I've noticed that ads are absolutely everywhere, and wanted to post this to disillusion some of the places we see ads but don't realize. It would be harder to make a list of places you don't see ads.

Websites

The most common place to see ads is on nearly every website you visit. It's usually the most intrusive, especially with popups.

Books

The very end page of books and back cover of books will often advertise books written by the same author.

Billboards

Billboards along busy streets and highways often display static or moving ads. A notable mention is its role in the book Fahrenheit 451, where it was theorized that as cars get faster ads would have to be stretched out so people can see them better at high speeds.

Operating systems

Some Android operating systems, as well as Windows, show ads in a non intrusive way.

Apps

Especially mobile games, ads will be displayed anywhere possible, and sometimes used as a reward system. Social media apps display ads while scrolling, and even messaging apps will have some sort of promotion like requesting donations.

Mail

Deemed "junk mail", companies will collect and sell the address of residents in order to send useless advertisements to the residents. This can't usually be opted out of. In my opinion, this should be illegal.

Phone calls

Especially when put on hold, businesses will interject occasional advertisements in between the low quality jazz music. Customer support will also often advertise products to you while you are being assisted.

Newspapers

Newspapers have entire pages filled with ads. Some of these are promotional coupons that can be used to get overpriced products for a regular price.

Magazines

Magazines are fundamentally only used to advertise products in a passive way. The chances you actually have a meaningful experience with a magazine are slim. They are often placed in waiting rooms as a form of entertainment for people who don't want to use a phone at the time.

Music

Between songs in radio broadcasts, long ad breaks will be placed. Music streaming services will also inject ads between songs. Even the hosts of podcasts will have sponsorship segments.

Disk movies

DVD and Blueray disks will often come with ads baked in to advertise "upcoming" movies. That is, until 10 years passes and Peter Pan becomes a funny ad to see.

Movie theaters

Between movie showings, movie theaters will display long ad segments while you wait for the movie to begin. Some very long movies are even split in half, with an ad break in between for you to empty your wallet and refill your popcorn.

Bleachers

In sporting events, moving ads will be displayed under bleachers. Fun fact, these ads change depending on which channel you are watching the game from.

Commercials

Between live television, you will get 1-3 minutes of commercials and then watch the shortest segment of your actual show.

Baked into videos

Videos such as YouTube videos will have sponsorships and self-promotion baked in, causing the drastic rise of SponsorBlock.

Torrents

Some torrented files will also have text or image files attached advertising other torrenting services.

Vehicles

Buses, vans, cars, and others are often plastered with ads for different services. If you're in a car wreck, call emergency services first, not an auto repair shop.

Social media

Social media is one of the go-to methods of marketing. Besides the ads you see while doom scrolling, many pictures and videos uploaded will simply be ads for products.

Gas stations

Plastered all over gas stations, and apparently displayed on some gas pump screens, ads are placed everywhere. Is that not more of a fire hazard than eight closely packed gasoline tanks?

Posters

Pasted inside schools, workplaces, plastered on power poles and sides of buildings, posters are cheap to make and placed everywhere.

Instruction manuals

When buying a product, besides impossibly small print, some instruction manuals will have ads pasted in certain sections. Some devices like mice, keyboards, and headphones advertise proprietary software required to get the full extent of your product.

Wearables

T-Shirts, pins, bracelets, hats, and all other kinds of merch will display company names for everyone to see. Ironically, companies see these kinds of clothing as inappropriate attire on the job.

Pens

Another kind of merch, nearly every free pen has the name and contact info of businesses on it.

Redirects to downloads

Some websites will redirect you to ad websites before beginning your download. Lots of these websites (such as the infamous AdFly) are malicious and will encourage you to download malicious software.

Grocery stores

Solicitors in store, ads during checkout, product placement all throughout the store, ads over the intercom, nearly every type of ad imaginable can be found in grocery stores.

Speakers on public transport

Some subways and buses will play ads over the speakers while you travel. No napping on the bus, we want you awake to hear our ads!

Emails

Spam emails are frequently sent to people, so commonly an entire folder is dedicated to housing them. Even places you legitimately gave your email to will send you spam.

