Is Ad Blocking Immoral? Does it Matter?
55 Adblock Plus is an extension to the FireFox browser that let’s you selectively block adverts. It is a rather advanced plugin with many options, but is it moral to use? Or is it stealing from bloggers?
The New York Times have given some facts behind the extension. Between the details of what exactly ad blocking is, and how it relates to various business models on the internet, one quote in particular stands out, “300,000 to 400,000 new users each month.” Is that figure worrying or to be expected?
There are some strong opinions for both sides of the debate. For instance, one article says that ad blocking is not only moral, but needed, whilst another has replied back with the counter side.
That debate deals with the user’s perspective, but what about the bloggers and webmasters? It is easy to see how a blogger might be against Ad Block, but one blogger, Jason Kaneshiro, explains that he doesn’t mind it, saying he would happily give away his content for free. He is not attempting to make an income off his blogging though, so can his attitude extend to others?
In my opinion, the larger issue is not to do with either the bloggers or the users. It is the state of the internet as a whole. The more money being pumped into the internet (Usually into companies relying on adverts for income), the more growth there is (Which translates into jobs and such for the rest of us!). There has been a lot of growth over the past few years, but if advertisers are losing all of their money to ad blocking, will this continue? Mark Evans expands on this point well.
In conclusion, my own feelings are best aligned with an article from CNet. As is too often the case with human nature, what’s moral is much less important than what is convenient. Blanket ad blocking is not moral (How could it be?) but it is convenient to individuals. The question of morality simply does not matter. The question that matters is how much those issues will bother you.
Blanket blocking FireFox users is a ridiculous solution. Other solutions have been presented, but so far, the ad blockers are winning. It is the nature of the user to continue trying to block ads, but it is also the nature of the webmaster to continue trying to stop those users.
I’m working on a little idea at the minute that might be of interest to those anti-blockers. Which side are you on though? To block or not to block?
What Has Been Happening On Pro Blog Design?
We hit a milestone this week, our 1000th comment! The comments here are fantastic, and we average out nearly 19 comments per article! I want to take this time to thank a couple of our most active commenters.
- Kristarella – Kristarella has undoubtedly left more comments than anyone else over the past 2 months, including the times she has helped out other bloggers here!
- Slevi – I can always count on Slevi to give a counter argument to just about anything. Lot’s of fun to debate with though!
- goldfries – Goldfries is a Malaysian web designer whose comments always add to the conversation.
- Mommy Zabs – Zabs has been a friendly face here right from the start, and always a pleasure to talk with.
- Milo – Milo is a foreward thinking designer, always looking to the future. Her blog itself is one example of that.
I wish I could list everyone, but that list would take me another week to write! I could rhyme off dozens of names of commenters here (David, Marco, pablopabla, Steven etc.), but sticking to the top 5 this month seemed the most unbiased way to do things. Thanks again to everyone!
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I also use my AntiVirus to block ads but I think this is bad for business if everyone start using it. So many business can fall if this happen.
Hey Michael, great post. It is a very hard question to answer, but personally, I don’t use the extension, plainly because ads don’t bother me. On sites I just randomly visit I rarely even look at them, and at sites I often visit I think that most ads are really interesting.
And congratulations on the milestone! 1000 comments is A LOT, and especially with your relatively new age, and around 300 feed subscribers! So congratulations, and good luck on getting number 10.000 ;)
Alex
i used to block all those images. However sometimes you can miss some interesting infos on ads, so i removed my blocking patch from my firefox browser. I can not recommend this kind of blockers, unless you have 56k internet speed.
Congratulations on the milestone! :)
“I’m working on a little idea at the minute that might be of interest to those anti-blockers. Which side are you on though? To block or not to block?”
I’m on the not to block side, of course. And I’m very interested in that little idea you’re working on. Interested and curious. :P
wow, I got mentioned here…I guess I have to find a way to get some articles on my blog again (stupid real life…)
anyway, about blocking/not blocking:
I’m not against and not for it, but I’m using it. I assume this just sounded confusing, so let me explain it in a better way:
All good webdesigner/coder know how to place Ads in an unobtrusive way. These good people won’t use floating css ads or even worse, popup/popunder. If I visit such a good site, I rarely block the ads there. It depends on the ad content, as example, I’m not a friend of that adultfriendfinder ad, so I block it permanently. It doesn’t matter if I see it or not, I won’t click it anyway.
