This simple trick disables ads in Gmail - but there's a catch

1984@lemmy.today to Technology@lemmy.ml – -17 points –
This simple trick disables ads in Gmail - but there's a catch
zdnet.com
33

There is ads on gmail???

I'm not sure, ublock origin seems to work just fine.

I’m genuinely shocked that there are people out there that view ads. Between ublock and pihole depending on location I can barely think of the last ads I saw.

It's using apps on a non local connection that gets me.

You can still catch most of them using a blocking DNS service like dns.adguard.com but still some get through.

Ublock isn't going to block these ads. These ads are those little emails with the ad tag in your Social and Promotions tab, not banner ads or popups.

ok, I checked and I don't have any, but I don't live in the US.

Interesting. I didn't think there would be a difference.

I think it's talking about emails in the Promotions tab with the word "ad" in a box at the beginning of the subject line.

Promotion tab?

Also, if I ever get an ad via mail, it will be immedetly reported as spam. Haven't seen any ads outside my spamfolder for quite awhile.

Gmail sorts email by tab. Click the triple lines and you'll see Primary, Promotions, and Social. Basically Gmail didn't like the word spam, so they named the folder promotions.

Mine doesn't do that.

Interesting, I've seen that on desktop and mobile app for nearly a decade.

Nevermind I found it under the "category" tab beneath the bin. I don't think I've ever clicked on that before. I just need Inbox/Sent/All Mail/Bin/Spam and my custom labels. Everything else is just clutter.

That's interesting, my labels and inbox, outbox etc are all underneath those

I believe you can choose to have those enabled or not. Edit: turns out this is exactly what the article tells you to do.

There are ads in Gmail?

edit: i just disabled adblockers.... still no ads.. Genuinely confused

edit2: OK read the article and none of the settings where there. Just went into my alt gmail account, and I have the ads and the settings mentioned in the article. I guess my main gmail account is so old (2010?) it does not have these features

I'm pretty sure they're talking about the subtle ad disguised as an email in the promotions tab, its not even from someone I wouldn't expect to send me an email, that's why it's so sneaky. It's literally a promotion from a company whose emails I'm subscribed to.

I've never seen Gmail ads but I also disabled these tabs as soon as they appeared so...

Yeah, I was confused "People get ads in Gmail?!" and then I remembered that shit bugged me way back, so I disabled them too.

Apparently I either already did this so many years ago that I don't remember doing it, or my account is so old (2006) that it predates these settings being added and they defaulted to "off" when added to existing accounts.

Email is something where it can be worth a few currency units per yr for a fast / privacy focused email account that doesn’t contribute to your metadata profile.

Depends on what you do with it. I use it pretty much only for all the accumulated account registrations over the years.

well…with that, google knows where you are, so it can sell you to where you aren’t!

Most email providers have decent to great aliasing & filters / rules.

They do that through my smartphone, not my email. Unless you're talking about online locations. Either way they can't sell me shit since I used adblockers for all my life and forever will be using them.

Bruh — virtual where you are. What sites you are a member of (remember they know your clicks too), what sites you have cancelled, what ads worked and what ads don’t. They are reading your mail and make no bones about it.

Your profile and demographic is racked and stacked. Even if you block ads they are selling you & your abstract content themes to people who want to market to you.

Marketing campaigns and targeted messaging may include some corny sites that are intended to pitch a message to you as a category of person—gone are the days where some banner is all it is, I am talking about SEO to entice you to click.

Have you ever read some whack article on a site that didn’t quite make sense? Somebody else paid for that site to try and legitimize a messsge that is too easily blocked by ad blockers.

I am not saying you should feel bad, and despite all this metadata, when is the last time a targeted ad actually interested you? Prolly like never.

Just be aware—look at googles stock price…that is based on you using their services.

Your profile and demographic is racked and stacked. Even if you block ads they are selling you & your abstract content themes to people who want to market to you.

Yeah, that's fine. I'm in forum X Y and Z and use this specific bank. Big whoop. Nothing they could possibly suggest to me is actually reaching me and I'm not going to pay for such a registration dump account. Imagine you couldn't pay for it anymore and then you'd lose access to all those sites. Replacing / switching email accounts like this isn't easy, and that goes in both directions. It's possibly to have 2 decades worth of account registrations of them. That isn't something you can just switch over to some other hoster.

I would care more if I were to write a lot of personal or otherwise confidential mails, but that would be a separate account anyway.

Have you ever read some whack article on a site that didn’t quite make sense? Somebody else paid for that site to try and legitimize a messsge that is too easily blocked by ad blockers.

Only weird AI written crap but that's not really targeted towards me. It's just lazy and mostly automatic content creation to get clicks.

Prolly like never.

Well, yes. Because I don't even see them. I'm allergic to ads to the point where I would quit the site if I see them. If on mobile and there's a YT link that opens the original YT app and it shows me an ad, I close it. I don't care for the video anymore. I wouldn't click on ads regardless if they're personalized or not because that's just not how I would ever shop anyway. Even if I'd see a product that might be interesting in an ad, I would then instead google the type of product, compare products with each other and then find a place where I can it the cheapest.

Proton is free. They only have Proton ads. And they also force ads into your outgoing emails.

That is cool. However, for a few bucks a month, one can get an email that is 100% private & fast. Email is worth outsourcing.