Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
Top comments
I can't believe we've accepted the term "ad fraud" for this, as if we were being any more deceptive than the ad industry is, or as if we had signed a contract that we violated. As if not truthfully clicking on ads were a crime. We don't owe advertisers anything, least of all the truth.
As someone whoms business largely relies on ad-revenue: please don't go out of your way to ruin advertising. It's a shitty system that is sometimes abused, but it's the best system we have as very few users actually want to open their wallet for their "free" content. Seriously, we have a single unobtrusive banner yet 85% of our users are adblocking; it's not an issue of 'bad ads' as so many like to argue. EDIT: So the general consensus seems…
Ads suck. I block them universally. I understand the desire to “get back at the man”, and I don’t begrudge anyone for doing so. But we have to ask ourselves, what’s the real path forward, away from ads? If a different model existed where users could pay for sites, I’m confident some would use it. I’m also confident many more would not use it. I expect a lot of users unwittingly want to be able to browse the web ad-free…
Obligatory caution that's shared whenever AdNauseam is promoted on HN: Indiscriminately clicking links to ads on web pages will get you flagged as a bot or for "unusual behavior" and you may start seeing more captchas and things like that as your IP / browsing behavior are flagged.
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
HN stats
- Breakout years
- 4
- Total points
- 641
- Total comments
- 488
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-12-20 | AdNauseam Browser Extension: Clicking Ads So You Don't Have To | davidgerard | 2 | 0 |
| 2017-08-27 | AdNauseam – Clicking Ads So You Don't Have ToFirst breakout | ryanlol | 175 | 174 |
| 2018-12-12 | AdNauseam, clicking ads so you don't have to | bretpiatt | 1 | 0 |
| 2019-01-18 | Adnauseam | ColanR | 4 | 0 |
| 2019-03-01 | AdNauseam – clicking ads so you don't have toBest thread | JoachimS | 276 | 164 |
| 2020-11-10 | AdNauseam – clicking ads so you don't have to | pabs3 | 26 | 11 |
| 2023-02-21 | AdNauseam – clicking ads so you don't have toHall induction | notpushkin | 81 | 69 |
| 2024-06-23 | AdNauseam: Clicking ads so you don't have to | elpocko | 5 | 1 |
| 2024-09-01 | AdNausea – Ad Blocker that loads ads in the background | andrei-akopian | 2 | 2 |
| 2025-04-05 | AdNauseam: Clicking ads so you don't have toLatest 20+ point return | thunderbong | 67 | 67 |
| 2026-08-17 | AdNauseam – Clicking ads so you don't have to | mosiuerbarso | 2 | 0 |