Stop, Thief! Why Using an Ad Blocker Is Stealing

[beoza]

While we're on the subject of blocking ads lets add all those people who have bad eye sight and have the screen zoomed in just so they can see the website more easily. Now your tiny ad is even larger and blocking parts of the page even more than it would for a user who has normal 20/20 vision. Lets talk about the new popups that like to dim the background and be in your face. Or ads that move when you scroll down the page as you do. Blocking these is stealing!? You're interfering with the ability of those with less than 20/20 vision to view the content on their favorite sites. My mother needs to use bifocals even when on the computer. She has the screen zoomed in a bit, and without adblock installed the sites she visits there is even less room to view the content she's really interested in, not to mention making her computer slower than it already is. Blocking ads is not as cut and dry as the op ed makes it out to be. Ads are intrusive and have gotten worse in the last 5-10 years. Users are fighting back the only way they can...by blocking the ads. Hulu tries all the time to get me to turn off ABP, I just leave it on and wait for the show to resume; since they never listen to my responses to "does this pertain to you?" I swear I saw the same commercial 6 times in a row even though I told it no it's not relevant to me!

 

[atwspoon]

I support a few websites that I visit often, the rest are blocked until the internet cleans up ads.
I have these websites on the whitelist (racist) for adblocker plus:
tomshardware.com
newegg.com
fafsa.ed.gov
style-productions.net
avsforum.com
head-fi.com

 

[JackC8]

One site I visit often tells me that I should support it by disabling my ad blocker. So being a nice guy, I did. Pages went from loading instantly to, well...it was like I was back in the dialup modem days.

Adblocker went back on.

 

[Chipi]

While reading this article, top-most advertisement says "Recommended solution: download the official driver update and repair utility"

Really Tom's? How am I the one stealing? How is Adblock the one threatening?
That ad is the only threat I've seen all day, and it came from you, Tom's.


Question: Have you even tried to get white-listed before writing this article? You know, in order to provide us with a reliable, first-hand figure instead of "According to one report".

 

[fadeese]

As a followup, no longer on the whitelist and in fact taking the shortcut off my bar. Reloaded page w/ adblocker enabled --> 29 ads on main page and 27 here just to be called a thief... no thanks! So many other sites out there that will appreciate a new viewer without referring to me as "stealing food from their kids mouths".

This editorial writer just lost you a 4 to 5 yr viewer, and I hope others follow.

 

[BYUSinger84]

Sorry, but while I kind of get what you are trying to say, I don't agree with you that it is stealing. It's not. I NEVER will ever click on an ad. Ever. And if the price is that the website goes under, that's ok. There will always be someone else. That's the beautiful thing about a free and open internet.

 

[Caanis Lupus]

By writing article about ad block, you are hurting yourselves. People will google it and see the light. And do not try to make the users the bad guys. It is the advertisement companies that terrorized us for years. This is just retaliation.

Not retaliation, self defense.

 

[EWDB]

I love the articles and forums on the Tom's sites but the adds drive me nuts, I would rather pay to use this site and have an add free version. In fact I often turn on add blocker for this site!
As for other adverts I understand the need for them but I wish they were more tailored to my interests.
But regardless there are so may online adds now that I often boycott the adds, so on the rear occasion I see something interesting I type the search terms into the browser and refuse to click the add. There are so many and so many bogus adds, whats worse I have found that some "respectable" sites (news papers etc) have adds that link to terrible places.

 

[Todd VanDussen]

When I get so annoyed with your website and its methods of delivery that I stop going to it, THAT is when you lose money/market share. I have been happily blocking ads for years using a Firefox extension. Full page ads that I have to sit through for 15-30 seconds before I can exit them are a huge annoyance and a waste of everyone's time. They cannot and will not influence my buying decisions positively when I'm that annoyed. Animated banner ads that are glitchy and cause slowdowns and plug-in crashes are a security issue, especially when they are connecting to external servers to display the ads, which most websites do. People on limited data plans are unknowingly consuming more data than is really needed in order to get the content they are really after, so it drives up data usage and bandwidth charges, while the providers complain about high usage customers unfairly driving up costs for low and moderate usage customers. I repair computers for a living, and monitor internet usage for businesses, and based on what I see I would estimate that 1/4 of "typical" browsing bandwidth consumption is useless ads that the end user doesn't even notice or see or care about.

As far as mobile goes, using Chrome or Dolphin on Android, I have personally seen pages fully load several times, only to be blocked by a full page black screen that "should be" an ad but never loads. With glitches in poorly scripted websites and ads, the X in the corner doesn't even appear, and the only way to get out of the hung app is to hit back, then go forward again. It you're lucky, the ad either won't attempt to load the second time around, or will load correctly so it can be exited. If the game and other app developers can integrate ads perfectly (for the most part) into their apps, why will the ads integrated into websites glitch or hang or freeze or cause browser issues? I welcome any technology that allows me to view ONLY what I want on my devices. If you say this takes away from your child's dinner table, then I say to you, learn your lesson from it and do things differently.

