'#Ad Blocking is Not #Piracy' Decision Overturned By Top German Court
There’s little doubt that online businesses reliant on advertising revenue are negatively affected by increasing use of #adblocking solutions.
Yet it’s thanks to abusive and invasive #ads, and threats to #privacy due to incessant online tracking, that #adblockers became so popular.
https://torrentfreak.com/ad-blocking-is-not-piracy-decision-overturned-by-top-german-court-250819/

German Court does the legal hokey pokey, declaring ad blocking is now akin to #piracy again! Axel Springer clings to its newspapers like they’re precious family heirlooms, while the internet collectively rolls its eyes and keeps on scrolling.
https://torrentfreak.com/ad-blocking-is-not-piracy-decision-overturned-by-top-german-court-250819/ #GermanCourt #AdBlocking #AxelSpringer #InternetRegulation #LegalNews #HackerNews #ngated

Ah yes, the ancient ethical debate of whether it's "okay" to block ads—because we all know that pop-up ads are the pinnacle of human achievement, right? If you're not using ad blockers, do you even internet, bro?
https://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2015/10/why-its-ok-to-block-ads/ #adblocking #internetethics #popups #digitalculture #humor #HackerNews #ngated

Mozilla: Is Germany on the Brink of Banning Ad Blockers? User Freedom, Privacy, and Security Is At Risk.

｢ The BGH (as the Federal Supreme Court is known) called for a new hearing so that the Hamburg court can provide more detail regarding which part of the website (such as bytecode or object code) is altered by ad blockers, whether this code is protected by copyright, and under what conditions the interference might be justified ｣

https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2025/08/14/is-germany-on-the-brink-of-banning-ad-blockers-user-freedom-privacy-and-security-is-at-risk/

German Federal Court reignites debate on ad blockers! The court partially overturned a prior ruling, challenging if modifying site code to block ads violates copyright. Key implications for user choice & online privacy at stake. Can ad blockers survive? #AdBlocking #DigitalRights #Copyright https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/15/german_court_ruling_ad_blocking/

#newz

you people are freaking brain dead… #fckads

> "Some of these forced changes in consumption patterns are often explained away by manufacturers and retailers alike with the phrase "Nobody wants that anymore." Laptops with 4:3 or 5:4 screens, for example. Or slightly bulkier laptops but with decent thermal design. Or a laptop with a DVD player that will let me watch one of the many movies I own that's not available on a streaming service."

https://www.datagubbe.se/lessads/

With #GoogleChrome preventing extensions like #uBlockOrigin working properly anymore, would setting up #AdBlocking via #NextDNS be a viable alternative instead?

As always, #AdBlocking is #infosec:

https://infosec.exchange/@InfobloxThreatIntel/114930229670245228

If you're still using #GoogleChrome or #MicrosoftEdge then switch to #Firefox and install the #uBlockOrigin extension. It works on desktop and on Android. That alone will give you a safer, more enjoyable browsing experience.

#uBlockOrigin is forever disabled in #Chrome. Why it happened and what to use instead

https://adguard.com/en/blog/ublock-origin-disabled-chrome.html

So @naomibrockwell blew my mind about how are smart TVs are spying on us with Automatic Content Recognition and other advertising profile scripts. Yikes! Thanks for the heads up!
https://youtu.be/jeq2m-OM53A?si=DPW7TQiDSopBdqiS

I don’t have the resources to switch to a more secure streaming device yet (I’m gonna build one with mini PC running LibreELEC with Kodi hopefully).

In the meantime, I setup a Pi-Hole on an old Raspberry Pi 3B I had laying around last night to block as many ads and outgoing unwanted scripts as I could.
https://pi-hole.net/

It is working great from what I tell! Even removed the ads from my Roku TV home pages lol! I’m sure some stuff is getting through, but at least it’s minimal.

Here is the PiHole install video I watched from Micro Center, but I also added SSH via private/public keys too. How to Block Ads Using a Pi-Hole With A Raspberry Pi
https://youtu.be/oX4NqFisC5Y?si=-AdahVN0F6UchwnP

Oh and it has a built-in Star Trek NG LCARS theme!
https://github.com/MichalSvatos/pi-hole-star-trek-picard

#pihole #pi-hole #raspberrypi #linux #adblocking #cybersecurity #homenetworking #homelab #privacy #dataprivacy #digitalrights #mydatamychoice #privacyisahumanright #privacymatters #blockads #surveillancecapitalism #optout #FOSS #startrek #microcenter

Weekly block list report: 3,440 entries; 3,403 valid / 37 invalid; 3 deleted #ads #adblocking #blocklist #trackers #pglblocklistreport

List URL: https://pgl.yoyo.org/as/serverlist.php

#VivaldiBrowser team has just released a new desktop update, Vivaldi 7.5
https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-on-desktop-7-5/
I personally love the new smooth way of interacting with Speed Dials and Dashboard elements (Widgets), the new Mail and Calendar look, as well as the new Ad Blocker supported rules (badfilter, strict3p, and strict1p).

P.S. Related to the **real bugs** hotel: https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-on-desktop-7-5/#:~:text=We%20squashed%20bugs.%20But%20we%E2%80%99re%20kind%20to%20the%20real%20ones. Does anyone know where I can find the #drill in the photo? I like it. It must be as powerful as #VivaldiBrowser. Maybe it even has a button to change its colour :)
Please, do you know where to get it from? Possibly on the Vivaldi Store? TY!

New blog post!

Today it's about how I finally learned how Pi-hole is spelled.

I also talk how I moved from Google to Unbound as the upstream DNS server, and that I added additional blocklists to Pi-hole, all that making my adblocking solution even more private and secure.

https://stfn.pl/blog/74-pihole-unbound/

YouTube’s new anti-adblock measures

｢ One thing that people have ran into is “fake buffering”, where videos will take a while to load due to a lot of buffering, but only at the very start of the video (there’s no mid-video fake buffering). As I’ll explain, the fake buffering is 80% of the length of the ads you would’ve seen, so even with fake buffering you’re still saving time using an adblocker ｣

https://iter.ca/post/yt-adblock/

TechTok #8. Knowing your enemy

https://adguard.com/en/blog/techtok-8-knowing-your-enemy.html

Your daily reminder that the Australian Signals Directorate requires web ad blocking in Maturity Level **One** of the Essential Eight:

> User application hardening: Web browsers do not process web advertisements from the internet.

https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cybersecurity/essential-eight/essential-eight-maturity-model#:~:text=from%20the%20internet.-,web%20browsers%20do%20not%20process%20web%20advertisements%20from%20the%20internet.,-Web%20browser%20security

It's a *best practice*, so don't resist to install ad blockers in your browser(s)!

#nerv

#Youtube verschärft erneut sein Vorgehen gegen #Werbeblocker.

Nutzer berichten, dass selbst populäre Tools wie #uBlockOrigin oder integrierte Blocker in Browsern wie #Brave oder #Vivaldi nicht mehr funktionieren.

Videos lassen sich oft nur noch mit deaktiviertem #Adblocker abspielen. Youtube verweist auf das kostenpflichtige #PremiumAbo als Alternative, um Inhalte werbefrei zu sehen.

https://www.golem.de/news/auch-ublock-origin-betroffen-youtube-greift-weiter-gegen-werbeblocker-durch-2506-196983.html