This browser add-in doesn't just hide ads, it tells you to OBEY

"A fork of uBlock Origin Lite doesn't just remove the ads from web pages; it replaces them with tiles containing slogans from John Carpenter's 1988 film They Live. Published by Australian Dave Lawrence, the Chromium add-in (so it'll work in browsers such as Chrome and Edge) takes the uBlock Origin Lite content blocker (also known as uBO Lite) and tweaks it so that rather than simply hiding the ads, the ads are replaced with white boxes containing slogans from the movies."

"Lawrence listed them: "OBEY, CONSUME, WATCH TV, SLEEP, SUBMIT, CONFORM, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WORK, NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY." But sadly, nothing along the lines of "THIS AD IS HERE SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO PAY TO KEEP THIS SITE RUNNING." "Each blocked ad gets a single phrase, picked at random from the list," Lawrence explained in the project's repository."

"The uBlock Origin project is not involved, and Lawrence noted that only ads blocked by cosmetic filters get the They Live treatment. Custom user-defined cosmetic filters still hide ads normally. They Live is a science-fiction horror film in which the protagonist dons a pair of glasses that allow him to see the world as it truly is: run by ghoulish aliens using subliminal messaging to keep the population under control."

"Lawrence used Claude Code to add the They Live mode to the ad blocker, which might worry some, given concerns in some parts of the open source world about projects drowning in a tsunami of AI slop. However, Lawrence is upfront about the use of AI coding tools, and the add-in is certainly amusing. Ad blocking is a controversial subject. Google's changes to its browser extension architecture (dubbed Manifest v3) were expected to make content-blocking and privacy extensions less effective, but the reality turned out differently."

A Chromium extension fork of uBlock Origin Lite replaces blocked ads with white tiles containing slogans from the 1988 film They Live. The slogans include “OBEY, CONSUME, WATCH TV, SLEEP, SUBMIT, CONFORM, STAY ASLEEP, BUY, WORK, NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT, DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.” Each blocked ad receives a single phrase chosen at random from the list. Only ads blocked by cosmetic filters receive the replacement treatment, while custom user-defined cosmetic filters still hide ads normally. The extension is not affiliated with the uBlock Origin project. The developer used Claude Code to add the mode, and the project is positioned as an amusing twist on a controversial ad-blocking landscape shaped by browser extension changes like Manifest v3.

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