Why The Web Is Such A Mess 

Hi tom

Hello

Wtf

It’s chewsday innit

Tom you should get a pop up blocker

They care to the minimum extent required by law

"We care about your privacy, and by sheer coincidence we started caring at about the same time that GDPR law came about..."

We care about your privacy, in the sense of you giving it up so we can track you all the time.

They care a lot. They just don't care about protecting it :P

Oh, they care alright… just as long as they become part of your private sphere.😒

That or you switch to Linux where you don't have to find the download button.

God why is this a goddamn thing ffs

You are so rightttttt 😭

finding the right download button is a talent you learn

Much like discerning search results that matter

Don’t forget the locked ‘legitimate interest’ options…

Wait Does This Mean A Lawsuit Could Happen About It?

Some websites has opt-out, you don't need to untick this boxes.

Just boycott those sites. Every time i see one of those endless lists i just close the page. Those parasites have to learn.

@@Renard380 you're like a grain of sand moving to a different beach

I agree, majority of advertisers are some still unidentified lower lifeform.

Literally; most of the web's ads are made and curated by computers nowadays.

@@sponge1234ify Not quite what I meant, but you're not wrong.

@@MikkoRantalainen much lower. So low they have to steal our data to make a living

@@levirichardson8505 oh i get what you mean, i'm just trying to be witty :p

I feel the same way, but you'd be surprised how much you subconsciously get drawn to those products despite that. The whole "any publicity is good publicity" concept holds very true for ads. You tend to trust something more the more you hear it, even if it's just the name of a brand.

They don't care. Advertisers universally subscribe to the notion that there's no such thing as bad publicity. After all, their goal is just to get you to view their ads, not so much buy their products. Connecting ad views to purchases is somebody else's problem.

@@Odima16 Exactly what I wanted to say. Even if it's the most annoying ad in the world, it works for the company

Companies spend billions on advertising each year, they know exactly what works and what doesn't.

@@banana_ This reminded me of go compare. It worked, at one point I actually did use their site

...we hello futurama flashback....

I believe the original idea for the shopping mall was to have it feel like a village centre - a nice place to be with seating and open spaces. Then it was corrupted into a commercial hole. The internet has gone the same way. What next?

Use an ad blocker

except the billboards have cameras which can track which stores you enter and slowly builds a database of information about you

@@JamesTheBell1 AI

Can't watch on mobile anymore, because they have 3 ads infront of videos now. Have to watch on pc where i have an adblocker.

The worst part is that like a quarter of all of the ads are now some of the most mind-numbingly obvious scams.

@@TinyDeskEngineer Or not family friendly.

@@pzyqux6641 I wonder what percentage of ads would be demonetized for not being advertiser-friendly, had they been uploaded to youtube as a regular video

@@pzyqux6641 i dont use an ad blocker and guess what whether that be on phones or computers there is not that many ads, besides i dont have a problem with ads because i cant wait 5 more seconds to view a video

What languages can you speak

@djbrysongaming I feel that. A universal language

Learn languages ​​to read and understand more things then.

Or maybe there are 12 programming languages.

Yes. (And 700th like)

Why do apps need really strange permissions to do some mundain thing? Where is the learn more button there.

Daniel Mostly so they can collect more data on you. Say you have a photo of yourself and your family right in front of the Eiffel Tower. They’d know you visited Paris, who you’re related to with facial recognition and that you go on holidays. Advertisers can use that to advertise a family holiday or advertise souvenirs to you. While the example isn’t the best considering the pandemic, it should hopefully give you an idea as to why they ask for it.

That’s also because the permissions that are asked are super vague- like how a calculator app might ask to make and manage phone calls when it really just wants to be silent while you’re calling someone.

- The camera app has the permission so it can add the location to the photo taken. But the app should still work regardless. - The photo viewer has the permission so it can show you old photos of the place you're currently at. But the app should still work regardless. They can still sell this location data further. So it's up to you if you want to share the location or not. But at least these apps make sense to have it.

@@Liggliluff "But the app should still work regardless." THAT is the problem; apps deliberately stating "basic functions will no longer function" which is really just a lie to the person without the technical details in their head

Long live adblock!

@@Somajsibere no long live brave browser with free built in ad blocker and tracker blocker. Faster, free and built on chromium

and that freedom of design is exactly what makes us be forced to turn it off to read any article, the cycle continues

I hate ads, that's why I don't have monetization on RU-vid and no ads or even tracking on my site. Back in the day Google Analytics was cool way to get stats about your page visits but there are open source alternatives you can run on your server like Piwik or publication systems have it built in already, so no need for Google to sniff around.

but there are anti-adblockers.. so you need an anti-anti-ad-blocker. And NoScript. And custom script manager while at it. It is a pain to set up and make working on individual sites but still less pain than the ads/ popups.