The not-so-good webdesigner/coder are using floating css, popup/popunder and whatever to make you see those annoying ads. I think it is my right to block such ads because I want to see the site and not the ads. Wouldn’t I block those ads, I bet I wouldn’t visit a page again, but after blocking it, I tend to visit it again.
Also, there are many ads which take ages to load. So either the owner of the site replaces the ad or I just block it. I mean, if the page takes ages to load just because of one single ad, how can that ad be useful?
Warrior – I’ve heard of people doing that before (In particular to stop popups and adsense). It’s probably not just as bad as this extension because the extension is capable of blocking just about every advert online if you spend enough time on it. :(
Alex – They don’t bother me either! I have a pop-up blocker of course for really annoying ads, but inline ones are fine, and on occasion, actually useful. :D
And thanks, though that 10,000 celebration may be a little way off yet. ;)
bulut – That’s a good point about 56k. Blocking scripts at that speed makes sense (I’d probably block all scripts though, not just adverts in particular.)
Karen – Thanks, and lol, it’s just something simple, but would probably work better than blocking the users. I’ll post it in the next few days. :)
Marco – So you only use it in moderation? That sounds more fair. I can understand blocking adverts that actually hide the content (Like CSS popups). Thankfully not too many quality sites use those adverts, so they aren’t that great an annoyance to me either way.
Great article! I have seen and used that extension before, but like bulut and Marco have said, you can miss things that might actually interest you. As a designer, I feel that if you creatively place the ads so as to not affect usability or accessibility, then they are fine. I’m not advocating going back to the days of pop-up javascript ads as they were truly annoying.
If the ads are relevant or useful for your site, can offer further assistance to your visitors, and don’t interfere with the main message of your article or site mission statement, they should be used. The ultimate decision is up the the site owner to decide if they want them or not. Let the visitor decide if they want them blocked.
Well said Elliot.
“The ultimate decision is up the the site owner to decide if they want them or not. Let the visitor decide if they want them blocked.”
That sounds moral to me, but if take it one step further, should the site owners be allowed to choose whether or not they allow ad blockers?
Personally, I think they should be allowed to (in the same way that shop owners can refuse service to certain people). However, the Adblock people have gone out of their way to make sure that this can’t happen. Is that really fair of them?
What concerns me about ad blocking is what will replace the ads… advertisers don’t give up when their ads aren’t reaching people, they just find new ways around it – which usually are more disruptive to the user/reader than the old way.
For example, on UK TV lots of people get up during advert breaks to do something else, instead of watching the ads. So the advertisers’ solution is to make advert breaks shorter and more frequent (so people don’t have time to do anything else), and/or use product placement within the programmes themselves – both of which are much more annoying and noticeable to people watching.
The same principle will apply to the Internet. I can guarantee that, if enough people use ad blocking software, another method of advertising on the web will be created (if it hasn’t been already), and it’ll probably be much more intrusive than the current ads – and much harder to block…
CJ – That’s a great point.
I know that TV advertising in the UK isn’t too bad, but it is terrible in the US. The number of breaks sounds horrible to me, and promoting various products and such in-show (Usually seems to be with live sports events?) was a total shock when I first saw it. I hope that advertisers never have to resort to something like that over here. :(
One internet advert that would get around all of this are those splash page ads (Where the whole page is an ad, and you have to click “Continue to…”). I’d hate to see an increase in the usage of those. :(
I think that the site owners should be allowed to determine if adblockers are allowed or not. I’m not sure how they could over-ride the users browser without approaching the status of malware or browser hi-jacking.
However on the flip side of it, the visitor or user of a site should have some control. If they don’t want to see a multitude of ads, then maybe they should be able to control the ads via a blocker.
You wouldn’t take away the control of font-sizes for users on your site just because you think they should always be able to see the site in 12px?
Elliot – There’s a flaw in FireFox that let’s web sites detect what plugins you’re using, via JS. That could have been used originally to redirect anyone with ABP to a “Sorry, you must have Adblock disabled to view this site” page, but the ABP extension created a way around that.
I do agree that the user should have some control (We’re all using ad blockers to a certain extent, via pop-up blockers and even antivirus to block spyware), but blocking inline adverts is a little too much control I think. :(
Michael, I didn’t know about the flaw with FF, I’ll have to look into that a little more, so thanks for that info.
