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I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. Maybe if (1) fewer ads pumped up CPU and memory usage for a page, and (2) companies didn't give the

I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. Maybe if (1) fewer ads pumped up CPU and memory usage for a page, and (2) companies didn't give their non-technical asshole free reign over placing scripts on the page, then maybe many of these sites wouldn't be so bad to visit without an ad blocker.

PrimHelios 9y ago
Animated ads actually give me sensory overload. If a site could promise non-moving ads, I'd gladly whitelist them. It's amazing how many sites think you'll just accept incredibly intrusive and annoying banners.
- itronitron 9y ago
  I feel like we are reaching the 'end of days' as the actual informative content on a site is typically less than 20% of the visual information on a page. I have adjusted my browsing habits to avoid sites which may be visually offensive to my sensibilities, bog down my cpu, or hang my browser. That isn't necessarily a bad thing (for me) but it certainly seems counterproductive to the site owners' goals.
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  I used to whitelist all webcomics I read, then one served malicious flash and another started aggressive mobile redirects to advertisement pages Now I just siphon the images into a rss feed. If they want my eyeball they better start putting up banners like they used to. Active content can fuck right off.
- godelski 9y ago
  Or the ads with sounds. Even just auto starting videos. News sites are bad at this.
- scaryclam 9y ago
  I'll tend to whitelist sites that I find useful, but the moment a distracting ad shows, the ad blocker goes back on. I understand the reason some sites rely on ad revenue, and I sympathise when theyre not given a chance, but if they can't be civil to their users then I see no reason for their users to put up with it.
- matwood 9y ago
  Or video ads. WTF. Those sites I just close and never return. Some sites I use a lot, I have enabled ads just to be friendly to the site. These sites also seem to have mostly acceptable ads, so it's not intrusive.
frozenport 9y ago
(3) Seniors click on preditory links served by Google AdSense
paulryanrogers 9y ago
"I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable" What sites are unusable? Aside from some click-bait destinations like BuzzFeed I've found the web without ad blockers works well enough.
- a012 9y ago
  Do you read news at their websites frequently? at least I enable adblock to stop their autoplay videos. It's pretty bad sometimes.
- zlynx 9y ago
  Most web sites seem to work well enough. But the real killer is on mobile devices like laptops. After the recent Firefox update I had to run without Noscript for a while, until it got updated. My laptop battery really took a hit. Loading web comics in 70 tabs or so took battery life estimates down to an hour. With Noscript running and blocking most advertising Javascript the estimate stays up at 3.5 hours.
  - Pica_soO 9y ago
    You didnt get the advertisement for the free replacement battery?
- bunderbunder 9y ago
  I have (relatively) low-speed, inexpensive Internet service at home. For me, ads can have a pretty big impact on page load times.
- ljk 9y ago
  most local news websites are loaded with 30+ scripts running in the background
  - visarga 9y ago
    Local news are a cesspool in my country. Ads all over, floating layers that slide in when you scroll, covering the main article, requests for automated browser notifications, and the text itself is just 10% of the page and quite hard to find sometimes. It can be a whole page of ads with just one phrase of actual content. Sometimes the whole thing is a bait and switch - things like "Incredible, find out what happened to this starlet with amazing butt".... after 5-6 phrases that don't say anything about it we find out "... she's crying because her grandma died" (real story). Fucking bait and switch gutter news. But Adblock can't solve that. I don't think a laptop can be normally used to browse these news sites without Adblock, and sometimes at all.
paulcole 9y ago
>I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. This is extremely hyperbolic. Why not just, you know, not visit those websites if their business model is so abhorrent to you? Do you feel entitled to something for nothing?
- themistocle 9y ago
  When reading we’re free to skip and skim. Vinyl, VHS, Cassette, CD, and DVD allow us to seek or rewind as we like. When I buy a PC, I can install any software I choose to. When browsing the web, I can accept or reject any served content. That’s not entitlement. Entitlement is the sentiment that users somehow owe advertising or web firms anything.
  - predakanga 9y ago
    Not seeking to invalidate your point, but DVDs and Blurays can stop you from fast forwarding, most famously for the FBI anti-copying warning. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_operation_prohibition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_operation_prohibition
