Make the FBI happy: install an ad blocker
The growing numbers of people around the world now using ad blockers — over 300 million on computers and 530 million on mobiles — now have the support of an unexpected ally: the FBI, which has just officially recommended in a PSA the use of ad blockers to strengthen personal cybersecurity, citing the risk of inadvertently clicking on the many fraudulent ads that plague websites.
This misuse of advertising that should not surprise us, given the pragmatism of some companies, Google or Facebook above all, which are only interested in how much money they can make. Right from the get go, Google was happy to get rich with dialer ads that scammed inexperienced users, and continues today by allowing all kinds of ads. Facebook went even further with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, possibly one of the largest electoral manipulations in history, for which it has just been sentenced to pay a fine of $725 million.
Internet advertising is plagued by scams, viruses, trackers, information theft, and a whole lot more bad news. Blocking advertising is no longer an act of rebellion, of protest against intrusive formats or of protecting one’s personal productivity, but a simple security decision. Think about it not only when you install it yourself, which if you are reading this you surely already have it, but also when you install it on your parents’ computer or…
