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Adblock Plus: the nuclear plug-in (nice blog post)

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Dirhael:
Thats just it, you are visiting something THEY own, not the other way around.
-Josh (September 05, 2007, 11:12 AM)
--- End quote ---

It still doesn't mean that you've agree to their terms by visiting their site. As long as I didn't sign any legal contract, or at least had to press "OK" on some form of EULA before entering the site, I most certainly have not agreed to anything. I understand that they have them and need the revenue, but if I block them I'm fully within my rights to do so. If it is a site that I really enjoy and would like to support, I'd much rather prefer them to have some form of donation system where I can just give them money directly. If I dislike ads enough to block them, white-listing them on some site I enjoy wouldn't help as I still wouldn't click them. Because of this, they would be nothing more than unnecessary visual (and even audible) distractions and in certain cases, a potential privacy and security risk.

Josh:
Well, on the same note, they are well within their rights to block you from accessing the site if you choose to block the ads. Its a two way street. I am a firm believer that if you utilize something enough, and its provided for free or offers an option for some form of reimbursement, you should reimburse the author (be it donations, subscriptions, etc). If an ad makes your favorite site free, why shouldnt you support them and let it be shown?

Dirhael:
Well, on the same note, they are well within their rights to block you from accessing the site if you choose to block the ads. Its a two way street. I am a firm believer that if you utilize something enough, and its provided for free or offers an option for some form of reimbursement, you should reimburse the author (be it donations, subscriptions, etc). If an ad makes your favorite site free, why shouldnt you support them and let it be shown?
-Josh (September 05, 2007, 01:43 PM)
--- End quote ---

Oh they certainly are, but by doing so they are really just shooting themselves in the foot. At the moment there are no reliable way of detecting adblocking software (and really, there never will be) so the choice they are left is blocking an entire browser. While this might seem unproblematic to some, you should remember that adblocking is possible, for free, with all major browsers and you can't very well block everyone (well you could, but then what would be the point of having a website at all). Even if you factor in that most people blocking ads are using Firefox, and that they represent perhaps 10-20% of your audience you also need to remember this; The people competent enough to install an extension blocking adverts are also most certainly able to install another extension faking their user agent string being passed to the web server as well. As such, no matter how you look at it, it would be a waste of time and resources to try combating this.
Now I don't make a point of blocking every ad I ever encounter, but I will remove the distracting and intrusive ones. Keep the ads relevant to your content, and don't ever try forcing me to install/enable plugins just to view your ads. Text adverts like the ones Google offers are fine, flashing ones telling me that my computer is at risk because I'm not using some very questionable "security" software is not.

When it takes longer to download the ads than the content of a website, you are clearly doing something wrong. Good look trying to read up on the latest news using dial-up in this day and age. Let me tell you, it's a pain...and expensive.

Tekzel:
Well, on the same note, they are well within their rights to block you from accessing the site if you choose to block the ads. Its a two way street. I am a firm believer that if you utilize something enough, and its provided for free or offers an option for some form of reimbursement, you should reimburse the author (be it donations, subscriptions, etc). If an ad makes your favorite site free, why shouldnt you support them and let it be shown?
-Josh (September 05, 2007, 01:43 PM)
--- End quote ---

Absolutely, we are in complete agreement there.  If they choose to block my access on the basis that I am using an ad blocker, they are completely within their right to do so.  I will then decide whether the site is worth me viewing the ads and either disable my ad blocker or not go back.  BUT, for them to just assume that by my coming there I am agreeing to view the ads is ridiculous in the extreme.  I agree to nothing that I don't actively accept.  There can be no assumed anything.

Mark0:
Am I the only one that isn't annoyed at all by most forms of online advertising (except the most obstrusive ones, that open windows above what you are reading, obviously)?

Bye!

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