Does the ad blocker prevent leaks of your information?
I know it blocks a use of your information against you (targeted ads). And any external source is a potential leak (e.g. the kinds of things that CORS is supposed to reduce).
But does an ad blocker specifically leak more, or just reduce the incentive to collect that information?
A full-featured ad blocker (uBlock Origin original, not the neutered Lite version that runs on Chrome now) will intercept requests at the network level and prevent your browser from requesting the advertisers' JavaScript code. Your browser not only won't show the ads, it won't run the code that was supposed to show them or even send a request to the advertisers' servers.
This blocks most existing tracking methods. The only thing you're not protected from is first-party tracking by the site you're actually visiting, which is impossible to fully protect against.
>prevent your browser from requesting the advertisers' JavaScript code. Your browser not only won't show the ads, it won't run the code that was supposed to show them or even send a request to the advertisers' servers.
Incidentally, just blocking JavaScript with NoScript kills quite a lot of ads (obviously, not first-party ones if you've white-listed their JavaScript for site functionality; but I try to avoid that when there isn't real demonstrated value) without any need for an explicit ad blocker.
NoScript is indeed very effective at blocking tracking, but it also breaks a lot of websites.
If that is an acceptable compromise, you could also try ditching the Internet altogether, as that not only blocks all online tracking, it also blocks a lot of fraud, misinformation and all kinds of harmful content.
Except for non-negotiables (eg: bill paying, government websites, etc.) a website that fully breaks when blocking js is just a worthless site which is not worth my time.
Anubis (https://anubis.techaro.lol) requires Javascript and is required to view some otherwise static websites now because AI scrapers are ruining the internet for small websites.
That’s always my problem with NoScript being suggested. For some people who consume stuff off RSS feeds or static sites and Wikipedia that probably works. But for literally anything more than that you can’t do that.
> NoScript is indeed very effective at blocking tracking, but it also breaks a lot of websites.
Sure, images may no be present without JS lazy-loading them. Accidentaly, NoScript also fixes a lot of websites. Publishers are often paywalling posts via JS and initial HTML is served with full articles.
> A full-featured ad blocker (uBlock Origin original, not the neutered Lite version that runs on Chrome now) will intercept requests at the network level and prevent your browser from requesting the advertisers' JavaScript code.
You're trying to imply that ublock lite doesn't do that. It does, including javascript files. The full uBlock does more things to prevent tracking that lite cannot do. But "intercept requests at the network level" isn't one of those things.
1st-party would likely be prevented by disabling cookies? Obviously they could fingerprint every visitor on every request, but most just set an ID cookie and check it on subsequent pages I think, since that's good enough for tracking most people (who aren't actively trying not to be tracked). Of course, that breaks things that need a session (like a cart), but depending on what you want from a site, it could be fine.
Those things help, yes. I say that it's impossible to fully block first party tracking because you must interact with the server in order to accomplish anything and those interactions can be tracked. But a third party can be cut entirely out of the loop.
they don't load up the ads at all so they can't know your information in the first place at least from the ads themselves. if the website is sharing information directly there's nothing you can do outside of some kind of vpn and never logging on to any services.
I think there was a Defcon where they showed that some ad networks let the advertiser themselves provide the image/video. By targeting only people who first visited a given website, they know who you are. And by adding selectors on the ad, they extract your characteristics, including location.
It looks very stretched, but the real magic happens when this data is sold in bulk. It allows recouping who is where. Your target person may or may not be in each dataset, their location isn’t known like clockwork, but that allows determining where they work, where they sleep and who they’re with. One ad is useless as a datapoint, but recouping shows reliable patterns. And remember most people on iPhone still don’t have an adblocker.
I know it blocks a use of your information against you (targeted ads). And any external source is a potential leak (e.g. the kinds of things that CORS is supposed to reduce).
But does an ad blocker specifically leak more, or just reduce the incentive to collect that information?