back to article Forgive me, father, for I have used an ad-blocker on news websites...

A survey of people using ad-blocking has mixed news for publishers. Thirty per cent of users deploying adblocking software were less inclined to visit websites that forced them to “whitelist” the site. On the other hand, in reality many do whitelist one or two favourites. 77 per cent of adblock software users have whitelisted …

  1. Kraggy

    No guilt at all

    When websites GUARANTEE that they'll not try to explopit me using 'malads' then I'll consider it .. of course this means Hell will freeze over since the ad networks make zero effort to deal with the malware-punting ad agencies and websites rarely if ever cease dealing with ad networks that are shown to serve ads to their [the website's] visitors.

    1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Stop

      Re: No guilt at all

      None here.

      Maybe if they showed ads that didn't blink, use up half my processor, and, crucially, offer me something I was actually interested in, I might consider unblocking them. As it is, ads are firstly, a nuisance and secondly. a conduit for malware, so they remain blocked.

      The worst sites, BTW, are the news sites (present company excepted), and the worst among those are the local TV stations.

      1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        Re: No guilt at all

        Maybe if they showed ads that didn't blink, use up half my processor,

        The Register this morning on a 1GHz 64Bit Athlon thin client (yeah, I know, relatively ancient by todays standards):

        Without ad blockers, before noscript - loadavg 0.76 one window opened, idle, machine usable. Two windows open, loadavg goes above 1. Four windows (or tabs) open, the machine becomes unusable.

        With ad blockers and noscript - loadavg at 0.01.

        While I would not mind to contribute some ad revenue for my favourite site, it is definitely not going to be at the cost of using half of my CPU. As far as scumbags like Forbes which insist on an advertisement whitelist they can suck a chainsaw with the engine on. I am more inclined to pay a reasonable annual subscription than to turn ad-block off.

        1. Shrek

          Re: No guilt at all

          While I would not mind to contribute some ad revenue for my favourite site, it is definitely not going to be at the cost of using half of my CPU.

          This.

          It's not the Ad's per se that are annoying but the amount of resources they take. Many sites become virtually unusable without some form of ad blocking. Either through the dozens of trackers and beacons or intrusiveness of ads or both.

          So long as websites serve ads that ruin the viewing experience I'll keep blocking them without guilt.

      2. scm2njs

        Re: No guilt at all

        I have little guilt for using a host file based adblock however, I understand the plight of these sites. There business models are being turned upside down. In reality when the fight with Adblockers is over we're going to either be left with significantly fewer sources of free content or the current status quo will continue with more and more sites limiting access when they detect adblockers.

        In reality, I do feel bad about freeloading however, I don't block add because they annoy me (they do but not enough to put those sites I enjoy at risk) but I do use them because they are often insecure and break rules on tracking way too often without consequence.

        In regards to "Antron Argaiv " comment:

        "Maybe if they showed ads that didn't blink, use up half my processor, and, crucially, offer me something I was actually interested in,"

        I'd rather the adds didn't know me well enough to target specific ads at me!

        I'd more than happily agree to have ads, even some popups, if the ad stream in questions were controlled, vetted and as some have put punished for breaches.

        That said to give this power to a single completely biased entity like adblock is a dangerous precedent. the only sustainable approach would be to have an advertising body that would grant licences to multiple advertisers with all adblocking software whitelisting these licenced bodies. These licences could then be pulled for malware or other such breaches of acceptable advertising standards. However, if that were to happen we'd have to pay for adblocking software or hope that the big browsers were to incorporate the software.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: No guilt at all

          >That said to give this power to a single completely biased entity like adblock is a dangerous precedent.

          Agree - that's why privoxy is your friend, and no plugins required. Amazing how many "adblock detecting" sites assume you're running AdBlock.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: No guilt at all

            >Agree - that's why privoxy is your friend

            Yes it is. Really the only knock on privoxy is to really fine tune it you kind of need to have a basic understanding of awk syntax. Granted this is useful for IT pros anyway but perhaps not for relatives. That said the basic out of the box settings work brilliantly unless you keep seeing the same disgusting CNN image of fish guts on a women's head and want to block any element or page containing the hack Japanese artist name for eternity at your router.

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          "the fight with Adblockers"

          There's no fight.

          Adblockers don't block adverts coming from the same site as the content. There are other tools for that (frame blockers for the annoying ones)

          If you want to curate your own adverts and take responsibility for them, then I'll let them display.

          Adbrokers have amply demonstrated that they can't be trusted. If you have them on your web site: more fool you.

        3. Tac Eht Xilef

          Re: No guilt at all

          "I have little guilt for using a host file based adblock however, I understand the plight of these sites. There business models are being turned upside down."

          Their business models were being turned upside-down 20 years ago. The time to start working on solutions to that problem was then. The fact advertisers chose to spend the interventing time on what amounts to advertising their claims that advertising is necessary to pay for advertising so you can keep seeing advertising should tell you all you need to know about the way the industry thinks and works.

          Personally, my opinon is that advertising is an insidious social cancer that hijacks human emotions (needs, desires), human constructs (organisations and companies), and much of the human environment (most of what you see and hear) in order to do nothing more than grow and reproduce itself. That's why I have no guilt at all about using an adblocker. The irony of the fact that ~7 years ago it was the slow-loading ads on The Register that lead me to first install Adblock (then Adblock Pus, then later uBlock and uBlock origin) is just the icing on the cake...

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No guilt at all

        Local TV and Local News rags for me

        http://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/ and

        http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/

        are two of the worst pages I have seen.

        1. ShortLegs

          Re: No guilt at all

          Fcuk me! 36 ads on the Bristol Post website....! And thats in addition to Ghostery and Shodan kicking off. I see what you mean. I'm not even going to temporarily disable ADP to see what that would look like naked.

          1. Danny 14

            Re: No guilt at all

            Not only do i feel no guilt, i block adverts at the proxy filter level for our entire company. All 450 users see almost no ads.

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: No guilt at all

          I've specifically told my local rag's editor that I block adverts because they're intrusive and a malware vector, but on the other hand i also buy paper copies of said rag.

          The ironic thing is that he uses adblockers too, for the same reasons.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: No guilt at all

            "The ironic thing is that he uses adblockers too, for the same reasons."

            The really ironic thing is that that will apply to many if not all of the advertisers. However, they're not really advertising, they're giving the readers the benefit of their valuable marketing messages which the readers wouldn't want to block.

      4. BobChip
        Happy

        Re: No guilt at all

        I will disable my (fairly fierce) adblocking where experiment and experience show that a site has what I regard as an acceptable advertising policy. Fortunately, El Reg falls into that category. Adblock Plus and Ghostery are disabled here, and I value the content I get to see as a result. I have to add that this is one of only four websites where I have chosen to do this.

        By and large, when faced with a decision on content vs adbombing, content usually loses. I have deleted (decluttered?) a lot of bookmarks recently, for sites I will no longer bother to visit, and you know what? I am no worse off, AND I seem to have a lot more time to do productive work.

        My personal fallback is to install two (unsynchronised) browsers, one fully adblocked, and the other unprotected. If I really want to visit a less-than-favoured website, I will simply use the unprotected browser. Doesn’t happen often, though.

        Do I feel guilty? Hell no.

      5. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: No guilt at all

        Antron, in order for the ads to display things you may be interested in, they will have to track you and create a database of things that interest you. Is this what you want?

        I'm happy getting ads for very random things. It shows that they don't have good information on me.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: No guilt at all

          "Antron, in order for the ads to display things you may be interested in, they will have to track you and create a database of things that interest you. Is this what you want?"

          Think about this a bit more.

          I'm reading a page about, let's say growing mangel-worzels. If you know that then you know quite a lot of things I might be interested in. Growing mangelworzels, growing other cruciferous vegetables, growing things in general, possibly eating vegatables or selling them.

