I dont surf the net without adblock, sponsor block, and pihole. Its garbage out there

Haven't noticed anything unusual as a uBlock + Librewolf user, but I wouldn't be surprised. What exactly happens when you don't use strict mode? Are some ads still getting through?

It's all a vicious cycle fuelled by greed I'd say. I probably wouldn't be using a full-fledged ad-blocker if the web were still simple HTML pages with a couple narrow columns of static (maybe GIF at the top and bottom banners) ads on either side. A pop-up blocker would suffice. But pages got heavier, more bandwidth was needed, more profit was desired, more visitors blocked ads outright, and so on.

The other day I was playing around in Chromium without ublock and happened upon a pcworld . com link. The site was so bloated and putrefied that my computer came to a crawl in a matter of seconds. I don't understand how anyone is supposed to go through their site without an adblocker.

Yes, but depends on your perspective. The advertisers would say it is getting more aggressive.

We as consumers….