[johnz]

http://arstechnica.com/business/news...s-you-love.ars

[doz]

Ad's wouldnt be a problem if there werent 50 million of them on some sites. Also, Inteli-txt BS is total crap. I get tired of trying to read something and my mouse cursor goes over one of the roll-over-to-pop-up ads. Its a joke.

If there were reasonable ad's, I wouldnt mind not using an adblocker, but until people stop trying to make tons of money forget it. People get greedy. They go from running a website with small to no profit for the ENJOYMENT, to trying to get rich.

[chuckerants]

I had to reinstall Windows on my laptop a few days ago and discovered that the local Phoenix news (newspaper) website now has Kontera ads - words underlined with pop-ups if you mouse over them. I already discontinued my newspaper subscription because it's a lousy and obviously biased (and just plain badly written and edited) paper.

Now I don't even go to the website because those ads are a real PITA.

I don't deny that corporations need to make money, but these ads are a wrong way to go about it IMHO.

[Shiggity]

The main issue here is that people with netbook style computers can't even surf the web at a decent pace without locking their systems up from adobe spam flash and zerg popups.

Advertisers haven't really figured out how to present advertisements without horribly aggrivating the end user.

Google is the only advertiser that is even trying in the area of personalized ads, ads YOU actually want to see for products YOU care about.

TV is in the same boat, most people have DVR's and just fast forward all the commercials. Personally I haven't looked at an ad in a very long time.

[johnz]

The ads here aren't too bad, neither are the ones at Ars. Anandtech gets some nasty Flash ads that lock up Firefox sometimes. I don't mind the visibility of ads, but I get rid of them when they affect the browsing experience. I have Adblock turned off at a few sites, and Flashblock takes care of the Flash ads that some of those sites have.

[SteveLord]

I hate those crafty popup ads that relocate the X or CLOSE button. Or disguises it as a link to another ad or site.

[nd4spdbh2]

i dont use adblocker on my main comp cus it can handel it... but on my netbook it makes life so much easier.

Inline text ads suck tho.

[Sorin]

Google has the absolute least intrusive ads. People need to go that route. All of these flashing, blinking, ADHD, epileptic seizure inducing ads have got to go. Ads that are just static images have a good chance of escaping my block. But if something moves, it's done. Gone. It's way too hard for me to concentrate on something I'm reading when there's all of this flashing and blinking and movement going on in my peripheral vision. Hell, I sometimes even hit escape when reading or writing a forum post just to stop all the animated smileys and avatars.

Those who advertise need to change their MO to something that doesn't distract, annoy, and aggravate everyone. As it is, their advertising method is akin to that little kid that keeps saying "Mommy! Mommy! Mom! Mom! Mommy! Mom!" for 5 minutes until the mother screams "WHAT!?!?!?".

This is all beside the point that I don't trust 99.99999% of advertising anyway, in any medium. If I want something, I research it; and advertisements have no influence on my choices.

[nealric]

I'm really not convinced.

While I probably wouldn't mind most of arstechnica's ads, several of the sites I go to have absolutely awful ads. The worst are the weight loss ads showing someone's gut hanging out. I'm sorry, but there is no way I am going to look at that the whole time I am browsing the site. And there is no way I am going to bother with clicking adblock on and off for each site I go to.

I agree with sorin. Websites need to start refusing to post intrusive ads, obnoxious ads, and ads for scams. Once they do, I will happily turn off adblock.

[thideras]

I'm paranoid. I don't let advertisements go through as I've fixed (and heard of) so many issues with rogue advertisers. Even at my home here on OCForums, I block ads.

Originally Posted by General Public

WHY THIDERAS?! IF YOU BROWSE HERE ALL THE TIME, WHY STEAL FROM THE SITE?!?!??!1//1?!?!

I donate my time to the site in the form of helping/posting information. Even on my own website, that I pay for out of my own pocket, I don't advertise AT ALL. I know my site isn't high traffic, but splattering advertisements all over my website isn't going to keep people viewing the website nor is it going to make me any money. If I need to move to advertising to afford the server, then I will use images hosted locally and personally review every last one of them myself. Yes, that is annoying and painfully tedious, but I do it for the viewers.

Bottom line: Until sites cleanup their ads, I'm never unblocking them.

[Cowboy Shane]

It's not like ad-blockers were invented for nothing. Banner ads were kind of annoying, but they could be ignored easily enough that sites just had to start using pop-ups. Back when pop-up blocking in Firefox was enough, people did not mind the other ads, but some sites just had to push it. They spent countless hours figuring out ways around pop-up blockers or ways to cover whatever content is on a page with useless garbage.

To keep the web useful, many people chose the same nuclear option I did - install an ad-blocker. Unfortunately, ethical sites like Ars Technica got caught in the fallout. I tend to forget it is on until a site like Reddit or Ars Technica asks if I'd consider browsing without it. Generally, I will set up an exception for such sites.

[dark_15]

Questionable ads have kind of soured me from ever viewing ads again. After dealing with users who like to download 'questionable' applications via some bright and flashing ad I chose to eliminate the temptation of clicking them. Out of sight, out of mind.

In addition to that I've seen malicious content served from bad ads, or ad servers being compromised. For example even Gawker Media go duped by malware writers to serve malicious ads!

[chuckerants]

Great. It seems I'm getting the Kontera ads on OC front page articles.