I’ve had enough.
Too many sites are using badly flawed “active server” techniques to pour reams of advertising down our throats. It makes those sites effectively unreadable. Particularly annoying are the ones that use half-clever, “anti-adblocker” techniques to circumvent the visitor’s protections of his browser.
In consequence, users’ browsers are freezing and their attempts to surf away are being impeded. A great deal of irritation and hostility have resulted – some of it mine.
If that strikes you as a minor nuisance, think about this for a moment: “Smart TVs” are integrating browser capabilities into their standard, central function. Do you own one? Do you expect to own one? Would you like your television to freeze the way an overrun browser does?
I will list offenders here as I discover them. Today’s offender is Breitbart.com. This is unfortunate, as there’s a lot of good material there. But that doesn’t win them an exemption for freezing Chrome and Internet Explorer on consecutive visits.
For the moment, Brave.com, a browser explicitly designed to block all advertising ab initio, appears to thwart the push-purveyors...though I’m sure they’re working on that. However, for the present I intend to use Brave.com exclusively. Though it’s in beta-test, I recommend it for general use.
We’ll see how matters develop.
