What do you think about ads and ad-blockers?

Ad Blocker is the way to go. Internet is a lot more better without ads.

Yeah any argument about helping support free content went out the window with the absolute disgusting way internet advertising has been handled.
Eye poppers, Ear blasters, companies like the old Cnet.

@tireyo said:

Have you thought about the people who count on them to pay their bills?

I have no problem with advertisements that are not intrusive or misleading. Unfortunately that makes around one percent of all internet advertisements.

Other, I guess. I honestly do not find ads intrusive enough to bother using ad blocking software.

Ads are disgusting. I will pay anybody the $1 they make from me viewing their ads to use their site without them.

Ads: I get it, you want to make as much money as possible. I don't do charity work either.

Ad-Blockers: Just like every other aspect of my life, I make sure I come first. This ad somehow will save your dying family if I watch it? Don't care; block.

I like content and ads pay for people to make content. AdBlockers cost jobs and reduce the amount of original content that is created. Not only do I hate adblockers but I also hate people who use adblockers.

I am not a big fan of ads so I always use an ad blocker.

I run ad-block on everything. The Internet's advertising has been so shitty for so long, when Ad-Block showed up it seemed like a heaven sent saviour. I turned it on and never looked back. I turn it off on some sites, though. Usually the ones who beg. I give them a chance and if their ads are bullshit back on the ad-block goes. You wouldn't believe how clean the Internet looks without all those ads.

Like @andorski said, I'm not a charity. My time is valuable. Anyone who wants to waste it with ads that hijack my browsing experience can suck a dick.

ad-block on everything. Ads are intrusive, and sometimes contain spyware/viruses, or annoying ass audiovideo.

My that time I piss away on internet entertainment is valuable, and I'm a very busy and important person as I post on internet forums about video games, so of course I block ads.

@oldirtybearon: Well, the point of ads is to make profit for certain people/companies, what would you do if you run a company with poor income and your products are almost unknown or unheard of? I'm not trying to be defensive but it's certainly a not-bad way to bring more attractions to your products, that's the companies aspect of course.

Other. Exceptions get added when warranted, but generally adblock gets used. I feel for individuals and small operations that need the ad revenue but little to no sympathy for most bigger companies, who are guilty till proven innocent. Many of them do things like sell user data and have since way before adblock was an option. With a general corporate culture that thinks of customers like sponges to squeeze for every legal and questionably legal dollar regardless of ethics, I don't see why I shouldn't treat it as an us vs. them war. They certainly seem to.

I also prefer subscribe and donate options, given the choice. Before anyone mentions, we have a family account for our GB subscription, this one is just for personal forumgoing.

Seriously though, every more professional oriented website I've ever used has never been bad about ads so it's not a concern in that area. The only places I'm ever really assaulted with annoying ads is file sharing sites and I don't use those frequently enough to even consider using it.

Yup fuck ads.

Also, hasn't this horse been beaten to death several times already?

@ii_spadex_ii said:

I understand why advertising exists, but I refuse to engage with it. I do the same thing with advertising on television. I DVR my shows and then fast forward through commercials. I have no interest in the bullshit other people are hocking.

The major thing about ads is that I've been on the Internet since the mid-90s. I've watched ads evolve from simple, shitty photoshop banners to eye blasters and pop ups and yadda yadda yadda. When Ad-Block came along it was a fantastic solution to what was a growing problem. You excise the worst of the Internet and just use the good stuff. It may suck if you're trying to run a business on the Internet, but in that case you're choosing to do business with terrible people. Remember when Arrested Development was coming back and Netflix had full pagevideo ads on Giant Bomb? I like AD as much as anyone with good taste, but that shit was egregious. Even if I wasn't a premium member that'd be enough to warrant a block for most people.

Bottom line is that trying to guilt trip users who install Ad-Block won't work. The entire advertising system needs to be ripped down and rebuilt from the ground up. There is a growing contingent of people who are quite frankly sick and tired of sitting through a painfully stupid 30 second ad to get to the latest Kanye West video. The worst part about YouTube's advertising? It's almost always the same goddamn ad.

