Do you use an adblocker? [Archive]

Kendan

05-05-04, 12:36 AM

Do you use an adblocker? I do not mean popup blocker!!!

Just a simple yes or no. Then read what I have to say and respond after you have voted. Thank you.

Advertising is what pays for sites like overclockers.com and ocforums.com plus most others. Now for the people that use adblockers are you actively donating to sites that you visit frequently or are you just in it for the free ride? As for the people that don't block the ads do you click thru and check out who is supporting your favorite sites? I am just curious as to the opinions of the members here as to how they feel about the system that is in place. ie: Advertising supported sites and the use of adblockers which could threaten the livelyhood of the very sites you like and visit on a daily basis. What say you members of ocforums?

Wicked Klown

05-05-04, 12:40 AM

If I am looking for something then yes I will click on one of the ads if not then no.

Excelsior

05-05-04, 12:46 AM

I have certain annoying type ads blocked, *.doubleclick.net... etc ;P

Other than that I clickon sites if I'm looking for something, if not then no as well.

Voodoo Rufus

05-05-04, 12:47 AM

I block popups, but not ads. Annoying yes, but sometimes ad blockers I've used in the past didn't work right. I do have the newegg OC reference bookmarked though.

secretweapon

05-05-04, 01:02 AM

Nope, i just use google bar to block pop ups. Also use ad-aware to remove spyware.

crimedog

05-05-04, 02:03 AM

i use adsgone to block ads, but only turn it on when i'm looking for something on google, or another thing were i'm likely to get bombarded.

Kendan

05-05-04, 02:12 AM

Originally posted by crimedog
i use adsgone to block ads, but only turn it on when i'm looking for something on google, or another thing were i'm likely to get bombarded.

Do you donate mioney to the sites you visit on a daily basis?

crimedog

05-05-04, 02:19 AM

no.

enduro

05-05-04, 10:23 AM

Hmmm. Well sadly enough, I use AOL, cough cough. Yeah, but I piggy back off of my parents account, and so it costs next to nothing and I get a great connection for dial up. But, AOL comes pre installed with a pop up blocker, but ads still come through every once and a while. I only click on them if they are cool though. For instance, the TigerDirect laptop giveaway or an Alienware giveaway, sweepstakes for computers...... I never click on ads that look cheap or suspicious. Too bad for the poor sites, but that's how I pick and choose.

Kendan

05-05-04, 12:07 PM

Just to clarify, I am not talking about popup blockers. I block those with google toolbar:D

unreal

05-05-04, 02:07 PM

but the sites only get money if you click on the site,, not for showing up and being blocked,,

L337 M33P

05-05-04, 02:57 PM

I use an imported LMHOSTS file (300k :eek:) to block most of the common adservers. Hotmail without ads = :cool:

Also I use Opera's popup blocking on "requested only", and as the hosts file also contains Opera adserver addresses I don't get Opera ads too :)

As for a specific adblocker, no I don't use one.

Cjwinnit

05-05-04, 03:00 PM

Originally posted by L337 M33P
I use an imported LMHOSTS file (300k :eek:) to block most of the common adservers. Hotmail without ads = :cool:

Where did you get that from? I got mine from a thread on another forum who posted it. Mind you, replacing all the IP's from 127.0.0.1 to 192.168.bla.. took Notepad a while, lol :)

Xenocide

05-05-04, 03:11 PM

google bar!

rUfUnKy

05-05-04, 03:25 PM

Originally posted by Kendan
Just to clarify, I am not talking about popup blockers. I block those with google toolbar:D
I probably should have read through before voting yes :o. I do use the "pop up blocker" in ZoneAlarm pro but I do not use the ad blocker.

I understand they are there for a reason. I do click on them once in a while though I rarely buy from anywhere but Newegg. That's why I keep this link handy http://www.newegg.com/index.asp?refer=0vercl0ckers

JigPu

05-05-04, 06:24 PM

Popup blcoker = Yes
Adblocker = No

Though mentally I block every ad that exists, so :D
JigPu

Sophisticated

05-05-04, 06:24 PM

I use Firefox it is one big ad blocker:)

MRD

05-05-04, 10:55 PM

I use Mozilla which has automatic popup blocking.

I also use a hosts file that blocks many common advertisement sites.

I believe the amount of advertising we are deluged with is beyond what would be reasonable, so I block a good chunk of it. Some of it does get through of course, wasting my bandwidth, but I get most of it with a good hosts file.

