AdBlock: Users love it, online advertisers and companies hate it! There's been some conversation about Adblock lately, regarding their latest business model in allowing companies to pay them to let through "acceptable" and "non-intrusive" ads, but many organizations dismiss the move as "advertising blackmail". I use AdBlock. In fact, I forget how irritating and frustrating the internet can be for non-blockers until I have to use an unprotected computer. I believe the program has forced business to rethink how they try to catch your attention, and has encouraged new conversation about how to draw consumer attention without bombarding them with flashing banners and intrusive pop-ups. What do you think? Do you use AdBlock yourself?
I definitely do use it. There is no reason why I should be forced to sit thru tens of dumb, usually animated autoplay ads that play video or sound. I don't mind whitelisting sites that I visit and like, but if you are going to shove this kind of advertising down my throat - or worse - malware, I don't care you're losing money.
I think your opinion is share with a whole lot of online users, Aladar. And I agree with your sentiments. People have a powerful dislike of being pestered and prodded for products and services that are often times completely unrelated to whatever it is they are doing. I'm happy watching ads for services I appreciate, like Hulu, or independent online broadcasters like Twitch, but seeing a blinking banner about bogus weight loss tips when I'm trying to research medicine interactions isn't something I tolerate well.
I don't think I could go online without Adblock anymore, it's the first thing I install in every browser I touch. It's definitely a godsend for me.
This. I don't care if people are losing money, i am pretty sure that if they are good enough and have good content, they don't need ads to keep themselves alive. Ads nowadays are more intrusive than anything else.
Nothing wrong with Adblock whatsoever, as an addon for browsers its by far the most useful so definitely a consumer godsend. The idea of businesses making advertising more subtle is a bit of a worry but what can you do?
Intrusive so and sos. As someone else said, if they're a good brand, they'll still make their money. Bugging me will only make me dislike you more lol. I've been blocking ads forever and my experience online is completely stress free now. If I want to know about a brand (which I don't) I'd go to their site. The creator of Adblock should win the Nobel prize or something
I use the no-script Firefox add-on which literally murders every script on any page and even when I allow some scripts to run on a web-page it's strictly web-page functionality scripts we are talking about. It's not blackmail to block ads and if it's bad for business [for the ad networks] then they have to change their strategies. If web-owners were to go back to simple text ads web-users would learn to accept them because there's nothing you can do about an element that's part of the web-page.
I believe the people who created these annoying ads and the people who plaster their sites with ads have brought this on themselves, thanks to Adblock I don't have to have my computer slowed down while 10+ flash ads try and load on a page at the same time.
I like Adblock, mainly because video advertisements are kind of a chore. I don't mind banners too much, and I even like seeing some of them, but it would be better if I saw a different one more frequently other than the same ones Google sometimes puts up consecutively. Otherwise, I'm very thankful for Adblock. I don't like the decision they made with extorting from companies, though. If that did indeed happen.
I use Adblock as well, it's pretty annoying having those pop-ups coming all the time. MakeshiftMiloh, are you saying Adblock allows some advertising to get past it if the advertisers pay them? I haven't noticed that yet...
