So there is an add-on for all major browers called "AdNauseam".. It uses ublock-origin as its base, but instead of just hiding the ads like normal ublock-origin does, it also sends fake click signals to every ad on every site you visit..
As you know, advertisers have to pay google for every click; but when they are all mostly fake clicks, the advertiser ends up having to pay google tons of money because their click-through rate sky-rockets but yet none of those fake clicks ends up turning in to a sale..
In these cases google has to end up sending the advertisers refund checks to compensate for all the fake clicks.. While google has always sent refund checks for invalid clicks, the amount usually is never very high......until very recently when 4chan decided to start a fake-click war against google as retribution for the adpocalypse on youtube and the censoring and shutting-down of "hate speech" websites and the banning of gab from the play store..
This meteoric spike in fake clicks has affected google more than they are willing to let on, because they are afraid that if people know it is affecting their #1 source of income (advertising) they are afraid that more people will join in on it and hurt their revenue even further.. They have now even gone so far as to outright ban the plug-in from the chrome add-ons website, but you can still install it on chrome from the main adnauseam github site.. The firefox version is still completely downloadable straight from the firefox add-ons site..
The reason it hurts google so much is because it is causing their advertisers to lose trust in google.. The advertisers them selves can't tell how many clicks were fake or real, and I'm not sure google can always tell either, so when they send refund checks the advertiser can't be sure if google is paying them back the amount they deserve, so that loses a little bit of trust already.. Some of the advertisers are already complaining about the lowish level of refunds they are getting compared to how many fake clicks they are receiving, and they are demanding that google provide them more detailed information about how many of these clicks are actually real.. And the advertisers are getting annoyed about the insane amount of fake clicks any way, so it throws any type of analytics way off to the point of being useless..
Hundreds and hundreds of advertisers have already been affected by this, so it is already instilling a major impact..
Pic Related
You can download the latest version of the add-on here: https://github.com/dhowe/AdNauseam/releases
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[–] TheTrigger 0 points 7 points 7 points (+7|-0) ago (edited ago)
They've started arbitrarily blacklisting extensions (that they don't like) from working on their browser. Literally any other Firefox fork is better than it, at this point. But I, personally, recommend Waterfox. Whoever made that list of browsers is not informed of the current happenings in browserland.
They even rated Waterfox as being "insecure", when it's easily up there (on par) with Icecat, if not better because it's updated more frequently.
[–] nothingproud 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
You're damn right, have trialed Icecat, Pale Moon, Brave and Waterfox.
Waterfox is hands down the best all round browser I've used.
[–] MadWorld ago
I thought it was done for security or stability reasons.
I run my own sync1/1.5 server and can synchronize for all my friends and my own devices without a problem. Does the Waterfox have a similar feature to synchronize between multiple browsers without storing the bookmarks on third party unencrypted?
[–] TheTrigger ago
Nope, pure thought-policing. Nothing more.
No idea, haven't looked in to it. The whole concept of syncing bookmarks, in and of itself, is kinda dubious. Though they do have the latter (unsure of their security policy). I'm sure if other FF variants let you do this, don't see why Waterfox couldn't.
[–] belphegorsprime ago
They also kind of shat on command line browsers. I get that they are not for everyone, but they can be useful to some. They definitely don't deserve to be at the bottom of the list. I will have to take a look at waterfox and icecat. I've been playing with Brave, but I'm not happy with the tab styling. They waste too much screen real-estate. That is one thing that chromium got right.
[–] TheTrigger ago
You have no idea how many times lynx/links2 has saved me from having to do a reinstall, because I somehow managed to screw up X and/or display drivers on it. One of the first things that I make sure is installed, on any linux computer that I use, is a command-line browser. :p
I use Icecat on linux and Waterfox on Windows, tbh. Although I might ditch Icecat all-together. It breaks too many websites, in a non-fixable way. With uBlock, Secret Agent, and NoScript on Waterfox— you get the same security anyways, and can easily whitelist websites on a case-by-case basis.
Also, I don't know if you've used a 64-bit Firefox-variant before, but oh boy are they fast; especially this one.