    - themistocle 9y ago
      Wow, I never knew that. Reminds me of some recent moves to prevent skipping ads on streaming video.
    - Simon_says 9y ago
      Thanks for the blast from the past. I haven't watched any non-pirated media for 10 years. It's a superior experience.
  - berbec 9y ago
    Ever notice Candy Crush and Minecraft getting installed by Microsoft during Windows Updates?
- dghughes 9y ago
  After seeing the same damn advertisement 100 times what is the point? It becomes tedious and pointless for me and the advertiser. So I block ads.
joering2 9y ago
It wasn't that it was slow for me; I got i9 with 64 ram and things speed up tremendously from my last i7... the huge problem is insecurity! Lots of website have no control over what ads are popping up! Drudge Report is probably the most frightening! All the time popups of "outdated" Adobe Flash (that I dont have at all), installation of recent updates of Windows 7 (even tho Im on Win 10)... recently I had some sort of ajax script that actually literally installed extension in Chrome (!!) I believe somehow my mouse was hijacked to perform a click action. Unbelievable! Im fine with Ads so long as someone is properly vetting!!
- PhantomGremlin 9y ago
  Drudge Report is probably the most frightening! That particular site is highly functional without allowing any JavaScript at all. All links work. All non-advertising images load. By default I just don't allow JS. Thank you NoScript. Many sites that won't display anything without JS can be viewed by View -> Page Style -> No Style.
  - SilasX 9y ago
    This x1000. Any site can circumvent ad blockers by just doing ads like Drudge. So if they want, they can always show ads. The problem is that they want to do more.
    - SilasX 9y ago
      Wait, I shouldn’t have been upvoted there. You said non advertising images. But I think the ads would be shown if self hosted so it’s still possible.
saguro 9y ago
I use an ad blocker for a much simpler reason. I do not consent to having my behavior analyzed. Calling these things `ads` is deliberately misleading. The primary purpose of these things isn't to show you an ad, its to record everything you do on every site you visit, so then that data can be correlated to your credit history and other real world sources to profile you and optimally manipulate your behavior to sell you shit. Just wondering how many people here noticed that pornhub injects google analytics, and gives google unscrutinized access to your sexual preferences and habits? They don't even bother showing a google ad, they just let them inject their arbitrary js payload. I do not consent. They can fuck right off.
- duncan-donuts 9y ago
  I hate to be that guy, but I'm going to guess you probably _do_ consent just by accessing certain sites. I'm sure if you read the terms they disclose that. I'm not saying that's right, and I also have a similar stance of trying not to be profiled, but don't delude yourself thinking your ad blocker is stopping organizations from gathering your metadata.
  - baddox 9y ago
    It is literally nonsensical to tell someone who is explicitly not consenting that they are in fact implicitly consenting.
    - ascorbic 9y ago
      If you are explicitly not consenting, then surely the correct way to do this is to not visit the site. If I go to a shop and want a product but don't like the price I am within my rights to refuse the contract and not buy the item. What I am not entitled to do is unilaterally change the contract, and walk out with the item without paying full price. I use an ad blocker because so many sites are barely usable without it, but I don't pretend it's a morally justifiable thing to do, and I try to disable it for sites that I use a lot, unless I pay for them.
      - 9y ago
whoopdedo 9y ago
I probably will never not use an ad blocker just because that's my form of white-collar anarchism. But I tell everyone in my family to also use them and that will not change until ad vendors do a better job vetting the quality of the ads they sell. That means no deceptive "buttons", claims that "your computer is infected", or "people in _insert_geolocated_city_" type deceptive ads. And if the site owners complain about lost money, well it's your fault for cooperating with these con artists. If you can't promise that my grandmother won't be tricked into downloading malware when she visits your site then you don't deserve to earn anything from her.
godelski 9y ago
I use an ad blocker because it is basic security.
empath75 9y ago
I don’t have any philosophical objection to advertising or even tracking, really, but ads have gotten so bad that they destroy user experience and make it impossible to read the sites I want to read. If advertisers would agree to some behavior standards, I’d happily re-enable ads. Somebody has to pay for content.

