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Snowden Says It's Your Duty To Use an Ad Blocker (for Security)
AmiMoJo writes: In a long interview about reclaiming your privacy online, ex-NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden states that it's not just a good idea to use ad blocking software, it's your duty: "Everybody should be running adblock software, if only from a safety perspective. We've seen internet providers like Comcast, AT&T, or whoever it is, insert their own ads into your plaintext http connections. As long as service providers are serving ads with active content that require the use of JavaScript to display, that have some kind of active content like Flash embedded in it, anything that can be a vector for attack in your web browser — you should be actively trying to block these. Because if the service provider is not working to protect the sanctity of the relationship between reader and publisher, you have not just a right but a duty to take every effort to protect yourself in response." Other recommendations include encrypting your hard drive and using Tor to keep your internet use private.
I concur, and I run adblockers primarily for this reason. At present, malicious ads/malicious content delivered through ad networks is probably the most likely thing to infect the average user, and there's no more effective defense than simply blocking the content.
Why block it? Why block random content from unknown third parties, coming across content networks that have proven, time and again, that they don't give a rat's ass about vetting the people they're selling ad space to, let alone the content that those people are sending - and we're not even getting into all the constant invasive tracking attempts that come with that.
I don't mind reasonable ads, especially native ones that belong to the page I'm actually visiting. I mind the fact that there's been no real consequences for the rampant bad or negligent behavior on the part of the ad networks - so, like all content that I view as inherently suspicious/possibly malicious, I'm going to block it by default. The fact that there's no real value to me in it just makes it easier to not worry about that.
https://pineight.com/mw/?title...
I strongly suggest adding Request Policy, No Script, and Ghostery to that mix on Firefox. ABP covers some, but doesn't cover all of it. You still have scripts and 3rd party beacons and other crap you're not blocking and not even aware of.
If you need multiple browsers, with Chrome I reccomend: Script Safe, Ghostery, HTTP Switchboard, and Disconnect. Some of these are also available for Opera.
The sheer amount of crap in the average web page isn't something you can even see until you are actively blocking it. And then it's alarming just how much junk there is.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.