I have never donated money to a website, though I might do so under certain circumstances. I would rather pay for a site that I use a lot than get bombarded by advertisements. I don't even watch TV anymore because there are just too many commercials. Commercials used to be 5 minutes per hour, now they are 30 minutes per hour. Screw that, I have better things to do with my time than watch all those ads.

rUfUnKy

05-05-04, 11:00 PM

Originally posted by MRD
I don't even watch TV anymore because there are just too many commercials. Commercials used to be 5 minutes per hour, now they are 30 minutes per hour. Screw that, I have better things to do with my time than watch all those ads.
You need to build your self a HTPC or get a TIVO .. Fast forward through those commercials :D. I rarely get stuck watching commercials anymore.

9mmCensor

05-05-04, 11:36 PM

Mozilla blocks my pop ups but other than that no.

L337 M33P

05-06-04, 01:03 PM

Originally posted by Cjwinnit

Where did you get that from? I got mine from a thread on another forum who posted it. Mind you, replacing all the IP's from 127.0.0.1 to 192.168.bla.. took Notepad a while, lol :)

One is the HOSTS file that comes with Spybot S&D, the other is a hosts file I got from

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

tom10167

05-06-04, 08:17 PM

There's a "supertrick" feature in K-Lite that blocks some advertisements, it is enabled, I have never donated to a website.

I don't care about banners or anything really, but the ones that sort of popup(They're flash generally so Google won't get them) annoy the hell out of me. www.weather.com has them. =\

MRD

05-06-04, 10:30 PM

I actually wrote a little C++ utility to merge host files. You just give it your new hosts file, your old one, and it merges and sorts them, throwing out duplicates and telling you how many unique ones you have.

I downloaded a whole bunch of hosts files from the net and merged them all together. Whenever I find a new one, I merge it in. It blocks a great deal of ads.

Malpine Walis

05-08-04, 07:04 PM

Well, I use opera so no popups for me. as for ad blocking it is entirely a mental process unless the ad is especially obnoxious. Like a flash banner with sound for example. if you do it that way, you will eventually never see another banner again.

Excelsior

05-09-04, 12:24 AM

Originally posted by Kendan
Just to clarify, I am not talking about popup blockers. I block those with google toolbar:D

I block those with a little something called FireFox ;) :D

-Excelsior

nil_esh

05-10-04, 10:08 AM

I don't exactly use an adblocker. I use Mozilla Firefox, and block pop-ups of course. And I occasionally block images for ads that annoy me, especially for sites I regularly visit. I also have an entry in my userContent.css that blocks all Flash and allows me to view the Flash only by clicking on it.

I've tried some stylesheets that attempt to block ads, but they have broken to much for them to be useful enough. Most ads don't bother me too much, and I just mentally block them. The Flash ads are the most annoying, but I never have to see those.

It is very rare that I follow an ad link. Although it has happened. I would be likely to click on an ad for a software development tool. I think the ad on overclockers.com for heatsinkfactory.com resulted in me purchasing from them, but it could've been somewhere else. I occasionally click on a Google ad (text ads are much friendlier than banners). But in general, I ignore ads.

As for advertisement as a means of supporting a site -- for the most part, it doesn't seem to be working from what I've heard. At least not enough to cover the costs. The days where you could put ads on your website and rake in money are over. I'd like to hear from the people running the sites, though. Are they even breaking even from the ads alone? A lot of sites offer subscription (for extra features usually) as a means of revenue. Maybe the cost of hosting has gone done so maybe its easier to break even, I dunno.

hrdwrjnkie

05-10-04, 02:23 PM

I use an adblocker, but for the sites that I frequent (mostly ocforums as it is one of the few free sites that I go to) I bookmark an ad link or two. Everything that I buy through newegg goes on overclockers.com's referral. This way the site gets the benefit but I don't have to suffer through the ads.

SewerBeing

05-10-04, 02:33 PM

I block pop ups, but I dont block ads, I have had bad experiences with ad blockers, so I just ignore adds.

PCGUY112887

05-10-04, 06:02 PM

I too block popups, I don't really mind the ads I see on sites, and usually I click the ads for good sites because then I see it register another click (and more cash) the the onwer of the site.

I think that EVERYONE should go start click crazy on ads on the OC Site!

Silversinksam

05-12-04, 04:48 PM

I block everything, but I have exceptions, this site and a couple others I do not filter at all.

