 😏

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago

Naw, it’s an MMORPG.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Is the botnet itself breaking the law or is breaking the law with a botnet breaking the law?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure it's not a botnet until it's used as one or the intent of it is to be used in the same way a botnet is used.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Okay okay, how about a counter that is updated with each user clicking on an ad, and the client can decide what they want to do with that information, totally not a botnet right?

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 42 points 13 hours ago

This would still make a connection to the ad servers that can then track me though.

I guess with a hardened browser and a VPN it would be alright.

load more comments
view more: next ›