unfuck-your-tech

[unfuck-your-tech]

Good news, the ReVanced project (of YouTube ReVanced fame) has added Tumblr patches to their arsenal, so not only can you patch YouTube with it now, but also Tumblr (and more, even). This can let you remove ads from the Tumblr app, and even nuke Tumblr Live.

Grab the ReVanced Manager and give it a shot. Android only, sorry.

[unfuck-your-tech]

today i got locked out of watching youtube videos entirely on adblock grounds, so i did some tinkering.

ublock does not, in fact, seem to circumvent this, but i did find out something new through circumstance as well as trial and error:

bf told me two bits of information that turned out to be rather useful. 1) he hasn't really gotten the youtube adblock notifications much. 2) his work laptop blocks youtube cookies completely. (this annoys him a bit because a couple quality of life features function off cookies)

so when i was trying to troubleshoot how to wrangle youtube into letting me listen to music without constantly throwing intrusive as hell ads at me, i decided to block youtube cookies just to see what would happen.

well wouldn't you know, it has stopped complaining about ads being blocked entirely. for now anyway.

TL;DR: looks like youtube is using cookies to check for adblockers, so blocking them seems to cause it to leave you alone.

[unfuck-your-tech]

PSA

[unfuck-your-tech]

Youtube vs. Adblockers

Copy and pasting from Reddit user Mike J Smith on the Reddit page for ublock origin, an adblocker extension:

Condensed Update for Newcomers:

YT is making a concerted anti-adblock push via a tattler script tied to a "3 strikes and you're out" style warning message.

Each time you click on a video that WOULD have shown you ads, the tattler script detects that you blocked it and you're given a warning popup. This can be X'ed out of quickly, it's just a warning.

After 3 warnings on a given account, it no longer allows you to close the warning popup, thus acting as a soft block on that YT account until YT's tattler script no longer detects ad-block running. As of right now, it does not lock your other Google services and it does not count as a traditional account ban.

To protect the new tattler script from our jamming efforts, YT is also updating it at least once a day and sometimes multiple times, basically trying to force us into a war of attrition in coding hours. This naturally has put a MASSIVE strain on the volunteer team and will probably result in extended outages on YT as they try to keep up. They are holding their own, but just barely.

None of the uBO team are paid for this, they are volunteers with day jobs. The success of their efforts will depend largely on what YouTube decides to do next, because fighting their legions of paid coders off indefinitely would be impossible. If YouTube wants to kill adblock forever with sheer force, it's within their power - we are all hoping they're just "shaking the tree" to see what falls out and they'll stop once their accountants are satisfied.

The soft block is only tied to the individual account, not the IP. Thus, FreeTube still works fine and you can still view videos logged out. If you export your history, subs and playlists to Freetube, the only thing you've really lost is your ability to comment. I miss it, but not enough to give $20 a month to a pack of scavenging vultures.

So What Do I Do Now???

Look at the original post in the original thread, find the bold headline midway down that says "I followed the 4 steps, but I'm still experiencing issues". Directly below that is a line that says "The latest fix for anti-adblock was made on [date] and currently corresponds to ID [xxxxxxx]".

The ID refers to the version of YouTube's tattler script that it is capable of defeating. Compare that number to the bottom line on this list: https://pastefy.app/G1Txv5su/raw. The listings look like: "https://www.youtube.com/s/desktop/ea2534f4/jsbin/desktop_polymer_css_polymer_serving_disabled.vflset/desktop_polymer_css_polymer_serving_disabled.js". The bolded portion is the ID number you want to compare it to.

If the numbers are the same, then the tattler has been temporarily neutralized by the volunteer team. Once you purge and update your caches, soft locked accounts will be open again and no warnings will be issued. Use it while you can. Don't forget to purge & update or it won't work.

If the numbers don't match, the volunteer team hasn't caught up yet and the tattler script is still active. You will still be warned and soft-blocked. Give them 4-5 hours to catch up.

[unfuck-your-tech]

want to spread a resource: https://www.darkpattern.games/

dark pattern has articles on gameplay patterns that are used to manipulate how you play a game and/or how much money you spend on it.

there are also lists for games breaking down what patterns they feature/dont feature

check it out, make sure your friends arent falling into a pit of gambling and despair.

https://www.darkpattern.games/

[unfuck-your-tech]

DO NOT USE TUMBLR LIVE

So I've been warning people to not use the tumblr live feature and i had this discussion in the notes of one of the people i warned

said person already used live themselves and was not aware of what all TumblrLive's partner MEETME collects with its feature and i wanted to take the time to make a post going over the privacy policy for anyone who is interested

for the first part here MEETME talks about how creating an account (downloading) (or having a tumblr account that auto updated to include the tumblr live feature (which is a vast majority of the tumblr mobile population in the US rn)) automatically makes any information they collect visible to any of the partners they have

the three partners mentioned there Skout Flurv and Boy Ahoy are all dating sites that promote primarily their location tracking fuck all knows what they want with your live data most likely they want to advertise singles near you??? but MEETME's other current partners are apps like PlentyfFish Zoosk Chispa and Badoo which is Match.com and Bumble

the main important parts to notice from section ii of the privacy policy is the location information limit mobile ad tracking and do not track signals the rest of the section mainly puts the onus of revealing private information that can be used maliciously on the user ie. don't share your password say your full name in a live video where you live etc.

as far as the location information goes what its saying here is that they collect the location information when you first register for tumblr live when you first log in and whenever your phone is on even if youre not using tumblr live

what does it use this information for??? well advertising purposes of course!!!

now they try to get around saying they dont track your location or share it with other users by using this word precise several times now what that means is they have a rough geotag of your location

