Why ads are the terrorists of the Internet

Again, a piece I wrote for work. This will include a shameless linkback to a previous post that I've written, as well as a link to my work site. Again, for your convenience. And with that, here it is.

Over a month ago, I talked about the hacking streak we've been seeing in recent times, and how as much as hackers are the bane of the Internet, we need them to keep the Internet in check. I also talked a little about how we can avoid being part of this whole hacking drama and just watch as it unfolds.

Then came reports of a government agency producing spyware that can embed itself into your computer parts’ firmware, making them undetectable and unremovable. And as a result of that, I’m not sure if all the preventive measures I’ve stated start to make more sense than ever or have just been rendered pointless.

But for now, I’m going to be a narcissist and assume the former, and talk about something else that needs to go away for us all to feel and actually be a lot safer when we explore the wilderness that is the Internet: pop-up ads.

Before we talk specifically about pop-up ads, let’s first talk about ads in general. Now, let me be the first to admit that ads leave me somewhere between indifferent and indignant. I’ve yet to come across one that was actually useful, whether it be helping me discover something new, or convince me to change my stance about anything. Or whatever else ads are supposed to do. Chances are, you haven’t either. Some of us find it so annoying that we install ad blockers onto our web browsers. The rest would come to accept the fact that ads are a way – sometimes the only way – certain pages make money, so we tolerate it and take the annoyance as a price to pay for getting access to content in lieu of money.

And I get it. I get that sometimes ads are there to try to get you interested in whatever is being advertised. I also get that the pages need some form of compensation for their work, and ads are always there to play that part. But what really gets my blood boiling – and making me hate all the other innocent ads in the process – are pop-up ads and by extension, fake ads.

Pop-up and fake ads were, as far as I’m aware, exclusive to the darkest parts of the Internet; like porn, cult and torrent sites, where the things you can find there are questionable in the first place. Of course, when you dare to trek such parts of the Internet, you should be prepared to deal with such things and know how to avoid falling victim to them. This is especially true of fake ads, which will, say, disguise itself as a cluster of download buttons, obscuring the actual one that will give you what you were looking for.

These get my blood boiling – as I’m sure they would yours – simply because they are intrusive, fake and, more often than not, ridden with malware. Accidentally clicking on a pop-up ad or fake download button and you can be sure to spend the next few hours running antivirus scans or restoring your system to a state a few hours before you got played into downloading the malware.

And yet this is still fine, since such are the risks of trekking into the dark parts of the Internet. It stops being okay when these intrusive pop-ups and false ads start showing up in relatively mainstream sites. These are especially annoying on mobile devices because the fake ones take up space that should be reserved for content, and the pop-ups take over your page entirely; there is usually no clear close button to press, and if you press back instead, you go to the page before the one with the blasted pop-up.

I remember while I was reviewing the Xiaomi Mi Pad, I was greeted with the fairly common pop-up that tells me that my WhatsApp needs an update, while I was reading an article that a link was shared on Facebook. This is both hilarious and enraging, simply because I had not installed WhatsApp on the Mi Pad. While there are many versions of this, there are some where, short of closing your browser or spamming the ‘Back’ button at a rate of infinite presses per second, the pop-up endlessly loops and refreshes itself until suddenly your device is forced to download some suspicious .apk file which, by this point you wonder if it’s already too late and should toss your device at the face of the next person you suspect to be a criminal.

Just as how the people behind legitimate ads pay to get you to see what is being advertised, the low-lives behind false and intrusive ads pay to acquire your private information, which can be sold for even more money. We citizens of the Internet know this. Some take what legitimate advertisers consider the extreme step of installing ad blockers. Granted, most who do, do it simply because they are annoyed by ads, few for genuine safety concerns. Either way, legitimate advertisers should help the rest of the Internet to get rid of the plague that is malware-ridden ads. Otherwise, I have a feeling that the day will come when people will indiscriminately blame ads for the rise of hacking and security breaching incidents. I know I would.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: On a lighter note, the creator of pop-up ads at the very least has apologized last year for the monstrosity he created, and the state of the Internet that is so reliant on ads. In the unlikely event that you see him while walking down the street, all I ask is that you control your rage if you must express it.

This originally showed up here.