Technology

59594 readers

3434 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

355

Online Ads Can Infect Your Device with Spyware (www.scientificamerican.com)

submitted 1 year ago by Bebo@literature.cafe to c/technology@lemmy.world

77 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] plz1@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

Defense against it

uBlock Origin
NextDNS (I highly recommend this to everyone because you can easily get it for mobile devices and block ads served over mobile networks)
PiHole
Plenty of other options

But if corporate media reported on ways to block ads, it'd eat into their own bottom line, so I can understand their choice to skirt the whole "ads are blockable with some level of effort" conversation.

I've been blocking online ads for nearly the entirety of my multi-decade usage of the internet, to the point where seeing them now is actually quite jarring. The fact that they're now a prime vector for malware and spyware/capitalist surveillance just one-ups the decision to block them just for the annoyance factor.