I use an OLD version of Adsubtract Pro (2.52) That is not available anymore as the new version of Adsubtract is a joke at best.

rogerdugans

05-12-04, 06:48 PM

Yes, I use an adblocker: Firefox and the firewall I use....
Many banner ads nowadays are hosted on ad servers and not the originated web page server- these can be blocked by a decent firewall.

Yes, I have donated to some websites- or at least to a website.

I do allow some ads and popups to go through however- this site is the only one I currently have configured to let any and all ads/popups in.

JoT

05-14-04, 01:33 PM

I use a combination of adblockers and hosts files to block pretty much everything the web has to offer. The only ads I've ever seen that aren't blocked were the OCForums ads, which I don't think are a nuisance enough to block.

To give you an idea of how thorough my adblocking routine is: I didn't run Adaware or Spybot for 4 weeks, an all-time record for me. But during that time, I had all my blockers and popup-stoppers enabled. I scanned yesterday, and Adaware reported only 6 tracking cookies, nothing more. COOKIES! All in crappy IE, so see what you can do when you load down a crap program with good stuff? :D

SimGuy

05-16-04, 09:42 PM

Adblocker? No.
Pop-up blocker? No. ALT-F4 works well.

turd

05-17-04, 07:46 PM

I do have an ad blocker but I rarely use it. It just sits for those moments when I get annoyed, it blockes flash, etc.

I dont really need it, as far as the "free ride" I dont take no cookies, no referrer, nada. I do put OC com down for my many purchases from newegg, directon, frozenPC, etc. But its often a little more involved then just clicking on the advertisment, often your getting doubleclick or some other such that is tracjing you for marketing.

RangerJoe

05-23-04, 08:24 PM

Opera has a built in ad blocker...so yes

mR. STuPiD

05-24-04, 11:41 PM

Its been an etirnity(sp) since I have last seen an annoying ad on my PC. I don't use an adblocker, just this guys host file (http://webpages.charter.net/hpguru/hosts/hosts.html), adding additions as nessecary. As for donating to sites, I'm too poor, but I do have the OC Newegg link bookmarked, so OC gets some money off of that. Actually, I don't have any of the ads on OC blocked besides the annoying falkag ones. (the shoot the monkey and you get spyware type) Everything else on OC is targeted to the vistitors it gets, and actually leads me to click on them time to time.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, thats a 750kb hosts file. If you use it your going to want to disable the service dnscache or your system will slow to a crawl on login.

Stedeman

05-25-04, 12:04 AM

I only block pop-ups, the embedded ads are fine and I understand there point. But I do tend to mentally block out ads although I use the O/C Forums newegg link every time I go to newegg (I think it started when Skip owned the forums)
I don't know if we still get $ for it but here it is for all you guys who have newegg book marked just switch it to http://www.newegg.com/index.asp?refer=0vercl0ckers to give credit to the forums

Gregory_WE

05-27-04, 09:15 PM

I use Google Toolbar, just for popups... I still get ads for like this forum and stuff, but I rarely click on any of them since most don't interest me at all.

dropadrop

05-28-04, 05:54 AM

I voted yes even though I only add advertisement pumping hosts to my hosts file so that nothing is retrieved from them. Works pretty well on most pages, though I'm starting to consider testing something that would block shockwave and flash as default...

Disputant

05-30-04, 09:20 PM

I don't use an ad-blocker, but I do use a pop-up blocker.

Beginner

01-02-06, 01:05 AM

i dont use an adblocker.

i keep spy/adware at bay with spybot/adaware/spywareblaster.

thegreek

01-02-06, 01:26 AM

I use Ad Muncher and I think it's very good.

Enablingwolf

01-02-06, 01:51 AM

I don't block ads. I just don't see them. I set the blocker to do not display. I like the ad hiding feature in adblock. I am not against generating revenue. I just would not rather see the generators. I still have to remove some of the ad images manually.

One time I did a peek in my rig for (ad)images to remove. I found a picture of a can of Cambell's soup. I kept that one. I found it funny to be on the hard drive.

The really bad ads I outright block.

FeralCom

01-02-06, 03:43 AM

I also use a custom LMHOST file that blocks the most annoying of advertisers.

I haven’t made donations, but I buy 80% of all my gear from Directron using the link on the home page. I don’t know how much that is for Overclockers.com, but Directron has received thousands from me over the years.

tom10167

01-02-06, 03:57 AM

I use something called "supertrick" which was an option in K-Lite, it replaces some, but not many at all ads with the "page can not be found" thing. Works good, doesn't work here, or most sites. I don't need that crap in my temp folders, and not once have I ever clicked on a banner and purchased anything through it.