In any event, yeah. That's where I stand on the issue.

@oldirtybearon: Well out of curiosity, do you have a better alternative to ads of any kind? Let alone commercials on TV, or banners we see outside.

@clonedzero: Oh he suffered badly in the early days, oh I remember when he was a little pony, that poor thing.

I haven't used ad-blocker in years. Not necessarily because I feel the need to support the site creators (although that's a bonus), but because it's simply not that big of a fucking deal. Some sites have pretty ridiculous ads that are completely obtrusive, but I tend to avoid those sites. People make way too big of a deal about the very existence of ads at all.

Adblock Plus is enabled by default, I whitelist sites I visit regularly with reasonable ad usage that doesn't infringe my user experience, and show more support than my impressions are worth to sites I love through premium memberships and the like.

WE HAD THIS THREAD LIKE 6 TIMES LESS THAN A MONTH AGO

@ajamafalous: Because 2 or more people can't think of the same thing, right?

I use an ad blocker but i have it set to disabled on sites i frequent...like giant bomb and tested.

The choices are a little limiting...mostly, I find a lot of the internet unusable without AdBlock Plus (news sites with obnoxious pop-ups and audio ads, IGN constantly bombarding you with garbage, etc.) though I'll turn the blocker off on sites that are much more reserved with their ads. I'm shocked that the GB guys never seem to run into the truly impossible-to-deal-with stuff online, like on fan wiki sites and stuff, but the outrage that we'd fight against this plague on the internet really bothers me.

As a business student at USU, I understand marketing and ad revenue. However, breaking peoples' browsers, making it impossible for older machines or slower internet connections to navigate your site, or constantly relooping commercials on videos when changing resolution settings or anything like that (or the worst-case scenario: when ads are borderline or straight-up pornographic on an otherwise safe site) is frankly scummy and deserves to be blocked. Also, it helps keep stuff like Google or Facebook tracking you all over the internet, which is a legitimate security concern.

Stuff like Hulu that relies so extensively on ad revenue will actually block the blockers and make it impossible to view their content without it, so there's ways around it. It's a nice solution to an inconsistent problem.

EDIT: Also, I'm a person that's so completely irritated at commercials and ads that I abjectly refuse to watch broadcast television no matter how good the content. I'll wait for Netflix or Amazon Prime or whatever rather than deal with that. It gets my blood boiling and I have a really hard time dealing with the fact that most ads are aimed squarely at the lowest common denominator of mankind. I mute commercials on Hulu or YouTube (or block them outright) and refuse to patronize a product that has annoying ads.

get a real job.

Do sites get paid when people click on their ads, or when their ads load? I've never understood this. If it's the former, do you honestly not fast-forward through commercials, or look at your phone while the ads are playing at a movie theater? How would this be different?

If a site is good enough I'll try and support it with money, because I despise ads. One of the reasons I think telivision is a garbage format is because of adverts that interrupt the show. If I'm watching some intense dramatic scene I don't want it interrupted by a fucking commerical for tampons. I paid for Giant Bomb membership and I bought a 4chan pass because I regularly use and enjoy these sites and they, of course, require money to keep running.

If it's something that doesn't affect me browsing the page and isn't flashing or playing video/audio (ie just a static ad) then I don't hate them. That being said, I run an adblocker since most of the ads out there fit into the ones I hate. I would probably whitelist GiantBomb to help support them, but I'm a subscriber so I don't have to worry about that.

@spaceinsomniac:

They do get paid somehow when they're loaded on a website or when someone clicks on them, to be honest I don't usually use an ad-blocker unless a website was, like others said, full of ads that'd make me misclick a link.

@jdh5153:

I haven't said I use ads for making a living though..

My exact thoughts. Video/audio ads are the worst, especially the ones that start automatically. I dont mind pics or small animated ads but when an ad takes up the entire page or forces me to watch a video thats where I get annoyed.

I've seen both models. Click fraud is a definite problem for banner/text ad business

Both. At least with Google Adsense. An ad being loaded is an impression, rack up a few thousand of these and you get a few pennies. Clicks pay widely varying amounts depending on what the ad actually is, and these rare clicks (which are then somehow vetted) make up the bulk of ad revenue for that type of service.

