Couple of issues I'm wondering about...
First, wouldn't clicking on everything just make you easier to track?
Second, how much bandwidth would all this use?
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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- not in this way
- not enough to matter
the way it works is sending an HTTP request that registers as a "click" to the advertiser (thus costing them money), but then doesn't actually let the browser download any content and fetch the webpage, basically pi-holes the destination site and any attached tracking cookies. Combined with the fact that it does this to every ad, it would basically poison any click tracking.
edit: pedants
and before I get any more of you, this is just what I remember reading about adnauseam, do not take it as gospel, go look at AdNauseam's FAQ.
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Yeah, I can't find an answer whether the "click" is behind some obfuscation, or if the "click every ad" is the obfuscation step itself by attempting to poison the data. The latter may work but yes, may actually increase tracking. Wish that answer wasn't so hard to find on their site.
Did you look at the FAQ?
https://github.com/dhowe/adnauseam/wiki/FAQ#how-does-adnauseam-click-ads
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Also wouldn't this be directing a ton of money to google? (or I guess any other ad provider)
The advertisers are paying for the opportunity either way. Clicks cost them more money than just displaying the ad. Useless clicks cost them money for nothing.
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No, because it devalues their click through, as no sales will result from those clicks.
It's kinda like printing money, there's more of it, but the overall value hasn't increased.
You know this is the good shit because when it first came out a few years back google was running a huge disinformation campaign against it. You'd search for "adnauseum" in google and the first result would be an article from some weird advertising company calling is "insecure" and "malware" without any actual argumentation behind those claims, while no other search engine returned that article (I lost the screenshots, so yall are just gonna have to take my word for it). They also delisted it from the chrome store for not discernible reason. They were afraid.
But nowadays I'm willing to bet that they figured out how to detect adnauseum's fake clicks and filtering it out. Stuff like that needs a talented development team to keep it up to date.
Has the same limitations as uBlock Origin with Manifest v3 and won't work in Chrome.
If you're still using chrome at this point that's on you.
Or a Chrome derivative
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The solution is simple. Chrome ditches manifest v2? Ditch Chrome.
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Google has put a lot of effort into detecting and blocking stuff like this. They call it "click fraud", if you want to look it up.
It'll just mean they start ignoring clicks from you.
That, I guess, it’s the whole point. Stopping being tracked 🙂
They call it “click fraud”,
No, click fraud is using botnets to click ads in your site to increase your revenue.
Throw in a dash of track-me-not (https://www.trackmenot.io/) and maybe they'll start ignoring your search queries too! Worst case my actual searches are so buried in the bs deciding what to market would be easier from my screen-name.
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I've been recommending this for awhile, it's nice to see someone else take up the mantle.
Yes, it clicks ads in addition to blocking them. Google removed it from its addon repository even though it wasn't breaking any rules. They just removed it and kept it removed because there wasn't sufficient backlash, the scumbags.
It's the main reason why I use Firefox these days. it's clear that the cabal will not allow anything that legitimately threatens their power structure, and make advertising less-effective for the same price is a gut punch they need.
Automated ad clicks probably are breaking the rules, TBF.
Monopoly money
This would still make a connection to the ad servers that can then track me though.
I guess with a hardened browser and a VPN it would be alright.
Good start. Now make a version that clicks each ad a random number of times from randomly generated IP addresses.
Ad Networks use browser fingerprinting to detect duplicate clicks, which is tied to your hardware, system locale, installed fonts etc.
Sounds like a solvable problem
Chameleon add-on for Firefox, randomly rotates your browser, OS, screen size, timezone, device type, language, and other customizable parameters every x minutes.
I've set it to do so every 5 minutes, and to omit desktop & tablet as device types (else some websites display the respective page) and timezones (messed up 2FA).
I also disabled blackberry and windows phone from the manufacturer ID, that would have the opposite effect from obscuring me.
For the rest of it, it's working great.
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Interesting, was wondering about this. This would also "help" the websites with more ad income right?
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