As for blocking inline verts, I don’t think the user should be able to block those. My intentions are that they should be able to control what is on their site, such as pop-up blockers and other behaviors that they might not want.
An example would be a local news site in my city. They need the ads on their to support the site and promote the business owners that are advertising on it. However, one annoying problem is they sell a push-down ad that takes most of the screen, pushes the content down and then takes almost 30 seconds to remove itself to allow you to view the content. This is the type of item that I think the user should have some control of without having to disable js or go to great lengths.
Hope the clarification helps a little :)
I’ve been blogging about this topic since WhyFiefoxIsBlocked showed on Digg. Back then, when it was current news (WFIB), I wrote a post called “Don’t Block Firefox,” which though it could have been a lot better in retrospect, pulled in thousands of people from StumbleUpon. I made over $15 off my ads that month, and how many of those Stumblers use Adblock? I don’t care. I like getting some extra money off my blog, but I believe people have a right to block ads. I certainly agree that Firefox blocking is beyond immoral, and that people have a right to block ads if they chose. I don’t, but that’s a personal preference. I don’t use Stylish or GreaseMonkey much either, because I like to see sites as the webmasters intended (another odd preference).
Elliot – I can understand that, and I agree with you there. Some adverts are over the top, and users do have a right to block those ones. It’s just a shame that Adblock goes much further than only the obtrusive ads.
Redwall – But say that the number of adblock users continues to increase (Another 1.5 million by Christmas!), your income could well drop to $0. Tech blogs and such would be hit the hardest. Would you not be a little more annoyed then?
Michael – I think adblockers can serve a purpose for the user, and I agree that it can affect the number of ads blocked could affect the site owners income. However, according to my blog stats (I have/manage 5 sites right now) FF doesn’t account for more than 20 percent of the users visiting my sites.
It makes me wonder how many of the FF users have or would use the Adblocker program, and if it really would or could affect that much for me and my sites and income?
Great site by the way, I have been reading for some time, and hope to keep adding to the conversations!
ps… Elliott with two T’s… :O
It’s true that it probably isn’t a massive problem at the minute (And it will always be hard to measure how much damage it is causing you), but I’m worried because it’s popularity is only going to grow. The owner is quoted as saying 300,000-400,000 new users per month. That figure is probably overexaggerated, but even so, it is still a massive number. In a year from now, we’re talking about maybe 3 million more blockers? And that’s if growth doesn’t increase?
And it’s already spreading. It may have begun with FireFox, but apparently there is an IE7 Ad block extension as well now. :(
Sorry about the T’s though! I didn’t even realise I was doing that! Sorry! I’m glad you like the blog though, and I really do hope you keep on joining in conversations. :D
Maybe a little annoyed that online advertising had driven everyone to block all ads, instead of selectively picking them out. But I’d probably just move to other monetization methods. RSS ads, Ars Technica’s interesting subscription method, paid text links, etc. The potential of online monetization is mainly untapped.
Ad blocking will extend to those as well though. I mean, how hard can it be for a feed reader to disable feed footers? And paid text links can also be hidden by the extension I imagine (Little more advanced, but still possible. :) ). You’re right that there are a lot of other options, but I imagine that the ad block software will evolve as well. :(
While I think it’s inappropriate for blocking ads, I think it’s totally ridiculous to block viewers!
As viewers, I think we SHOULD allow the sites we visit to place ads. Since we like the content, we might as well let them make some $$$ out of it too, right? :D
But for the site owner to block users, it’s “You can’t view my site unless you view my ads.” but if you think about it – it’s WORSE! Why?
AdBlockPlus is just a Firefox extension, now considering the % of Firefox user across the globe
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Based on the %, how many know about the extension? and how many actually uses it? The % is very little, and to block all Firefox users just because a few people are not viewing your ad? Ridiculous, and might I add – STUPID!
If anyone frowns on ad-blocking, please understand that the best way would be to write articles that educate. :) Turning down visitors is a last resort kinda thing.
On the other hand, one could argue that taking this initiative is liken to take an early strike on the matter.
Speaking about Ad-blocking, Content-Filter appliances and applications block ads too. In some cases, such content filter will filter all HTTP requests and filters any scripts that run banner ads. Quite often this is used in companies with huge # of staff but wants spare bandwidths.
Ad-blocking is not new, and it’s not going to go away overnight. While the ads from Google, Kontera, Adbrite or whatever else is legitimate, there are 101 other ads out there that are either huge or annoying and so on.
