Poll: Do you use an Adblocker?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4879245

by AlexMuir • 14 years ago

34 71 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

swader• 14 years ago

Yes, surfing has become unimaginable without one for me. And for the ads that didn't get removed by AdBlock like the Vevo skin around music videos on Youtube's VEVO channels, I made my own: http://www.bitfalls.com/2012/11/deskin-hide-vevo-ads-from-yo...

AlexMuir4• 14 years ago

Adblocker is one of the first things I installed for my mother on her new computer. For me seeing ads is an annoyance, but for her it's a real problem. She can't instantly distinguish adverts from content - particularly things like Adsense.

throwit19792• 14 years ago

How is one unable to distinguish ads from content? Even without the visual cues of div separation and "Ads By ____" inset, there's a huge difference between the following:

"The history of knitting, yarns, and crochet"

"Thousands of Knitting Yarns FREE! Get quick and easy patterns today!"

antihero• 14 years ago

How about download sites where there's like a million "DOWNLOAD NOW" fake buttons?

infectoid• 14 years ago

Completely agree with this usage. If I didn't install an adblocker on my mothers computer she'd have 14 extra toolbars installed in her browser, 3 different virus scanners running and be out of pocket every month for some service she's been convinced she needs.

It would be good if there was an option to allow for "Parent friendly Ads".

RexRollman• 14 years ago

I don't mind ads. What I have a problem with is animated graphics, autoplaying videos, and pop-ups. Blocking Flash mostly stops this for me, but as HTML5 becomes more popular, I worry that I will lose the ability to stop these kinds of behaviors.

lmlt2• 14 years ago

An interesting point re HTML5, perhaps we will see the advent of CSS3 animation blockers and the like.

frou_dh• 14 years ago

I actually unintentionally started using one by installing Ghostery. I was under the impression that it was just for blocking invisible beacons, like buttons, that sort of thing, but it also took care of virtually all normal display ads. The effect was surprisingly nice, so I've left it enabled.

reinhardt• 14 years ago

Setting up AdBlockPlus (along with Ghostery, LastPass and HTTPS Everywhere) is a must after installing a browser on a new box/VM.

rjbond3rd• 14 years ago

Also BetterPrivacy and FlashBlock.

trotsky• 14 years ago

settings -> show advanced -> content settings -> plug-ins: click to play

enimodas• 14 years ago

i prefer requestpolicy above ghostery

lmlt2• 14 years ago

I don't, as a web developer/marketer I feel it is important to see what others are doing. I barely notice them, the sites where I do are typically dev related and potentially of interest to me.

J_Darnley• 14 years ago

Do I vote yes because NoScript and RequestPolicy block many ads? Or do I vote no because they don't block all ads? I think I'll go with yes.

cryptoz• 14 years ago

Yes. I'm excited about the future of ads, actually, as Adblock Plus takes off with their new "only block evil ads" approach. A web where nobody feels the need to block ads because the only ads are innocuous and clean is a web we can dream to achieve.

cynwoody• 14 years ago

Yes.

Well, sort of. I don't use an ad blocker, but I do block some ads.

So far, my ad-blocking has been limited to placing a short list of domains in /etc/hosts. My main motivation was not the ads themselves, but rather delays in page-rendering caused by slow ad servers.

One of these days, I may get serious. The ads are getting more intrusive ... pop-over pages, videos that start playing audio automatically ...

akanster• 14 years ago

I recently turned off AdBlock "just to see" for a few weeks. Maybe I had completely forgotten how bad online ads were but a few things really bothered me. I would get ads for shopping sites in my recent history (while browsing a totally unrelated site) that showed me items related to searches on said shopping website. A few times the ad would show me exact search results. Also it's unnerving seeing my Facebook profile pic right next to an empty comment field.

AdBlock is back on.

richforrester• 14 years ago

Working in web development as a UI/UX/front-end coding guy, I make a point out of not installing pop-up/add blockers.

Along with a big portion of power-users, I "suffer" from ad-blindness, so ads don't bug me that much regardless.

The ads that do bug me (generally ads with sound enabled or inappropriate ones), cause me to lodge complaints to sites that show them (if I like said site) or otherwise make me avoid that site in the future.

The reason I don't let a pop-up blocker take care of it all, is that I feel it's my responsibility to improve the web. To do that, I need to know what pains people, but also want to see what ads actually do work. That latter one is very rare though.

Dystopian• 14 years ago

Yes, I use Disconnect for all social media (no, as a male, I don't want to accidentally hit the Like button on a page for buying bulk Midol for my girlfriend).