          And you don't even need to track me to know that. You don't even need to know who I am. You know anyone reading the page is liable to have those interests. The contents of the page are the best and surest guide to the reader's interests and hence of what might most usefully be advertised at that point. Information gained from tracking the user is more often than not best described as post-relevant because it so often ends up trying to sell the user capital or at least durable items he's already bought*.

          That's why many of us keep saying that static ads, tied to the page, on the site itself are not only acceptable, they're the form that stands the best chance of selling what they're advertising. Why don't advertisers and sites do that? Because the advertising industry makes lots of money by selling its services in tracking people and pissing them off. The one thing that the advertising industry is interested in selling is its own services. They put ads out there, maybe associate a few sales with them, they get paid. The vast majority of people who got the ad thrust at them are so pissed off they decide never to buy that product again? No skin off the advertising industry's nose.

          *Not online advertising but an outstanding example of the same mentality. When I bought a new car 3 years ago within a few weeks the dealer started spamming me with texts inviting me to all sort of events presumably aimed at selling me a new car. The only thing they've achieved is to ensure I will never, in the remainder of my life, ever do business with them again.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: No guilt at all

            "Think about this a bit more.

            I'm reading a page about, let's say growing mangel-worzels. If you know that then you know quite a lot of things I might be interested in."

            Conceded. If they are also showing you ads for holiday cruises and you had previously sent a message to a friend through FB that you thought a cruise might be fun...........

            Obviously, if I'm visiting cruciferousvegetablefancy.com and ad for aprons with said vegetables on might be of interest. Not that I'd give up my Hole Foods Market apron.

    2. FuzzyWuzzys
      Thumb Up

      Re: No guilt at all

      Plus tone down the ads, I'd let them back in if they weren't so bloody annoying. Flashy graphics, irritating animations with awful spundtracks that just constantly distract me from the articles on the page I want to see.

      1. james 68

        Re: No guilt at all

        When a page loads instantly when using an ad-blocker, but takes 30 seconds to a minute when the ad-blocker is turned off while also slowing your pc to a crawl as processor use goes from 15% to a constant 100% for that period, then no, no guilt whatsoever. Nobody needs so much malware flinging flash and javascript in their lives.

        1. asdf

          got a bone to pick

          >Nobody needs so much malware flinging flash and javascript in their lives.

          I would dare guess at least half the javascript on the internet is unnecessary and only there for either slightly (or not so slightly) nefarious purposes or because the web "developers" are inept. My recommendation would be for any web developer who is trying to reach the widest audience possible to at some point test their web site on the dillo web browser. Javascript honestly should enhance a site but not be a requirement for the majority of them. Rant over.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No guilt at all

        I am viewing this page with an ad-blocker and I feel terribly guilty.

        Oh wait no, never mind. It was just gas.

        This forum page has at least four animated ads on it. If I felt that websites even tried to meet me halfway I'd probably stop using the ad-blocker.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No guilt at all

        "that just constantly distract me from the articles on the page I want to see."

        That is the POINT of advertising. They want to stop you doing what you want to do, and attract your attention to what the advertiser wants you to do. And if they are going to distract you, then they might as well do a good job of it with flashing adverts, loud music and expanding animations that cover the page if you move the mouse over them. (where mouseover is defined as 200px wide adverts reaching from the header to footer on both the left and right hand sides of the page, plus a 600px wide banner advert across the top) thereby making it virtually imposssible to read the content on the page until you adblock ahem, close said advert.

        This without mentioning the fact that the ads are usually of comparable quality to the product the salesdroid is pushing, which means that in a far from zero set of cases they cause the adobe plugin to hang, making that page in your web browser unusable. In the cases it's actually trying to display an advert instead of trying to install the latest zero day trojan.

        And so do I feel guilty in blocking adverts...? Ahahahaha. Ah, no. Not really. Because if I don't, then I can rarely actually visit any websites to read the content and I probably wouldn't be able to spend any money on what's being advertised anyway because all of my money would have been cleared out by banking trojans.

        If the advertising industry would perhaps like to address these points then I might be inclined to stop disabling their adverts. Until then...

    3. Mutton Jeff

      Re: No guilt at all

      Same!

      It's the auto playing videos that irk me.

    4. IHateWearingATie
      Flame

      Re: No guilt at all

      I never use an adblocker. Watching the ads is the way the site pays for the content. If the ads are annoying I don't go there as the 'cost' to me is too high.

      I know this will be downvoted to hell (just checking if I care.... nope) but it looks to me there is a lot of entitlement here. You expect to consume the content, and not pay the price.You have no right to the content on a site - if you hate the ads then don't go there.

      1. find users who cut cat tail

        Re: No guilt at all

        > You expect to consume the content, and not pay the price.

        I have no ads on my sites. So that is what I expect on other sites. I call that reciprocity...

        If the content-for-ads model becomes completely untenable, I am fine with that. It mainly promotes clickbait anyway. Yes, running the servers is not free so someone has pay. In my opinion, if the thing is worth it, someone will (whether producers or consumers or in what ratio, that depends).

        1. IHateWearingATie

          Re: No guilt at all

          "I have no ads on my sites. So that is what I expect on other sites."

          I give my content away for free therefore everyone else should.

          Yessss, that's exactly how things work....

      2. HisNibbs

        Re: No guilt at all

        OK, I get it, I understand that the site gets revenue from the ads and that's what helps support the site... but if you never click on or respond to the ads or act upon them in anyway then they are simply irrelevant and thus never going to generate any business for either the advertiser or the site. If the site charges the advertiser on a "per served ad" basis and you use an adblocker because you're not going to act on the ads then you could argue that you are actually doing the advertiser a favour by not loading the ad and saving them money.

        So: if a visitor doesn't respond to an ad, ignores them and never watches or responds to the CTA then should that person never visit the website or "consume" the content?

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: No guilt at all

        "I never use an adblocker."

        Nor anti-virus?

        I admire your principles. Someone has to have some because the malvertising scum don't.

    5. Number6

      Re: No guilt at all

      My early object to ads was the intrusive flashy nature of a lot of them, plus having to close the annoying pop-up and pop-under windows. Limited bandwidth also predisposed me against stupid large images too. Now I'm motivated primarily by security - unless a site is prepared to indemnify me for losses incurred due to their site serving up malware then I'm going to keep matters in my own hands and block ads. Ironically, they'd fix pretty much all of it by serving ads from their own sites, not via a broker's site, and by doing so server-side with no scripts or flash on my machine. I'm sure a blocker would be hard-pressed to reliably block a static image from the host site. However, that would break the whole ad industry and the way they track people, so I doubt if it would happen. Not to mention the fact that all the sluggish scripts slowing down your PC would now have to run on the server, so they'd have to upgrade their end of the link.

    6. jMcPhee

      Re: No guilt at all

      None at all. Pimping out the internet has a downside.

      If they don't like it, they can go back to print, or, solicit donations. Wikipedia and Spamcop did fine without ads.

      If Reg took US checks and real credit cards (not bogus sham PayPal), I'd be happy to contribute.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: No guilt at all

        "If Reg took US checks and real credit cards (not bogus sham PayPal)"

        Real, non-sham PayPal is an alternative. Especially for those who don't want to spread their credit card details, including the security code, far and wide to people they've never even met, maybe not even on the same continent.

    7. RAMChYLD

      Re: No guilt at all

      For me it's not only about "malads". I'm on mobile broadband during working hours on weekdays. Those video ads mess with my quota by eating them up in record speed. Bad enough I have to deal with Windows 10 slurping up my quota because you can't flag a Mi-Fi mobile hotspot as a metered connection.

  2. pear

    stop being annoying

    People generally don't mind adverts, they mind them being annoying. If they stopped randomly playing videos, making pages unreadable and such people would ease off the blocking

    1. Steve Evans

      Re: stop being annoying

      Oh good god you're not wrong... Recently I've been making some clean installs (with no adblock at the time), and opening some sites has full volume video automatically start... It takes a while to find the damn things too, as there are several moving, animated panels, and only one of them is the video with the sound on.