Comments and chat messages

People will often self promote their accounts on various platforms. This is a common place for scams to arise.

Solicitors

Solicitors will come on your private property just to sell their products to you. Just when you thought ads could never come knocking on your doorstep, they did.

Lawns

Lawn signs for services such as lawn care or political messages will be placed on people's property as a form of willing advertisement. Flowers look a lot better than rust and plastic.

Airplanes

Some airplanes will pull long banners with ads behind them. This is usually surrounding sporting events.

Brand names

Products produced by any company will have brand names on them. This makes it easy for advertising to flow through word-of-mouth. But seriously, where did you get that shirt from?

Search engines

Almost all search engines will display ad websites before legitimate search results

This post

Even this post had an advertisement in it that I bet most of you missed. I passively advertised "SponsorBlock" under "Baked into videos". If you missed it, that's ok. Advertising has become so common that people have become desensitized to it.

SimpleX Chat is an instant messenger that is decentralized and doesn't depend on any unique identifiers such as phone numbers or usernames. Users of SimpleX Chat can scan a QR code or click an invite link to participate in group conversations.

-privacyguides.org

It's clearly proving to be the most innovative technology when it comes to decentralized communication, in my opinion.

Idk if this is the right instance for this, but how fucking tired of these forced ads at gas pumps is everyone else?

I'm paying 4 bucks a gallon to have you shove advertising down my throat like an erect cock?

What the actual fuck

Anyone have any good ad blocking practices for this?

I've seen duct or painters tape covering the speakers...

You can press a button next to the screen to mute it, but this doesn't work at all gas stations. (Usually its the 2nd from the top on the right side)

I guess its just time to gettoblast music every time I pump gas like back when I was 19....

My searx instance is down for a while, and I was forced to use and try all the search engines, all of them are really bad

You can set this as your default search engine and every use it will redirect you to a random searx instance

Folks, I have finally figured it out.

Have a baby.

Since having a baby a week ago, all of a sudden everyone is willing to install a decent messaging app in order to receive pics of the baby.

We explained that we weren't ready for images of our child to end up in the wrong hands via non-private apps. Another thing was telling them that the one single friend who had already got on board with this had already been recieving pics...

It's been a conversation starter for many and I think seeing privacy from the point of view of a newborn has helped our family and friends understand it a bit more easily. Plus they've had to put up with it if they want any photos, so they will see it working firsthand.

So, if you want to have a baby, know that it can be a wonderful opportunity to help loved ones communicate more privately.

It also increases the sum total of love, community and compassion in the world and in your own life but that's a conversation for another community :)

Edit: If anyone has good tips on how to share a little one's journey more privately with those that care about them, please post them in the discussion.

First, let me say that this is the worst phone I've ever owned. I don't have have "fuck it, I'm buying a Pixel" money right now, but I'd like to try un-ruining my phone if possible. And what are the best ways to back up my phone before the switch?

It seems like everywhere is asking for my ID multiple times and there are multiple international companies involved.

I thought the whole point of blockchain was decentralised so why can't I just buy btc without jumping through a thousand hoops?!?

I tried using bisq but it seems more geared towards traders and you need btc to buy btc :(

any help would be appreciated.

I've been using SwiftKey for waaaaaaay too long. I shoulda switched when Microsoft bought them out.

But old habits die hard. And I love the skin I use.

Help they know everything I've typed on a phone. That can't be good for anyone.

Edit: Holy fuck everyone, thanks for all of the responses!

I went with Heliboard, and typing this, it looks like I have to change a couple more settings to get it like I had Swiftkey, but I already like it more.

The fact you can basically make your own skin by changing all of the colors of the keyboard is amazing.

Fuck microsoft's ai keyboard.

Heliboard for lyfe!

Edit edit: trying to delete my data from Swiftkey was INSANELY hard. I couldn't do it from my phone, so I had to login with a computer. They think they are slick.... Fuckers....

Error message when trying to view an Instagram post sent from a friend: “If this page is not displaying as expected, you can reduce advanced privacy protections which may resolve issues”.