Again is blocking fair? I think really depends on what’s in the person’s mind when he / she applies the block.
Is blocking users fair? Certainly not, if you have a problem against AdBlockPlus, then the war shouldn’t be waged on Firefox or it’s users.
*btw michael, thank you for the mention!*
goldfires, Kontera ads are annoying.
Michael, my point is that ads need to evolve to the point where their not annoying so that people won’t bother blocking them.
I don’t think AdSense is annoying either. The ads that talk, move, dance, sing, expand, etc are the annoying ones. If it’s a normal static banner, a text link, or AdSense block, then it’s not really annoying.
My point is most people won’t bother blocking ads if the annoying ones are gone.
Haha yup, I agree that Kontera is annoying.
I don’t like to have a sudden huge pop-up when I so happen to mouse over a link or attempt to copy a phrase or something. ;)
And yes, I agree that it’s the annoyance issue.
Some blogs have really horrid placement of ads, great placement for monetizing I suppose but BAD in terms of design and usability.
The good place for $$$ is also the bad place for design.
Then of course that are those flishy-flashy types that irritate.
As for Adsense, the ad is not annoying. the choice of placement is. I don’t like having to view a chunk of ad halfway through reading.
lol, block me from accessing a site because I use an ad blocker. rofl. Nobody’s content is important enough for me to turn of an ad blocker (if I used one) just to see their precious content.
Besides, what if someone who uses an ad blocker visits a site, then tells a friend who doesn’t use an ad blocker about the site? You’d lose visitors just because your afraid nobody will see your ads.
Right now I use a popup blocker, but no ad blocker.
I guess since I’m a dreamer and wish I could make large sums of money from blogging, I should say I’m against ad blocking. I also don’t think anyone has the right to sabotage an ad blocker on my personal computer either. So, to each their own and hope most people choose not to use ad blockers.
I predict that in the future it will be even easier to block ads because so many large companies are buying up these companies that serve the ads. Someday there will be one or two companies you can get ads from to place on your site.
I don’t have to use Ad Blocker because after reading so many blogs for nearly 2 years, I’ve become numb to ads which appear on blogs. Somehow my eyes would just zoom into the contents and will skip the ads. Moreover, most of the ads are seen in many blogs and are nothing new.
By the way, I am glad that you’ve hit 1000 comments and counting. And I am honoured to be remembered by you for being one of them :D
If someone is going to install an extension to make sure they can’t see your ads then do you really need to show ads to them. Isn’t it reasonable to think these are the people that aren’t going to click on the ad or pay attention to it.
On your site don’t you prefer targeted traffic as opposed to traffic in general? Isn’t Ad Block just removing non-targeted traffic from the equation?
Admittedly if you sell ads per impression you don’t make money on your CPM ads when someone visits using Ad Block. That person still might end up clicking on an affiliate link or perhaps they’ll subscribe to your blog increasing the chances you can sell ads in the first place.
The internet gave the control back to the consumer. It’s about adapting to them now instead of forcing your business model on them.
Congrats on passing the 1,000 comment mark! It’s no surprise, and I’m sure you’ll be celebrating another big milestone soon.
Averaging 19 comments per blog post is fantastic! Especially for such a new blog.
Michael, “fair” is difficult to define. Although I’m selecting the ads I’m blocking, I do make exceptions for one or two websites. It doesn’t mean I will click the ad, but maybe I do see something interesting. So I’m favoriting a specific page giving it a higher chance of earning money…which is not fair for some pages…
Steven, I agree with you. The adblocker of the user streamlines the ads for said user, which leads to better targeted advertising
some more thoughts about the whole topic:
The user is free to visit a website and to ignore it if he or she doesn’t like it. The AdBlocker optimizes the viewing experience of the user, but what is with the site owner?
The site owner is free to place ads, if he or she want to. If a user blocks an ad, the owner may not earn money…but is it right to do either, block ads and blocking users with adblocker?
I don’t know how you can apply law here. I only know that no matter whether you use an adblocker or not, you can ignore the ads anyway. Either by not visiting the page (and not telling others about it) or by just not clicking them. Both ways lead to no income of the site owner. If you add the user blocking, it gets worse.
I believe that if you do it right, you can use ads to earn money, but you should never base your financing on it. Adblocker only exist because a not so long time ago siteowners used popups and whatever to force the ads to be viewed. Now the majority of the people move their ads to inline/integrated ads. As long as the ad content works with the site content, user will most likely tend to not use the adblocker and just keep the ad…if the page loading isn’t slowed down.