EDIT: I don't feel the least bit bad for not donating to sites. If you need money, charge, if you don't, don't. I don't donate to museums or to parks, and there's no implied obligation there, it's not much different online.

WingsofGOD

01-02-06, 01:43 PM

How many pages back do you have to look to bring up a year and half old thread?

Elif Tymes

01-04-06, 10:45 PM

I use a web filtering program that is supposed to protect me from "naugthy content"

if I see an ad that is A) distracting or B) crude I merely right click it, say "block http://ad.whatever.net" and walaa, it never shows up again.

TazExtreme3

01-04-06, 11:53 PM

I use an adblocker, but I only block offensive, distracting, or annoying ads

:edit: Wow I just realized how old this thread is.

zexmarquies01

01-05-06, 01:37 PM

nope, i just use popup blocker built into firefox.

yeah, i didn't notice how old this thread was untill wingsofgod mentioned it.

oh well, a good thread is a good thread. be it 1 day old, or 2 years old, or a thread thats 5 years old.

Crana

01-05-06, 02:59 PM

Nope, ads don't affect me at all, i can live with them... its pop-ups that annoy me, and pop-unders! They are even worse :argue: I just use the pop up blockers on FireFox (And my Firewall has one apparantly)

deRusett

01-05-06, 03:18 PM

I use the Google Tool Bar, and The firefox pop up blocker, but not the adblockers.

through I don't even notice most of the ads for the sites I frequent, except the few ads placed directly in the middle of a document, if a Ad is intrusive I make it a point NOT to visit it, even if it is something I am interested in, I will google the company instead of following the ad.

if the ad on the side of the page is interesting or I can see my self being in the Market for the product in the near future I will follow the link when I am bored.

Kevin007

01-05-06, 05:16 PM

I just use Firefox...

jcw122

01-05-06, 06:28 PM

Firefox!

Kendan

01-06-06, 04:22 PM

What does firefox have to do with blocking ads? Yes there are ad blockers for it but by default it does not block ads.

Lionsault_100

01-07-06, 01:44 AM

ghettocomp

01-07-06, 06:45 AM

Ads that normally appear on a web page are no problem at
all. I read what I think will be interesting, the rest I will ignore.
as for pop-ups and the appropriate blockers yes I use one if I
am not shopping for something.

so no I do not use an ad blocker. I have had ads on my web pages
and there were months that they actually did pay for my Intenet
experience. I have long since discontinued ads. The accounts to
maintain them eventually became too much trouble to deal with.

Anjow

01-09-06, 05:53 AM

I use The Proxomitron, Firefox popup blocker, the adblocker extension, a flash blocker and a massive HOSTS file. My machine is like fort knox for graphic adverts.

I do this because there was a day when advertising crossed the line, became invasive and annoying. If a site is worthy of getting some money from my visit, then I'll donate. If a site's adverts somehow manage to get past The Proxomitron then I'll write a new filter for it to get them in the future.

I don't block text ads because they're not annoying.

Interestingly, some company carried out a study about advertising success recently - they took a webpage and put some information in the place where the banners normally would be. They found that almost everyone automatically mentally blocked the advert spaces and couldn't recall any of the information there.

Fr3@k3r

04-23-06, 07:31 AM

yes i use popup, script, ad and page blocker... altho ocforums and the parent site is fully whitelisted.

muddocktor

04-23-06, 08:32 AM

Kendan

04-23-06, 05:49 PM

I use Firefox with the Adblock extention exclusively for visiting some websites, including the front page. Mainly to block those incredibly annoying intellitext links in articles. And with websites that use intellitext, I also block out almost all other advertising too; since they made the choice to use a method of advertising that I find incredibly annoying I don't want them to get any revenue from my clickthroughs even from ads that don't bother me. That includes the front page too. I no longer use their Newegg ads as a way to order computer stuff any more since they adopted intellitext to corrupt my reading of the articles.

