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Do you disable adblock when you're not tethering? If AT&T had no bandwidth cap, would you disable adblock? I don't think bandwidth limitations are your true re

Do you disable adblock when you're not tethering? If AT&T had no bandwidth cap, would you disable adblock? I don't think bandwidth limitations are your true reason for blocking ads. Ads are typically a tiny fraction of bandwidth usage. You would have to be very close to your 5GB cap each month for blocking them to make a difference.

hexis 17y ago
"I don't think bandwidth limitations are your true reason for blocking ads." I don't have the ability to downvote comments, so I'd just like to say that accusing someone of being deceptive in such a trivial context with so little evidence is really unbecoming.
- AngryParsley 17y ago
  Actually, I think there's quite a bit of evidence for my claim. Think about it. Apparently, one month the OP approached or exceeded his bandwidth cap. Afterwards he thought, "How can I reduce the amount of bandwidth I consume? I know, block ads!" What an amazing coincidence that his bandwidth-reduction strategy also happens to get rid of annoying ads. And how convenient that he can blame AT&T's bandwidth cap for hurting sites like Ars. I'm not accusing him of deception. I'm accusing him of rationalizing. There are plenty of reasons to block ads. For example, I block ads because I dislike most of them. I know it hurts sites that depend on ad revenue, but I simply don't like ads and I'm too lazy to play around with whitelists and blacklists. I'm lazy and selfish, but I'm not rationalizing.
_delirium 17y ago
From some spot-checking, ads are around 1/2 the bandwidth typically at major websites, not "a tiny fraction". Flash ads are the main culprit, because a single one can be pretty large, so the problem could be partly solved by just blocking Flash ads instead of all ads.
- AngryParsley 17y ago
  I guess I should have explained my point better. Things like streaming video consume a lot more bandwidth than loading web pages. For example, watching Hulu for an hour transfers 200MB if you're using the low-quality 480kbps stream. Google News is about 500KB, so you'd have to load it every 9 seconds for an hour to consume the same amount of bandwidth. A typical page load on Ars Technica is around 100KB, so you'd have to rack up 2000 page views to transfer 200MB.

hexis 17y ago

"I don't think bandwidth limitations are your true reason for blocking ads." I don't have the ability to downvote comments, so I'd just like to say that accusing someone of being deceptive in such a trivial context with so little evidence is really unbecoming.

AngryParsley 17y ago
Actually, I think there's quite a bit of evidence for my claim. Think about it. Apparently, one month the OP approached or exceeded his bandwidth cap. Afterwards he thought, "How can I reduce the amount of bandwidth I consume? I know, block ads!" What an amazing coincidence that his bandwidth-reduction strategy also happens to get rid of annoying ads. And how convenient that he can blame AT&T's bandwidth cap for hurting sites like Ars. I'm not accusing him of deception. I'm accusing him of rationalizing. There are plenty of reasons to block ads. For example, I block ads because I dislike most of them. I know it hurts sites that depend on ad revenue, but I simply don't like ads and I'm too lazy to play around with whitelists and blacklists. I'm lazy and selfish, but I'm not rationalizing.

_delirium 17y ago

From some spot-checking, ads are around 1/2 the bandwidth typically at major websites, not "a tiny fraction". Flash ads are the main culprit, because a single one can be pretty large, so the problem could be partly solved by just blocking Flash ads instead of all ads.

AngryParsley 17y ago
I guess I should have explained my point better. Things like streaming video consume a lot more bandwidth than loading web pages. For example, watching Hulu for an hour transfers 200MB if you're using the low-quality 480kbps stream. Google News is about 500KB, so you'd have to load it every 9 seconds for an hour to consume the same amount of bandwidth. A typical page load on Ars Technica is around 100KB, so you'd have to rack up 2000 page views to transfer 200MB.