Aside that the site owner should get used to the idea to not count on the ads to earn money. Yes, I have ads on my blog, if I get some money, great. If not, who cares?
Here’s what needs to be done:
1. Get it through the ad companies’ thick heads that we don’t like annoying ads.
2. Get it through the webmasters’ thick heads that we don’t like annoying ad placement.
First of all, thanks for the mention Michael :).
On the topic though it is a bad movement I must say, these days there’s simply so many people using ad blockers it will make it harder and harder for a lot of sites to generate income through it enabling them to stay alive.
Hosting a website simply can be costly and although the ads won’t make you rich, they once used to be a method to cover with the monthly hosting costs at least.
The main issue though is that over time ads got pretty much abused, sites without content simply showing them, popup ads, etcetera. Something which the good webmaster in the end has to pay for since it gives frustration amongst the readers resulting in adblocking to be enabled.
In order to come to a real solution I think to be honest it’s too late already, the damage has already been done and the ads as they are on the net now will probably only go downhill.
It will not matter what we as webmasters think is right. If people want to use adblockers, they will. If we try to force them not to use adblockers, we will just have angry visitors who don’t come back.
We need to think of alternative ways to monetize our sites. Affiliate programs, selling our own products or services, paid membership sites… these are all ways to monetize that don’t need to use ads.
We can’t fight the future – we just have to look ahead and get ready for it. The webmasters that do this are the ones who will survive.
Also, I would think that those sites who have tech-savvy users will be the first to feel the pain, since they will have the visitors who are most likely to use ad blockers.
Hehe, thanks for the link Michael. I think helping people has been part of the reason that I’ve got so many comments – I noticed the Top Commentators go way up when JHS and I were talking about the trackback stuff! I do enjoy the discussions that go on here :)
I hadn’t thought about this before – this discussion has been interesting. I agree that adblocking could be important for people on slow connections and blocking ads that stop you from seeing a site seems fair.
I’ll admit I used the Adblock plugin when I used FF, but I seem to remember that it didn’t block ads indiscriminately. I had to ask it to block adverts, which means – like Marco, it was selective. I probably only blocked intrusive, distracting ads.
Veerle has a nice example of ads these days. She has some with pride-of-position, right next to the top of the post. But they’re relevant to her blog and they don’t dance in front of your eyes while you’re trying to read.
Pat B. Doyle, I’m covering my hosting costs with my ads, and 65% of my readers use Firefox, and most of those FF users probably use Adblock.
redwall, are you relying on those ads or do you see them as a bonus which cover these costs?
Michael, I just noticed, that your feedcounter jumped to 333 readers. Earlier it was at 303…looks like you got a hot article. Oh…and I just submitted this article to StumbleUpon :)
I’m trying to have the ads cover my costs, but it’s just recently that my ads have brought in enough to pay for hosting (theoretically, since I still haven’t reached the payout hold). My revenues are going up, and I’m not worried about ad blockers at all.
redwall, why do you assume that most of your FF users use ad-block?
Anyway, i don’t think ad-blocking is a concern UNLESS you’re making a living out of blogging and you see visitors increase while revenue decreases.
Even so, one could always start by educating readers instead of blanket blocking.
Oh speaking of which, if you’re going to block users from accessing your site just because they use Firefox, you might as well have your site be PAY TO VIEW.
I’m not sure than an user that use ad-blocking plugin would click on the ad if the webmaster found a way to trick him.
It’s depend if it’s an user request or not, if the user really installed the ad-blocking-device or if it was a “wise”friend without really asking the user.
It’s not that strange of an idea even goldfries to have it pay to view, although in blogging it probably wouldn’t work out well there’s coming more and more sites which require a subscription to access certain areas. Especially sites which offer downloads and such tend to use this to cover the bandwidth costs since together with donations it’s pretty much the only option remaining these days.
I use just Adblock (not sure if that’s the same as the adblock plus?). I only block flashing ads as they usually prevent me from easily reading a page due to the distraction to the eye. If I didn’t use adblock and went to a page that I didn’t like due to the ads, I’d leave. The content would have to be really good for me to be able to avoid excessively bad ads. But 99% of sites are pretty tame and not obtrusive at all.