      I didn't realise the web had become so full of shit and noise...

      Adblock/disconnect rapidly installed.

      As you say, I've got nothing against a few adverts, but when you open a page and 70% of the screen is full of non-content, you know there's something wrong.

      1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

        Re: stop being annoying

        The other extreme bit of advert related fuckery is the post-page load ads that are inserted into content after the page has "finished" loading. The kind of fuckers that as you scroll down a page slightly to view the next line of text suddenly get added above the fucking text that you're reading moving it all down a bit more. These tends to get inserted just as I try to click on a link that I want, inevitably inserting themselves under where I clicked on what I wanted.

        As a result, AdBlock is essential - and anything this misses I have a local hosts file for. Java? installed on my system but not permitted anywhere near the browser. Silverlight? Never. Flash or any other Adobe provided plugin? Not on your life.

    2. andy 103

      Re: stop being annoying

      Exactly. I'd feel far more guilty if I was one of the morons who worked in actually producing the ads and putting them on otherwise useful websites in the first place!

      (As I write this, there is an ad to my right. Thanks, El Reg).

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: stop being annoying

      "they mind them being annoying"

      And carrying malware. Of course if the ads were guaranteed to be simple passive text that would solve both problems.

    4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: stop being annoying

      I don't block adverts, I don't even have an ad-blocker installed. However, I do have FlashBlock, NoScript and Ghostery installed. The very few adverts which get through those are generally not too intrusive and highly unlikely to carry malware.

      On the other hand, I do come across sites which refuse to load the content and accuse me of having an ad blocker installed. I don't recall ever coming across a site like that which would be compelling enough to allow scripts to run, especially 3rd party ones, but there are site where I allow their own hosted scripts to run to make the site work. Again, that rarely lets adverts through though.

  3. Locky

    And to answer your question...

    Nope.

    Did the advertisers feel guilty for commisioning autoplayed video ads?

  4. Bob Vistakin
    Holmes

    Hats off to El Reg for leading the way by never showing any ads

    Oh, wait ... that's what that APB thing up there means?

    1. Known Hero

      Re: Hats off to El Reg for leading the way by never showing any ads

      they got past that via sponsored articles, did you forget DevOps already !!!

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Hats off to El Reg for leading the way by never showing any ads

        "did you forget DevOps already"

        As far as possible, yes.

        1. Darryl

          Re: Hats off to El Reg for leading the way by never showing any ads

          "did you forget DevOps already"

          I've been trying so hard to

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Some are downright annoying!

    There's a website I know of which continually asks you to unblock them, yet when you do it fires off ads in popup windows on seemingly every click ... which makes me block them again - sheesh!

    1. Darryl

      Re: Some are downright annoying!

      I've encountered a few sites like that too. Makes me wonder, if you hunt down the little "Webmaster" hyperlink and send them an email explaining that you'd consider unblocking their ads if they weren't so damn annoying, I wonder if any of them would listen.

      1. jelabarre59

        Re: Some are downright annoying!

        I've encountered a few sites like that too. Makes me wonder, if you hunt down the little "Webmaster" hyperlink and send them an email explaining that you'd consider unblocking their ads if they weren't so damn annoying, I wonder if any of them would listen.

        That's what "whois" searches are for.

      2. MrTuK

        Re: Some are downright annoying!

        I doubt they would be able to hear you unless they were using ABP - lol

  6. Wade Burchette

    I do not feel guilty

    Advertisers have no respect for me, why should I have any respect for them? When they start treating me respect -- that is to say, when they start respecting my privacy and stop tracking me and stop trying to determine my physical location -- then I will treat them with respect. Lead by example; do not ask me to do something unless you do it first. Until they treat me respect, I will continue to use whatever tool I need to maintain my privacy.

    1. FuzzyWuzzys
      Thumb Up

      Re: I do not feel guilty

      Well said sir!

    2. John Sager

      Re: I do not feel guilty

      Me neither. I used to use ABP but now that's switched off & I've got uBlock & Ghostery. Ghostery has one or two holes in to make my online banking work but otherwise it's mostly blocked. I get blocks on a few sites I follow links to, but they can go forth & multiply. Forbes, interestingly, puts up a blank page for 10 sec & then brings up the article from the link I clicked.

  7. 2460 Something
    Angel

    Do these same people feel guilty when they fast-forward through TV adds on pre-recorded stuff?

    1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge

      Yes, I feel the same level of guilt fast forwarding or leaving the room to empty or fill my bladder, as I do blocking ads. Which is to say, none at all.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Guilty?

    When it's using up my mobile data, making pages load slowly and I've no interest in it?

  9. Chika
    FAIL

    Sodding advertisers

    No, I don't feel guilty about using an ad-blocker. I feel annoyed for having to, certainly, because so many advertisers think they have a right to obstruct content or to interfere with content in such a way as to make the experience unrewarding and unpleasant. Not every advertiser does this and it is unfortunate that those that advertise responsibly are penalised so I do use my whitelist in some cases but...

    Well, here's an example. A local news service near me fills their pages with adverts. These appear above, below, around and inside the news item to the extent that you sometimes wonder if they actually give a toss about the actual news. I blocked their ads which gave some semblance of normality only to start getting a third to a half page nag telling me to switch my ad-blocker off if I cared about the news.

    The whole business of putting users that use ad-blockers on some sort of guilt trip is just the latest tool being used by irresponsible advertisers who only brought this situation on themselves.

  10. Vinyl-Junkie
    FAIL

    77 per cent feel guilty about ad blocking. Do you?

    No.

    Next...

    1. Thunderbird 2

      Re: 77 per cent feel guilty about ad blocking. Do you?

      No. Ask me one on sport.

  11. Ole Juul

    less inclined to visit websites that forced them to “whitelist”

    Indeed. But there's no guilt. It's just because they piss me off.

  12. Mike Echo

    Sometimes, just sometimes

    I use an adblocker and will turn it off for sites that allow me to view decent content (ie not clickbait) and as long as the ads are not in my face.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We are left wondering why publishers

    monkey, banana, box with narrow slot. Simples.

  14. Known Hero

    I added the TheRegsiter to whitelist

    Yes I used to feel guilty especially coming here so whitelisted thereg and quickly remembered why I used adblock in the first place.

    Please lead by example ..... your by far not the worst, but could be a lot better.

    We are left wondering why publishers, rather than diversifying their revenue, keep insisting on making the user experience as crappy as possible: first with ill-designed and distracting ads, secondly with jarring reminders that they need to see those ill-designed distracting ads. ®

    Please read your own example give, I can think of quite a few commentards happy to shell out some quid for you.

    1. John Lilburne

      Re: I added the TheRegsiter to whitelist

      TheReg is not too bad. I have ABP whitelist it, and Deleteme. Though I notice that Ghostery is still blocking 2 advertising trackers (Data Point Media, and Google Publisher Tags), 3 social media thingies, and Google Analytics.

      When sites use non-Google ad networks I'll consider whitelisting more of them.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: I added the TheRegsiter to whitelist

        "When sites use non-Google ad networks I'll consider whitelisting more of them."

        Irony here. If Google decided to do it they're probably smart enough to filter out all the egregious stuff but they're not smart enough to see the need.

    2. Samuel Penn

      Re: I added the TheRegsiter to whitelist

      It was the intrusive animated ads on The Register which prompted me to install an adblocker in the first place. I feel no more guilty than when I don't watch ads on the TV, or don't read ads in a Newspaper.

