This simple trick disables ads in Gmail - but there's a catch (www.zdnet.com)
from 1984@lemmy.today to technology@lemmy.ml on 18 Aug 2023 06:31
https://lemmy.today/post/446311

#technology

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theKalash@feddit.ch on 18 Aug 2023 06:42 next collapse

There is ads on gmail???

Syl@jlai.lu on 18 Aug 2023 06:48 next collapse

I’m not sure, ublock origin seems to work just fine.

ciaocibai@lemmy.nz on 18 Aug 2023 06:54 next collapse

I’m genuinely shocked that there are people out there that view ads. Between ublock and pihole depending on location I can barely think of the last ads I saw.

OhNoMoreLemmy@lemmy.ml on 18 Aug 2023 07:21 collapse

It’s using apps on a non local connection that gets me.

You can still catch most of them using a blocking DNS service like dns.adguard.com but still some get through.

Pretzilla@lemmy.world on 18 Aug 2023 18:10 collapse

How safe is adguard? DNS needs to be trusted.

InvaderDJ@lemmy.world on 18 Aug 2023 18:05 collapse

Ublock isn’t going to block these ads. These ads are those little emails with the ad tag in your Social and Promotions tab, not banner ads or popups.

Syl@jlai.lu on 18 Aug 2023 19:11 collapse

ok, I checked and I don’t have any, but I don’t live in the US.

InvaderDJ@lemmy.world on 18 Aug 2023 19:20 collapse

Interesting. I didn’t think there would be a difference.

cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de on 18 Aug 2023 07:02 next collapse

I’ve never seen any, but I only ever access it over IMAP.

moonburster@lemmy.world on 18 Aug 2023 09:07 next collapse

Apparently your adblocker is doing overtime

GlendatheGayWitch@lib.lgbt on 18 Aug 2023 09:52 collapse

I think it’s talking about emails in the Promotions tab with the word “ad” in a box at the beginning of the subject line.

theKalash@feddit.ch on 18 Aug 2023 09:56 collapse

Promotion tab?

Also, if I ever get an ad via mail, it will be immedetly reported as spam. Haven’t seen any ads outside my spamfolder for quite awhile.

GlendatheGayWitch@lib.lgbt on 18 Aug 2023 10:01 collapse

Gmail sorts email by tab. Click the triple lines and you’ll see Primary, Promotions, and Social. Basically Gmail didn’t like the word spam, so they named the folder promotions.

theKalash@feddit.ch on 18 Aug 2023 10:09 collapse

Mine doesn’t do that.

GlendatheGayWitch@lib.lgbt on 18 Aug 2023 10:43 collapse

Interesting, I’ve seen that on desktop and mobile app for nearly a decade.

theKalash@feddit.ch on 18 Aug 2023 10:50 collapse

Nevermind I found it under the “category” tab beneath the bin. I don’t think I’ve ever clicked on that before. I just need Inbox/Sent/All Mail/Bin/Spam and my custom labels. Everything else is just clutter.

GlendatheGayWitch@lib.lgbt on 18 Aug 2023 12:14 collapse

That’s interesting, my labels and inbox, outbox etc are all underneath those

anguo@lemmy.ca on 20 Aug 2023 13:31 collapse

I believe you can choose to have those enabled or not. Edit: turns out this is exactly what the article tells you to do.

ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml on 18 Aug 2023 07:44 next collapse

TLDR:

To skirt around the ads, you must disable the Promotions, Social, and Forums tabs. That’s where it gets a bit tricky. If you depend on the Social tab to keep you updated on your various social networking feeds, you’ll want to keep that enabled, but doing so will not prevent ads from showing up.

LoafyLemon@kbin.social on 18 Aug 2023 16:12 next collapse

No friends, no problem!

HughJanus@lemmy.ml on 18 Aug 2023 19:42 collapse

Tl:dr

To skirt around the ads, you must disable the Promotions, Social, and Forums tabs.

PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml on 18 Aug 2023 08:30 next collapse

Email is something where it can be worth a few currency units per yr for a fast / privacy focused email account that doesn’t contribute to your metadata profile.

DarkThoughts@kbin.social on 18 Aug 2023 11:20 next collapse

Depends on what you do with it. I use it pretty much only for all the accumulated account registrations over the years.

PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml on 18 Aug 2023 17:20 collapse

well…with that, google knows where you are, so it can sell you to where you aren’t!

