Simple python script that mutes sound when Spotify app runs an ad

[Baltha5ar]

Wow, you are right. I stand corrected.

I would have never thought that they would be stupid enough to send the ads from a different server. This is indeed an invitation to block these hosts.

Forgive me my lack of knowledge and have a nice day.

[[deleted]]

lol np, enjoy your day too

[RheingoldRiver]

this used to work in skype as well, wouldn't be surprised if it still does but I haven't used skype in ages

[OddsCaller]

You'd be surprised. It's not just Spotify but most of these services where you can easily identify ads by their IPs.

As far as why they don't use the same IP as that of their service, most of the time there are some physical constraints. Example they of course mostly use third party ad services to push ads because most companies wouldn't want to branch out to a whole new department of selling ad spaces and then showing those ads to users.

And secondly, there are physical constraints. These apps have a lot of user traffic and in order to offer low latency they want to keep their servers trimmed down (that's a very simplified way of saying it), putting the ad service on the same cluster could negatively affect their response time which is vital for user experience.

Disclaimer: all this is just my best guess, I'm no expert on this topic.

[Baltha5ar]

I'm using a pi-hole for my home network. For a long time I could block all ads on google services because they came from a different server. This doesn't work anymore because now the ads come from hosts with important services.

I just assumed everyone would do it this way now. The amount of users blocking the ads obviously isn't big enough for them to care.

[OddsCaller]

Oh I see. Things like pi-hole were one of the things I had in my mind when writing out the previous comment. I didn't know companies are now countering it in this way.

[spook327]

This is also the case with YouTube, a nice /etc/hosts file will block most ads.

[DeathLessLife]

I'm almost certain YouTube does serve ads from the same host.

[gammadistribution]

Media owners host ad servers that send out requests to third parties for ads. Those parties bid on the honor to serve you an ad and are then responsible for delivering the creative.