ON 'THE AD-FREE INTERNET'

Originally posted on hn in response to Welcome to the ad-free internet.

I treasure my attention and so I’ve spent some time to opt out of ads. 5 years ago I couldn’t tell what DNS was, now I’ve got an OPNsense router at home running ZenArmor/Unbound and I can can link to it from my phone over wireguard.

Using ublock I’ve made a point to prune the pages I visit, so classes like “header” “breadcrumbs” “recommended” “sponsor” &c. are hidden. I self-host my media collection so I avoid spotify et al.

It all leads to a deeply pleasant digital life for me and my family; I saw fewer ads/distractions in 2023 than any year before. I know most people won’t go through all the steps I did, but I’m surprised there isn’t a pricey service rich folks can buy to get this sort of experience out of the box.