There is actually an easy way to get around those text links on the front page. Just use the IP instead of the domain name. I was using the ip for some reason and had it as my bookmark when someone told me about the text links I was confused because I had not seen them;)

Sucka

04-23-06, 05:51 PM

Nope.

muddocktor

04-23-06, 07:04 PM

There is actually an easy way to get around those text links on the front page. Just use the IP instead of the domain name. I was using the ip for some reason and had it as my bookmark when someone told me about the text links I was confused because I had not seen them;)

Hey, that's cool to know, Kendan. :D

UnseenMenace

04-24-06, 02:16 PM

I run a Mozilla Firefox with Adblock, I also do not have the flash plugin installed as a lot of adverts these days are made with it, and I find fashing adverts distracting and invasive
In general I have no problem allowing adverts, however I do wish to support companys in my country... Buying things in another country and then shipping it to the UK often makes it unfeasible.
Simple show me an advert for something im interested in and do not make it invasive then I will not block it, This actually effects whom I purchase from, I will not purchase from companys who use pop up or invasive adverts

FudgeNuggets

04-24-06, 02:19 PM

I'm running IE7 and there are lots of goodies in there to put the smack down on the ads and like Menace said the once kewl shockwave/flash is now just an ad exploit.

Captain Newbie

04-24-06, 03:49 PM

Back in my day, we just ignored the ads. :) I use a popup killer.

Adragontattoo

05-05-06, 06:01 PM

depends on the system whether I am using a popupblocker, ad blocker or all of the above.

I am a total farker and dont mind paying to do it. I have paid for different sites throughout the years and dont mind doing it.

I have said already in the pay for OCgear thread what shirts I would buy if they were available. If there was a benefit to my paying to be here I would willingly pay as well. otherwise I dont pay to use a site if it doesnt return the favor or noticeably keep them in business.

Tyreal

05-07-06, 10:22 PM

I run firefox so there are popups that are blocked. The sites that I care about, I will click some ads and see what is being advertised to help the site. Ads, as long as they are just banners, are fine. When they start using popups and popunders and scrolling ads, thats when i get ****ed.

Cobalt

05-08-06, 10:58 AM

I block everything but then I have never ever clicked on one. I know it supports these sites but any ads selling something are from the US so thats useless to me and theres only the occasioanl site that offers information which I would more readily find using google. I thnk saying anyone who doesn't click the links or donate is here for a free ride is rather strong. I'm always dubious of adlinks and have got some spyware from a couple and I really can't afford to donate when I have so many other commitments like being a student.

=ACID RAIN=

05-08-06, 02:45 PM

I block everything with adblock in FF. I don't see anything on this site but ocforums content, not even background images for inet (but I do see the drop-down menus for inet, which don't bother me). I see absolutely no ads on the overclockers.com front page. I block all ads on yahoo (took a while to find the scripts in some cases) and all the other sites I frequent. I know I'm doing well because I'm going to sites I've never been to before and don't see any ads until I visit that site again from another computer.

I use domain-wide blocking for the all-ad domains like this:
http://www.somedomain.com/*
or
http://*.somedomain.com/*
Accepting regular expressions in adblock pwns all.

hibner

05-08-06, 03:01 PM

No adblocking here. It doesnt seem to be a problem with a popup blocker turned on.

Oni

05-14-06, 12:16 AM

I've gone beyond just Adblock and now use FlashBlock as well. I'm absolutely sick of getting flash ads spammed at me.

I control what I see on the internet. Not the other way around.

Enablingwolf

05-14-06, 12:19 AM

You need flashblock now. Seems loads of sites are going to flash to get around ad blockers.

johan851

05-14-06, 02:48 AM

Yup, I definitely use an adblocker. Adblock + Filterset g works nicely, and autoupdates the blocklist and everything.

dark_15

05-14-06, 03:27 AM

I use and adblocker as well. Certain sites, however, I do whitelist as I want to support them (OCF and overclockers.com come to mind).

L337 M33P

05-14-06, 08:10 AM

Can't you just use adblock and use some regex trickery to block out most .swf from ad servers with a certain size/path? Ad servers typically have lots of spammy numbers and / in the URLs so it'd be easy to filter out most of them.

edit: I use opera's inbuilt filtering. No regex but * takes care of most things

stereo555

05-14-06, 11:16 AM

I block popups, but not ads. Annoying yes, but sometimes ad blockers I've used in the past didn't work right. I do have the newegg OC reference bookmarked though.

"ditto"

Anjow

05-23-06, 04:17 PM

To those who want advanced blocking I'd really recommend the Proxomitron (http://proxomitron.info/). It's freeware, and although it's no longer being developed, the most recent release (from 2003) still works excellently. It's basically a proxy that sits on your machine and goes through all the web content that you access and alters it according to the filters.

The reason it is great is because it's basically like sed for web content; you can write your own filters and it is very, very adaptable. Because of this it isn't really for laypeople - it's easy to inadvertantly block content you actually want if you aren't careful with your regular expressions.

It does come with a large set of filters already, for those who don't want to write their own.

No I don't work for them.