What is this............................................................ ??

[Boudica]

I get a different kind of ad here.
View attachment 177057

I got Dolly

 

[Stacey K]

I'm getting a lot of realtor.com ads because I'm looking for a new house and I'm on the site 10 times a day.

 

[Boudica]

I'm getting a lot of realtor.com ads because I'm looking for a new house and I'm on the site 10 times a day.

That was me 2 years ago! I don't get them so much anymore.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

If it happens, there will be a patch on GitHub to override it with in a few days. It happened with something with permissions back in win7. I forgot what exactly

Only a question of "when", not really "if". Even if they don't, Windows itself ignores the host file (that's why those early "shut up Win 10" programs weren't quite as effective later on), at least partially and people would have to handle that at the firewall level (which most do not, don't even have people to handle that for them if they can't). Now this should be that much of a problem with ad blocking (as long as things are immutable, but if they do become that way, all bets are off).

While there may be things available on Github (ironically an MS product now), after all, there are scripts to debloat Windows (at the sacrifice of some features as well), this should be a thing, even remotely, with OSs. But I digress.

 

[ikarasu]

There will always be ways to get around windows blocks. Even if windows ignores the host files.... There's mods that prevent it. Within weeks all the telementary data Microsoft was sending for windows 11 was blocked.

It's so easy to reverse engineer windows and edit the way it behaves.... That won't ever change, unless windows does a complete re-write and locks down all its code... Which it won't do, and even if it did... It'd just get bypassed.


The problem is the masses don't know how to bypass it, so 98% of Microsoft's user base is stuck with it, which keeps Microsoft happy and makes it worth while for them to screw over users.

I've got so many mods/hacks on my windows 11 pc.... I would not be able to use it without it. Iat home I've got about 6 PCs on windows 10... And only 1 on 11, at work I got fed up of 11 because an update broke one of the mods I use, and just reinstalled 10. I don't think Microsoft purposely broke it, but it was a byproduct.... Took about 2 days for a fix to come out, at home I can wait... But at work I don't want to have a PC down for a few days.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

It's so easy to reverse engineer windows and edit the way it behaves.... That won't ever change, unless windows does a complete re-write and locks down all its code... Which it won't do, and even if it did... It'd just get bypassed.

It's easy for just about anything to reverse engineer given enough time.

However, at a certain point, being the "whipping boy" isn't a good thing, and not just on OSs, but even when getting "abused" elsewhere on sites etc. Even if things can be worked around, always have to make sure for something like that (and all of those are vulnerabilities (any time there is an open connection that isn't directly controlled by the user is a vector)).

Ironically, back on topic, Google Ads is also one of those vectors as well, given how they serve ads. I took a look on the site on outside devices (not my own). Ads on the desktop were just annoying, ads on a phone and iPad made it down right unusable. The biggest difference here, is that the fix is usually more permanent without having to deal with playing catch up, not so much with the other.

Some 3rd party fixes though, I would be leary of. I don't tend to use 3rd party addons in the browser etc due to that as well.