 

[skit75]

While this Op-Ed will draw a lot of click-thru, I can't imagine any sympathy being drawn from a community constantly bombarded by advertising. They really did bring it on themselves. The text landmines and pop-ups being the worst. Author's name has been noted.

 

[Brian_R170]

Nope it was never a possibility at all. Advertisers are the lowest form of life on the planet and have been a waste of food for over a hundred years. I wish I COULD deprive them of food and drive them into some field that wasn't a complete waste of bandwidth, time, and money. Even lawyers have more usefulness and value to society than advertisers.

Given Mr Piltch's opinion on advertising, his children will most likely grow up to be in the advertising industry, so maybe using adblocker here solves two problems at once.

 

[Pherule]

Dear article author:

"Even worse, every time you use one of these services, you're enabling an extortion racket where ad-blocking companies charge content providers money to let their ads through the filter."
You are full of BS. This article is either one massive load of ignorance, or you are just a troll. Even Adblock Plus allows you to uncheck "unobtrusive"ads.

Dear readers:

If you are using Adblock Plus, stop. You are wallowing in ignorance. Allow me to introduce a far superior alternative:
https/addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

https/chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en

https/addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/ublock/?display=en

 

[atwspoon]

Aren't ads more like the option to donate to a website? The website gives me free content, and in an unspoken agreement, I should feel obliged to click an ad, knowing it helps the website out. However I never click the ad because I simply do not want to. Calling someone a thief for not donating is a bit out there. I Whitelisted tomshardware.com a long time ago and I still do not click ads... so am I a rude guest who is overstaying their welcome? Or perhaps am I the guy who is stealing from the cashier's penny tray?

 

[g00fysmiley]

I started using ad block because of Tom's. I kept just wanting to read articles about tech and then would get hte ones (liek the HP one here from my work pc) that make ou sit there for a min blacking out the article before the content can be viewed. sites that do not do this get put on my whitelist. If you want to be there stop allowing full page blocking ads.

 

[v3c7r0n]

So many issues with this article at first I honestly thought this was a joke.

Stealing? Really now. How about protecting my PC from the amount of crap which propagates through ads?

The department of redundancy department - Ads in a nutshell. It's the same crap, over and over and over. No Geico, you will not save me 15% on my car insurance. I know this because I called you to ask about said 15% savings, and you told me you couldn't even match my current rate, let alone beat it by 15%. Oh, and it took a lot more than 15 minutes. So leave me alone. I have a VPN, thanks. I'm aware you exist and of your services GoDaddy, if I need you, I'll call you. I'm happy with my current vehicle, thanks GM, Ford, BMW, etc. If I'm shopping for a vehicle.

Now, I do understand and recognize there are plenty of sites, YouTube channels and whatnot that also get their operating revenue from ad money. And it can be quite profitable. I get it, I truly do, but not when the ads aren't relevant, a risk to my PC, and on top of that, play annoying sound effects.

 

[_rom_]

Silliest thing I ever read. Ads suck. I don't want to see them. If you want me to pay for your content, offer an ad free subscription.

Want to force me to look at ads? Nope, thanks, I rather read other news sites then.

 

[Johnpombrio]

Hmm. When you throw so many ads into one space, it becomes noise. Besides, I simply cannot remember a single ad on a web page that I have clicked on so as far a click thrus is concerned, my surfing habits is a bust. Finally, there are enough users who simply do not know how to add an ad blocker to keep the site running. What is the percentage of people visiting a tech site like this with ad-blocker running.
Oh yeah, another thing. Ads are getting completely OBNOXIOUS!

 

[10tacle]

I have these websites on the whitelist (racist) for adblocker plus:

^^I don't care who you are...that's funny right there.

 

[exroofer]

Don't make the ads a pop-up/separate element of your site. Host them on YOUR OWN SERVER, as part of the site content. Then people can't block them.

Oh wait, you want SOMEONE ELSE, to host said ad, and pay you for having it as a pop up. Well gee, what did you think would happen?

Every ad I block is an attempt to penetrate and infect my computer,. if nothing else by some useless item I have no interest in whatsoever.

Noscript and Adblock Plus, go in about 10 seconds after Firefox on any Windows re install I do for a reason.

Seeing this Op Ed on Tom's is utterly hilarious! People come here who are either tech savvy, or wanting to become tech savvy. And probably have the highest percentage of adblock users of any demographic on the planet.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

However, trying to actively filter ads from websites is stealing.

Absolute horse <mod edit>. Look, let's be completely honest here:

Most ads don't pay per impression, they pay per clickthrough. Now, if you're disgusted enough by all the ads that you install an ad-blocker in the first place, you're not going to click on an ad anyhow, EVER, regardless of whether you had an ad-blocker installed or not.

So, have you (the website or advertiser) lost anything? Nope. Have we 'stolen' anything? Nope. You were never going to get our clickthrough anyhow (except perhaps through deceptive purposes which would automatically put you lower than pond scum), so we have stolen NOTHING from you.