I diligently mute them, I’m a freak I cannot stand them. But from the nature of many people’s complaints about ads, it seems like they listen to them and want to retain the words they’ve said?
I always mute and go off to do something else (meaning, I’m not watching, either). One of my worst hells was when I had to take care of my MIL for 2 months last year and while she watches YouTube non-stop, she does it with all the ads. I hadn’t realized how bad the ads there actually are these days. I almost didn’t make it.
I don’t watch cable TV. I get free Disney plus which includes ads. For these I do in fact mute them. I find ads annoying.
You’re in good company here.
I expect most people who decide to watch cable or a comparable streaming service would watch ads with the volume on. A lot of people grew up with cable and constant ads and don’t see a problem with it.
Mute the entire TV and use the closed captions when watching the programs.
One of the best things I did was raise my kids ad-free for the first 5 or 6 years of their lives. The first time they saw ads, they were baffled about what they were, then they were baffled why people would put up with them.
I don’t know what normal people do but people like me don’t see ads because they use the appropriate protections from the invasiveness of the internet.
Pihole. Firefox. ublock origin, privacy badger, decentraleyes…
It also helps if you don’t participate in systems that attempt to intrusively shove ads down your throat, but you do you.
Visit a house where they have the tv on all the time. Commercials and everything. It’s harsh.
I jolly roger everything. No commercials.
My wife normally mutes them, but I generally don’t care enough to pick up the remote and push the mute button. I just tune them out and use it as a chance to grab a snack or go to the bathroom, or just check stuff on my phone.
Team mute all the way.
BTW I hate using Apple TV.
I avoid ads religiously but when I can’t avoid them I mute and look away
i have not owned a television since I was a child and came to develop my quirky ad-reviling character trait
I found a cool way of ad-blocking back when I watched TV. Probably does not work anymore, and relies on Teletext page 888 (closed captions, the number varies by country) not being updated during ads.
- Mute
- Switch to another channel and back to clear Teletext cache
- Turn on fullscreen Teletext, any page (I like the 89x test patterns)
- Type “888” as the page you want to go to
- The TV will now wait for 888 to be broadcast, which only happens after ads and trailers
- The program is now running with captions. Disable Teletext and unmute if you want sound instead.
What British wizardry is this?
Sadly I don’t think Teletext has been broadcast (in the UK at least) in over a decade
It definitely still works in the Czech Republic and Germany. Our pre-2023 president was an avid user. Public TV stations hand-format their own and syndicated news for 39 columns and pick monthly poetry. Commercial stations just automatically jam syndicated news into the format, sometimes overflowing to another subpage just by 1 word, and host huge amounts of banner and fullscreen ads with meh graphics by Teletext standards, mostly for dodgy phone services like tarot and erotic hotlines. They also host “chat24”, probably the worst message board ever: imagine a public IRC room but $0.50 per message (by SMS) including setting your nickname and color.
If its a State Farm ad, its definitely getting muted.
I’d have to pay closer attention to the ads if I wanted to mute them at the right times. My mother in law does the mute thing and either forgets to unmute it until halfway through the scene or gives the silent ads her undivided attention.
I’d rather miss some content (or rewind if possible) than hear an ad.
My wife mutes them, I just ignore them.