I’m not assuming that all of my Firefox users block ads. I have Adblock installed, but I rarely use it. I just zap really annoying ads on some sites. I’m just stating tat over 60% of my visitors use Firefox, and that a good quantity of them probably will be using it.
I do use Adblock, however I don’t mind most ads. I realise that bloggers (and myself, soon) generate (and, in some cases) live off them, so my policy is to only block Flash ads, and ads in annoying places (like those pesky javascript floating-window ones)
That’s basically what I do, Nathan, though half of the time I’m too lazy to block them, and they just annoy me.
If you use ad blocking software, you are leeching off the free web without giving anything back, and depending on those who do not leech to keep your favorite websites free. I discuss a potential solution in this article:http://www.jetpackhq.com/blog/2008/03/22/ad-blockers-considered-harmful/
I’m all for the Adbock. If sites stuck to simple, static ads FINE! But they don’t! Ads continue to get more and more intrusive, and in many cases offensive.
Ian,
Some definitely don’t (Peel away ads in particular are just ridiuclous!), but a lot of sites do stick to unobtrusive, relevant ads. Like here on Pro Blog Design, all the ads are static, and they don’t get in the way of the content.
It’s just my opinion, but I don’t think there’s any need to block ads like that. :)
I don’t think there’s a need to block any ads either.
I believe it’s even more important that us as designers pay attention to reader experience.
I come by many sites that have ads below the header, before the title, then 2 more ads below the title. It’s like at least 600 pixels between the title of the post and the content! I personally find that ridiculous, same goes to annoying sidebar widgets and icons that flash. They’re usually not ads, and amazingly such annoyance comes from site about MONEY MAKING, usually newbie MONEY MAKING sites.
I also don’t like ads being slapped right smack in the article. It’s like a commercial break.
:(
Goldfries,
That’s a great point. Designers in particular shouldn’t be blocking any part of the web. They should experience it as most others will and then know not to make the same mistakes.
Am I missing something? Why should bloggers be paid? They are just speaking their mind on something, much like I’m doing now by writing this comment. I don’t expect to be paid for this comment? :)
So, adblocking blogs sounds like a great idea to me!
ok, I realize that there are some people who are required to blog as part of their job… but hey, they get a salary from their company.
HI I just disabled ABP and noticed that you had ads, then I turned it back on to block’em again. YEAHHHH. It feels so good to kick Ads in the butt. Anyway enjoy writing more articles for me without making a profit. I really benefit.
First of all sorry for my english I might have spelling mistakes !
Second, I am a normal internet user, I do not have a blog and such and I didn’t read all the comments because well there are allot of them so I dont know If you guys have a “normal user’s” opinion that can’t be “clouded” (so to say).
I in my own perspective see adds as something that are sometimes a pain and they are because:
-some take the whole page witch is frustrating and confusing
-some can’t or wont or have the X(close) hidden or masked and that is not normal to any user’s preference
-they take time to load and time is of the essence with most of us, to wait for a page to load, no to wait for the adds to load so you can see the page is well… annoying to say the least, some of us have moderate or bad internet connections, not all shiny Fiber !
-adds are usefull but often dangerous too witch strengthens a normal user decision to take the action to “kill” all to be safe rather than sorry
-adds sometimes point out to a miracle that later reveals itself to be a bad decision to start with
Lets consider if people knew that no harm could come to them when clicking a add and annoying adds where gone, if people knew all adds are safe and pose no fret to them, they would not in any way resort to a add Blocker of any kind because they would be useless and unnecessarily.
Adds are usefull sometimes and are dangerous sometimes.
They can direct you to a quality product or to the need of a anti-virus program. They can help you find what you need or (hopefully not) make you need to find a way how to recover your money back !
But then again that’s just me and my point of view.
P.S. I do have a add Blocker but I dont block all ads, only the most annoying ones I ever come across and I did take the measure to block a whole advertising site or two because of the adds it contained and I saw on different sites.
simple,if ads are more pleasent then they wouldn’t have to be blocked in a first place.so simple.with that added,they’re rarely usefull as well
It’s funny how we adopt words and adapt our lexicon to the times. This is a very useful slant on things.
Here’s what needs to be done:
1. Get it through the ad companies’ thick heads that we don’t like annoying ads.
2. Get it through the webmasters’ thick heads that we don’t like annoying ad placement.
I enjoy reading a post that will make people think. Also, thanks for allowing me to comment!