[mdip]

That's funny ... I haven't noticed this problem. I don't run pi-hole, I use uBlock with some customizations so I'm guessing I'm just not seeing the sponsored links at all.

I killed all text/image ads after an accidental click on a non-intrusive ad a decade ago infected my work laptop and haven't looked back. I'm going to turn it back on for DDG and just "be careful". Hopefully this is less of a problem in 2021, and hopefully it's not a problem at all on DDG, but the ad I clicked by accident was on a mainstream, non-porn/traditionally risky site ... it was a flash exploit, though, so at least that's gone given my configuration.