Helping a user find what's blocking ads

[csdude55]

I let Google nag my users when they're using an ad blocker.

Today I had a long-time user say that he's getting this nag on every page, but doesn't have an ad blocker! After some discussion he said that he has a new Lenovo laptop, on which he installed Firefox and DuckDuckGo as a FF extension. I walked him through disabling DDG for testing, but he still gets the nag.

It doesn't look like he's using a VPN. And he said that there are no other add-ons installed.

Any suggestions on how to figure out what else might be installed that's blocking ads?

[not2easy]

It is likely an over-strict setting for privacy in FF. Go to Firefox > Preferences > Privacy & Security and check that it is not set to "Strict" which, as they warn there, "Stronger protection, but may cause some sites or content to break." And if it is set to "Custom" they may be blocking it there.

[Peter_S]

By default , FF blocks lot of third party cookies and scripts.

[Peter_S]

On Firefox, if you open the devtool (F12), in the network tab, you should see that adsbygoogle.js is blocked, with reason "tracking".

edit: in fact, adsbygoogle.js should not be blocked, otherwise, the message wouldn't show.

[csdude55]

I have FF on my end with the default settings, and nothing is being blocked with it. I'm pretty sure that he HAS to have something else installed, I just don't know how to track it down remotely. There are so many crappy "security" programs now that block cookies and ads so that they can claim to have "protected" you from a bajillion whatevers! >:-(

[martinibuster]

I had problems logging in when using my normal browser. It started all of a sudden.

Apparently it updated and the default was to block third party cookies. That's what the problem was. Also explained why I kept getting popups about ad blockers (that I wasn't using).

Check if the FF settings for cookies are rejecting third party cookies.

[csdude55]

@not2easy, my user replied today and said that it WAS set to Strict! He changed it to Standard, and that solved the problem :-)

Assuming that he's telling the truth (and I have no reason not to believe him), this was a new laptop from Lenovo and he installed Firefox and DuckDuckGo himself. So how it came with "Strict" settings? I have no clue.

[not2easy]

I can't say it did not come set to "Strict" but that is not normal, they show warnings on that settings page that you would need to ignore to make the change.