If they don't lead to an overly-wordy explanation of what cookies are, how the site values your privacy, and what they will absolutely do with your information, regardless. (With possibly a small link buried in the text somewhere directing to an email where one can "request" data removal.)

Duck duck go does. I'm not advertising I'm just a user.

You would find yourself wondering why certain websites don’t function properly. I’d say most websites require a certain level of cookies in order to work.

I think such technology was already created with the "Do Not Track" message, but I think I also heard that this does not work by now anymore...

use the extension i dont care about cookies

@@afacelessuser Doesn't that extension just *accept* all the cookies or do I misunderstand that?

Are you a resident of the European Economic Area? If so, you'd need to report them from incompliance with the GDPR!

@@sion8 and they will just laugh at you and pay the fine

@@thehildabeast100 Idk, 4% or 20 mil sounds steep. Maybe it needs to be that much per person?

It is not but who is going to stop them?

@@eduardoizquierdo309 yo it was a minute ago when you said that.

@SharkTH In JavaScript, you can get both the screen resolution, AND the browser content resolution. The resolution may also change depending on your scaling, too.

@@ITAC85 some browsers block the screen res header

@@vijf Huh.

@@mitko17 which actually makes it easier to fingerprint you until mozilla turns it on for everyone by default

@SharkTH Isn't that a good thing, assuming you want to avoid being tracked? If on every visit you adjust the browser window a little differently, you should look less like you to the site.

I remembered a horror story of a 5 second youtube logo as an ad on youtube , so you're not that far off .

On the RU-vid website which is also run by Google

Happened to me too. I laughed out loud

I have no add's on RU-vid. It's a relief.

@@chedinbuildsstudio5144 How would seeing the RU-vid logo as an ad be Horrifying?

Hah

rahhhh

Ah, a fellow official boy as well I see

Who is that quote from?

@@brettricker9049 it's from The Official Podcast iirc

We should've called them "Location Trackers".

@@mustafaeee6778 That's not what they do, though, at all. Cookies don't track your location. That's not a function they can perform. It's just browser storing information on the client, like your login session ID and auth token. They can be used to track what websites you were on (if your browser doesn't block this functionality, ie you live in 2008), but not your location, and even that is an unintended side effect. We need cookies on the web, they're incredibly useful and enable stuff like logging into websites.

some sites require you to accept those little spy disguised as cookies to continue to a site

@@xanderkyron Heh, > *like* logging in < The MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 that Tom alluded to is exactly this, when you say "yes" you are literally logging onto the advertiser web server. Maybe "Logon-Token" would have been more accurate.

@@boring7823 Even calling them Logon Tokens doesn't really make sense in the broader sense of what cookies can store. I think login tokens/session ID should be stored as a different thing and named as such, and Cookies can be named client-side variables or something similar. It's not like a super technical and specific thing that the user never sees besides agreeing to needs a friendly name.

Damn, well spotted! I was watching that episode today!

I was scrolling through the comments to see if anyone had noticed that! Doctor Who for the win!

I was wondering if it was a Doctor Who reference!

Don't you hear it? The drumming?

underrated episodes ngl

am i the only other person who got that reference?

@@yoshipaul3896 nope!

Other way around

Capitalism

A while ago, someone made the case that Wikipedia was one of humanity's greatest achievements, possibly *the* greatest achievement. Every once in a while I remember what I read and try to find a counterargument, but I've not really been able to find anything that tops the collective summation of the entirety of human knowledge.

@@ShaunCheah Depending on your definition of "achievement", I'd argue the applicable concept of absolute truth is a lil more impressive than Wikipedia :P

Wikipedia is one of the few remaining representations of the original altruistic intent of the internet. Which is why it's not even remotely profitable.

At 6:25 I bursted out laughing when I got a chrome book ad

I got an ad for Google's online learning courses: digital workplace.

Conflict of what interests?

@@NoName-kj2vf I got a target ad

It's one of the main reasons I refuse to even install Chrome on my laptop, and use it almost by accident on my Android based devices. I trust G* even less than M$.

Where did you find all known ad-host servers and where is the HOSTS file?

@@jacksoncremean1664 I mean, fair I guess, but I want to learn. I want to gain this skill I don't have

YOU CAN DO THAT!

always ahahaha

How?

How do you that?

