Do you feel guilty about using Ad Block Programs.

Tazio

Bind/polipo running at home..... No one sees ads in my house.... Even visitors..

eamonnq

I only block subliminal advertising.

eqwjewoiujqorj

http://www.geek.com/apps/mozilla-just-built-an-ad-blocker-into-firefox-1631245/

Firefox is building an adblocker into Firefox.

It will be for "Incognito mode" only but you can turn it on for all browsing.

If firefox does this, other browsers will have to follow or lose market share.

MilesMorales1

Not at all.

Old Jakey

I've had adblocker for almost a year now. Today I turned it off for a laugh and I don't know how I put up with ads for years.

No guilt at all.

briany

I see a lot of indignation over Adblock Plus and their policy of letting "acceptable ads" through. To be honest, it's pretty transparent what they're doing - they even have a list of the ads that you can review, and you can, of course, untick the box. Anyone who would notice the issue to begin with would have the wherewithal to go into ABP's options and do the same. Now, maybe some people would argue that they should not have to do this, but I think one of the stated aims of Adblocking extensions to begin with was not so much that you were never supposed to see an ad ever again, but trying to push some reforms so badly needed in online advertising with the understanding that it's still ad clicks and views that drive the Internet.

pickarooney

Bongalongherb wrote: »

may it rise high and eat up all of those indoctrinating adverts trying to convert me from my weetabix to this new crunchy pox serial, or trying to sell me things that are useless. Find another way to sell your product instead of branwashing the population please, or you will die like the old video tape.

Hehe

DivingDuck

PixelTrawler wrote: »

Another good reason to block ads.

http://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2015/08/my-browser-visited-drudgereport-and-all-i-got-was-this-lousy-malware/

It's things like this which make it difficult to argue against the use of blockers, to be honest.

You might feel badly for depriving a website of revenue, but when that website has signed into a system which prevents them from being able to protect their readers/users, you don't really have a lot of choice.

Severard

I use adblock and it's very useful. So many ads these days are far too long on YouTube videos and numerous when videos are started. I do white list certain YouTube channels though. As for other websites nope, they have too many ads on them not to use it.

Billy86

Severard wrote: »

I use adblock and it's very useful. So many ads these days are far too long on YouTube videos and numerous when videos are started. I do white list certain YouTube channels though. As for other websites nope, they have too many ads on them not to use it.

If you think that's bad, they had it programmed in Australia three years back when I was there, to play two ads in between every single video. Yes, even 5 second soundbite type clips.

I rarely use Youtube anymore, and that was the point where my usage of it fell way down. Sadly, I had somehow not heard of adblocker at that stage.

Help!!!!

Whats a good Ad blocker?

ALiasEX

eqwjewoiujqorj wrote: »

The advertisers are probably still tracking you anyway if you have cookies turned on, so make sure to turn them off.

NoScript is also useful for stopping lots of rubbish content.

Turning cookies off is not enough to stop tracking. There are other methods.

Sh1tbag OToole

Help!!!! wrote: »

Whats a good Ad blocker?

AdBlock Plus

Sh1tbag OToole

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

AdBlock Plus

+1

I also seldom watch live TV these days, if there's something I want to watch I record it and FF through the ads.
if the programme is live, I'll just pause it for about 20 minutes do something else then go back and watch it, more often than not the last segment of the programme will be live as I've caught up.

yellowlabrador

PizzamanIRL

I'd feel more guilty if I tripped over and accidentally landed on an ant, killing it.

A lot of these 'Youtube stars' make enough money by clickbaiting, sponsorships and selling over priced clothing.

mbur

Web browsing without an ad blocker is now a little like having indiscriminate sex with multiple strangers. The OP's question is like asking the ppl wearing condoms if they feel guilty. No we don't, we feel slightly safer thanks.

PixelTrawler wrote: »

Another good reason to block ads.

http://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2015/08/my-browser-visited-drudgereport-and-all-i-got-was-this-lousy-malware/

Even worse than the annoyance and slowing of web pages is malware. And as that link shows it can happen on regular websites.

A chrome plugin i added lately is Privacy Badger. Its not an ad blocker. Instead it shows the number of links on a page that are actively tracking you.

The badger will block domains if it thinks they are tracking you. (Well that what it say it is doing.) I have the firefox version.

Tazio wrote: »

Bind/polipo running at home..... No one sees ads in my house.... Even visitors..

Will some kind person please explain what is that and how does it stop everyone from seeing ads???

wylie

mbur wrote: »

Web browsing without an ad blocker is now a little like having indiscriminate sex with multiple strangers. The OP's question is like asking the ppl wearing condoms if they feel guilty. No we don't, we feel slightly safer thanks.



The badger will block domains if it thinks they are tracking you. (Well that what it say it is doing.) I have the firefox version.