  15. Martin hepworth

    malware

    Well if the ad networks were malware free I'd be more than happy to see the adverts

  16. Mage Silver badge
    Big Brother

    No I don't

    a) I'm not going to buy anything as a result of an ad on a news site. Usually I buy by browsing a shop, eBay, Amazon etc or searching for something I've decided I want. I never click, so no revenue lost?

    b) Phone / Tablet is tiny real Estate, so added Firefox and an adblocker. On Windows and Linux ads are only blocked as a side effect of NoScript, which sadly doesn't seem to be on Android?

    c) Ads are often a 3rd party site and can be a source of privacy breaking trackers or malware. On Firefox on Android, Windows and Linux I block 3rd party cookies. Why isn't that the default? Third party cookies break intent of cookie law. Why does no site popping up Cookie Warning have no optout, they all add them anyway, on Windows / Linux I usually block main site cookies too except if I have a log in on the site.

    d) Unlike Broadcast or Bill boards it's my bandwidth!

    e) I'm wondering if on Radio, adverts should only be between programs, as unlike TV, you can't mute them.

    People need to find better ways of making money, besides it mostly feeds Google?

    1. Magani
      Unhappy

      Re: No I don't

      @Mage - Have an upvote.

      'C)' in particular.

      According to NoScript, this page wants to load content from googleadservices, google-analytics, googletagservices, admedo and dpmsrv (all .com sites).

      I understand the googly ones, but have no idea what the others are, and no intention of spending what remains of my time on this planet worrying about what deviousness (if any) they might be up to.

      I don't for a minute think that Vulture Central have devious intent, but they do not (AFAIK) have any control over admedo and dpmsrv, and there lies the problem.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: No I don't

      "a) I'm not going to buy anything as a result of an ad on a news site. Usually I buy by browsing a shop, eBay, Amazon etc or searching for something I've decided I want. I never click, so no revenue lost?"

      Of course the reason you decide to buy something might be because you've read about it on a news site. If the news site blocks you for using an adblocker it's the advertiser who loses out in the end. Funny old world, isn't it?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    77 per cent feel guilty about ad blocking. Do you?

    Not in the least!

    Is Forbes supposed to be something special? I ask because the one time I was directed there to supposedly read the full article the site wanted me to run my browser wide open. Needless to say I lost all interest in reading the full article and have never bothered with the site since.

    1. Lobrau

      'Is Forbes supposed to be something special?'

      I think Forbes thinks it's something special but they're the only ones....

  18. Rabster

    And taking no responsibility for the malware delivered from ad servers.

    https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/11/malvertising-is-cybercriminals-latest-sweet-spot/

  19. Tachikoma
    Joke

    We are left wondering why publishers, rather than diversifying their revenue, keep insisting on making the user experience as crappy as possible: first with ill-designed and distracting ads

    I take it you don't look at your own site with ad blocking disabled?

    1. Darryl
      Pint

      It's more than a little ironic that, every time El Reg posts an article about ad blocking, the comments section has more than a few comments like yours, which are studiously ignored...

  20. Lobrau

    I can say without a shadow of a doubt..

    ..that I feel no guilt at all. If sites put in a hard block then I simply won't consume the content. Most of it isn't worth the time it would take to bypass the block. Any content that I really want, I'll pay for (usually in the form of books or streaming services).

    I'm certainly not poking holes in my ad-blocker for the sake of the usual drivel put out by most journalists.

    The advertisers and content creators need a bit more imagination in their revenue creation methinks.

  21. Tom 7

    Givent that 99.9999% of adverts are of no interest to me

    and seem to increase my required bandwidth by two orders of magnitude and make it pointless actually going to the site in interest? I dont feel in the least guilty and better still seriously not fucking annoyed. If someone tried to borrow my car to drive me to take me to an advertising event you'd think them out of order - same applies for on-line advertising.

  22. Dabooka

    Same old, same old...

    Nothing new here. Like many I wouldn't bother with AdBlock if the browsing experience wasn't hindered by them in the first place. Advertisers and publishers need to look at themselves rather than assuming it's the users that 'aren't doing it right'. This albeit limited survey is again focusing on users perceptions and attitudes to ad blockers.

    TLDR; It's not me, it's you.

  23. Fred Dibnah
    Thumb Down

    Paper version

    I pick up the paper and look at the headlines, but adverts start filling the page and the headlines keep moving about. When I'm reading an article adverts keep appearing in front of it and I have to swat them away, and when I turn the page the ads move across and cover the next article. And one of the ads gives me a reading disease and I can't read any more papers until I'm cured.

    That's what online is like without an ad blocker. So, definitely no guilt.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    More like ... Forgive me I did not use an ad-blocker !!!

    I do not feel guilty for using an ad-blocker or two.

    The internet, and its 'Wild West' attitudes, has allowed Ads to get worse and worse in terms of intrusion and general uselessness.

    The Ad producers etc are responsible for this situation were people now must use ad-blockers for their own sanity.

    If the ad producers clean up their act people will be more likely to whitelist sites or even stop using ad-blockers.

    Personally, I will continue as I do not expect any 'clean up' any time soon !!!

    Something about petards comes to mind :)

  25. Missing Semicolon Silver badge
    Happy

    I have no ad-blocker..

    ... yet I see no ads.

    I have Privacy Badger. That merely asks sites not to track me, and block those that do so against my wishes. The fact that this blocks virtually all adverts is merely an unfortunate byproduct.....

  26. Ed Jackson

    Nope

    I just block the nag banner as well.

  27. Franco

    I don't like doing this, but I am going to answer your question with another.

    Do the soulless, spiritless, ballless, corporate little bitches, suckers of satan's cock who try to force me to look at pop-up ads for (at best) stuff I don't want or (at worst) infect me with malware feel guilty about it?

    I make no apologies for paraphrasing Bill Hicks above. As he once said Not a joke, don't wait for the punchline. If you work in advertising, kill yourself.

    1. VinceH

      For those who have not seen it, the Bill Hicks comment on advertisers that Franco refers to can be found here.

  28. x 7

    I don't feel guilty. Why should I?

  29. Crisp

    Advertising is frequently a vector for malware.

    I feel about as guilty running an adblocker as I do about running an antivirus program.

  30. Martin Kirk

    No guilt here. Now, if they gave me a cut of the revenue they get when they show me an ad, I might reconsider.

  31. Skepticmonkey

    This is a case of reaping what they sow they killed the golden goose and are now crying about it blaming content consumers for it. Website industry is weeping and crying about people using adblockers but the truth is adblockers have been around for a very long time but the strong increase in ad blocker use has come about as a response to extremely intrusive advertising. Rather than being content with static adverts that most people accepted a large proportion of Web sites even high profile ones jumped on the band wagon of using adverts that jump up obscuring content and also making it hard to dismiss them. In fact it almost seemed to be some competition going on which sites could produce the most intrusive banwidth hoging annoying adverts possible and idiot sites that even automatically launch video adds. Now as the article says some sites are simply not allowing add blocking and they seem to be some off those that were the worst offenders. Generally if a site stops you complaining about ad blockers I simply go else where because I simply don't trust them to have changed thier ways about intrusive advertising no website is so indespensable that we have to be bothered putting up with it. There is a simple solution to this problem and it's not banning adblockers it's for the Web to abandon intrusive idiot advertising and instead doing smarter advertising if they do that then people will stop using them. Basically there's a limit to what people will put up with and websites over stepped that mark they should stop crying and blaming people for using ad blockers and start looking at the root cause behind people using them.

  32. Andy Non Silver badge
    Meh

    I've never felt guilty about adblocking

    While advertisers continue to allow malware through and to produce large, flashing and audible ads, then I regard adblockers as much of a necessity as having a firewall. When advertisers place nice, I'll consider not using an adblocker, but hell will likely freeze over first. Some sites block me from viewing their content; that is their right. It is also my right to leave their site and go elsewhere.