Most email providers have decent to great aliasing & filters / rules.

DarkThoughts@kbin.social on 18 Aug 2023 17:47 collapse

They do that through my smartphone, not my email. Unless you're talking about online locations. Either way they can't sell me shit since I used adblockers for all my life and forever will be using them.

PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml on 18 Aug 2023 18:17 collapse

Bruh — virtual where you are. What sites you are a member of (remember they know your clicks too), what sites you have cancelled, what ads worked and what ads don’t. They are reading your mail and make no bones about it.

Your profile and demographic is racked and stacked. Even if you block ads they are selling you & your abstract content themes to people who want to market to you.

Marketing campaigns and targeted messaging may include some corny sites that are intended to pitch a message to you as a category of person—gone are the days where some banner is all it is, I am talking about SEO to entice you to click.

Have you ever read some whack article on a site that didn’t quite make sense? Somebody else paid for that site to try and legitimize a messsge that is too easily blocked by ad blockers.

I am not saying you should feel bad, and despite all this metadata, when is the last time a targeted ad actually interested you? Prolly like never.

Just be aware—look at googles stock price…that is based on you using their services.

DarkThoughts@kbin.social on 18 Aug 2023 18:33 collapse

Your profile and demographic is racked and stacked. Even if you block ads they are selling you & your abstract content themes to people who want to market to you.

Yeah, that's fine. I'm in forum X Y and Z and use this specific bank. Big whoop. Nothing they could possibly suggest to me is actually reaching me and I'm not going to pay for such a registration dump account. Imagine you couldn't pay for it anymore and then you'd lose access to all those sites. Replacing / switching email accounts like this isn't easy, and that goes in both directions. It's possibly to have 2 decades worth of account registrations of them. That isn't something you can just switch over to some other hoster.

I would care more if I were to write a lot of personal or otherwise confidential mails, but that would be a separate account anyway.

Have you ever read some whack article on a site that didn’t quite make sense? Somebody else paid for that site to try and legitimize a messsge that is too easily blocked by ad blockers.

Only weird AI written crap but that's not really targeted towards me. It's just lazy and mostly automatic content creation to get clicks.

Prolly like never.

Well, yes. Because I don't even see them. I'm allergic to ads to the point where I would quit the site if I see them. If on mobile and there's a YT link that opens the original YT app and it shows me an ad, I close it. I don't care for the video anymore. I wouldn't click on ads regardless if they're personalized or not because that's just not how I would ever shop anyway. Even if I'd see a product that might be interesting in an ad, I would then instead google the type of product, compare products with each other and then find a place where I can it the cheapest.

HughJanus@lemmy.ml on 18 Aug 2023 19:43 collapse

Proton is free. They only have Proton ads. And they also force ads into your outgoing emails.

PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml on 19 Aug 2023 11:24 collapse

That is cool. However, for a few bucks a month, one can get an email that is 100% private & fast. Email is worth outsourcing.

crycry@lemmy.ml on 18 Aug 2023 09:40 next collapse

There are ads in Gmail?

edit: i just disabled adblockers… still no ads… Genuinely confused

edit2: OK read the article and none of the settings where there. Just went into my alt gmail account, and I have the ads and the settings mentioned in the article. I guess my main gmail account is so old (2010?) it does not have these features

MoxFcCloud@kbin.social on 18 Aug 2023 10:25 next collapse

I'm pretty sure they're talking about the subtle ad disguised as an email in the promotions tab, its not even from someone I wouldn't expect to send me an email, that's why it's so sneaky. It's literally a promotion from a company whose emails I'm subscribed to.

NightAuthor@beehaw.org on 18 Aug 2023 13:25 collapse

It spread to social tab too.

Vuipes@kbin.social on 18 Aug 2023 11:11 collapse

Gmail android app had ads for me.

RoboRay@kbin.social on 18 Aug 2023 13:25 next collapse

Apparently I either already did this so many years ago that I don't remember doing it, or my account is so old (2006) that it predates these settings being added and they defaulted to "off" when added to existing accounts.

HughJanus@lemmy.ml on 18 Aug 2023 19:40 collapse

I’ve never seen Gmail ads but I also disabled these tabs as soon as they appeared so…

Wondrous_Fairy@lemm.ee on 19 Aug 2023 08:16 collapse

Yeah, I was confused “People get ads in Gmail?!” and then I remembered that shit bugged me way back, so I disabled them too.