Those Pesky Ads

There are some programs like one by Norton that will do it for most.

Thing is, they can't catch them all and have an easier time blocking the regular ones.

The freeloading users who block ads and break the implicit contract for free content only help drive publishers to more instrusive creatives.

IMO, it's very unethical to use a site and block the ads. The only reason it's free is because of them. The number of users who are blocking ads is increasing, and all it will do is force more intrusive advertising and fewer free content sites on the internet.

Ads
I see it like Eudora-- if you want to get Eudora free, fine-- but you have to put up with the intrusive and irritating ads. If you pay for the software, the ads are no more. Seems fair to me.

IMO

ailsa

But in that analogy you are paying the company. Removing ads means you pay one company and stiff all the others.

It's not like TV, where you can change the chanel and your viewing costs nothing. Each and every time you visit a page you cost that website money.

To pay another company to deny them their revenue isn't going to faily compensate that publisher. He'll simply have to resort to more instrusive advertising or he will have to close down.

The net has a lot of free content, and sadly things like adblockers will soon make a significant portion of it disappear.

There's an implicit ethical contract when you are visiting a free website that is financed by ads.

You get free content so that they can display their ads. It's not free for the publisher to deliver the content to you. It costs them money.

If the ads bother you IMO it should bother you enough to not use the web sites. Using it is to use their money and to block their ads is to use their money and block their revenue.

I hate the kind of creative you are talking about. I'd probably never use them. But they exist partially because of the freeloaders who block the less intrusive ones.

It's a vicious cycle, intrusive ads spawn users who want to block them which denies publisher revenue which spawns more intrusive ads.

Ultimately the big loser is going to be free content because the bottom line is that there is a bottom line for the publishers. Every time you visit you spend their money. Paying for a program to help you to deny their revenue doesn't solve it. You're still stiffing them and drinking on the house.

thanks for your help
Many thanks for your help.

Doh, I'm sorry for preaching to ya.

The truth is that the very type of ad using you describe is very hard for a program to block without disabling many site functions.

The size can be variable because it occupies no fized real estate and the reason popup blockers can't block it is because it's not a window, it's a dynamic layer.

So you can block it by blocking client side scripting (e.g. turn JavaScript off) but that would impair a lot of things you'll count on (e.g. dynamic menus).

There's no really easy solution, that kind of ad is hard to block, and the software will naturally have a hard time doing it.

I suppose this isn't too helpful either but those floating ads can't always be blocked without measures that are agressive enough to harm your user experience.