اhow is that

I think Tom would call it "a bit of an understatement". :)

indeed

Whenever I open up a web page and I accidentally clicked the wrong thing because the entire page moved to fit an ad is probably on the most annoying things ever

What do you want from him, he's British!

true

He can't do that, because one person would leak regardless of an NDA

@@uncommonsense360 don't care, sign me up too

Id sign an NDA if you game me lolly

@@uncommonsense360 they can get into legal trouble

woke tom scott

You're not missing out. The headline turns out to be the whole story. Though you won't get the chance to look at a bunch of dodgy ads, or other similar tabloid guff.

They're all programming languanges

That's me in the future if everything goes well. If everything goes poorly... well, you don't want to know.

Don't blame me, I voted for Harold Saxon.

We don’t know, no one wants to interview him

All of them are

True, but It ended in a cliffhanger. We need solutions, not just stating the problem! Just kidding, but I really did feel the video lacked some kind of a conclusion, actual or potential improvements being worked to deliver a better outcome for everyone, or something to give us hope.

@@miroslavmilan That's because there is no hope, the web is an unfixable mess. The only solution is to move to a cabin in the woods, away from all civilization and network connection.

This is the case for every Tom Scott video

Welcome to Tom Scott :)

sadly most people don't use adblockers

@@someonehere4380 many of them are viruses or some kind of nefarious software. If the company isn't obviously making money though something like a premium version or subscription, they are definitely selling your information.

@@someonehere4380 i dont use one because i dont need one honestly ads dont bother me as long as your ad doesnt do something too pushy i will not care if ad does to something to pushy then i will close that website and probably never go back most ads on internet are fine its 1% that is problematic which can be avoided with guess what avoiding

Grease monkey scripts

​@@someonehere4380 God bless those without adblockers. Because of them we are able to surf web without paying a cent

yet in some ways, less evil than some websites now...

Guys, uBlock origin existed and still exists

@@runed0s86 uBlock Origin? in 2007?

I miss shooting balloons to get a free iPad.

And thus, no more flash.

I think you're raisin an excellent point there...

@@FireFly209 Shut up and take my like >:(

And possibly asparagus in them who knows

@@Pixdoet That's actually just battery leakage from the GPS trackers in the cookies, not asparagus. The both make your pee smell weird, I know it's confusing.

I'd say, mouse turds

I always do... except when the cookies window takes up the WHOLE SCREEN AND REPLACES ALL OF THE SITE WITH THE POPUP.

F5 & a very well timed Stop usually does the trick

@@scriptguru4669 yea!!

*laughs in pop-up blocker*

I use ublock for deleting the popups.

Raisin cookies are delicious

@@Kyrelel Agreed

@@Kyrelel well some people dont vaccinate their kids, but they still think theyre in the right /s (For anyone that doesnt know, /s means the post was sarcastic)

Or is it chocolate chips?

People dissing raisin cookies are usually the same people who diss pineapple on pizza or Nickelback just because the cool kids do it.

Celebration of 57 years of Dr Who!

"the drums the drums the never ending drums!"

I guess Im glad dr who won superwholock

Heh, I saw that too.

Damn it! I literally typed this comment almost word for word then I spotted you already done it!

not as catchy or woobifieable, but 100 times more clever (and sinister)

Breadcrumbs would be a bit misleading nowadays because in web-jargon, breadcrumbs actually stands for that trail of links/categories and sub-categories you sometimes see on online shopping sites or forums. So for example, on Newegg, viewing a listing for some RAM, you have the trail at the top: Home > Components > Memory > Desktop Memory > etc... Those are called breadcrumbs :D

@@JustASnack Kinda irrelevant as that flattened tree navigation thing would have gone with a different name had cookies been called bread crumbs

if you get enough of breadcrumbs, ypu can make the entire bread. Kinda fits imo

@@isyt1 "Breadcrumbs" trace a path back to where you started. I don't know how that fits with the way cookies work.

i remember a pure html page from a university website that helped me understand something in c++, it was straight to the point with its information

Well I mean, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The U.S government has a lot of experience with that -- hell, they still use those massive eight-inch floppy disks for guiding nuclear missiles

@@JetFalcon710 bc its safer. Cant hack a floppy disk ;)

@@DrSpaceman69 Yep. Not to mention, they're extremely reliable and also hard to sneak out of a building

Then you aren’t a programmer, you just write a word document and embed it in html.

ono

non

People who get that have been around long enough to get a veterans discount

The dreaded onosecond

@@adamennaqui7413 not that long..

If they were people, they'd feel empathy

Even lawyers are closer to actual people than advertisers.

