- Published: September 10, 2022
- Updated: September 10, 2022
- University / College: University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
- Language: English
- Downloads: 18
Some sites do more than just hang themselves with digital billboards.
They keep a log of your visits (usually using IP addresses) and even track yourtravel to other destinations. Although, the motivation is usually simply tocollect data for a wide audience, it’s unpleasant to know that you are beingwatched online. It’s no exaggeration to say that advertising is the engine of theInternet. Google, Facebook, Pandora, YouTube? All earn due to advertising. Thisis not a new concept: television and radio rely on advertising for a long time. Let’s face it, someone should pay for free programs and services. Of course, there are ways in which users can get rid of the endlessstream of buttons, banners, video implementations and other.
All you need is anad blocker: a browser plugin designed to filter out these distractions. In response, some plug-ins go beyond simple filtering, promising fullprivacy protection against cookies, trackers, third-party scripts and widgets, and other unwanted intrusions. What about speed? In theory, ad blocking and privacy filters shouldmake loading pages faster, as they reduce the amount of content that needs tobe downloaded. However, it is difficult to evaluate in real trials, since thereare many variables that determine the speed of displaying web pages. And if thedifference is reduced to half a second or so, does it really matter? Keep in mind that the blocker cannot always distinguish betweeninvasive Web elements and useful ones.
For example, some of them may prohibitthe display of social network buttons, thereby preventing your attempts to” like” or “ tweet” about something. There is another consideration – the funding behind the blocker. Whilemost of the applications reviewed are free or open source, supported solely bydonations, DoNotTrackMe uses the “ freemium” model (a subscription feeis charged if you want to use additional features), and Ghostery asks for datausage statistics. Of the six tools described here, only AdBlock Plus has thefunction of “ acceptable advertising”, which allows advertising fromGoogle and other paying companies, and it is enabled by default. But you caneasily turn it off if you want to completely get rid of ads. Speaking of this aspect, on the one hand, blockers protect your privacy, but do you need to disable ads that pay so much good online?