AdBlocking – Taking the ‘free’ out of Internet

I feel guilty about running AdBlock, but I see no alternative… web ads have become too annoying… I also run a site (I wrote the CMS and I’m administering it) where we sometimes ran a few ads that were a bit over the edge (no popups, ever, god no… I’m talking about flash ads over the content)… it wasn’t even our call, the marketing company we signed with sent us the ad and we couldn’t refuse it.

what I’m trying to say is — a portion of my pay (a rather large portion) comes from advertising on that site… but even I browse it with adblock on most of the time

if there were a way to block flash ads (especially ones with CoOoOl MuZaK) and any kind of popup, popunder, over-content, annoying shitty ads without hurting the AdSense-type ads, I’d run it

but the fact is, the damage I do to other webs by browsing with adblock is NOTHING compared to the sanity I preserve by running it.

and while we’re on the subject of blocking flash — flashblock is OK, but sometimes I just want it to work like adblock, kill the html element… and sometimes I want it to work like it already does

if anyone knows a solution to this problem, I’ll be glad to hear it.

I absolutely don’t feel guilty, because even when I didn’t have Camino (my Adblock solution) I never clicked on ads. The people who used to click on ads aren’t going to have an adblocking solution; the people who do have an adblocking solution wouldn’t have been generating ad revenue anyway. It all works out.

Look at it this way:

Like all things, there will be deviant users. Think big, think of the entire browsing population. How many of those are using Adblock? A very small number of people. I believe it’ll stay that way, forever.

Just like piracy, it’ll always stay, but never really threaten the genuine product. So don’t be too worried.

Oh and yes, if everyone thought that way it wouldn’t work. But don’t be so idealistic– make everyone think this way and then get back to me.

re: Stridey

the only problem in your logic is that Pay-Per-Click isn’t the only advertising model around… my site, for instance, gets paid for SHOWING ads, not for the clicks on those ads… and even ads that aren’t clicked have some effect on the user that saw them.

I feel no guilt. I usually only block the animated ones that give me epilepsy, or have nothing to do with the site I’m on (XBox site advertising car insurance?).

If it’s not half the page, or giving me motion sickness, I’m usually ok leaving it. Point is, I get to choose.

I almost forgot, chances are if you’re blocking ads, you are not real likely to click on them in the first place!

Oh sure I’d feel guilt if adverts were interesting/funny and not obtrusive, or about stuff relevant to me… but they’re not. sooo… I just block them all.
I especially love the nasty adverts which try loading spy/ad ware on to my system.

There is an upside to adverts, they present new products and services which we may not have discovered before. Which is why I frequent UneasySilence, becase it’s stuff I’m interested in (for the most part)

I won’t block text ads, it’s the annoying graphic ones for products I have no interest in that I block, I won’t even run those on my sites as they are too intrusive.

I wish I didn’t have to rely on ad revenue to keep my sites running but since I have to I just stick with adsense and I code the colors to match the site so they don’t intrude too much. Someday I would like to operate without needing any ads at all. But hosting costs money.

I have to say that adverts don’t work for most people anyway, with the exception of targetted text adverts such as google’s four boxes.
Evidence to support this claim comes from many usability experts, but one accessible on the internet is Jakob Nielsen.
See:http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9709a.html
Also, there are now many sensible and credible online and offline magazines publishing articles on the subject. see: http://www.out-law.com/page-4319 for an example
Personally, I don’t really mind having plain and animated banner ads on pages, but the recent advertising campaigns using DHTML and flash are nothing short of irritating. Some of them completely cover the page you’ve navigated to…
Let’s look at this the other way round though, your not using the ad-blocking programs is having an effect on the wages of the smaller aoftware companies producing such innovative and robust software.

i think the general consensus is that unobtrusive ads are acceptable while the latest flash / animated ads are annoying and effect a users online productivity.

the popup ads that i’ve noticed on a few sites are the worst. fortunately, smart site owners understand that readership will most likely decline if those types of ads are utilized. who see’s popups though with the default popup blockers on todays browsers?

sites deserve the right to make a few extra cents per reader.