The Watercooler: Ad Block and Should You Use It?

[Hexian]

I use AD block on most sites for 2 reasons:

1. Sites where ADs are way over done and shoved down my throat. My favorites are those ones that expand if you simply mouse over them covering up your whole damn page.

2. Douchebags that literally do nothing, but have somehow managed a career by putting up videos on the internet once in a while, begging for viewers, and then putting ADs on top of them.

[caractacus]

Didn't read the entire thread so maybe this was already brought up.
I wish I could find out if people who use Adblock pirate their videogames or not. To me piracy and use of Adblock is the same thing, you want something but don't feel like paying the price to get it. Since so many people on forums I read advocate the use of Adblock but are strictly against piracy the whole deal seams hypocritical to me. A poll to find out how people on mmo-c feel about this would be useful.

I wish sites would filter somehow thee ad's they display, especially those with sound as a few months ago I was getting one of those on mmo-c and felt so tempted to use Adblock but in the end I just spent less time here until that ad disappeared.

Well I for one use adblock and buy all my games, unless they are legitimately free. Comparing video games piracy with using adblock is such a ridiculous thing to say. Next thing you will be saying is that people who walk out of the room to make a cup of tea when the adverts come on the TV are the same a bank robbers.

[Inequs]

I personally use Adblock and I make no apologies for it.
And why ?.
Huge Intrusive and frequently malware infested ads that are a huge security risk, thats why.
Back when ads were small non-intrusive banners it wasn't a problem.
but now scripts buried in more scripts that are capable of launching a barrage of distracting sounds & flashing lights as well as arbitary code execution.

When they become non-intrusive & can be guaranteed to not try dropping a hidden trojan on to my machine, i'll stop blocking them.
until then, my security concerns will always take precedence.

People clearly have a problem with it and refuse to accept that legitimate security concerns should come first.
But to me, it's their problem, not mine.

[Noomz]

I'll keep blocking intrusive, annoying ads. Youtube just happens to have a LOT of those. I'm also very conciouss of the security risk the ads mean on any website.

[klaps_05]

ofc i do, i cant waste time waiting on commercials to end, especially when they are annoying as hell(having all those horribad tunes, the horror).

[FusedMass]

Speaking for myself personally.

I use ad block only because of the insane number of pop up and adds everywhere you go. Some sites even have adds with malware in them. Their is virtually no reason for me to have to watch it. I'm on the internet not watching a program on cable TV.

[Silhouette of Seraphim]

AdBlock everything. There's no reason not to.

My time is more valuable than some shithead living in his parent's basement not working and trying to scum off easy street through playing games on streams all day, or making dumb videos, and ads either get in the way or take time to play, and I'm just plain not interested, and I'm dare I say even less interested in contributing money to them.

"BUT THEY PROVIDE FREE CONTENT!" Good. That's their choice. If they didn't, there's about 10 million others out there that do. Mind you my heart simply bleeds that they need to clear off their no doubt busy schedules to make a video or play Black Ops 2 on Twitch all day, truly.

They want to try and scum off of ads, that's their choice.

I'm not interested in them scumming off of me, that's my choice.

[Markluzz]

They are similar. Just as the people who pirate games would never have given the money to developers anyway, thus negating the idea of theft, the people enjoying content on websites would never have purchased the penis enlargement pills whose advertisements they no longer see, thus negating the concept of theft.

That's the same thing as saying, "I never would have payed McDonalds for their food so I can take food from them without paying and it's not theft because I wouldn't have payed for it anyways."

It's stupid reasoning people use to justify getting things they want but don't want to pay for. People pirating is the whole reason the rest of the internet community has deal with crap like the NDAA, and the reason bills such as SOPA/PIPA were even considered.

---------- Post added 2013-02-23 at 06:48 PM ----------

AdBlock everything. There's no reason not to.

My time is more valuable than some shithead living in his parent's basement not working and trying to scum off easy street through playing games on streams all day, or making dumb videos, and ads either get in the way or take time to play, and I'm just plain not interested, and I'm dare I say even less interested in contributing money to them.

"BUT THEY PROVIDE FREE CONTENT!" Good. That's their choice. If they didn't, there's about 10 million others out there that do. Mind you my heart simply bleeds that they need to clear off their no doubt busy schedules to make a video or play Black Ops 2 on Twitch all day, truly.

