On the latest episode of The British Tech Network’s “Mac Show,” host Ewen Rankin was kind enough to wait for my return to discuss a topic I really wanted to discuss: Content Blockers. New to iOS 9, content blockers prevent ads from loading and stop websites from tracking you — among other things. It’s a fairly controversial subject, with advertisers (and some content creators) calling foul. I sympathize with the content creators, but increasingly obnoxious and intrusive ads have made this day inevitable. Ads that cover up what you’re trying to read and make it intentionally hard to close make reading some sites feel like a bad game of whack-a-mole. My hope is that this will be a wake up call to the ad industry, but I fear it’s just the next round in a game of cat and mouse.
There’s a lot more to the conversation — it’s worth checking out.