31st October 2023, 5:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 31st October 2023, 6:22 AM by David. Edited 6 times in total.)
(26th October 2023, 8:41 PM)Uptight 534 Wrote: I enjoy supporting content creators I watch, so I have never installed an ad-blocker.
I'd recommend using an adblocker in general still, there are malicious ads out there so everyone should definitely be using one (@Adulock77 I also saw you say you don't use one). I recommend using uBlock Origin, it'll also block trackers and malicious websites and has some other features (I assume some other adblockers do as well but uBlock Origin is regarded as the best adblocker from what I've seen)
You can whitelist the websites you want to support so that ads are shown on those sites, I whitelisted YouTube because it stopped allowing me to watch videos same as @Different. I can work around it from what I've heard but at the end of the day YouTube can't exist if they don't make money, and I also want to support content creators I watch. In the future I'll get YouTube Premium, it also has some nice bonuses like background play (great for listening to music)
For any ads you do see (if you whitelist sites for example, or if they slip through) I recommend never clicking any in case they are malicious, and for privacy reasons. If you see an ad for something you're interested in I'd search it up on your preferred search engine and find it that way. And if you ever aren't sure if a site is trustworthy, this site is a useful tool to help determine if a site is safe https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/url (just copy and paste the link there, ideally before clicking the link). I've been using it a lot recently and will continue to do so. There may be a past scan that shows up so reanalyze it (unless it was very recent but I'd do it anyway, and it's worth paying attention to past scans as well). Still take precautions though, sites that show up clean there aren't guaranteed to be safe but it's a good start (a suspicious or malicious rating isn't guaranteed to be a bad site either, there are false positives, but obviously a ton of malicious and suspicious ratings is a red flag but don't just ignore one or two bad ratings, do more research if theres a few)