I also use AdBlock, but unblock certain sites that I like, have unobtrusive ads, and need the ad revenue (TechCrunch, Ars, IconPaper, and about two handfuls of others).

evoxed• 14 years ago

I recently switched to FF to start using Pentadactyl. In the process I ended up installing a few things here and there to make things feel just a tad more private, including Adblock Plus. I made a point to disable it on a number of sites I visit regularly with unobtrusive ads and will occasionally flick it off/on to make sure it's not introducing any layout issues or accidentally hiding content.

marc• 14 years ago

Yes. Since the new Facebook newsfeed ads.

tatsuke95• 14 years ago

Yes. Every browser, every install. Porn sites would be unbearable without one.

zobzu• 14 years ago

s/Porn/News and Porn/

nzjames• 14 years ago

I don't use an Adblocker, but I did recently disable plugins by default because I was getting some massive performance issues from Flash (Chrome on Ubuntu 12.10).

It has massively improved my browsing experience having grey place-holder boxes where mostly ads were before.

lmkg• 14 years ago

I run Opera, which has a built-in content blocker. As a rule, I don't block ads because they're a revenue source for many sites and I consider them the cost of admission. If I consider the annoyance a fair exchange for the content then I'll accept the ads, and if I don't think the content is worth the ads then I won't use the site.

I will disable particular ads on a case-by-case basis that I consider pathologically aggravating (less than 1%), or when they disrupt page functionality. I also block several types of tracking functions that can aggregate an identity across multiple domains (I find no privacy issues with first-party analytics).

In the special case of floating overlays, I am a strange, strange person. I will not click on the close button, because I don't like clicking on an ad, even to close it. Instead, I will fire up the debugger and delete the ad from the DOM.

robinh• 14 years ago

"In the special case of floating overlays, I am a strange, strange person. I will not click on the close button, because I don't like clicking on an ad, even to close it. Instead, I will fire up the debugger and delete the ad from the DOM."

That's actually completely understandable, because in many pop-up ads closing it triggers something else, or something that appears to be a close button actually isn't, and so on and so forth. I find these ads to be the most intrusive and annoying.

kogir• 14 years ago

Does disabling Flash and JavaScript on all but approved sites count? I've not noticed an ad in ages.

JoshTriplett• 14 years ago

I use Adblock Plus, but I really need to start looking for a new adblocker, because Adblock Plus has started adding various anti-features like an on-by-default ad whitelist and a horribly broken domain "typo correction" mechanism. These annoyances add extra prompts and configuration work needed at installation time, and make it more difficult to maintain unobtrusive Adblock Plus installations for non-technical users.

miwsecatwork• 14 years ago

Hell yeah i use an Adblocker, and i love having an outgoing firewall on my jailbroken ios devices -- I explicitly block all applications from contacting the advertising providers.

Advertising is evil and I will have no part of it. I don't care if your business model is advertising, you wont make a dime out of me.

throwit19792• 14 years ago

I don't see the point, really. My brain began unconsciously filtering out ads many years ago. At this point they barely register.

dropdownmenu• 14 years ago

I use an adblocker for everything. I do try to buy stuff from the stores of websites that I like to support them and encourage a revenue model that does not annoy me.

petercooper4• 14 years ago

The strong "Yes" vote here is another indicator as to why the media is jumping on the 'native ad' bandwagon: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisperry/2012/10/04/advertisin... (sometimes called 'content marketing', but it's not exactly the same)

Instead of slapping ads around the side of your page that can be blocked, you bust some holes in the Chinese wall and let advertising become involved in the narrative. There are tasteful and tasteless ways to do this (Monocle gets it right - http://www.psfk.com/2009/06/monocle-xs-brands-v-agencies.htm...) but you can choose new sources if you don't like what they do.

It's not an entirely new concept though. TV has been riddled with "integrated" content-based advertising for decades. Oprah doesn't just invite that famous author on to plug their book because they're friends.. ;-)

1004 days ago I was a lot more pessimistic about this trend on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1172595 (Yes, I track too many links.) But I'm now somewhat supportive of the move as long as publications do it carefully and focus on the content above all else.

AlexMuir4• 14 years ago

Can you point to any current examples online? I'm not quite sure what this would look like. I know in the UK it's obligatory for an advertisement to be identified as such.

petercooper4• 14 years ago

The issue is it can be hard to tell if it's happening and in cases where it's not disclosed, I could be committing libel by suggesting it is. However, keep a particular eye open for where companies "partner" with publications to write articles or "sponsor" entire columns. The identification can be quite subtle and totally avoided in the main content.

Picking on Monocle in the print world again though, the New York Times had a great analysis of the way Monocle applies the idea: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/business/media/24carr.html... .. the model (and attitude) explained in this article is something I expect to see become very prevalent online.

I'm not UK media trained but to the best of my knowledge, the Advertising Standards Authority has no power to force publishers to meet its demands. What can happen, though, is publishers can be sued under the Unfair Trading Regulations Act for "misleading omissions" (an act that applies to all business activities and can be very broadly interpreted) specifically when a commercial practice "fails to identify its commercial intent, unless this is already apparent from the context".

