Poll: Do you use an ad-blocker?
Curious to know how widespread the usage of ad-blockers are, at least in the tech-savvy world.
And this is on desktop. Many sites today are so heavy I avoid them entirely on my first gen iPad mini as they crash Safari about half the time.
Once upon a time, you could just disable javascript as a workaround, but that almost completely cripples the web these days.
Javascript wankers.
[0] chrome://settings/content
I want to support sites that I consume content from, so by default I only block tracking beacons, not ads. I turn on content-blocking (or disable plug-ins/javascript) for specific sites when their ads make the site unusable. For example, nfl.com text articles used to not load for ages while video content loaded (it got better), and currently having the SF Chronicle open in one tab will make youtube stutter in other tabs.
I'd rather blacklist though. I want to support sites that use unobtrusive advertising, but block ads on sites that use autoplaying videos, distracting animations, disgusting pictures of yellow teeth, etc.
If you answered "No" but use Chrome (and probably other modern browsers), you may not realize that it already automatically blocks pop-up ads for you, so to some extent you are already using an AdBlocker. Ads haven't gotten much less annoying than they were in 2008, the browsers just hate them as much as you do.
That being said, I do sometimes acquire shows with unfriendly streaming situations through...other means, which is pretty much the same thing at the end of the day.
I used to have Flash on click-to-play, but then YouTube feeds me flash videos, so now I've had Flash turned off for a while. I don't really miss it. The reason is that Flash drains my battery and HTML videos can be watched in a resource-saving way with VLC (or just in-browser).
I use ABP because it blocks other animated content that drains my battery. I wouldn't mind text ads. In addition, most news sites I visit regularly are unblocked because I want to support them. Interestingly, without flash there are hardly any ads left.
I block all 3rd-party cookies (have for 15 years), on my Desktop and Android Firefox, because I can, because I've never encountered anything that didn't work, and because where I surf is no 3rd party site's business. If you want statistics on me visiting YOUR SITE, just use your web server, why not?
I use Ghostery because it further blocks attempts to track me.
Specifically don't trust:
. Ghostery - openly resell data
. Disconnect - solid team, but one founder former NSA staff - not a watertight reason to distrust, perhaps people can vouch for him, but that's enough reason for me at this point, given it's far from the only choice
Trusting NoScript or Adblock as non-commercial, open source projects is easier, although again not 100%. Still, much better than the alternative.
EDIT: "reasonable policy" being no flash, no auto-play videos, no flashing banners and no javascript "pop-overs"
I remember seeing theses oversize flash ads but that was a long time ago.
So I have disabled it now and do see a performance improvement. I'll keep researching this to find the optimal solution.
Flash and other plugins are set to click to play though.
Sites with obtrusive, annoying ads? Well, I suppose I still use Facebook, but usually they help me avoid content-weak, ad-heavy trash.
Also, do you feel compelled to watch ads on TV when you have the option of fast-forwarding through them? If not, why is the web different? Just curious - I'm seriously not trying to be inflammatory.
Does it actually does anything to fast forward an ads on TV? Is there a counter that doesn't increment when that happens? I guess indirectly they will consider that possibility when they pay for TV ads but that's a whole other story and it can't be compared. On a website you directly affect their revenue by not showing the ads.
You can also set up a cron job to periodically fetch and overwrite with an updated copy, such as once a week or so.
Doesn't using /etc/hosts in this way strike you as a bit "wrong" and terribly hacky with respect to blocking granularity? If I ever wanted to run a service on port 80, it seems like it would be annoying to configure it to avoid the dummy address. And I use /etc/hosts for my actual hosts, and while these uses aren't exclusive, it does set the tone for me.
I personally run Adblock Plus and Ghostery in Iceweasel because it's the easiest way. There are certainly disadvantages to this, but it seems the proper setup would be to run something like privoxy, no?
It's also a rat race of sorts, as is inherent with blacklisting over whitelisting. But I don't exclusively use this approach either, I spoof user agents, referers, X-Forwarded-For headers and have Privacy Badger running on Firefox, as well. I just use hosts as an alternative to ABP in particular, due to the lower baggage.
