Those of you who block ads but still consume the services of sites that run them without paying into any subscription fee, why do you freeload?

If you like something you support it, right?

I still have not figured out the bizarre-o world of the internet where some people want something for free, block any attempt to pay for it via ads, refuse to pay subscriptions, won't buy the T-shirt, etc., but still want it to be there tomorrow for them when they wake up.

I'm addressing now folks who do that - who do you think pays the bills on sites? Who do you think puts the work in? Do you get paid for doing YOUR job?

Questions ever unanswered..

I trust Slashdot not to attack me. But Slashdot is paid by "acme ad company" to insert their ads. Acme will pipe through whatever code crackers and malicious operators gives them as long as they get their money. I don't trust acme because of this and I certainly don't trust the person placing the ad. But here is the problem acme doesn't care as, I am a product not a customer. They only have to appease Slashdot and who ever is placing the ad. In fact their is a disincentive to scrutinize the content on the ads they are selling as they get paid either no matter the content and passing up bad operators is lost money. They can get away with it because if Slashdot viewer complain then they can say they will look into it opps one got through our system and nothing happens. So the only way to be safe is to block ads.

Not to mention the fact that - who drinks tapwater nowadays?

It's going to be Microsoft Z3 ...

In fact, why do we have to talk about intelligence? What about the Kardashians? What would they do if they showed up here? What would we do if we met the Kardashians? Would we try to eradicate them?

Could you tell us which percentage of Chrome-based browsers and Android phones do not communicate with Google?

From your misleading post it sounds like the number should be 90. If that was so, nobody would care, but the reality is the other way around.

I agree wholeheartedly. Sadly, the handwriting for this has been on the wall for some time. I can only hope Debian's Iceweasel port of Firefox does not adopt this "feature".

This makes me start to wonder if there is a reduced capability browser -- something leaner and meaner, focused militantly on privacy and even going so far as to deliberately not support portions of HTML5 (e.g. DRM).

Coders of the world, here's a niche you could fill...

Why not? Are ASICs magic chips that are not subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

How is AdBlock interfering with the functionality of other apps? That makes no sense. Are people running apps whose function is to display ads?

But, this is not surprising, since 98% of Google's revenue depends on advertising being as intrusive as possible,

Last time I checked ( a year ago? ), the full bitcoin block chain was north of 9GB, and so is surely at least 10 GB now. What embedded device has that kind of memory to jack around with bitcoin mining? Even then it is like playing a small lottery: most people will never mine anything and those that do get a whopping 25 bitcoins, which will drop to 12.5 and then to zero before long.

it's a little hard to kick ass in a suit and tie. It would probably look kind of funny too.

Won't work. Cell phones and most tablets lack any sort of active cooling system; the CPU is not designed to run at 100% for any significant amount of time and will throttle itself soon it reaches a certain temperature. Heat also degrades li-ion batteries; running the phone "hot" overnight will slaughter the longevity of your battery just as effectively as leaving it in a car on a hot summer day.

Chips in phones wasting battery life to mine scam currency.

? People don't use Matrox for linux? What year is it?

They're a substantially less evil force than either Intel or NVIDIA.