@@ChaoticTrack Advertisers and corporations are _legally_ people. It's insane.

@@Mentocthemindtaker legally people in what sense?

@@ff-qf1th In practically all legal systems there exists a construct most often called something like "legal personhood" where either groups of people (e.g. political parties, unions etc.) corporations and other constructs and cooperatives can have rights and legal abilities (to buy stuff, to loan money, hold the copyright to something) according to the law, just like real people (who have "natural personhood"). It's the basis of civil law and what allows businesses to do business. But it's also really weird when you are not familiar with it.

"Part 1 of 2 147 483 647"

@@gabrielragum Part 1 of 2 ^ 31 ? We're gonna need 64-bit.

You *won't* believe reason #7!

@@cf453 just put the number in a string and hope nobody'll notice 😳

“Part 1.00 - Volume I, Version 1.1, Section A”

Yes, and that was worse than now. I think we can win this battle too.

Flashbacks to those websites that would trick you Into to starting a superchain of unclosable windows msgboxes that you had to hold Spacebar to get through while the author writes about how much of your time he's wasting.

I’m still gobsmacked at how NETSEND was ever considered a good idea at Microsoft...

A friend of mine used some very simple code to make a website that opens new tabs of itself at the speed of light, just a couple years ago. Our school wasn't very happy about it

@@Vellzi ugh, and remember when they'd play music or other audio? And sometimes they'd stay minimized when they opened, so you had to figure out which tab/window was making the noise.

I am so happy I donate to Wikipedia. I wish I could donate more, and I hope others see the power behind Wiki and donate as well.

In that order of desirability... 🧐

What about protista and monera?

Multiceullar Eukaryotic life*

@@robertskitch I think advertisers are a subkingdom within monera. Right next to lawyers, and tax professionals.

@@robertskitch i fear you may have missed the joke

Yea they are annoying

Exactly. We really need to curb this abuse

That atleast forces you to read it. I have a bigger problem when the accept all button is way more visible.

To be fair, It’s really difficult to make a rule and enforce it on all of the internet at once.

I just want the Do Not Track header to be respected and not show that annoying box.

problem is people thing since everything is so accesable it is free but reality is people need to pay for all this stuff

@@bigpod what would you chose? Money or data?

@@phantombeing3015 data of course its worth more if i can use it

@@bigpod I meant, like, would you pay to use Google photos or just let them collect datas on you by uploading to their drive for free,m

@@phantombeing3015 i honestly dont use it but i guess pay with data

- Plato

Anyone who believes they are immune to the effects of pervasive advertising hasn't fully considered that it is a multi-trillion dollar enterprise.

A lot of the time it is about influence. Putting something in your head that otherwise wouldn't be there - a brand name, the colour of a certain product. It builds over time

I got an ad for Asaki Japanese Beer. It's now my favourite beer.

If you set your vpn to a country you are not familiar with (especially developing ones such as those in south or southeast asia, there are a lot of vpn servers based there), some of the ads may be replaced with products that are only available locally, and since you probably are not gonna understand the language anyway, may reduce the influence these ads may have on you. Or of course, you can just use an ad blocker. Edit: phrasing. Also i'm not 100% sure that this will not influence you in using any products. If you want to keep brands away from entering your subconscious, just turn ads off altogether.

good one xD

If you do a Google search for the word 'Google', you can break the Internet. Seriously, don't do it!

@@coltaylordyath5180 why am I going to do that

@@coltaylordyath5180 I want to do this REALLY badly now

boomer humor

It's January 2024 [as of writing], and RU-vid waits you 5 seconds before they let you into the video if you installed an adblocker on your browser.

factually true

I just can't decide if they're lizard people or amorphous shape shifters who just "bloop" into a bucket at the end of the day.

When I heard that line I immediately thought of the Bill Hicks piece about advertisers

True. Advertisers are corporations which are made of people, but are not themselves people. A corporation, in addition to being made of people, also has a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, which actual people do not, and that makes all the difference. Without that fiduciary responsibility, no one would really care to thwart the ad blockers. Also if society just made sure everyone had what they needed no strings attached, no one would need or even want to be so annoying just to grab your attention.

actually... for a large part now they are algorithms

Most are still not two equally sized/emphasized buttons, even though that's what the law requires.

Lately everything is ‘legitimate interest’ so you can’t turn off more than half of the cookies.

Great. I'd rather pay the €20,000,000. Your VAT is paying for this garbage to be thought up.

I still double check if they have actually disabled every cookie except the strictly necessary ones that just can't be turned off

We're talking about Dark Patterns here.