Context is tricky though. If a publication is particularly vocal about its practices, I suspect it would be hard to get to court. Another related context is when newspapers are paid to give away freebies that are not marked as advertising but the context is clearly of an advertising nature.

Sorry for the disjointed bundle of ideas here but I've just seen how much time I've spent so far. I think this is a fascinating area though and one I much enjoy observing mostly (but not entirely) as an outsider.

Update: I did some more digging into this because I know it happens and I know it's not always disclosed.. and think I have found the loophole - http://www.out-law.com/page-4853

Specifically, the ASA code states:

"Advertisement features, announcements or promotions, sometimes referred to as 'advertorials', that are disseminated in exchange for a payment or other reciprocal arrangement should comply with the Code if their content is controlled by the marketers rather than the publishers."

So content produced by a publisher on behalf of an advertiser for pay may still be an advertorial but seem to have some sort of exemption under UK standards. This would explain a lot of magazines I know do this stuff.

smirksirlot• 14 years ago

I think an example would be this: http://tweepi.com/blog/2011/10/top-10-twitter-utilities/

Tweepi's Top 10 list of Twitter utilities includes Tweepi itself. Lot's of other companies are doing this too, that was just the quickest example I could find. They generate content that could have value, but also insert self-promotional stuff in there.

mirkules3• 14 years ago

The example that comes to mind is content that IS advertisement. For that you can look into just about any US magazine (not sure about UK, but I suspect they are very similar there), for example this article in GQ http://www.gq.com/food-travel/restaurants-and-bars/201211/fo.... In this instance, they are making recommendations to you from a position of authority, even though it comes from a position of selling ad space and delivering the ads as content. If you go to slide 3, you will see peppermint bark stuff "for the chocolate connoisseur", which is about as far as away from a chocolate connoisseur as I can think of, conveniently with a price right there.

Another good example is celebrity magazines that just happen to drop the name of a designer that a particular celebrity is wearing.

Keep in mind, I use adblock (edit: and noscript and ghostery) and these adverts still come up.

hahahanononono• 14 years ago

I was using an adblocker until a SaaS provider that shall not be named asked me to stop using it so their product could work correctly, the internet has sucked since then.

elfsternberg• 14 years ago

Adblocker? No. Flashblocker? Yes. If advertisers start to rely heavily on JS-based animation to get my attention, I can't guarantee that I'll be able to support the websites that carry their advertising.

kalleboo• 14 years ago

No, but I'm considering installing one and enabling it only on YouTube. Those are the only ones that actually annoy me.

gojomo• 14 years ago

Not a specific ad blocker, but:

• I do most browsing in Firefox, with no Flash plug-in installed, and NoScript (with gradual whitelisting of individual sites as needed).

• For a few sites, or Flash, I switch to Chrome with its sandboxed and rapidly-patched Flash plug-in, and even there Flash is set 'click to enable' on all but a few sites (eg: YouTube).

So lots of ads don't appear.

I do this for security and performance, not out of any resentment of ads.

josephlord• 14 years ago

I voted Yes because I do about the same. Using NoScript basically blocks the ads although my intent is to control the scripts that get run and to reduce the extent to which I'm tracked across the web.

If someone wants to show a static image or text ad on from their domain without too much tracking I will see it.

I also switch to Chrome when Flash is required for exactly the same reason. Chrome also gets used for sites I really don't trust and especially don't want tracking me across the web, particularly LinkedIn and Facebook.

4ad2• 14 years ago

I'm a strange person. I don't use an ad blocker because I despise browser extensions on an ideological basis, but I also hate ads, so I avoid sites where I can see them. When I used Opera, I used to use the built-in ad blocker though.

happimess• 14 years ago

I have to ask: what is your ideological objection to browser extensions?

4ad2• 14 years ago

I don't like customized environments. When I used Opera, I didn't have to configure anything, I liked the defaults and I liked that each instance of Opera, anywhere, was the same. Browser extensions make each browser instance unique. (For the same reason I don't like heavily customized vi/emacs/unix environments).

I also view browser extensions as something that ameliorates the perceived defect, rather than fixing the systemic cause of the problem. I think that browsers should come with ad blockers by default, and if I install one myself I'm always reminded that browsers are not like I feel they should be.

As a programmer, I like clean, small interfaces and good software architecture. My opinion is that putting ad blockers on top of the browser is bad design. I feel like filters like this should stay behind the browser. The fact that browser extensions are browser specific reminds me that extensions don't use a clean, composable, generic interface, but a browser-specific, ad-hoc one. I don't like that.

I install very little software, only what I really need. I chose my software carefully. The decision to install a browser extension is more costly to me than the decision to install a particular browser. I don't necessarily think the people writing the extension are as competent as the people who write the browser, and even if they are, they are more people for me to depend upon. I did try browser exitensions, once, and I learned not to trust their release cycle.

