The Moral Duty to Adblock

The Internet is a much better place if you and I agree to block advertising in our browsers.

We have that word from a former insider, one of the guys who designed the current intrusive tracking of advertising on the Net. He reveals what went into all the unethical and immoral developments, and how the aggressive demand that we submit or lose access to content is simply wrong and wrong-headed.

One of the pioneers of Javascript, the most widely used technology in the web today, Douglas Crockford argued that the most reliable and cost-effective method to inject malicious code on to a user’s device is to buy an ad. I don’t know a single researcher who disagree with this claim. Actually, because of the way 3rd-party tags can, and are commonly being nested one inside the other, more than one malicious code can be injected in a single ad delivery.

Naturally, the single greatest problem is the advertisers’ refusal to take responsibility for creating the single most dangerous means for delivering malware. This is why I recommend using uBlock, along with running Click & Clean after just about every different site you visit. If you are technically inclined, you might benefit from learning how to use NoScript. Even better, if you can stand it, is a “crippled” browser that refuses to process most of that crap — Dillo, Links2, Elinks, Lynx, etc.

As things now stand, it is your moral duty to reduce malware by blocking advertising as many ways as possible.

Oh, and experts tell us that it is trivial to bypass AV software in the first place.

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