The more people use programs to block ads, the harder it gets to make money through ads on the Internet, the more people will come up with more invasive & annoying ways to advertise, the lower the quality of content on the Internet will get. Enjoy your ability to enjoy quality Internet content ad-free for free while it lasts.

Or they'll just come up with other ways to advertise (video add before video, ad in middle of video, podcast ads ETC). I prefer those rather then shitty ads cluttering my page. At least I don't have to worry about spyware too.

The quality of the internet was already lowered when website owners realised that the more pages you have to click through, the more adverts they can display, hence the more money they make. See all those horrible sites which do "Top 6 worst.." and have 1 item a page.

The harder it becomes to make ad money, the greater the chance is that someone will come up with a better alternative to ad-based revenue models.

It's not the content consumer's job to provide for the content creator. The impetus is on the creator to find a way to make money, not the inverse.

I hate ads, I run an adblocker, but I like to support people who make a living out of ads, so I white list liberally. It's mostly to protect me from sites I don't normally visit and sites where the ads actually make the experience noticeably worse. Sure it's wrong of me to digest that content for free, but maybe they should just get better ads. I am perfectly willing to put up with reasonable ads.

Ad block is the greatest piece of software ever written anywhere. Period.

People who use adblock should die in a fire.

They absolutely can, but seriously:

But yeah, with the search mechanic working like ass, I guess this is to be expected.

Oh, and ad-block is awesome. I don't think it falls on the consumer to keep a business model profitable - let alone one that's based on something as sucky as ads. Furthermore, I don't think it falls on the consumer to come up with an alternative business model.

Since people are frequently mentioning AdBlock, well they launched an anti-ad AD CAMPAIGN. Yup, you'll see ads on websites (If you don't have AdBlock installed) and outside about the software itself. Ads, about an anti-ad program.

If you like their content and want them to keep it that way than it would be in your best interest to at least disable adblock for their content. You want entertainment? Than "pay" for it or it will be gone.

Also some youtubers already doing their ads in the video itself to overcome this Adblock terror.

@ravenlight: They've already been working on alternatives to the standard ad-based model and it's mostly been about collecting collecting data on people's browsing habits. Next stop is product placement and then the ads and the content will become one. The alternatives conceived of so far are worse than banner ads and such.

The solution to the ad-blocker problem is for Google and Mozilla to include built-in ad-blocker in Chrome and Firefox. BUT, it's an ad-blocker that shows ads by default. Every site whitelisted by default. But if you see ads you don't like on a site, there's a big fat button in your web browser to block ads on that site.

This would benefit everyone. To websites - the majority of people will stop using addons that flat out block everything. Most people aren't going to install a separate add on when they have something built in that will do it. And then by default, everyone can see their ads. It also encourages them to not use super intrusive adverts - they know that the vast majority of people viewing their site can get rid of the ads at the press of a button. They don't want to give them a reason to click it. Giant eyeblasters will become a thing of the past. Which benefits users. More people will see ads, less people will be annoyed by them. Everybody wins.

Of course this is all super wishful thinking. I doubt anything like that will happen. In fact, if a large company like google did include a form of ad-blocker in their web browser, I'm pretty sure they'd get sued left, right and centre. But the internet would be a better place with this system, I just doubt advertisers and businesses that rely on advertising revenue would see it that way.

I've never used AdBlock, and don't personally see the need for it. Sure, there's some shameful ads on some websites, but I've never been too bothered by it.

@mattyftm: I like the idea, showing ads by default and blocking them manually is really good, and I don't see any reason why'd Google/Mozilla get sued for this. AdBlock (The company) didn't get sued and the program blocks ALL ads automatically.

I don't feel comfortable essentially pirating the internet. Our eyeballs on advertising is far far more inoffensive than monthly fees as a requirement of the consumer to access content. All these people who advocate no advertising seem to offer no solution, they just selfishly want all their stuff for free. So until someone offers a better, easier solution I'm sticking with ads.

Adblock is always on accept for two sites.