Facebook annoys an increasing number of users with ad breaks
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear "ad break"; probably TV or streaming ads.
What you probably did not have in mind is a new system that Facebook is rolling out to users in the European Union after it received a lot of flak for its "subscribe and pay money" or "continue to see ads" prompts in the EU.
Facebook is giving users two choices when it comes to ads currently:
- Personalized ads
- Less-personalized ads
The main difference lies in the data that Facebook uses to display ads. Personalized ads, which is the default, uses a user's data to display ads. You check out certain household items, you get more ads about these items.
The less-personalized ads option does not use as much user data for ads on Facebook. These may align less with a user's interest according to Facebook. Facebook says that it will use age, gender, and location, ad engagement, and the content that is viewed on Facebook for ads.
More importantly, and this is new, it may also display ad breaks.
Ad breaks on Facebook
Once you have switched the setting to less-personalized, you may get ad breaks. This appears to be limited to the mobile Facebook app for the time being.
When you scroll down a page on Facebook, the app may suddenly display an advertisement and block scrolling for a period. In other words, it stops whatever you are doing on Facebook to display the ad.
This is done to make sure that the ad is viewed. One likely reason for launching this on mobile is that ad blockers or other ad-bypassing techniques are not commonly used in regards to apps.
It is highly annoying, as it breaks the flow.
Note: not everyone who switched to less-personalized ads is seeing the ad breaks.
The only official way out is to switch to personalized ads on Facebook.
A few other options may work:
- Display Facebook in a web browser on the mobile device. Preferably a web browser that supports content blocking. Firefox, Brave, or Vivaldi come to mind.
- Try DNS-based content blocking solutions. AdGuard, NextDNS, or Control D come to mind.
How to change the Ad Experience preference on Facebook
Here is how you switch between personalized and less-personalized ads on Facebook:
- Load https://accountscenter.facebook.com/ad_preferences/ad_settings/ad_experience/#09 in the browser's address bar.
- If you are not signed in already, sign in to your account.
- Select Personalized ads or Less-personalized ads.
- Confirm your selection on the next page.
What is your take on this? Would you stop using the Facebook app, or any other app, if it used ad-breaks to show ads? Feel free to write a comment down below.
I don’t see any ads on Facebook. But then again, I don’t use a normal smart phone. I have Pixel with GrapheneOS on it.
I am beyond pissed and deactivated my account. Because I am seventy-seven, the majority of my friends died anyway, but I have used adblock software on my pc since I joined fb in 2007 and all of a sudden, they expect me to tolerate ads? Don’t think so. And if you DARE to post on your profile that they re doing this, they will remove your post. I despise these Trump supporting assholes.
Well, this is why using the app will make things better than the page becuase of the adblocker, especially in Brave. Sometimes apps work better but the trade between App and Website makes it worth to use it on the Browser. Facebook can try to force people to ‘switch to the app’, but there are always solutions as long as Desktop is still supported.
But Facebook is about ads, and it’s obvious they will do everything to force ads on everyone, especially the ones that don’t know about it, so not much to do, ads will exist forever as a form of revenue even if companies like Google or Facebook love abusing their power but don’t fix a lot of problems, like facebook marketplace and the scams that exists there becuase it means more money even if it affects users.
For complicated ads (mostly ads in videos), Brave Team will finally merge ‘Added Custom Scriptlet section in the settings page. #25999’, which will allow anyone to add scriptlets easily to Brave. This means, anyone can add their own scriptlets easily in the UI, and don’t wait for Brave to implement it.
Adding scriptlets will be easier in Brave than uBlock 100%, so if something is ‘complicated to block/remove’ and it needs JS, well, adding/making a scriptlet might do the job.
It is so easy to get JS code from userscripts like h264 youtube that doesn’t have any special userscript feature or even extensions like anti-anti-debug, that will make it easier for anyone ot add their own code, libraries, and whatever JS code. And it will run natively and on the Desktop and Android (and eventually iOS), so no extensions needed and it will be able to replace many extensions just by using the Adblocker.
Twitch ads are a perfect example of how scriptlets/userscripts are the only way to bypass twitch ads (currently under the Brave Experimental Adblock Rules, not the Brave Twitch Adblock Rules), and it works fine in Brave because Brave can properly inject the scriptlets 100% of the time unlike uBlock, so it is great Brave keeps improving the adblocker to fight all these ads.
And as always, set your Brave adblocker to aggressive for best adblocking, since Standard is focused in 3p trackers and ads with some 1p, but aggressive will do the same filtering as uBlock.
Also, promoted ads in Facebook are finally handled by Brave thanks to Procedural Filtering being supported in last stable update (not all proceural filters are supported, but the most important are)
And finally, Brave has a repository for ‘cookiemonster’ which is going to remove a lot of annoyances like these popups with the help of AI.
I use another option: I never use Facebook. Problem solved.
John, I’m not sure why you allow popups, but I can certainly say that I’ve never seen the ad you are referring to on this site.
Interesting you think that It is highly annoying, as it breaks the flow – when you yourself have an intrusive video that pops up on every article in the bottom left corner that auto plays its shitty ads. :-)
Please, don’t be so hilarious, who uses Facebook today?
@John, no intrusive video here on Ghacks as well, easily defeatable with ad blockers (uBO in my case), but thet’s not the problem. The article is not a condemnation of a practice but only its description. Martin, the author, very seldom expresses his personal feelings and when he does they are always commented.
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Concerning Facebook’s increasing number of ad breaks, the policy’s philosophy is simple : the alternative for the user is either full personalized ads with no ad breaks or less personalized ads with ad breaks, logical when income balance requires to take with one hand what the other gives.
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As @Herman Cost, I avoid Facebook as I avoid all of GAFAM and, when other, all of “social” sites.
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Just wondering : how does ‘Less-personalized ads’ and its ad breaks get managed by users of uBlock Origin? Are ad breaks handled by this (or other) ad-blocker?
“the policy’s philosophy is simple”. Its philosophy? You mean strategy, then just say so.
@Sa man, maybe “philosophy” is not the appropriate word. English is not my mother-tongue and I used the word when thinking it in French, as “a particular system of beliefs, values, and principles” which would determine a strategy as it precedes it. Anyway, we get the idea.
Obviously I know that adblockers can remove it… But on domain joined company computers, not everyone has the option of using adblockers.
Interesting, John. I do not see a video on my screen. Perhaps because I use AdBlock?
Obviously because you use AdBlock.