Show HN: Hide promoted tweets and sponsored content

https://blockzilla.app/

by promotino • 4 years ago

35 41 4 years ago

blockzilla.app

agentdrtran• 4 years ago

Charging for an app that blocks monetization is pretty rich.

amelius4• 4 years ago

As long as it only distracts me once, I'd say it's a win.

hirako20004• 4 years ago

but you got to realise the problem when monetizing off the products of other companies. when it isn't at the detriment of other companies usually everything goes well, but in this case expect to be distracted once more when this service suddenly terminates. use ublock rules, there is a better chance those will never be taken away from you.

leephillips5• 4 years ago

“Although some platforms offer an ad-free experience for their premium users, most of them aren’t.”

Aren’t what?

Anyway, you don’t have to install an extension to avoid “ads, promoted tweets, and sponsored posts” on Twitter. You just have to do this: https://lee-phillips.org/howtotwitter/

tenebrisalietum2• 4 years ago

... most of them aren't [offering an ad-free experience.]

This is an English language phenomenon called conversational deletion. Examples of it at the beginning of sentences are here: https://learnenglishwithdemi.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/conver...

leephillips5• 4 years ago

No, it’s not, and the examples on the page you link to are examples of something else entirely. The subject here is “some platforms” and is not deleted.

tiahura• 4 years ago

The problem is that the deleted verb (offering) isn’t parallelly conjugated to “offer” so it seems awkward.

I would change it to “most of them don’t.”

CharlesW• 4 years ago

You just have to do this: https://lee-phillips.org/howtotwitter/

Great resource, thanks for linking!

leephillips5• 4 years ago

You’re welcome; hope you find it useful.

dewey• 4 years ago

You just have to do this: https://lee-phillips.org/howtotwitter/

The same thing could just be achieved by using Tweetbot or another third party client, you can just follow the people as usual and it'll be a regular sorted timeline with no ads and suggestions or promoted tweets.

sundarurfriend• 4 years ago

This is great! By chance, I came across this post: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SzArJNSbbSikJeLD4/how-to-bes... yesterday, which also gives very similar advice; lists seem to be the core of using Twitter sensibly. And he suggests Tweetdeck as the interface to Twitter too.

leephillips5• 4 years ago

Thanks for the link. I added it to my page.

hackernewds• 4 years ago

Would rather see them than pay a subscription fee

gnicholas3• 4 years ago

Is it possible to block posts on twitter and LinkedIn that my contacts “liked”? I have no interest in seeing these — I just want to see what my contacts posted or reposted.

It’s cool to see this tool, but I have to agree with agentdrtran that it’s surprising to see a paid blocker. Optics aside, I would be hesitant to charge people up front for a tool that will undoubtedly turn into a cat and mouse game if successful. What happens if someone pays for a year and then LinkedIn changes their algorithm in a way that breaks your tool? Or if you are sued? The latter would be less likely IMO if the tool were free or donationware.

onychomys• 4 years ago

On twitter, switching to the chronological feed hides things your people liked.

gnicholas3• 4 years ago

Interesting, I haven't found this to be the case, but checking right now it seems to be acting this way. I think LinkedIn is the much bigger issue for me. I simply do not care if someone liked someone else's post about how they're leaving $company...

hoyd• 4 years ago

Where is that setting?

ajayyy• 4 years ago

If I understand this correctly, this just blocks Ads from the service itself, not #ad posts by users. uBlock Origin already does this, and pretty much any other ad blocker using [EasyList](https://easylist.to/)

KarlKemp2• 4 years ago

People here tend to justify ad blocking with security concerns. It‘ll be interesting what new rationalization they come up with for this.

c0nkflict5uxway2• 4 years ago

Security concerns are just one of many minor justifications for ad blocking.

The major one is simple: I never consented to see the ad. Therefore, I should not see the ad.

I use an adblocker for the same reason I boycott broadcast TV, broadcast radio, and paper magazines. Like my body and my property, my attention is not something that people should feel free to steal just because it is convenient for them.

KarlKemp2• 4 years ago

I bet you’re among the people that will object to the use of the word „steal“ when it’s used for copyright infringement.

Anyway… consent can happen implicitly. Eat at the hotel buffet an they’ll charge you for breakfast.

Besides, it should be obvious by now that you are hurting yourself just as much when you make it impossible for high quality news sources to remain freely readable. Not only do you have to pay for a far smaller selection of sources, your fellow citizens will be less well informed, which turns democracies into a mere lottery.

mccorrinall• 4 years ago

I‘m using an adblocker too, but I disagree with this reasoning. You don’t need to consent when it’s implied that serving the ads is how the service is generating revenue.

I just find ads annoying, that’s why I use an adblocker. But it‘s not stealing when i’m getting served ads while consuming free content.

cmeacham98• 4 years ago

Sure, I'll be straight up honest: (for me personally) security plays only a small role, I just don't want to see ads.

Is muting the radio/TV unethical? Should I be forced to look at billboards on the highway? What about skipping the page of ads in a newspaper/magazine?

Nowhere else do people try to make the argument I am obligated to view ads, even if the ads subsidize a cheap/free product.

Why is the web special? Why is it suddenly unethical to avoid ads while browsing the web?

cr3ative• 4 years ago

This is.... a paid for, less functional version of uBlock Origin?

sandyarmstrong• 4 years ago

Yeah, you can just block ##div[aria-label*="Trending"] in uBlock. I believe sponsored tweets are already blocked by default.

Credit to https://twitter.com/anaisbetts/status/1494340895495184392

Crazyontap• 4 years ago

There is no way you can hide ads and sponsored posts on Facebook

Why is that? How come it's possible to block tweets but not FB posts? Is FB using some vastly different technology than Twitter/Reddit/etc that makes it impossible? If so then what's stopping Twitter/Reddit from doing the same?

Anybody who knows about adblocking care to explain this?

TheBozzCL• 4 years ago

I'm guessing it's because Facebook goes to hilarious lengths to obfuscate their ads: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uAssets/issues/3367

jack335• 4 years ago

Great idea! I think products in improving the twitter feed can be really good.

I thought there is some TOS from Twitter about that products are not allowed to change the actual twitter behaviour or the original twitter UI, do you know something about that?

Also removing suggestions from topics, lists, retweets, etc. can clean up your Tweeter feed so much!

Show HN: Hide promoted tweets and sponsored content

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