  33. Permidion

    pay to not see ads

    on a few forum (where that option is available), I have decided to pay a small one time fee to get ride of the "you are using adblock" notices and participate financially to content I access often, as that seems fair.

    but I rarely see this option, often is is simply "enable ads or we disable our content!" which turn me off everytime.

    there is simply no content I would want to see so absolutely I would be ready to re-enable advertising display....

    1. VinceH

      Re: pay to not see ads

      I can't see a "one time fee" being sustainable in the long run. It's a short term gain for the people running the forum - but eventually the costs will eat into it and they'll need another "one time fee".

      i.e. it needs to be a recurring payment - and by calling it a one time fee they are doing themselves and their users a disservice.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No no no

    I refuse to allow this psychic trash

    Nobody and nothing has the right to invade my consciousness

    I'd block more if I could!

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    nope no guilt. The "news" is normally so LQ on most web sites that they barely get above the level of a blog.

  36. Nick Mallard

    Johnstone Press sites are even worse - they "work" with adblockers installed but the sites are literally designed around the ad spaces, meaning with no ads the whole site looks badly designed, disorganised and difficult to distinguish sections. I'm sure they hire the laziest web developers in the world.

  37. Halfmad

    Less likely?

    If a site requires me to whitelist it I simply don't visit again, there's no second chance either.

    I've yet to find a site with such incredible content that I can't get elsewhere that I'd consider making an exception.

  38. Camilla Smythe

    When I wert lad....

    We had feature in browser called 'narrow slot mode' which were invoked by them there free toolbar things. Then I learned stuff and got rid only to find that later screen filled up with browsing experience enhancements disguised as adverts for socks. Anyways once again I learned stuff and got rid but browser reverted to 'narrow slot mode' what with all the little blocky icons filling up the top bit. Then narrow slot just says 'we use cookies to improve your browsing experience', blah blah and when I click the x to make that go away instead of it being replaced with pictures of socks some other message comes up saying I have to switch off my blocky thing to look at the sock pictures and I'm like 'which fucking one you twats?'

  39. Christopher Rogers

    I did, until i turned the ad-blocker off and realised just how hideous websites are with ads down the sides and across the top and popping up and so on and so forth.

    1. Andy Non Silver badge

      I once had to use someone else's computer using Internet Explorer and the web was an entirely different and hideous place; with all manner of large, flashing and jarring ads, pop up ads, pop under ads, ads that followed my mouse or stayed in the centre of the screen etc. There was even someone shouting and ad out of the loudspeakers. F**k all that!

  40. FuzzyWuzzys
    Facepalm

    Tide Times UK

    I used to use TideTimes UK website, they started using ads and they got more irritating. I put in an ad blocker and the site started ordering me to switch it off as the website loses revenue when I block.

    Oh well, sod you then!! I never go to that website now, I simply use the tide times on the BBC, an ad free service that I've already paid for. Sorry TideTimes UK but if you're going to irritate people then when they try to help themselves you "insult them", you can get stuffed and lose out completely.

    1. King Jack
      Thumb Up

      Re: Tide Times UK

      Same story here. next-episode.net a Tv listing site started changing the code to defeat adblockers. He was even proud that he was destroying the functionality of his site. He drove me into the arms of a different tv site where they just give out the information without the nags. I thank him.

    2. Mystic Megabyte
      Happy

      Re: Tide Times UK

      I use EasyTide, bookmarked to show 2 days at my location.

      http://www.ukho.gov.uk/easytide/EasyTide/index.aspx

  41. andy gibson

    Adblock banner

    Some of the provincial news sites have a massive blue banner on the bottom third of the screen stating "LOVE YOUR LOCAL NEWS?

    PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR AD BLOCKER

    Did you know that advertising supports local journalism and promotes local businesses? Find out how to turn off your ad blocker."

    But if you right click on it and click "BLOCK THIS AD" it disappears!

    1. nijam Silver badge

      Re: Adblock banner

      > ... advertising supports local journalism ...

      If you've ever met a 'local journalist', you'll probably be happy about that "two birds with one stone" ad-blocking effect!

    2. MJI Silver badge

      Re: Adblock banner

      They change it regularly, I use Greasemonkey to make the web usable

      Every few weeks __nq__hh will be some other text

      var MaskElement = document.getElementById("__nq__hh");

      if (MaskElement)

      {

      MaskElement.parentNode.removeChild(MaskElement);

      var HtmlElement = document.getElementsByTagName("html")[0];

      HtmlElement.style.overflow = "auto";

      }

      Loads more to remove google privacy warning as I do not agree, need one for youtube as well now.

  42. Dwarf

    Context

    Like all the other posts, I have absolutely no issue with blocking ads and never had to unblock any sites. As soon as I see the whining "adblocker detected" page, I hit the close button and go elsewhere, After all, I'm always looking for something specific, not a random advert for a something that I don't want or need and more often than not, shown in a different country and priced in a currency I can't readily convert to real money.

    For me, the big issues are the unwanted distraction that wastes my time, coupled with random nature of adverts that have tried to characterise me and serve context adverts based on other sites I've been to in recent weeks. I go looking for something when I need it, not 3 weeks afterwards..

    The other problem with adverts is that if you take 5 minutes out in the office to do something then its plainly obvious to everyone else around that you are not working because of the adverts and the lack of ad blockers in corporate environments..

    BTW - does anyone know what a "forbes" is for anyhow ?

    I would go and find out, but for some reason it doesn't want to talk to me.

    1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: Forbes

      I have come across Forbes twice. First time I was told it was a magazine for "executive bathroom user wannabes". The second time was early in the SCO vs The World litigation. Apparently Forbes' regular IT correspondents would not cover the case because SCO's allegations were complete fiction. Rob Enderle proudly stepped up and said he had not problem presenting Darl's deluded diatribes as world changing news. Later he wrote something promising to be an apology for writing tripe. Instead he crowed about how he used the vast number of corrections he received about his tripe as evidence that he was bringing traffic to the site. At least some of the other journalists writing that SCO were going to win big were genuinely gullible ignorant fools. Forbes knew better, but decided to publish Enderle anyway.

      I thought the whole ad/block war had moved on. These days, the article is the advert. Some sites employ an Enderle clone who can bring in some decent revenue for writing rubbish that some industry wants to pass off as journalism. Others receive offers of artiverts written by guest writers. One of these writers has addressed the need to warn people about the terrible and rarely recognised danger from ponies.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
        Coffee/keyboard

        Re: Forbes

        "One of these writers has addressed the need to warn people about the terrible and rarely recognised danger from ponies."

        Warning. Cover your keyboard before following the "ponies" link. Ken White at his very best.

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Guilty? Hell no...

    Guilt is a chemical imbalance evident in the losing side.

  44. thesykes

    Online adverts should be like magazine adverts: static text, an image, no video, no sound, no animation, and stuck where the printer put it.

    If I read a car magazine, I expect car-related ads. If I then read a gardening magazine, I'd expect gardening-related ads, not car-related ones.

    If I buy an item, I don't want to see adverts for the same thing for weeks after, it's pointless. If I have bought one, chances are don't I need another And if I do, I think I could find it again without seeing adverts plastered all over.

    Until online advertisers become responsible and trustworthy, I'll stick to blocking ads. If a website insists I have to see them, I'll find another site.

    1. MJI Silver badge

      I fully agree and sites like this I see and use ads, but if they move to a banned ad server I no longer see them, I just see cannot load instead.

      If forums can manage advertising, why not news sites?

    2. Updraft102

      "If I read a car magazine, I expect car-related ads. If I then read a gardening magazine, I'd expect gardening-related ads, not car-related ones."

      That's the thing that really puzzles me to this day. When I used to buy old-fashioned paper magazines frequently, I wanted the ads. They were at least as much a part of why I was buying the magazine as the articles! In the case of some magazines, like the gigantic Computer Shopper (with pages twice the size of those from a standard magazine, and with an overall thickness of over an inch) from Southern California, the ads were the main attraction. I wanted to see what was on offer and at what prices. If I was a PC user reading a PC magazine, articles about PC hardware and software were relevant. The same goes for all of the other specialty-interest magazines I read over the years.