PrimHelios 9y ago

Animated ads actually give me sensory overload. If a site could promise non-moving ads, I'd gladly whitelist them. It's amazing how many sites think you'll just accept incredibly intrusive and annoying banners.

itronitron 9y ago
I feel like we are reaching the 'end of days' as the actual informative content on a site is typically less than 20% of the visual information on a page. I have adjusted my browsing habits to avoid sites which may be visually offensive to my sensibilities, bog down my cpu, or hang my browser. That isn't necessarily a bad thing (for me) but it certainly seems counterproductive to the site owners' goals.
LoSboccacc 9y ago
I used to whitelist all webcomics I read, then one served malicious flash and another started aggressive mobile redirects to advertisement pages Now I just siphon the images into a rss feed. If they want my eyeball they better start putting up banners like they used to. Active content can fuck right off.
godelski 9y ago
Or the ads with sounds. Even just auto starting videos. News sites are bad at this.
scaryclam 9y ago
I'll tend to whitelist sites that I find useful, but the moment a distracting ad shows, the ad blocker goes back on. I understand the reason some sites rely on ad revenue, and I sympathise when theyre not given a chance, but if they can't be civil to their users then I see no reason for their users to put up with it.
matwood 9y ago
Or video ads. WTF. Those sites I just close and never return. Some sites I use a lot, I have enabled ads just to be friendly to the site. These sites also seem to have mostly acceptable ads, so it's not intrusive.

frozenport 9y ago

(3) Seniors click on preditory links served by Google AdSense

paulryanrogers 9y ago

"I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable" What sites are unusable? Aside from some click-bait destinations like BuzzFeed I've found the web without ad blockers works well enough.

a012 9y ago
Do you read news at their websites frequently? at least I enable adblock to stop their autoplay videos. It's pretty bad sometimes.
zlynx 9y ago
Most web sites seem to work well enough. But the real killer is on mobile devices like laptops. After the recent Firefox update I had to run without Noscript for a while, until it got updated. My laptop battery really took a hit. Loading web comics in 70 tabs or so took battery life estimates down to an hour. With Noscript running and blocking most advertising Javascript the estimate stays up at 3.5 hours.
- Pica_soO 9y ago
  You didnt get the advertisement for the free replacement battery?
bunderbunder 9y ago
I have (relatively) low-speed, inexpensive Internet service at home. For me, ads can have a pretty big impact on page load times.
ljk 9y ago
most local news websites are loaded with 30+ scripts running in the background
- visarga 9y ago
  Local news are a cesspool in my country. Ads all over, floating layers that slide in when you scroll, covering the main article, requests for automated browser notifications, and the text itself is just 10% of the page and quite hard to find sometimes. It can be a whole page of ads with just one phrase of actual content. Sometimes the whole thing is a bait and switch - things like "Incredible, find out what happened to this starlet with amazing butt".... after 5-6 phrases that don't say anything about it we find out "... she's crying because her grandma died" (real story). Fucking bait and switch gutter news. But Adblock can't solve that. I don't think a laptop can be normally used to browse these news sites without Adblock, and sometimes at all.

paulcole 9y ago

>I use an ad blocker, because otherwise the web is unusable. This is extremely hyperbolic. Why not just, you know, not visit those websites if their business model is so abhorrent to you? Do you feel entitled to something for nothing?

themistocle 9y ago
When reading we’re free to skip and skim. Vinyl, VHS, Cassette, CD, and DVD allow us to seek or rewind as we like. When I buy a PC, I can install any software I choose to. When browsing the web, I can accept or reject any served content. That’s not entitlement. Entitlement is the sentiment that users somehow owe advertising or web firms anything.
- predakanga 9y ago
  Not seeking to invalidate your point, but DVDs and Blurays can stop you from fast forwarding, most famously for the FBI anti-copying warning. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_operation_prohibition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_operation_prohibition
  - themistocle 9y ago
    Wow, I never knew that. Reminds me of some recent moves to prevent skipping ads on streaming video.
  - Simon_says 9y ago
    Thanks for the blast from the past. I haven't watched any non-pirated media for 10 years. It's a superior experience.
- berbec 9y ago
  Ever notice Candy Crush and Minecraft getting installed by Microsoft during Windows Updates?
dghughes 9y ago
After seeing the same damn advertisement 100 times what is the point? It becomes tedious and pointless for me and the advertiser. So I block ads.