I keep meaning to see if I can serve up transparent swfs and html snippets automagically but I've never got around to it.
You list two utilities for a single browser. If you use other browsers do you need other apps?
The interesting thing about my hosts table is that I never bother carrying it across to a new computer and I only add domains to it when they actively irritate me. Even so, even companies like Google who are supposed to do non-intrusive "targeted" ads end up in there.
I currently use chromium but without any ad blocker, for viewing documentation and the like (and the occasional incognito window, especially for Amazon which loves to spam you based on searches)
I'm liking the idea of a per-machine setup, but I'd look into rewriting proxies (like privoxy) for that. I personally want every known ad/tracker/etc blocked without interaction - one person cannot hope to easily keep up with the machines are doing, but so far via crowdsourcing it seems like we can.
I put up with that shit for a couple months, hoping it would clean itself up. But it didn't. So I installed Firefox with Adblock and now I never see ads and never will. I will be using an Adblocker on mobile for the rest of my life.
I see nothing unethical about this. The marketers abused their position, and now I'm punishing them for it. If websites can't support themselves without using this abusive business model, then perhaps they should go out of business.
If a website annoy me, I just find another one.
Primarily I use ad/script blockers as an extra layer of security.
Thanks to this settings, I don't see ads and don't support shit sites with static content hidden behind js-wall - like blogspot or google groups.
I've tried not blocking, but on my 4 yr old MBP (Core 2 Duo) all the beacons, social buttons, flash ads, etc. simply slow my browser down to the point of frustration, particularly when scrolling.
Much of it is Firefox's fault though, as Safari scrolls smoothly on most of the sites that give me trouble in Firefox. I'm just not willing to give up my tagged bookmarks (even though I would like to, as now the bookmark syncing has become slow enough to make scrolling while syncing nearly unbearable... I might have a bookmark addiction;).
1) Doesn't try and track the crap out of me. 2) Doesn't shove ads in my face. 3) Doesn't autoplay video/sound ads.
It doesn't seem like a huge amount to ask really, but the tracking is out of control in particular and just an enormous threat to privacy.
Some things are makin me lean toward using adblockers: being unable to opt out of gambling or alcohol ads; being unable to temporarily opt out of ads when my child is using my computer - these make me want a good ad blocker.
If I could allow reasonable ads but still guaranteeing that I would avoid the more hostile junk then I would, but unfortunately we haven't solved that problem yet.
This works for all devices at once. ABP on Android sucks and is it even available on iOS?
I occasionaly sell these routers to family and friends as well.
People say it's bad to use ad blockers because the site isn't making money off of you, but you could also say now the advertiser isn't losing money on you.
It seems more configurable and makes it easier to allow stuff like Google Analytics while still removing most of the obnoxious ads that 1) Plague my vision and 2) cause websites to load slow on my sub-par connection.
Without more specific information about what you said you found, it sounds FUD.
I use Hostsman to automatically configure the MVPS hosts list. This blocks the ads at OS level; and works with every browser.
Then for extra backup I run (micro)Block on Opera just for those extra ads that slip by the hosts filter.
I do not use an adblocker at work (web dev), I need to see the real-deal all the time.
Try using weather.com with and without an ad blocker.
That's what I have on my Chrome.
Just one example, but there's plenty of stock in the hypothesis that online ads really don't do anything to begin with.
It's harder today, but you can still manage to sift through the noise and find the rare gem of basic html, no ads, and very thorough independently-organized information. I would love if some search engine were to make an option to only return results from sites without ads - I believe the quality would be much higher.
The percent of people blocking increase everyday, it's no longer the simple tech-savvy consumer, it's much more.
An healthy internet would be one that have both, sadly ad block doesn't allow that, it force them to ask for money even though they don't wan't to or it doesn't make sense for them to. If there was a business in selling that information or service, then someone would do it, why don't you?
I would really love to see ads provider offer a way to pay to get no ads. You see 1000 ads a month which cost usually $5 cpm? Then you pay 5$ a month and you get no ads. I would gladly pay for that on Youtube, in fact I would probably pay more than what's they get from ads because of the quality of content.