Will some kind person please explain what is that and how does it stop everyone from seeing ads???

The OP's question is like asking the ppl wearing condoms if they feel guilty.

Thats some analogy

VinLieger

wylie wrote: »

Thats some analogy

I disable it for sites that I like and who's advertising is not incredibly annoying, for instance I have it disabled for boards

Dave_The_Sheep

In an amusing turn of events, "uMatrix has prevented the following page from loading: https://pagefair.com/"

Created by a previously very successful Irish lad, it's designed to (other than make him loads of money) circumvent adblockers and "Reclaim Your Adblocked Revenue".

Newstalk (that idiot who loves small businesses) had him on as Entrepreneur of the Month or some ****, and seemed to treat the idea like it was the intellectual second coming of Christ, instead of what it is, which is helping advertisers screw over people online. A real great idea would be coming up with a better system to gain revenue, instead of trying to force people into a system that users have already shown to dislike and actively try avoid.

Needless to say, I hope it fails miserably, but the wording of things like always annoys. You didn't lose the money, you never had it in the first place. It wasn't yours to begin with or legitimately owed to you, so how can you lose it?

**** off.

KomradeBishop

Yea that PageFair thing is just going to be one - very short - step in creating an 'arms race' type situation between ads vs ad-blockers; if that starts to take off, then you will just see ad-blockers adapt, to become completely undetectable.

So, PageFair has a business model, that will only remain sustainable so long as it does not become popular enough, to trigger enough ad-blocker developers attention.
Once ad-blockers implement undetectable methods for blocking ads (not conceptually difficult at all, but a big programming challenge), then PageFair are toast.

syklops

syklops wrote: »

Thats bullsh!t Sean. So called "Much loved" websites are harming themselves by having a floating ad pop up in front of whatever content I am trying to view.

It's not bull****. Sites like boards.ie (to give the obvious example) provide a service and make money by selling ads.

The fewer ads they serve, the less money they make.

I use adblock myself on my personal machine, and I sympathise with the argument that publishers and advertisers have got what they deserve, but to imagine that mainstream adoption of adblock won't mean the death of boards, broadsheet, waterford whispers and the rest of them is extremely naive.

PGE1970

Folks,

For the very uneducated, could someone tell me how to activate an ad-blocker. I'm equally driven demented by them!!

Thanks!

desertcircus

Don't feel even slightly guilty. I buy T-shirts from the webcomics I read and merchandise from the YouTube channels I use, so I'm not worried about being a financial drain on the creators.

catbear

Disabled for sites I like.

However I know by doing this I may make it harder for new sites to gain financially to help build traction.

Basically by not adblocking boards.ie but adblocking a potential rival I'm the one creating the imbalanced field.

Then one day I'll die and life will go on.

KomradeBishop

Deleted User wrote: »

It's not bull****. Sites like boards.ie (to give the obvious example) provide a service and make money by selling ads.

The fewer ads they serve, the less money they make.

I use adblock myself on my personal machine, and I sympathise with the argument that publishers and advertisers have got what they deserve, but to imagine that mainstream adoption of adblock won't mean the death of boards, broadsheet, waterford whispers and the rest of them is extremely naive.

Ya but Boards does a bad job controlling the content of the ads, which is why there are constant complaints about the ads on Feedback - Boards has almost zero control over the ads really, and can only get rid of problem-ads after they have come up.

So, this puts site users who don't use an ad blocker in danger, if ads with viruses slip in to the mix (probably the best reason to use an ad blocker), and also leads to users being annoyed by loud autoplay ads etc..

It's not the site users problem, if Boards can't stop abusive ads being displayed - that's Boards problem (they can't fob off responsibility for that, onto the ad provider either; that's still ultimately Boards problem and responsibility), and (coming from someone with a bit of computer security background, with programming) I've got pretty much zero sympathy for any site that doesn't have full control over its ads, so that abusive ads can be prevented (rather than dealt with after the fact) - unfortunately, practically all sites have zero control.

If sites don't want people using ad-blockers, they simply need to make ads reliably unobtrusive - if Boards just had e.g. text/image ads, without requiring third-party content/Javascript (which would have no risk of abusive ads), then I'd have less of a problem leaving ads unblocked here (though I'd probably still block them, unless they actually were integrated into the site, in a way that is actually useful to me, rather than spamming irrelevant garbage at me).

mikhail

PGE1970 wrote: »

Folks,

For the very uneducated, could someone tell me how to activate an ad-blocker. I'm equally driven demented by them!!

Thanks!

https://adblockplus.org/ should show you an appropriate download button.

Red Alert

I've switched to uBlock after being suckered by Adblock. I don't agree with their "Acceptable Ads" program on principle, because it means they now have two competing interests. uBlock also seems to be faster in my unscientific testing so far.