      Now, with all kinds of scripts and trackers and snooping that are designed to serve up ads that are relevant to me, the ads are less relevant and far less interesting than they were 25 years ago when most of my reading was from paper publications. How did they manage to take all of that snooping and data mining and still end up with ads that are less relevant than dumb print ads on a piece of paper?

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "How did they manage to take all of that snooping and data mining and still end up with ads that are less relevant than dumb print ads on a piece of paper?"

        Simple.

        Because that's an expensive service only the advertising industry can sell. Any fool can put together something simple that obviously works. Remember, the only thing the advertising industry sells is the services of the advertising industry.

  45. Steven Roper

    My adblocker policy

    Sites that have hard blocks against adblockers end up in my hosts file, as do sites that let Google index their news articles but hide those articles behind a paywall. (Note: changing your user-agent to look like the Googlebot still usually only lets you see the headline and one paragraph, not the whole thing)

    My hosts file is quite large.

    Sites that ask nicely for a whitelisting without blocking access get considered. If their content is engaging enough that I return a second time I give them a free trial on my whitelist. If their ads are too annoying or intrusive (<cough>El Reg</cough>) the trial gets cancelled and they get blocked again. Such websites can get another free trial if they state that they have since taken measures to reduce the annoyance of their ads.

    Otherwise if the site's ads aren't too annoying or intrusive I give them permanent position on my whitelist, so as to help them out and keep them going.

    My whitelist is quite small.

    Obviously, the advertising industry and overly pushy clickbait sites have quite a way to go before they get the message. I sometimes wonder if it will even happen in my lifetime. Somehow, I doubt it.

  46. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

    No guilt here

    And you probably wouldn't want to hear what else I have done to El Reg with Grease Monkey scripts after you changed your format such that it wasn't how I wanted it. In for a penny, in for a pound, so everything I don't want is stripped out. Then I have An Ad Blocker on top.

    I'm actually not that adverse to adverts, but there's more to it than that; they are a vector for malware, spying, snooping, and, above all, are often the cause for slowness of site loads. I got so sick of page loads stalling on adverts that I reached for the nearest hammer. Other tools may be available but the hammer works for me.

    As for sites which block me from visiting because I Ad Block, that's their loss not mine. I just ignore them as if they never existed in the first place. I don't think there's been any time I haven't found what I was after somewhere else.

    The question advertisers should be asking themselves is; how did we piss off so many reasonable people?

  47. StephenTompsett

    What about photosensitive epileptics

    There are times I do not risk visiting certain websites (in particular the web site of a major national newspaper) because you will almost certainly be greeted by numerous tacky flashing adverts embedded in the news. I do not want to risk triggering an adverse reaction in people at risk.

    N.B. I would much rather prefer to have a warning that a site may display flashing images, rather than the pointless warning that a site uses cookies, I can delete cookies.

  48. heyrick Silver badge

    Not even slightly

    When I was reading on my phone, advertisers had no trouble in hijacking the browser, throwing away the site I was wanting to look at, and scream about how many hundreds of viruses my phone supposedly has. They had no problems in taking note of my phone and pushing a half megabyte APK that I didn't want every sodding page refresh. And then I get texts from Orange saying that a payment has been refused because I have not activated Internet+. WTF?

    Sorry. The average advertiser has no qualms in actually trying to steal from me; bandwidth and just basic money. So screw the advertisers. I'm now using Firefox to run blocking. There is no whitelist, and if something demands third party advertising to be enabled, I'll just walk away and go look elsewhere. If I trust you, I'll run YOUR scripts. But no amount of trust will convince me that allowing random scripts from who knows where is ever going to be a good idea.

    You want to advertise to me? It's easy. Run the scripts on your server to embed the advertising in your page. But wait, that won't happen will it?

  49. Updraft102

    No, I have never whitelisted a site, at least not permanently. A few times I've temporarily turned the blocker off and given the site a few clickthroughs to support them, but after that, it goes back on. The ads are simply too intrusive, resource-heavy, privacy-invading, and potentially unsafe to do otherwise.

    If the ads were simple little inline things that are hosted on the same web server as the site being visited, with no tracking cookies or scripts in use, that would be one thing. This would be most like the print ad analog. That's not the norm, though; most ads come with a heavy dose of tracking/analytics scripts that bog everything down, waste bandwidth, destroy privacy, and retrieve ads from remote servers that could be hosting malware. An average web magazine type site can have dozens of analytics, tracking, and advertising scripts running all at once (I've seen more than a few that have had more than a hundred third-party domains blocked-- for a single page). Open a few dozen tabs and even a fast PC can get bogged down, and it's even worse if you have a mobile device but you still prefer the desktop (full) page.

    For those sites that try to force the issue with whitelists, there are anti-adblocker countermeasures. The combination of the ones in the list of uBlock Origin and the one I use in GreaseMonkey have so far vanquished all of the paywalls and whitelisting demands I've come across. I'm not permanently whitelisting any site... I may do it for a test here and there (to see how it works with nothing blocked for comparison), but that's it, and the cookies get cleared afterwards (and my IP address changes day to day anyway).

    Guilt? No, never; why would I? It's self-defense, and I resent the site publishers for making such unacceptable web sites that I have to configure and use all kinds of add-ons to try to undo their ignorance, negligence, and maybe even malice. If they didn't try to use my bandwidth and my CPU cycles (for which I pay the electric bill) to track me in defiance of my wishes and send them personal information I don't want them to have, I would not have to block their ads in the first place.

  50. Wommit

    Just had a look in my fuck bucket.

    Nope, they're all there.

    So not a single fuck was given.

  51. Zzzzzzz

    A little dig?

    Hmmm, a little dig at the INQ and the sh*tstorm that followed their adblocking block perchance? Don't envy Carly Page right now. One site I'd have considered whitelisting but Taboola ads on a technology site?

    1. Franco

      Re: A little dig?

      Stopped reading INQ a long time ago. W10 quite rightly gets bad press round these parts for it's slurping tendencies, but the articles being written by Chris Merriman went beyond all reason and in to tinfoil hat mode. That and the blatant Apple bias drove me away.

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If a site asks me (politely) to stop AdBlocking, I will sometimes do that, if I am feeling benevolent and if the last ad infestation I have seen has not pissed me off. If I disable AdBlock and am then presented with animated ads, video ads, ads for stuff I just bought, moron offers for special deals, invitations to have my registry hosed etc., AdBlock goes back on and I quit the site. Simples.

    Ads on my mobile devices provoke another aspect to the discussion. Because I don't rely on my mobile devices as a social crutch and can generally live without an always-on data connection, I simply use a basic PAYG and manage with maybe £20 of credit about once a year, paying a standard rate for calls, for texts and per meg of data.

    The thing that puzzles me is this: Would anyone accept a reverse charge call from a marketing company, just so said marketing company could sing their client's praises? Would anyone pay the postage to receive an unfranked advertising mailshot? - I submit no-one would. Commentards' opinions would be welcomed.

    Given that, why the hell should I be expected to pay for the "pleasure" of downloading some marketing company's dross ad content that I neither wanted not asked for?

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't block advertising banners…

    … I block foreign code elements, Java and Flash. GIF animations are turned off: I will see the first frame only.

    If a piece of JavaScript is hosted from the same hostname as the page, it loads. If it comes from another box, even the same domain, it gets blocked unless I deem it safe enough to unblock. (e.g. for this page, http://forums.theregister.co.uk/ascript.js will load, http://anotherhost.theregister.co.uk/ascript.js will not.)

    I have no problems seeing advertising: a static hyperlinked image is perfectly fine. I might even choose to click on it. If it moves, I'll either block it, or failing that, I close the page.

