New year, new me, new web browsing setup?

Since we’re at the start of a new year, I will stop fine-tuning everything on this blog and let it live as the receptacle it’s supposed to be. With my mind cleared of HTML and CSS concerns, I now have energy to waste on new optimisations of my digital environment, and this time with an old favourite of mine: content blockers.*1

In 2022, I experimented with blocking JavaScript on a per-site basis, which, at the time, allowed me to feel better about my behaviour on the web. You see, I thought that I was not actively refusing adverts. I was just disabling a specific technology on my web browser; not my fault if most ads are enabled via JS after all.

True, ads couldn’t reach my house, but not because I actively refused their delivery; simply because the trucks used for their delivery weren’t allowed to drive on my pedestrian-only street.

Ethically, I preferred this approach to the one blocking all ads blindly on every site, even if the consequences, from the publishers’ perspective, were the same.

I know it was very hypocritical of me, and I know I was still technically blocking the ads. Nevertheless, I felt less guilty blocking the technology used for ads, and not the ads directly.

This setup was fine, until it wasn’t. My web experience was not great. Blocking JavaScript by default breaks too many non-media sites, and letting it on made me realise how awful browsing the web without a content blocker can be. The only way for this system to work was to have patience and discipline on the per-site settings. Eventually, I gave up and reinstalled the excellent Wipr Safari extension on all my devices a few weeks later.

Last year, on top of Wipr, I also tried services like NextDNS and Mullvad DNS. With these, the browser ad blocker becomes almost superfluous, as all it has to do is remove empty boxes that were supposed to be ads before being blocked by the DNS.

It was an efficient setup, but I was still blocking ads, which kept on bothering me. While I happily support financially a few publications, I can’t do the same for all the sites I visit. For the ones I am not paying, seeing ads seems like a fair deal; blocking ads was making me feel increasingly guilty.*2

Like I wrote in the other post on the topic:

Somehow, I always feel a little bit of shame and guilt when talking about content blockers, especially ad blockers. Obviously ads are too often the only way many publishers manage to make decent money on the internet: every newspaper can’t be financially successful with subscriptions, and every media company can’t survive only on contributions and grants.

That’s why recently, I stopped using Mullvad as my DNS resolver, and switched to Quad9, which focuses on privacy-protection and not ad-blocking. I also uninstalled Wipr. Today, I rely solely on StopTheScript. What’s new this time around is that I will try to be more disciplined than I was three years ago, and do the work to make this system last.

What I do is set the default StopTheScript setting on “Ask”. When a site aggressively welcomes me with three or four banners masking the article I came to read, I click on the StopTheScript icon and allow it to block JavaScript on the website, and refresh the page. Two clicks, one keyboard shortcut.

In most cases, these steps are easier and faster than what is the usual series of events. You know, the one where you need to reload the page with ad blockers disabled, just so you can close the modal window that was blocking scrolling on the page, and then reload the page once again, this time with ad blockers enabled.

With JavaScript turned off, visiting most websites is a breeze: my computer feels like it uses an M4 chip and not an Intel Core i5, the page is clean, the article is there, it works. There are a few media sites that refuse to display anything with JS turned off, but I’d say that 95% of the time it’s fine, and I can live my life without a proper ad blocker.*3 For websites where ads are tolerable, I don’t bother blocking JavaScript, I let it pass.

In my mind, this is how my first interaction with a website goes if it were a department store:

[opens page at URL]

Website: “Hi dear visitor, I see you’re looking at this product, but may I interest you in a free newsletter? Or would you like to share your Google account with us so next time you come back we’ll know? Also, could you sign this agreement real quick? Oh, and by the way, have you seen that we have a special offer currently? Would you like a cookie?”

Me: “Hello, yes, oh wow, hum… wait a second…”

[blocks JavaScript]

Me: “Sorry, I don’t speak your language and don’t understand anything you say.”

[Salesperson goes away instantly]

Me: “Ah, this is nice and quiet.”

Maybe I’m wrong, but to me, this is a more “polite” default behaviour than using an ad blocker from the get-go, which, in this analogy, would be something like this:

[opens page at URL]

Ad blocker: “Alright, well done team, great job. We arrested all sales people, handcuffed them, and brought them all to in the basement. All clear. The boss can come in.”

Me: “Ah, this is nice and quiet.”

If you have a better analogy, I’m all ears: I really struggled with this one.

I’m not sure how long this JS blocking setup will last this time. I’m not sure if it feels that much better to block JS permanently on some websites rather than blocking ads. All I know is that most websites are much quicker to load without JavaScript, much easier to handle by my machine, and just for those reasons, StopTheScript may be the best content blocker for Safari.

I guess this is not surprising that all the cool new web browsers include a JavaScript toggle natively.