(your ip address they dont say here its your ip address but in later parts of the document they do in fact say they collect your ip address and if you want an idea how close an ip address can get to your exact location enter your ip address in google maps sometime)

theyre being intentionally vague about that so when you see on the live tab something that says near you you could probably not follow that exactly to said persons house but you can damn well be you will at the very least find their city

heres a reminder to all of you who havent most phones now bury in the settings an option to disable adID do it now!!! but remember that TumblrLive can still use all other information they gather they do not at all process do not track signals so you arent safe there and what data would that be that they can collect other than your location and adID??? glad you asked!!!

this is a non exhaustive list which means there is DEFINITELY other data they collect about and from you

so they collect:

your email and phone number

any info in your tumblr bio

any metadata connected to any photo youve ever uploaded

adID

ip address

cookies and beacon

which devices you use

which features you use

which pages you visit

which chats you use

anything in your private chats or posts

anything from any connected social media accounts

how well ads are doing

what youre interested in

and in some cases even your biometric information

and what do they do with this information???

ads of course

and to give anything they want to cops :)

i dont make this post in order to like ruin peoples fun when it comes to this new feature or to try to talk down to anyone or make anyone feel stupid or anything im not here to make fun of people or belittle anyone but i think its real fucking important people know what privacy rights they are forfeiting by having their phone on right now with this new feature

also everyone please feel free to give a kind fuck you to tumblrs current ceo @photomatt

[unfuck-your-tech]

[unfuck-your-tech]

I got a laptop with Windows 11 for an IT course so I can get certified, and doing the first time device set-up for it made me want to commit unspeakable violence

Windows 11 should not exist, no one should use it for any reason, it puts ads in the file explorer and has made it so file searches are also web searches and this cannot be turned off except through registry editing. Whoever is responsible for those decisions should be killed, full stop.

Switch to linux, it's free and it's good.

[unfuck-your-tech]

new winrar vulnerability, go update

if you use winrar, it's time to update to 6.23+ (link)

here, have a license key for winrar while you're at it, disables the "buy me" nag (link)

or get 7-zip if you want a free program that's just as good, no donation nag, integrates cleanly with windows (link)

[unfuck-your-tech]

website

[unfuck-your-tech]

Which of these would you rather see on your dash?

Hey @staff. This is a perfect example of why collapsed reblogs is such a bad idea. Seeing the full thread, you go like this: 😮 ooh, that's cool 😀 "they're free," hehe! 🤣 "16 cents," perfection!!

I have achieved joy, I feel positive feelings toward Tumblr, I want to engage, I want to stay, my eyeballs land on more ads, you make more money, everyone wins! 🎉

Seeing the collapsed thread, you go like this:

😮 ooh, that's cool 😐 "16 cents"? yes, that's literally what the pic shows, not sure why you felt the need to say that

There is no motivation for me to uncollapse the reblog chain—it looks like a boring conversation about the denominations of coins. And even if I do uncollapse it, you've ruined the joke by showing me the punchline before the setup. I am sad, Tumblr is boring, I go elsewhere to entertain myself, I see less ads, you make less money, everyone loses. 😥

Reblog chains are the best thing about Tumblr. They are your unique super power. They are the thing that makes people screenshot Tumblr and share it around. Why on earth would you kneecap them??

I don't know exactly how you plan to implement this. Give people the option to keep them collapsed if there truly are people who are annoyed by how long they can get (you already have a version of this feature), but don't collapse them for everyone or new users by default. Please. It will make Tumblr so much more boring.

[unfuck-your-tech]

obtaining roms

edge emulation (missing some consoles; CD-based games come in compressed formats such as CHD; very fast DL speed)

cdromance (mostly has games for CD-based consoles; games come in uncompressed iso or bin/cue; has a lot of pre-patched rom hacks; medium-fast DL speed)

alvro collection spreadsheet (pretty much everything, including many newer consoles; slightly inconvenient to navigate; download site limits to 1 download every 30 mins, can be worked around with vpn; very fast DL speed)

planetemu (largely in french; has a lot of obscure titles other sites lack; fast DL speed)

script that lets you download from emuparadise post-shutdown (pretty much everything; medium DL speed; can occasionally be uncooperative)

ROMs Megathread/Archive (everything, really; slow DL speed; usually a last resort if you can't find something anywhere else)

i don't currently recommend vimm's lair due to very slow speeds and offering nothing that isn't on other sites

sites offering 3ds/switch games get shut down very frequently so i won't be linking them in order to keep this post from getting outdated but you can find them if you snoop around reddit (the 3dspiracy and switchpirates subs in particular) a little

softmodding and loading roms on some popular consoles:

Switch

Wii

3DS, Vita, Wii U

PS2

PSP

recommended emulators and emulation guides:

Emulation General Wiki

games are great. go play some games.

[unfuck-your-tech]

guy who installs an adblocker and forgets about it and lives in a beautiful world where online ads have become much less frequent

[unfuck-your-tech]

nintendo is taking down the 3ds and wii u eshops next year

and they had this lovingly made totally not taunting message to leave about their virtual console legacy they’re destroying

(that they’ve, fun fact, taken down from their site now :])

[unfuck-your-tech]

Ok but like. What the fuck is there to do on the internet anymore?

Idk when I was younger, you could just go and go and find exciting new websites full of whatever cool things you wanted to explore. An overabundance of ways to occupy your time online.

Now, it's just... Social media. That's it. Social media and news sites. And I'm tired of social media and I'm tired of the news.

Am I just like completely inept at finding new things or has the internet just fallen apart that much with the problems of SEO and web 3.0 turning everything into a same-site prison?

[unfuck-your-tech]

refseek.com

www.worldcat.org/

link.springer.com

http://bioline.org.br/

repec.org

science.gov

pdfdrive.com

[unfuck-your-tech]