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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday December 23 2020, @12:33AM   Printer-friendly

Free news sites step up pleas for consumers to disable adblocking software:

If your web browser has recently updated, or you've loaded some new browser extensions, you may be seeing a message when you visit certain free content sites.If your web browser has recently updated, or you've loaded some new browser extensions, you may be seeing a message when you visit certain free content sites.

"Please support journalism by allowing ads," one of the pop-up messages reads.

In the message, there is a large link that will disable the adblocker extension in your browser. There is a smaller link that will allow you to proceed to the site while continuing to block ads.

Dominic Chorafakis, with the cybersecurity consulting firm Akouto, says adblocking extensions aren't exactly new, but it's possible browsers have strengthened them in recent updates.

"Sites that rely on ad revenue, of course, don't like this at all, and there is quite a bit of effort being put in from their side to detect when a visitor has adblocking in place and either ask them politely to disable adblocking or outright prevent them from viewing their content unless they disable it," Chorafakis told ConsumerAffairs.


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  • (Score: 2) by NateMich on Wednesday December 23 2020, @04:04AM (5 children)

    by NateMich (6662) on Wednesday December 23 2020, @04:04AM (#1090543)

    I've tried the hosts file idea, and while okay, it's a lot of work to set it up over and over and over.

    If you find yourself doing something over and over, you should be using a script.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 23 2020, @07:43PM (4 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 23 2020, @07:43PM (#1090769) Journal

    Easier said than done. I experiment with a lot of different Linux distros. Can't be sure if systemd or something else is controlling the /etc/hosts files, so that editing them directly is futile, as they will simply be overwritten by some deeper configuration.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 23 2020, @09:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 23 2020, @09:32PM (#1090811)

      i use arch and fedora and i've never had my /etc/hosts file overwritten. people use that for local web dev so i'd be surprised if a distro pulled that shit.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 23 2020, @10:42PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 23 2020, @10:42PM (#1090837)

      Which OS version and network interface configuration tool do you use?

      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday December 24 2020, @01:51AM (1 child)

        by bzipitidoo (4388) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 24 2020, @01:51AM (#1090892) Journal

        Of late, Lubuntu and Mint. Yeah, I know, systemd. They use NetworkManager. Also trying Void on an old netbook. Have used Slackware, Arch, Gentoo, Red Hat, Puppy, AntiX, Knoppix, Xubuntu, OpenSUSE, and others I don't recall off the top of my head.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 25 2020, @05:49AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 25 2020, @05:49AM (#1091192)

          You could be running into two issues with different solutions based on your description. The first is that the actual /etc/hosts file is being rewritten. The second is that NetworkManager is somehow splitting the horizon on its resolver. Do you have DNS sofware like dnsmasq or systemd-resolved installed? Or, did you mean the former problem of the files being overwritten?