Online Ads Can Infect Your Device with Spyware

Bebo@literature.cafe to Technology@lemmy.world – 352 points –
Online Ads Can Infect Your Device with Spyware
scientificamerican.com

An investigative report reveals that new spyware can slip in unseen through online ads—and there is currently no defense against it. So not only that online ads are intrusive and can infect devices through malware, they can also be used for spying.

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The FBI recommends using an ad blocker for precisely this reason.

And then companies like YouTube force you to unblock them.

What? YouTube can't force me to do shit.

They have blocked users in the past from seeing any videos until their adblocker it removed

You still have the option of closing the tab and moving on with life, or digging in to see if there's another way around it.

Closing the tab and moving on with life is what I do when a Twitter login prompt or paywall appears. I've often thought it would be better for me to unblock ads, at least on timewasting sites like Youtube, just so that I get pissed off by the ads and close the tab, making it easier to stop wasting time.

I had been watching youtube on my phone using ublock origin on Firefox, but since youtube started this shit I have shifted permanently to newpipe.

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