'people who make money from advertising in order to continue to make and do what they want are people though, like Tom Scott.' - Me, 2020.

@@Michael-mh2tw Sure, but you can do that ethically, most advertisers are not doing that ethically therefore they lose people status privileges :P But jokes aside, companies/corporations are in some ways alien to humans and could therefore be considered as distinct/separate from human beings.

Based

He's right though.

The election is over. Tom Scott 2024! (I know he's British.)

Really?

We seriously need a good RU-vid alternative...

This video was made 3 months ago, made public just now. What does that tell you?

@@thepranjaljain 3 months from now it can only be worse I guess

It can't be helped can it? Storage Servers cost money, and youtube has a HUGE amount of videos uploaded every day. They need to atleast break even.

Pro move: Use the ad blocker to hide the element blocking the page and begging you to disable adblocker. Works on most sites.

I saw a doozie the other day. Consume all memory resources and crash the browser. --> report to site owner who says "disable ad blocker"

Another pro move: Disable JS to remove clutter on a ton of news sites

@@SpiffingNZ I always go to inspect element and just delete the elements blocking the site.

@@SpiffingNZ What i have to set in adblocker to do this? I cant find the option yet.

AlanKey86

AlanKey86

AlanKey86

AlanKey86

AlanKey86

Of course the Master is a master of everything, just like the Doctor is a doctor of everything.

+

Yes, Harold Saxon really has *mastered* the art of publicity

I think what the Web really needs ... right now ... is a Doctor. :)

@@canaryimpulse989 You called?

Bill is Still busy with his meeting at the docks

who is bicks?

He's right tho

I see what Tom is doing there. He's going for that "advertisers aren't people" dollar.

@@umkm2k He's doing a good thing, a lot of people are feeling that 'advertisers are not people' dollar. That's a good market.

That's not GDPR compliant, report them :D

@@thorbear Let me know if the ICO does anything but say "not our job, we're not a regulator"!

It also seem to "disables" addons, in Firefox at least they are on a "protected" site which doesn't allow addons to work. Meaning that you wont get protection from adblock, and NoScript, etc. For example if an article have images blocked due to some NoScript setting, they will be visible in reader mode, so they must be loading. Unless they go through "safe" servers and are "cleaned" they will allow for tracking.

Not one mention of adblock - we truly are on RU-vid.

@@nw3473 Biscuits as well.

@@nw3473 Koalas

Thank you for making me smile.

@@nw3473 vegemites?

Where I can have chocolate chips?

More like we value our ability to make money out of you in the EU

Privacy, they never said they gave a crap

That just means they sell your privacy for money.

A mandatory text saying "We must comply with EU regulations or we are screwed" is better

"We care about your privacy, and by a complete coincidence we started caring at the same time privacy laws were put in place"

😂😂😂

The messy web strikes again.

youtube has been known to do that, they have also been caught removing dislikes from certain companies videos (disney)

Did the exact same for me aswell it's really weird

yes same i don't get his videos in my recommended, i have to always search for it

I absolutely *love* that background.

It's actually the computer running the simulation that we're all living in

@@thaumaturgicresearchcounci4180 The problem is choice

chrome://flags and set it to automatic in developper options. if not get autodarkreader extension

you should use firefox it’s much better and dark mode stays on

@@Justpassingb1 firefox gang

@Tim Riches yes but firefox is still better

why are you using chrome? Use something better. We are past the days of chrome and firefox.

Well find out on another episode of tom Scott

advertisers

_broadly gestures at everything_

Tom's videos are usually short...

Probably need more cookie.

Maybe, but it's being ruined by the rest of the internet.

How about Scihub

@@aloysiuskurnia7643 SciHub and LibGen are the Alexandria's Library of the Modern World.

They should have a feature where you can request info on a page instead of editing the whole thing

@@Name-de1ij What do you mean?

Thank you Obama gaming very cool

Obama gaming

Obama

wait what how

You have no possible way of knowing that Do you?

omfg yes. You wont last 10 sec playing this game

that's sadly accurate

Power and money. You can also derive things back to their 7 deadly sins forms as well.

Capitalism

It's always funny reading people complain about capitalism in RU-vid (Owned by Google, one of the biggest companies in the world) and using a Phone/computer that of course is from a big company too. You make me laugh guys, if you hate capitalism so much go to live in the middle of nowhere and stop using technology at all 🤣

@@Facusblues Not speaking for the others (I did not participate in that discussion for a reason) but I did explicitely not complain about the role of money. Not in this context at least.