They want to try and scum off of ads, that's their choice.

I'm not interested in them scumming off of me, that's my choice.

There are plenty of youtubers who don't make their living by "Playing video games all day.", and the gamers on YouTube that provide good (as well as edited which takes a lot of time) quality and consistent content are the ones who are making money off it (WoWCrendor, HuskyStarcraft, etc.). Streaming really doesn't make you to much money, not enough to live off anyway, YouTube can, but it requires more effort than streams.

Plus there are plenty of internet users who provide tons of entertaining and/or informative/educational content for free on YouTube and do deserve their pay. The ones who make a decent living from online content 99% of the time deserve their living and put in just as much time making the content as a normal person would in an average job.

[melodramocracy]

My time is more valuable

Unless you're providing us with some service that we find beneficial, your time isn't actually worth anything.

Again, economics neither function or exist in a vacuum. And you have a very narrow and misinformed scope of what advertisements are used for, and by whom.

[Deleted]

you know, i was browsing mmo-c on my tablet last night, which i dont have adblock on, and i found another reason they annoy me. the whole page laods, and then a few seconds after the adds load up and push other bits of the page around, kept making me click on wrong links when i would go to press something then suddenly everything shifted down because some ad decided to take up the top part of the page.

[Silhouette of Seraphim]

Unless you're providing us with some service that we find beneficial, your time isn't actually worth anything.

Perhaps you misunderstood.

It's more important to me, and that's what matters.

[Punisher069]

I have had malware issues from ads so that is one big reason for me to use adblockers. the other reason is that I do not like ads.

[Markluzz]

you know, i was browsing mmo-c on my tablet last night, which i dont have adblock on, and i found another reason they annoy me. the whole page laods, and then a few seconds after the adds load up and push other bits of the page around, kept making me click on wrong links when i would go to press something then suddenly everything shifted down because some ad decided to take up the top part of the page.

Yeah that happens to me on the tablet and it's annoying but is fairly non-existent on my computer (however I do use ad block except limitedly, I keep websites white listed and if the website bombards me with ads I blacklist it and cancel all the ads on it, this way I am supporting the websites that keep adds as little boxes on the side of my screen I rarely notice)

And one other thing, people say they never buy the product of the ads because they are all scams, but some ads are beneficial such as when I went on rottentomatoes there was an ad about Les Miserables coming out on blu-ray March 22, and since I enjoyed the movie Les Miserables I simply thought, "Oh, ok, i'll go out and buy it once it comes out."

I do agree many ads are stupid and I would never buy what they are selling, but there are many others that are effective and simply are there to inform you a product you may like is coming out. (similar to how there are MMO, Blizzard, and Game ads on MMO-Champion because it is catering to the audience).

Smart ads are productive for the consumer and the advertiser, and badly placed ads don't make the advertisers any money because they did a poor job. But don't make the mistake of calling all advertisers bad advertisers, good advertisers can make ads that people want to see (such as when I go to the movies the movie trailers before are examples of good advertising and work well).

[Redmage]

I use an adblock, but whitelist sites that i think deserve it (which is most of them).

Unless they have really invasive annoying ads, then i don't care and block them anyway.

[K i s u]

I use adblock, though for those whose content I genuinely enjoy I will disable it.

[oplawlz]

That's the same thing as saying, "I never would have payed McDonalds for their food so I can take food from them without paying and it's not theft because I wouldn't have payed for it anyways."

Actually it's absolutely nothing like that, because by stealing food from mcdonald's one is depriving them of a product which they might have sold to someone else. Nothing is lost if someone reads a book from a library, or borrows your latest issue of Sheeple magazine --- those are more accurate examples.

[Twoddle]

I use an adblock, but whitelist sites that i think deserve it (which is most of them).

Unless they have really invasive annoying ads, then i don't care and block them anyway.

Why do that if you never buy anything through them or even click them?

[ewhenn]

I leave ads on all webpages.... until you start putting scroll-overs and junk on your pages, then off to adblock land you go.

[Ave07]

I use ad block, I see enough ads on tv.

[Sykol]

I use it on all sites. I never used to, until certain sites started using retarded animated banner ads with full CGI and random sound effects or music that you can't quite get to turn off and stay off. I skip ads on TV and I'll be damned if the place I start putting up with them is on the goddamned internet.