The blabla of the forum

[Wigan White]

Have a video interview/check on Saturday. we're at the start of the process of adopting a blind dog (Bruno) from Blind Dog Rescue UK https://www.bdruk.org/ Hope I'm accepted.

Well Interview went well and Bruno is now adopted. May be the New Year before he gets here but something to look forward too.

Nice one Davy, hope it all works out good. Bruno though? Sounds a bit edgy.

After ex Leeds midfielder Bruno Ribeiro no doubt.

[Davycc]

Have a video interview/check on Saturday. we're at the start of the process of adopting a blind dog (Bruno) from Blind Dog Rescue UK https://www.bdruk.org/ Hope I'm accepted.

Well Interview went well and Bruno is now adopted. May be the New Year before he gets here but something to look forward too.

Nice one Davy, hope it all works out good. Bruno though? Sounds a bit edgy.

After ex Leeds midfielder Bruno Ribeiro no doubt.

Leeds fans everywhere

[johnh]

My daughter put me on Facebook several years ago, so that I could see the photo's that my other daughter put on Facebook when she was in Hong Kong and Singapore. Also, someone opened a website for the firm I used to work for and utilised Facebook to do it. These are my only interactions with Facebook. I have never posted anything and just occasionally post a comment on something. Today, just got a message (never used this system before) from a guy who used to work for me (in London) in the 1980's asking if I was that manager he used to work for! How does that work? Where would he have picked up my info?

[rigger]

My daughter put me on Facebook several years ago, so that I could see the photo's that my other daughter put on Facebook when she was in Hong Kong and Singapore. Also, someone opened a website for the firm I used to work for and utilised Facebook to do it. These are my only interactions with Facebook. I have never posted anything and just occasionally post a comment on something. Today, just got a message (never used this system before) from a guy who used to work for me (in London) in the 1980's asking if I was that manager he used to work for! How does that work? Where would he have picked up my info?

John, he could just search for you by name.
Lots of people do it all the time - myself included - when they remember old friends or colleagues.
Lots of other people do it to look up exes and people they went to school with to see how they might have changed or to "try again", so to speak.

It's a dark and nefarious world.
If you liked the guy say hello : I've reconnected with loads of people that way.
If he becomes annoying, just unfriend him

[johnh]

My daughter put me on Facebook several years ago, so that I could see the photo's that my other daughter put on Facebook when she was in Hong Kong and Singapore. Also, someone opened a website for the firm I used to work for and utilised Facebook to do it. These are my only interactions with Facebook. I have never posted anything and just occasionally post a comment on something. Today, just got a message (never used this system before) from a guy who used to work for me (in London) in the 1980's asking if I was that manager he used to work for! How does that work? Where would he have picked up my info?

John, he could just search for you by name.
Lots of people do it all the time - myself included - when they remember old friends or colleagues.
Lots of other people do it to look up exes and people they went to school with to see how they might have changed or to "try again", so to speak.

It's a dark and nefarious world.
If you liked the guy say hello : I've reconnected with loads of people that way.
If he becomes annoying, just unfriend him

Thanks Rigger. Didn't know you could search by name. Have made contact with him, he was a fellow Scouser!

[johnh]

I use Youtube quite a bit and usually start a video by clicking 'skip ad' and then watching in peace. Recently, I have noticed a considerable increase in the number of ads. Just watched a video and there were 5 ads, some appearing only about a minute after the last one. If this gets any worse it will be bye, bye Youtube.

[rigger]

I use Youtube quite a bit and usually start a video by clicking 'skip ad' and then watching in peace. Recently, I have noticed a considerable increase in the number of ads. Just watched a video and there were 5 ads, some appearing only about a minute after the last one. If this gets any worse it will be bye, bye Youtube.

If you're watching on a computer (as opposed to phone or TV) you can put an ad-blocker on your browser.
I use Chrome and use a couple :

- uBlock Origin
- Ghostery

The first one is a classic pop-up killer that also stops any "fixed" ads from appearing - it works almost perfectly in that I rarely see ANY ads of any kind on any site, even a new one to me (ie not one of my bookmarks). I genuinely can't remember the last time I saw one, but when I did I opened the program's interface, highlighted the area of the screen that I wanted to get rid of and used it's "zapper" to kill it. Hit F5 to refresh and it's gone.
The second is a more subtle piece of software designed to stop trackers and phishing programs looking for your personal data.
A friend who's a web developer told me to install it and it's been brilliant. If you want, you can open it up too and check what it's blocked for any given site. Right now it's showing "0" for this page because we're not trying to gather data that way.

If you have Chrome and like the sound of these, go to the extensions website and copy and paste their names from above and just hit install

[johnh]

Thanks Rigger, will try. From memory (and I'm going back many years) ad blocks used to stop you from using a website. Is this still a problem?

[rigger]

Thanks Rigger, will try. From memory (and I'm going back many years) ad blocks used to stop you from using a website. Is this still a problem?

No, not generally.
Some sites will ask you to disable the adblocks so they generate more revenue from advertising.
Up to you if you do - it's simple enough to toggle on and off with the extensions themselves. It's fairly self-explanatory if you click on them

[johnh]

Rigger, installed Ghostery. Working fine. Many, many thanks - again. Wish I had a pound for every time I've posted that to you!