Intro
This will be a short and sweet post. As I’m not big on goodbyes.
Disqus started showing ads for their “free” tier comments system a few years back. At the time, the communication they sent out via email, seemed quite laid-back and had the tone of “don’t worry about it, it’s not a big thing”. Which in part lead me to almost forget it happened.
At the time, the disqus comments system looked quite smart and sleek. I remember thinking that the ads system will possibly look smart and sleek too. Which alleviated any worries I had at the time.
WELL…….I’ve just seen the ads, and they look horrific!!!
Apologies
I have a Pihole set up, so ads are blocked on my home network. When I’m out of the house, my phone is connected to a Wireguard VPN which routes my data through my home internet, therefore - getting all the ad-blocking, Pihole goodness.
After years with Pi-hole, which now blocks over a million domains, I’ve become incredibly accustomed to a mostly ad-free web. Without realizing it, I’d forgotten what the typical internet experience feels like.
I used to get a couple of emails from Disqus, letting me know that there’s a new comment on this blog. I haven’t had many of these emails recently, so I decided to disable my adblocker for a few minutes and check out the comments.
There were none, instead I was greeted by some horribly formatted and obviously scammy ads:
For the people who read this blog, I’m sorry.
I became “blind” to what the web is really like for most users. I’ve tried to keep this blog minimalist - a clean place to find answers. Those ads not only ruin that experience; they trample privacy too:
With this post, I’ve removed Disqus. It was making my blog worse, and frankly, they were profiting off my work and my visitor’s data. I want this blog to be a resource for devs and technologists, free not just in money, but in freedom from unwanted tracking and invasive ads.
Any Alternatives?
I’m not entirely sure comments are needed here. There are other ways to reach me, for example; GitHub or Twitter/X. But having a place for discussion under each post can be valuable. If you have any recommendations for alternative commenting systems (especially those that respect privacy or are self-hosted), I’d love to hear them! Please reach out if you’ve found something that works well.
Thanks as always for reading - your trust matters to me.
Sorry again for the mess!