It's all extremely subjective.

ww5202• 14 years ago

I'm curious, too. What is your ideological opposition to browser extensions?

lukeholder• 14 years ago

Yes I do, here is a link to my daily tools: https://gist.github.com/4200994

xefer• 14 years ago

Someone should mske an ad blocker that downloads the ads but doesn't actually display them. Everybody wins!

olalonde2• 14 years ago

> Everybody wins!

Except the advertisers.

sdfjkl• 14 years ago

I block ads, load plugins (Flash) only on click and replace the YouTube player with direct embeds of the video stream (no ads/UI/overlays/other nonsense). Then there's User CSS for a few sites and Greasemonkey to force autocomplete=on because you're not allowed to disable useful things in my browser for no good reason. A select few sites also get their HTML edited on the fly (using GlimmerBlocker).

That's what it takes these days to make the Web not annoy me. Mind you, it's not really the fact that there is advertising that bothers me, I'm just offended by how dumb most of it is. Plus, it makes sites a lot easier to look at.

olalonde2• 14 years ago

Wow, I'm really amazed that so many people are using an Adblocker given that this community is supposed to be about web startups. Isn't that a bit hypocritical?

timskinner• 14 years ago

I block ads, even for sites that I like. For sites that I like which choose to give me the opportunity, I'm happy to pay a monthly or yearly fee in exchange for the ability to disable ads- for sites that don't offer that option (or where I don't feel that I derive enough value from the site to justify the minimum cost) then I assume the organization running the site has evaluated the costs and potential revenue and decided that subsidizing users who choose to not to view ads with the revenue generated by ad-viewers is preferable to setting up a system to allow me to pay for ad-free content. If I'm unable to view a site without ads, then I will simply not view that site.

I apply this philosophy to all parts of my life. I'm happy to pay for a television show on Amazon, or subscribe to netflix, because I am able to watch the shows without commercials. For shows that were not available this way, I used to use hulu because adblock plus would block the advertisements. Recently adblock plus no longer blocks the ads on hulu (this is probably a filter list mis-configuration on my part) so I stopped watching those shows altogether.

There is a great deal of content that I enjoy, and I like to see content creators get reimbursed for what they produce, but there's no content IMHO that is worth subjecting myself to the psychological manipulation of ads.

markkudlac• 14 years ago

Yes and I am also developing a site that makes display ads searchable and displays only ads. www.adladl.com . This makes debugging challenging.

ww5202• 14 years ago

One of the main reasons I use Firefox instead of Chrome. Youtude without the overlaying ads is a much better experience.

DanBC• 14 years ago

I don't run an adblocker.

I'm pretty tolerant of ads. There are a few ads that will cause me to never visit a site again. I'm gently concerned about malware being served via ads.

I'd prefer to pay a site for good content and have the option to remove ads.

AlexMuir4• 14 years ago

Assuming this poll got flagged down into oblivion. Pity as there was interesting debate here.

jisaacstone• 14 years ago

I use ghostery because all I really care about is tracking. 99% of the time ads themselves are not an issue.

dominicf• 14 years ago

Yes. Mainly because I can't stand ads with animation.

nightson• 14 years ago

Proxomitron/Ad Muncher

unkoman• 14 years ago

I use an ad-blocker but disable it for sites that both (1) ask me too and (2) are good enough.

ofutur• 14 years ago

I usually have no time to waste to view ads polluting my (mobile) browser. I do my own research when I'm looking for a product/service.

AndrewDucker• 14 years ago

If there was a setting for AdBlockPlus that only blocked non-text ads I'd switch to that in an instant. I don't mind supporting sites that have ads - but I'm not going to put up with flashing, moving, overlaying items when I'm trying to read some text.

ciferkey• 14 years ago

Yes, I run it with Ghostery as well.

dano• 14 years ago

yes

spobo• 14 years ago

Yes. Except for okcupid. They pleaded with me via an ad of theirs (which was locally so it wasn't flagged by adblock) telling me that they rely on ads for income. They also said that I coud just pay 5 or 10$ and pay for my use for life. Which was a pretty cool thing to do :)

Ads should be quality checked by the site's owners. A crappy ad can turn away a visitor. At least I don't run the risk of that.

Elzarynn• 14 years ago

I run Adblocker Plus from Chrome, but I keep it disabled unless the site in question gets WAY too intrusive. I keep it disabled for at-home content creators, like bloggers or blip.tv channels. People who work hard on something and get no other form of compensation for it SHOULD get add revenue.

Something like Disney.com, though, where there are about a zillion ads for cruises I will never go on, can kiss my taint. Ditto for ads that are loud, distracting videos on the sidebar, or ads that crash my poor little netbook (yes, there have been a few. My laptop is a fragile flower).

Poll: Do you use an Adblocker?

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