I hate those people and their giant binders of coupons. Why? Because if you get stuck behind one in line, they double or triple the wait time.

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...