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Those YouTube ads everyone hates made $10.4 billion in just three months (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Nice tool, thank you ! However I'm bit confused

If you're interested in blocking tracking, then best download TrackerControl from here, from F-Droid, or from the IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository. If you're interested in analysing tracking and generating factual evidence of it (e.g. for research), then choose the version from Google Play. The analysis results from this version will usually be more accurate.

That's strange... Why have different versions doing different things?

[–] GlassHalfHopeful 4 points 21 hours ago

The short answer is that the Google Play version won't actually block anything because it breaks their terms of service. So that version just tells you how many trackers and what the trackers are. I still use some of those apps and even respect them (e.g. AP News, AccuWeather), but it completely boggles my mind how they've loaded so many trackers into their applications... 🫤

Longer answer: To actually block trackers and ads, you need to use a third party source to download the app so that it's fully functional. By providing the app that way, they don't have to abide by Google Plays rules.

The link above is for the F-Droid "app store" version, which is one of the more well-known "stores." I highly recommend F-Droid. They host free and open source (FOSS) applications. For most everything you use, there is a FOSS alternative which will be ad and tracker free.

https://f-droid.org/

Want a simple ad-free calculator, go there. Want to watch YouTube ad free, go there. Want to download an ad free Lemmy client, go there. Etc etc.

Hurrah for high quality FOSS software!