Everyone needs to see this and also acknowledge why reverse engineering is a super power.
Credit to https://instagram.com/ayoships
Guy reverses the dark patterns of mobile apps and publishes it, absolutely love it!
There is nothing cooler than holding the ad bastards who ruined the web to account. Deconstruct the ivory towers. Hack the planet.
Oct 14, 2026, 12:13 PM@ciaranmak I play this particular game but only in airplane mode. I have never seen an ad. I wonder of that affects how the game plays.
@ciaranmak Reverse engineering is only as good as its inverse, and range forthwith, until another differentiated range arises.
Oct 14, 2026, 12:57 PM@ciaranmak@mastodon.ie actually, i will still boost this, but i'm putting a note here since the video maker is building a platform that lets you vibe-code mobile apps (source: their website, linked on their instagram), which is, of course, bad for reasons that shouldn't be explained at this point, so keep that in mind if you wanna follow him in the future
but yeah i was just talking with someone about how mobile games have become a hellhole when it comes to the money-making schemes they pull and didn't even consider that some of them would have stuff under the hood. not the least bit surprising though. they probably look at loopholes in the guidelines of the storefronts they submit to and exploit the ever-living shit out of 'em
@ericjames I’m wondering if his reaction to these tricks is:
• “And, thanks to us, you can do that too!”
• Or “We make it easy to write non-evil apps.”
@ciaranmak @AnneTheWriter1 I’ve seen the same type of behavior even in “Block Blast+”, which is an Apple Arcade title. Even without the ads, the game will throw impossible levels at you, particularly as you get further on the “Adventure” mode.
I’m actually, very excited to see where this technology goes. The people must control & have power over AI not big tech. Well do so much more good from it.
Oct 14, 2026, 3:49 PM
Oct 14, 2026, 3:50 PM@ciaranmak everyone who plays games or watches videos needs to see this. The guy's a genius
@ciaranmak What happens when you try to play such a game behind a Pi-Hole or something similar so that it cannot load any advertisements?
@ciaranmak Yeesh
@ciaranmak
Bong hits 4 this guy and his mad reverse-engineering skillz.
Oct 14, 2026, 5:54 PM@ciaranmak Kudos to him.
The people who design these kind of evil algorithm to create dependency and abuse players for profit are evil and deserve the guillotine. 😬
@ciaranmak my hero
@ciaranmak Sudoku.
1990s: You gotto accept adds, it pays for the free content
2000s: You gotta accept popup adds, it pays for the free content
2010s: You gotta accept the cookies and the tracking, it pays for the free content
2020s: You gotta accept the algorithms, the dark patterns, the spying and the techbro oligarchy, it pays for the free content
2030s: You gotta accept being controlled like a meat puppet via the brainport, it pays for the free content
@ciaranmak
Advertising is a global cancer that needs to be heavily regulated.
@ciaranmak Brilliant work.