No, I don’t think I will.

Cross-posted from https://lemmy.world/post/13888155

New study shows that the default apps collect data even when supposedly disabled, and this is hard to switch off

Here's a link to the news. https://e621.net/news_updates

Edit: As people in the comments pointed out, this bill targets all websites hosting porn. e621 just happens to be hosted in Arizona, and it therefore affects them directly.

If you're considering opening a Chase account, here's some food for thought.

I'm looking for an android browser to open webapps isolated from my general browsing

I've been using Mull as disposable browsing and brave for login into places (shopping, social), but I don't like that if I want to stay logged it also keeps history record. I think it would happen with any browser I use, right? Any suggestions?

Today I was watching a few YouTube videos about groundwork with horses. First time I did that. Yes, I was logged in.

Later today, I hopped on Amazon to track one of my packages. And in my suggestions, there were horse grooming kits, halters and the like, even though I had never before looked for things like these on there.

My mail addresses are different on the two places, and so are, of course, my passwords. I am on Linux with Firefox, uBlock etc. So this must be an incredible coincidence, a miracle, mind-reading, or maybe witchcraft?

I wonder what I could tweak to make things like this happen less in future. I am thinking of adding a Pi-hole to my router, yet I am no longer so sure, if it would help?

It is something to always take into consideration and not forget.

edit: thank you all for your replies! They are all very helpful. I am reading through them and will ask follow-up questions if needed.

I made a post some days ago asking about LineageOS, but my curiosity towards Google Pixels and GrapheneOS has been growing. As somebody who has always used regular Samsungs and iPhones, I hope somebody can clear up some questions I have regarding this OS.

I plan that my next phone is to be either a Motorola (LineageOS/SailfishOS?) or a Pixel (GrapheneOS). My first question about GrapheneOS, or really any non-standard OS, is this:

• how does having an account on the device work? For example, Samsungs require a Samsung account and iPhones require an iCloud account. How does it work on non-standard OSes?

My second question touches on built-in apps that you often get with every phone:

• does GrapheneOS have its own Notes/Drive/Photos/Messages app? If not, how does one go about obtaining these? Related question:
• how do I sync my notes/photos/files/etc to the “cloud” of GrapheneOS?

My third question regards the app store of GrapheneOS. I have heard that the sandboxed Play Store is better than FDroid, for instance; what are your thoughts? Do I go for Aurora Store instead? Is there any major difference at all? Is it possible to use multiple app stores?

• note that I likely won’t be solely relying on FDroid since I need some non-FOSS apps (FB Messenger for contacting family for example).

I know that in the privacy community, it’s very common to fix up a cloud of your own (i.e. NextCloud). I have no experience doing this, but is it something I must do when I install atypical OSes? Then comes the question about pricing, how private and secure it really is, which one to choose… and so on.

I understand many of these questions will sound stupid to those who are experienced, but I have not been part of this community very long. Feel free to link any educational videos or articles that answer my questions. I hope to learn more about this subject and one day installing a more secure system on my phone. Cheers!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13810367

Now that Apple has been forced to allow alternative App Stores, are there already similar stores like F-Droid emerging for iOS?

I'm thinking of getting a second phone to ease off iOS. It has been good for productivity stuff but the closed off nature of the device keeps disrupting my plans. Everything is either expensive or ad ridden. (Except floccus, floccus is awesome)

So far I have read about graphene OS and am quite interested. I really despise google though. Any chance to use another device and put some linux flavor on it? I was playing with the idea of a pinephone but it seems to be nowhere near daily drivable, fairphone is starting at 580 €, volla phone (german) 450 €...

Some people said xiaomi should be rootable. But the amount of different phones is huge. The price range is awesome though. I was thinking sub 300 €/$ would be awesome so tinkering doesnt hurt me financially.

Disclaimer: I dont want to go full hermit mode with no sim and a faraday bag. I respect the opinion but thats not what I'm trying to do. I want to write some small apps for my phone and use it as a computer if needed. Calling, matrix and browser should work flawlessly.

Any ideas or suggestions? :)