Cory Doctorow, the writer credited with coining “enshittification,” has put dickover blocking in the same bucket as ad blocking: a user-side answer to websites and apps that take more data, attention, and control than people meaningfully agreed to give.
Writing this week at Pluralistic, Doctorow argued that surveillance-based online services describe data collection as a trade, where users give up privacy in exchange for access. His complaint is that the terms of that trade are rarely presented like an actual bargain. Users arrive at a site, and the operator starts extracting data under terms the user did not individually negotiate.
Doctorow’s framing is blunt: tools that block ads, disable hostile interface tricks, or customize web pages are not cheating. They are the user’s counteroffer.
What is dickover blocking?
In this context, dickover blocking means using browser tools to stop page behavior that works against the reader: intrusive ads, sticky overlays, unwanted interface elements, and other annoyances that make the web worse for the person using it. It sits next to ad blocking and script blocking as a practical way to make a site behave less like a toll booth with JavaScript.
Doctorow’s own prescription, according to Daring Fireball, is to move to Firefox for browsing and Linux for the desktop operating system. That is the maximalist version: pick software stacks that give users more control and fewer platform-level restrictions.
Daring Fireball’s response was more pragmatic. It noted that many readers are unlikely to switch both their browser and operating system, then pointed them toward bookmarklets and extensions that can still push back against bad ads and page behavior.
Which tools did Daring Fireball recommend?
For Safari users, Daring Fireball highlighted several options. StopTheMadness Pro was recommended for creating rules that permanently hide specific parts of pages. uBlock Origin Lite was described as a free content blocker that is effective and highly configurable, though not especially simple.
Daring Fireball also named Magic Lasso, a paid blocker priced at $30 per year. The post said Magic Lasso syncs blocking across iOS, macOS, and Apple TV, has a more approachable settings interface, and includes an easy private VPN feature that can block ads across apps, including Apple News.
The Magic Lasso recommendation came with a disclosure: the company had previously sponsored Daring Fireball, but not since May 2021. Daring Fireball said the current mention came from being a paying user, not from an active sponsorship.
The shared point from Doctorow and Daring Fireball is less about one specific extension than about permission. If a site or app treats tracking and interface abuse as the opening bid, users can answer with software of their own.
This story draws on original reporting from Daring Fireball.