joering2 9y ago

It wasn't that it was slow for me; I got i9 with 64 ram and things speed up tremendously from my last i7... the huge problem is insecurity! Lots of website have no control over what ads are popping up! Drudge Report is probably the most frightening! All the time popups of "outdated" Adobe Flash (that I dont have at all), installation of recent updates of Windows 7 (even tho Im on Win 10)... recently I had some sort of ajax script that actually literally installed extension in Chrome (!!) I believe somehow my mouse was hijacked to perform a click action. Unbelievable! Im fine with Ads so long as someone is properly vetting!!

PhantomGremlin 9y ago
Drudge Report is probably the most frightening! That particular site is highly functional without allowing any JavaScript at all. All links work. All non-advertising images load. By default I just don't allow JS. Thank you NoScript. Many sites that won't display anything without JS can be viewed by View -> Page Style -> No Style.
- SilasX 9y ago
  This x1000. Any site can circumvent ad blockers by just doing ads like Drudge. So if they want, they can always show ads. The problem is that they want to do more.
  - SilasX 9y ago
    Wait, I shouldn’t have been upvoted there. You said non advertising images. But I think the ads would be shown if self hosted so it’s still possible.

saguro 9y ago

I use an ad blocker for a much simpler reason. I do not consent to having my behavior analyzed. Calling these things `ads` is deliberately misleading. The primary purpose of these things isn't to show you an ad, its to record everything you do on every site you visit, so then that data can be correlated to your credit history and other real world sources to profile you and optimally manipulate your behavior to sell you shit. Just wondering how many people here noticed that pornhub injects google analytics, and gives google unscrutinized access to your sexual preferences and habits? They don't even bother showing a google ad, they just let them inject their arbitrary js payload. I do not consent. They can fuck right off.

duncan-donuts 9y ago
I hate to be that guy, but I'm going to guess you probably _do_ consent just by accessing certain sites. I'm sure if you read the terms they disclose that. I'm not saying that's right, and I also have a similar stance of trying not to be profiled, but don't delude yourself thinking your ad blocker is stopping organizations from gathering your metadata.
- baddox 9y ago
  It is literally nonsensical to tell someone who is explicitly not consenting that they are in fact implicitly consenting.
  - ascorbic 9y ago
    If you are explicitly not consenting, then surely the correct way to do this is to not visit the site. If I go to a shop and want a product but don't like the price I am within my rights to refuse the contract and not buy the item. What I am not entitled to do is unilaterally change the contract, and walk out with the item without paying full price. I use an ad blocker because so many sites are barely usable without it, but I don't pretend it's a morally justifiable thing to do, and I try to disable it for sites that I use a lot, unless I pay for them.
    - 9y ago

whoopdedo 9y ago

I probably will never not use an ad blocker just because that's my form of white-collar anarchism. But I tell everyone in my family to also use them and that will not change until ad vendors do a better job vetting the quality of the ads they sell. That means no deceptive "buttons", claims that "your computer is infected", or "people in _insert_geolocated_city_" type deceptive ads. And if the site owners complain about lost money, well it's your fault for cooperating with these con artists. If you can't promise that my grandmother won't be tricked into downloading malware when she visits your site then you don't deserve to earn anything from her.

godelski 9y ago

I use an ad blocker because it is basic security.

empath75 9y ago

I don’t have any philosophical objection to advertising or even tracking, really, but ads have gotten so bad that they destroy user experience and make it impossible to read the sites I want to read. If advertisers would agree to some behavior standards, I’d happily re-enable ads. Somebody has to pay for content.