If you see that many ads you still have malware, we just call them apps now.

Fedi is great because if you saw as many ads as I see every day on fedi, it meant you had at least one virus, not three.

Facts.

I mean, I haven't seen that shit on my system in years because I run redundant adblockers but... when viewing someone elses computer.... it's crazy.

Now the viruses are in your brain. Never really went away...

Now the virus is the operating system.

Going to my parents' house is mildly maddening. They watch network and cable TV... The sheer number of ads is unbelievable to me.

It's hard for me to say this but I actually miss older (NT based) Windows versions. They kind of worked, had a mostly consistent UI / UX and could even be customized a little bit.

Yesterday I had the Editor (the thing that used to me notepad) show me an account login notification, next to some weird copilot buttons that were not there the last time I used it. Best of all, the notification couldn't be confirmed due to a bug and stayed open the whole time and covered about 1/8 of the screen...

On my super locked down work laptop windows does weird screen size stuff with windows shrinking or getting larger, especially when they're moved between screens that have different scaling, sometimes task bar icons disappear or begin to flicker.

WTF?!

Just looks like Facebook to me.

I remmeber early years of Facebook and other similar era stuff. It was pretty alright as far as ads go.

Where's WeatherBug?

BonziBuddy seems almost wholesome now.

Or you're a teenager making fat stacks with multiple ad bars. And by fat stacks, I mean fractions of a cent.

There was an ISP that also gave a discount (or was it free?) if you had the ad bar running. NetZero was it?

Conversely, ads are now one of the primary vectors how malware is distributed, so you still have at least 3 viruses on your computer. 👍

I also find this weird. I feel like millennials have more in common with gen z than any other two of the "gens".

Ya know, that Alexa was probably more helpful than today's too. 😅

Fake and gay, we had and trusted chrome by then

I screamed when I saw a ad in the fucking Windows 10 start menu. Literally suggesting you download Minecraft. Like wtf Microsoft -- this is a work computer.

Not sure what win11 has but I bet its Cortana or bing or whatever AI slop they use.

sure kid. for me it would be a long interstate road trip in a car that runs leaded gas, has no A/C and only an AM radio.

Hate to be pedantic but *MicroSlop

Windows XP predates Chrome by 7 years.

Before Alexa we had Jeeves

Watching TV, ads ran every 15 minutes and lasted 3 minutes when I was a kid but then jumped up to 4-5 minutes. So, 4 minutes of ads and 11 minutes of show, then another 4 minutes of ads. Unskippable, awful ads for deodorant and slap chop

Oh discussion is only about computers. I remember the first popup ads and pop under ads and they put a fake x so when you click it instead of closing it takes you to install malware

Just like how boomers always used to assume millennials are children, everyone keeps assuming gen z are children.

The absolute youngest gen z are 14, only 4 more years and there won't be any child gen z left.

Though with how fucked gen alpha is appearing due to the systematic destruction of teaching basic reading skills plus brainrot plus AI; I have a feeling us gen z will go the way of gen x, being silently overshadowed by our neighboring gens over time. Also the nihilism, gen x and gen z share a lot of nihilism.

Ads have always been a primary vector for malware and viruses.

adblocking is basically a condom for the modern internet.

I think? or Juno.. one of the dialups.

man I cant believe I remember Juno.. or NetZero.

edit
I just looked it up.. NetZero still exists.And is still operating, as a dialup internet provider.

more so.. the company that owns NetZero, also owns Juno.. and owns K-Marts (Americas K-Mart, not Australia's) BlueLight Internet service as well.

Talk about a memory hole

I miss Jeeves

Listen, I'll admit I've never experienced a virus download automatically and rarely experienced a virus from a sketchy file.

But nearly all of gen Z remembers the free internet. Even up to 2016 it was still possible to view every major website without an account.

Every time I disable my ad block, or I see Internet Archive fail to save a webpage, or I'm forced to download the app for the privilege of scrolling down a thread; I get mad at what was taken.

We didn't realize how brief the era of mostly reliable and always verifiable universal information access would be. Now we can't trust any video because Sam Alton threw gasoline on the AI fire to make a failed Tiktok clone.

Wow, that's wild. I guess there's still a market for dialup, even in the age of mobile and satellite.

Dude I just pirate shit and read books. You all just bare backing the internet?

Reminded me of this certified hood classic.

Excel Hell

It is America, i'm sure theres still places that have nothing but phone lines for access to the outside world.

Eh, it might not be legally true but a lot of 22 year olds still seem like children to me.

Basically every time America gives huge telecom conglomerates money to expand rural services they literally just steal it and face no consequence whatsoever. It’s such a scam, politicians look good because they vote to spend 400 million dollars to expand rural access, comcast and Verizon take with the promise that in 5-10 years things will be better, then they do nothing hoping people will forget. Even when an expose article is written on the issue American cynicism kicks in and the politicians get away with letting them steal literally hundreds of millions of dollars.

It’s basically money laundering. It’s also a reason rural areas (which already tend to skew republican) have more support for musk, because for a lot of them starlink is the only real option for passable internet, but that’s expensive for internet that is pretty shitty compared to a basic broadband connection. And thus ~20% of rural Americans and almost 30% of Americans on tribal lands have no access to broadband in 2026

Imagine paying money to watch ads.

I still remember driving to summer holiday in Italy and my mum having the paper map out, the road marked with yellow highlighter and all the exits and changes written out beforehand. No A/C as well.

You gui's have ads ? Never seen one in 10 years

I just saw this on Reddit. I can’t escape it.

"This website has loads of apps"

Normies don't understand adblockers. I mean, its a tough concept, like quantum mechanics. Can't expect them to know how to hit a button.

Advertising is the most prolific form of environmental pollution wrought by commerce.

It needs to become as socially acceptable as smoking, and every instance of it must be exhaustively scrutinised and required to be justified.

There was the pilot, and the navigator, whose job it was to read the map and say stuff like "the exit after this"

Somehow family members who lived through this lost the ability to navigate. I though my sister and later mother were fucking with me when I would ask and they would repeat word-for-word what apple maps just said, expecting me to read the names of every street we drove by. No turns out they literally cannot read a map and say "turn right in 2 streets, right before the McDonalds", they have to follow the little arrow until it gets to the turn. This was 2 different road trips btw.

You mean the people who consume ads get extra work breaks throughout the day?

Ad Blockers are a thing. Watching Ads is a choice.

That could be a perverse incentive to have businesses curtail their excretions.

I know so many people who claim it's just easier to watch ads and click them away and tell me about their little hacks, it's crazy. Looking at a strangers phone gives me anxiety. My sister always tells me that watching tv isn't that bad, and she'd record it and skip ads, which to me is already insane. NOW YOU CAN'T DO THAT ANYMORE. She said she can still skip it, but not on the "good" movies, it still works on some trash tv and daytime stuff. They clearly took that away by choice and she's still like: it's just like 5 ads a movie, we just go to tge toilet or whatever. Same with navigating the internet. Well yeah, you just ignore the pop ups and agree to all the cookies

The main problem is, that the "generational concept" is sociologically useless.

Eh, as a member of Gen Z I remember AOL dialup before we moved to cable, and using Mac os 9 on some of the iMac g3's the school had for reader rabbit/type to learn.

I fondly remember infecting the family XP machine for cursor mania lmao.

Kind of like the modern "Lincoln telegraphing a samurai".