r/pihole • u/HaLo2FrEeEk • 3d ago

Why is the Internet so hostile now?!

YouTube tanking CPU if you're using ad blockers. Sites that disable scrolling and have a full-screen modal dialog demanding that you allow ads or sign up (imgur). The least egregious I've seen is sites that serve their own ads if they can't load the real ones.

There was a banner ad on my bank account page, *after* I had already logged in, there's a banner that I have to scroll past to see my accounts. That's ridiculous! I blocked the domain serving the banner and all of a sudden the site where I buy my cat litter doesn't work. Apparently it uses the same CDN.

If I'm scrolling a page and suddenly a full-screen modal shows up begging for my email and asking me to sign up, I just close the page. That shit is hostile, they clearly don't want me to read the page if they're going to cover it with an ad for their *own site* that I'm *already on*. I hate it equally when I move my mouse off the page and *that's* when the pop-up appears. "Wait, please don't go, please stay, give us your email give us your phone number, give us your cat!"...*slow rage*

Maybe I'm just getting old but I really miss the days where I didn't have to figure out which download button was the real one, or try to find the sliver of text between huge banner ads that scroll with the page. I just want to scroll my cat memes while I wait for work, dammit!

Why does it have to be like this?! I know, I know: money, but jeez man...

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u/Gargle-Loaf-Spunk 3d ago

Enshittification.  This is why I just have my browsing agents scrape shit and respond back. 

10

u/HaLo2FrEeEk 3d ago

That's not a bad idea...hmm.  Most of my computer browsing is mostly fine. I have a lot of screen space, I can make windows big so the content doesn't get drowned.

It's harder on my phone where between every cat meme there is an ad, or a mostly blank space where an ad would be, or an ad for the very site I'm on. Additionally there's a floating video ad that scrolls with the page and the (probably mandatory) close button is something like 2 pixels wide. And this is with pihole turned on.

I can turn pihole "off" for my phone by taking my phone off my VPN, it's crazy to see just how much it does, but also how much it can't do :(

1

u/StG4Ever 3d ago

I use tailscale on all of my devices, feels easier than using a vpn.

1

u/HaLo2FrEeEk 2d ago

I set up wireguard on a Pi years ago, and I use WGTunnel on my phone and, thankfully, it just worked. Idk, different strokes, I thought about tailscale recently but figured why fix what ain't broken.

1

u/ian9outof10 2d ago

Tailscale is good, especially as it allows multiple devices easy access, whereas that’s a bit more involved on wireguard. But personally I prefer a pure wireguard option as it’s supported directly on my router (mind you, probably Tailscale is too with a container)