    1. Updraft102

      Re: I don't block advertising banners…

      I have third-party javascript disabled by default too in uBlock Origin... but third-party script blocking breaks most web pages in varying degrees. Comment sections like this one are one of the most common things to stop working (as you no doubt know).

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: I don't block advertising banners…

      "If a piece of JavaScript is hosted from the same hostname as the page, it loads."

      Only if I trust the host. And all too often the JavaScript from the same host wants to do little but upload (oops - mistyped uplard which seems a reasonable substitute) crap from who knows how many other hosts.

  54. Frank Zuiderduin

    Why?

    Why should anyone feel guilty about keeping junk and security threats off their system and making sure their machines' core temperature doesn't go up by 15 degrees (that's what happened here when I ran some tests with blockers off)?

    Who do we contact for compensation for the damage that does to a machine?

  55. G R Goslin

    They should be grateful

    The advertisers should be grateful to me for blocking their adverts. My phiolophy, in respect of ALL adverts, is that I will NEVER buy anything tackiliy, or splashllly advertised. So they should be grateful that I am not aware of this fact.

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not Guilty via great Browser Extensions

    What adverts?

    When did adverts invade the interweb?

    Loads worth buying these days that is sustainable and economically viable (vain hat on)

    Quality diminished due to cost reductions and the need for greed.

    Minimal QA testing on products/software, bug ridden rubbish which, by the time they sort it out, it's out of date.

    Need I go on?..pah!

  57. Keith Langmead

    Blocking's the only way to make them usable.

    Don't feel bad at all. When many sites are so bad it's impossible to actually view them without an adblocker running, the choice isn't between using or not using an adblocker, it's between using one or going elsewhere. Besides, none of their content is unique, so by making their content impossible to view it doesn't prevent me reading about something, it simply ensures I read it elsewhere!

  58. Zippy's Sausage Factory
    Facepalm

    I find the adblocker blockers more annoying than the ads, usually

    Most of the time I get an aggressive "turn off your adblocker" message when I don't have an adblocker installed.

    So I go to a browser that does have one installed and - guess what - site works fine.

    I'm of the opinion that adblocker-blockers are probably going to end up costing sites more money than they lose through ad blockers anyway. Although that would be exceptionally difficult to quantify accurately, of course...

  59. Pat 11

    It's not the ads per se, it's the trackers

    I'd be happy to turn off blocking for sites I want to support, but only if the ads came without tracking cookies and beacons.

    Until then,

    pi-hole.net - lan wide ad block, possibly the best thing to do with a RPi

    Adguard - add blocking for Android without root, including ads inside apps.

    1. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: It's not the ads per se, it's the trackers

      Adguard

      Thanks for that. Have a doughnut.

  60. Pangasinan

    The problem with using an AD Blocker

    is that I never see the products that are being advertised, so I don't know which products to boycott.

    So maybe I should open my browser to discover the offenders.

    Living in the Philippines, any ads I might see would not be relevant anyway

    1. MrTuK
      Unhappy

      Re: The problem with using an AD Blocker

      Lucky bloke, I love Masinloc but sadly living in UK :( Heart in one country head in another :(

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  61. I Like Heckling Silver badge

    Never Have I...

    Never have I ever purchased anything based on an advertisement I saw online... Not once in 20yrs of being online has I been tempted.

    What does that tell you about adverts... that they're ineffective and a simple annoyance. I never watch live TV on channels that have advert breaks, instead I hit record and then wait to start watching for 10-20 mins so I can fast forward through the ad breaks. Mind you, the number of times I watch an advert riddled channel over the course of a year can be counted on one hand.

    I do whitelist a few sites that don't invade and blast you with crap... sadly the reg is NOT one of them because it has become really, really bad over the last few years.

    But In addition to adblocking, I also script block and tracker block... Why this comments page and the reg feel the need for 6 trackers is beyond me... But they're blocked all the same and will never be unblocked.

    After the news that adblock plus has sold out and is now accepting payment to ALLOW ads through, I shall be finding something else. But noscript and privacy badger remain and until they stop working, shall remain active on ALL sites I visit unless it's something that is essential to my use.

  62. Chris King

    "micropangs or nanopangs"

    These would be similar to the size of the violin we should all be playing when advertisers whine about missing out on revenue ? If they played fair, maybe we might too... eventually.

    They might need to buy a sweater and a torch though, the sun is more likely to go out before they have that "lightbulb moment" and stop being so dickish with their ads.

  63. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tracking ads

    I use "Privacy Badger". When it detects that ads are tracking me they will be blocked. If the ads didn't track me they would be allowed.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Tracking ads

      "If the ads didn't track me they would be allowed."

      But does malware include trackers?

  64. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That whole industry needs a master reset

    .. or at least a boot up a place where it seriously hurts.

    Be honest, all shenanigans beyond an animated GIF have but one purpose: to steal your attention away from the article that brought you to the website in the first place (which may exist for ad revenue, so that's a bit chicken & egg).

    If there was a way to guarantee that the only active code I'd get in my browser is that of the site, and not some flash w*nkfest that some marketeer has decided to inflict on my eyeballs, when the only tracking on a site is an anonymised or accounts-focused tracking by the site owner itself that doesn't go anywhere else, when looking at an ad doesn't result in being served the same all over again, when social media buttons do not also act as mini spies for their faraway owners of my presence - THEN I will consider allowing dropping ad blocking for the sites that matter.

    As it stands, even El Reg cannot guarantee that their ad providers won't send provide the next IF*ckYou virus in advertising malware, and that's a serious indictment indeed.*

    No, I don't feel guilty for blocking ads. If you base your income on ad revenue, it may literally pay to pay some attention to the consequences of what you do to your audience. If you don't, well, that strikes me as a market opportunity.

    So there.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: That whole industry needs a master reset

      "all shenanigans beyond an animated GIF"

      Beyond?

  65. quxinot

    Guilty? Are you mad?!

    If anything, I want even stronger adblocking to block the whining that they want to show me ads!

  66. chivo243 Silver badge

    Not Guilty your Honor

    Intrusive ads suck. Fat, bloated, bandwidth sucking ads suck. Targeted ads suck, and that whole kettle of fish is so very creepy.

    I've never seen a skinny advertiser. They must still be eating...

  67. MJI Silver badge

    Adverts

    I have seen sites die due to too many scripts even after adblocking.

    I have bought from companies advertising on the internet, I see the ad I contact the company and I buy the item.

    These ads are simple animated gifs with a few seconds per frame and about 3 or 4 frames, banner ad as as well.

    And it would be impossible to boycott the companies without changing hobbies.

    Yes the forum financed by ads from companies supplying the hobby the forum is for.

  68. mdava

    Off-white list?

    I use ad-blockers on every machine I use.

    However, I would happily (for sites I like and use regularly, such as this) tick an off-white list that permitted only text adverts or static images.

    Anything that is animated (especaially flash), autoplayed movies, popped over/under/across the screen or generally is a pain in the @rse should 100% be blocked all the time.

  69. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A bit late to the party but.....

    After the LAST "AD Blocker is killing the Internet" spree, I decided to try a few sites I normally block, and see how bad it was.

    The answer was "Judgement Day" bad; every website load was slowed to a crawl, and a number of websites with user forums similar to this one were broken; so many trackers and ads were trying to load, the pages timed out.

    On some popular click-bait websites (looking at you Buzzfeed), the list of trackers and ad servers runs to over THREE PAGES; and if you allow that lot ANOTHER PAGE (or two), of them appears!!

    My 80Mb connection felt like my old 40Kb line back in the 90's.

    You'll get my ad blocker off of me when you prise it from my cold, dead hands; block my blocker and you are dead to me.

    A clueless friend foolishly joined FaceBook last month, he is now panicking and asking how to get all his info back off, as he is being bombarded with "targeted" ad crap (the only "targeting" being his name included), where-ever he goes on the internet.

