wow, CNET has really gone to shit, hasn't it?
three popups, including a full screen, autoplaying video, and banner
guess that's going on my blocklist
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2025
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I never understand how these sites survive. So many zombie businesses.
They always sucked, they used to have a list of some software that I used and downloading through them inevitably got you multiple.other prompts for third party shit and random download buttons.
They've been bought out and gutted a couple times over. It's very sad
Cursed site is auto playing a video that isnt even visible when on mobile.
This. Jesus fuck I thought I was going insane for a minute. Awful design.
- goverment warns about Wifi network secuirty
- PRISIM exists.
Billionaires buying children exist.
Totally off topic, but I was reading the article on Fennec (mobile Firefox clone) while playing music over Bluetooth to my car. I was parked waiting for someone, not driving. No streaming service, playing honest to god mp3s from my device, when out of the blue I got VPN ads over the speaker.
Fennec indicated that cnet was playing them, but there as was no video box or other audio player widget active, so it looks like they are splicing invisible audio ads in somehow?
I'm also using ublock origin on mobile plus AdAway (rooted), so that's not an easy feat.
Could anyone double check? That's the most obnoxious behavior I've experienced in recent time.
Are you sure there wasn't a video at the top or bottom of the web page? What you were listening to is kind if irrelevant, since if some other media starts playing it'll pause whatever media was playing before.
Nope there wasn't anything visible, I've been scrolling up and down to verify. Unless the video was somehow truncated or scaled to 1x1 px or something.
Fennec (mobile Firefox clone)
It's not a Firefox clone, it is Firefox.
It's a clone of the official Firefox repo stripped of all telemetry.
Using Firefox focus and zenarmour on my firewall. Same problem.
I'll do some digging in the code and see if I can come up with a custom filter for ublock.
Using Firefox. I just had this same experience (- the car) but yeah, I couldn't find any vid to stop. I ended up just muting the phone
I used the volume controls for the website in my phone's pulldown menu to stop it, then the music player resumed. Still very much unwanted behavior. Will dig into the page source and see if there's anything hidden.
Maybe because the US agencies have just not found their own backdoors into them...
Do Americans not have FritzBox routers for that crap to be the most popular router?
FR even though I hate Republicans and this admin when I saw this headline I thought "good shit, regulate the industry."
So the government is wiping it's ass with TP-link, huh?
...holio
So what ae the best alternatives any of you would recommend?
Tbh any router that lets you replace the firmware with OpenWRT is pretty good, but only if there's been an OpenWRT firmware version made for that very specific model.
Other than that, buy within your price range made within the last 2 years.
PC running OPNsense and a Ruckus AP.
We don't stand for Chinese surveillance in this country. Our surveillance shall be domestically produced or GTFO.
It’s not only about spying but about negligence. TP-LINK routers were found with many security issues and no patches. Some accuse them of do that porpose but might be negligence. Anyway they really do have bad security
while understandable, if i was american i might actually prefer surveillance by foreign country. At least if i was part of group in danger like lqbt.
At least the foreign country wont use the data to arrest and make laws against you.
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Yep, Google WiFi or Amazon Eero only. Those two definitely don’t have an incentive to log your network traffic or anything.
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And here I've been just avoiding TP Link garbage for over 2 decades because it's one of the shittiest brands around. I'd go with Belkin before TP Link. And Belkin also sucks.
I used Linksys for a while but went to TP Link to dip my toes into a mesh system. Any recommended alternatives that aren't Unifi? I'm not opposed to Unifi, they just tend to be the most expensive outside of looming at the used marketplace, which is sometimes hard to catch good deals.
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Well, they have had a lot of vulnerabilities. Most people won't even update the firmware let alone install OpenWRT on them.
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Good. TPLink makes cartoonishly insecure consumer grade equipment. A better solution is that the US establishes some minimum infosec standards for this equipment, but that would require time and thought.
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A possible ban on TP-Link routers -- one of the most popular router brands in the US -- is gaining momentum, as more than half a dozen federal departments and agencies back the proposal, according to a Washington Post report on Thursday
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