We have partnered with Scroll in the fight for a Better Web

Here on Platform De.Central we advocate for Apps & Services that do not pigeon hole you into one platform, this is called platform choice. You need platform choice if one of the platforms starts to abuse its power, then you can simply choose from a number of competitors.

If this is the first time you are finding us, welcome. Here is our mission statement:

In the Land of Trillion Dollar Goliaths, David needs a voice. We promote healthy market competition, hate lock-in & don’t play favorites.

Our logo is meant to represent our mission in its purest form, David vs Goliath, The little guy vs the big guy, startups vs Big Tech.

The subject of today’s piece is to introduce Scroll to our readers & how it will make your Platform De.Central experience better while supporting our mission. Let’s get started.

Its all about a “Better Web”

Since starting Platform De.Central, we have looked for ways to monetize the publication so we can deliver on our mission. Our articles have Ads at the bottom of the stories and have Amazon Affiliate links mixed into the content of related stories. Our Amazon Affiliate links are chosen by our team because we think our readers would benefit from a 90-Day Free Trial of Amazon Music HD, a Free Trial of Amazon Prime and a Free Trial of Prime Video. We also try to deliver the best deals and discounts on the latest tech hardware through our De.Central Deals. While we make a small commission from these links, it costs our readers nothing and surfaces the best deals to our readers. These are the ways that we monetize Platform De.Central so we can deliver on our mission with the best stories for our readers from every corner of the world.

There is another way

Scroll is a service that aims to hide Ads, keep the web private and pay publishers like us at the same time. The bi-product of this approach is that the websites you visit are 80% faster with less visual clutter, who doesn’t want a that.

You saw what it looks like above now this is how it works below.

How does it work?

You log into Scroll, its sets a cookie, now with that cookie every site you visit sees that cookie and doesn’t serve you Ads. Yes that is it, simple huh. You might be saying, I thought cookies were bad? Well in this case, Scroll’s cookie is your pal, the pal that blocks all Ads and trackers for you.

Why not just use an Ad Blocker?

Ad blockers have been wildly popular because they provide a free way to block Ads. Is that the end of that story, not by a long shot. In 2015 a report from the Financial Times showed that Big Tech companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft were paying Ad blocking companies to get added their their ‘whitelist’ which then can bypass their Ad Blocker.

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission asking Chairman Joseph Simons to open an investigation into the “entire Ad blocking industry.” He also stated that any company that accepts payment from another company so that it can be whitelisted should be more transparent with its users.

Adblock Plus was specifically called out by name because in 2016 they started allowing some “Acceptable Ads” to be surfaced to users. So even if you use an Ad blocker you may still see Ads and Ad blockers to nothing to keep 3rd parties from tracking your activity.

Can I keep using my favorite browser?

All Chromium based Browsers like Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, Chrome and others are supported. FireFox is supported and also has a special extension called ‘FireFox Better Web’, while not required is handy. Safari requires the Scroll extension.

What does a Better Web cost?

A Scroll subscription normally only costs $5 per month. If you sign up right now, you will get the status of a Founding Member and get 50% off ($2.50/month which is equal to $15 for 6 months) for the first six months. I think we can all say that our privacy is worth the cost of one cup of coffee per month right or in the case of the limited time offer, half the cost of a coffee? Yes Definitely.

There you have it, easy to set up, no more Ads or trackers and a better web, get Scroll today.