this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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816
AdNauseam is a uBlock fork that goes further: it actively attacks marketers by auto-clicking every ad before blocking (adnauseam.io)
submitted 2 days ago by joshchandra@midwest.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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It garbles advertisers' data as a result, but you must disable uBlock Origin to run it; they can't work simultaneously. I recently moved to it and, so far, am never looking back!

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[โ€“] Kbobabob@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Did you look at the FAQ?

https://github.com/dhowe/adnauseam/wiki/FAQ#how-does-adnauseam-click-ads

[โ€“] ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Thanks, I didn't see this, there was a different embedded FAQ that didn't have the specific Q & A below.

But, if anything, it seems to confirm the ad itself is just legitimately clicked from the user's IP address and hidden from the user, and that there is code execution protection, but not that there is any privacy protection? It's still very ambiguous.

How does AdNauseam "click Ads"?

AdNauseam 'clicks' Ads by issuing an HTTP request to the URL to which they lead. In current versions the is done via an XMLHttpRequest (or AJAX request) issued in a background process. This lightweight request signals a 'click' on the server responsible for the Ad, but does so without opening any additional windows or pages on your computer. Further it allows AdNauseam to safely receive and discard the resulting response data, rather than executing it in the browser, thus preventing a range of potential security problems (ransomware, rogue Javascript or Flash code, XSS-attacks, etc.) caused by malfunctioning or malicious Ads. Although it is completely safe, AdNauseam's clicking behaviour can be de-activated in the settings panel.