I think the great majority of people here is using uBlock Orign and a good portion of people here use DuckDuckGo as a daily driver for search. uBlock Origin blocks the search result advertisements from DuckDuckGo. Unlike almost all other ads, DuckDuckGo’s search results ads are privacy-preserving and the majority of DuckDuckGo’s income is from these private ads. By default, uBlock Origin blocks these privacy preserving ads too. So, given all these information, what do you think? Is it unethical to not put DuckDuckGo.com to the whitelist of uBlock Origin? And also, do you think that changes if you allow the ads on one of your devices and block them on the other?
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It doesn’t for me. Have you set it up such that it does? How come you don’t see it on your end?
Given the highly commercialized nature of what the internet is now, I don’t feel bad at all about ensuring a better experience for yourself, which is also more safer than not. So, no. I personally do not feel bad.
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DuckDuckGo offees yoh a setting to disable ads so I don’t see the problem. I decide what runs on my machine.
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You’ve asked a good question here, and I’ll answer it based on my personal experience (I’ll make that clear from the start):
1. Ads are annoying by default → they distract you, can include unexpected surprises like malware or other threats, disrupt the experience when you’re focused on something important, and some lead to unnecessary spending (for example: spending more than you need to, etc.), etc.
2. They consume mobile data bandwidth → when you want to save data and make it last as long as possible for the month, ads eat into that.
3. Just because something is private doesn’t mean it’s secure → it’s not guaranteed.
So, with that in mind, I choose to block them anyway. I don’t accept “acceptable ads.”
The decision is yours.
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Fine with me, although I have my own filter list supplemented on top of that to deal with other cosmetic and network requests.
Is it unethical to let uBlock Origin block DuckDuckGo’s search results advertisements?
Of course not. Everyone has a right to decide what runs or downloads onto their own devices. Nobody has an obligation to be fed bullshit. People and things, for instance laws banning ad blockers, promoting or forcing people not to exercise that right are the ones being unethical.
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