  70. The_H

    I feel so un-guilty.

    Imagine some bloody advertiser breaking into your living room and standing in front of the TV every thirty seconds shouting adverts at you. He wouldn't last long, but web advertisers seem to think that sort of thing is quite acceptable.

    No it isn't. ABP is a must.

  71. Haku

    Sometimes you HAVE to use an ad blocker because otherwise the site doesn't work properly.

    Take for example http://www.speedtest.net/ for testing your internet speed. If I don't use an ad blocker then my speed test results cannot be trusted because of the bandwidth & cpu the adverts take up when loading the page & doing the test.

  72. steve 124

    Spot on commenters

    I agree with all the comments I read here (yea, I lazily read a half dozen). I feel no guilt either because it's not my hatred of commercials that got us here. It's a security risk, period.

    I've had ads served by Yahoo and Google both have injected malware in them and even though my AV (Webroot) stopped them cold, it's the creepy factor that comes from being on a legit site and suddenly seeing your AV go nuts about an attempted driveby. Ad servers need to take security and content much more seriously and maybe folks like me would loosen up a bit, but to me ad these days are like popups were in the 90s.

    Would you turn off your pop-up blocker if a site told you they wanted you to? Nope. Same thing.

    I am truly sorry that the sites I love (<hugs El Reg>) don't get revenue from my visits, but I try to bring other readers to those sites, which should make up for some of my sins. Not all of them are using blockers.

    As for me, I visit this site from work and I'm an Enterprise Administrator level account so I can't risk my network security over a few pennies of revenue for websites.

    As a matter of fact, I'm sure this spurred the conversation, I had to remove The Register from my favorites list yesterday for this very reason. Their choice (to block my adblocker) didn't generate any additional revenue for them, it only cost them a reader (I'm sure they would say they are saving bandwidth by me not going there anymore).

    Don't follow their lead Reg, it's not worth pissing off your readers... plus, we wuv you! <big dooey eyes>

    1. steve 124

      Re: Spot on commenters

      Oops, I meant to say I removed The InQ yesterday. Not El Reg.... you guys are smarter than them! And prettier too! Please don't consider following InQ down that dark path. :)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Spot on commenters

      "I visit this site from work and I'm an Enterprise Administrator level account so I can't risk my network security over a few pennies of revenue for websites"

      You are a moron if you are using an administrator account to surf the web.

  73. Howard Hanek
    Happy

    I'll Cry Victory When.....

    I no longer see......."My girlfriend makes $8467 a month working from home on her computer........."

  74. Anonymous Coward
  75. VinceH

    Although the question is in the subheading, not the actual headline, I feel Betteridge's law of headlines fits: Do I feel guilty? No, I absolutely do not.

    Although, technically, I don't block adverts as such - I block scripts. This has the side effect of blocking the overwhelming majority of adverts, and making the web far quicker, lighter and a whole lot more pleasant to browse. There is the small inconvenience of deciding when I need (whether permanently or temporarily) to allow scripts, or when to just move on - but I find it really is only a small one.

    The advertising industry has well and truly fucked itself. It started off with a simple foot cannon, and after firing it complained that us, the users, were the cause of the problem - and it has gradually adjusted the settings on that foot cannon, firing it again at each step, until it's reached maximum yield, maximum strength. And still they blame us.

    The bottom line is that I run NoScript for security reasons - and that's not going to change. If you want me to see adverts on your websites, therefore, those adverts should be text or images embedded in the pages, clearly marked as advertising, and served up without the need for Javascript. Do that, and I will see your adverts with no hoop jumping necessary, and without compromising the security of my computers.

    But trying to force me to accept annoying, intrusive adverts by compromising that security - noting that the adverts themselves may bring the payload? Not a bloody chance, you imbecilic fucktards.

    Worth adding that along with the news that it's cheaper to get hacked than be secure, a similar mindset is probably prevalent in the whole online advertising industry. Why bother to incur the cost of cleaning up their act when it's probably cheaper to deal with the damage that might be caused?

  76. Florida1920
    Pint

    Proud to be a 23-Percenter

    Where can I buy the hat?

    1. Shooter

      Re: Proud to be a 23-Percenter

      Where can I buy the hat?

      Didn't you see the ad for it?

  77. OliP

    dont believe this poll for a second.

    i dont know anyone using an adblocker who whitelists anyone...

    i've blocked any site that says i have to disable the blocker in order to read. None of them have taken any steps to deal with the malware via advertising issue, and none of them have remotely optimised their site for reading on mobile devices.

    Sorry but put some effort in, provide a decent service, then lets talk about me paying...

  78. davebarnes

    Ads?

    Websites have ads?

    How come I never see any?

  79. Joe Gurman

    Guilt? At not seeing ads?

    Are you effin' serious? I believe the correct response, to quote the film version of The Man Who Would Be King, is, "Not bloody likely."

    If adverts were no more obnoxious, either in appearance or by giving evidence of slurping and sharing personal information, than newspaper ads; if ads did not therefore follow me from site to site, even if I only visited site A once in six months; if ads actually tried to sell me something rather than serving as a way for tracking my surfing habits.... maybe.

    As it is, I pay for ("subscribe to") to major US news outlets' online presence, instead of seeing ads. Through Patreon, I also pay for content on a couple of much lower budget sites. My conscience is clean, mate.

    And in answer to the most obvious question, yes, I'd pay a quid or so a month to keep reading The Reg. There's nothing immoral about partial paywalls in return for spyware-free viewing. And make no mistake: that's what online ads are, spyware.

  80. RyokuMas
    Meh

    I might feel guilty...

    ... on the day that ads are limited to a static image or text snippet, no more than 10% screen-width square, either on the far-right or at the foot of the page I am browsing.

    Until then... nope.

  81. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    small sample size

    "admittedly using a dubiously small sample size of 243 users"

    This is roughly the same size sample that Haringey council in North London used as the basis for its 'Smarter Travel' policy - affecting over 200,000 citizens of the borough.

    They held a poorly-advertised(*) 'smarter travel' event, to which small numbers of pro-cycling, anti-car people went ...and filled in the council survey forms.

    (* The only reason I know about it, living just around the corner from where it was held in an obscure location, was that I happened to walk past that location that day)

  82. IGnatius T Foobar
    Linux

    Don't whitelist sites... whitelist ad providers

    Don't whitelist sites ... whitelist the ad providers who deal in static, non-blinky, non-obnoxious ads. This encourages site publishers to use those ad providers.

  83. boardbonobo

    Wait. What? There's adverts. On websites... When did that happen?

    Seriously though. I always adblock, script block, cookie block. You name it and its blvoked.It's why I only browse the web with Lynx...

    Malware, tracking cookies and the rest. They're all threats and when websites willingly, and liberally, smother their pages with disasters waiting to happen it's up to the user to make up for their mistakes. When it happens that publishers are legally, and financially, culpable for anything that leaks out of their sites then I might consider dropping the barriers but until then 'Shields Up!'.

  84. earl grey
    Joke

    Even Pornhub complains about ad-blockers

    erm, a friend told me...

  85. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Is this a joke?

    You know there's a problem when the list of blocked adds, trackers, beacons etc is so long the bottom of it falls off the page

  86. Geoffrey W

    (untitled)

    Don't use ad blockers but do use no script. Some ads do get through but not the bouncy moveable kind and that's OK by me. Nicer sites get reduced no script. Sites that block me until I turn it off completely get ignored. Allmusic.com just started doing this. I bet their visitors have dropped off, but that's their choice. Looking at all the cross linked sites and script makes me queasy. Guilt? A bit, but nothing soul threatening. I am perfectly OK with simple ads and want favourite sites to thrive but, please, show me just a little respect.

  87. CrosscutSaw

    Add me to the zero guilt group

    Forbes?? I don't even bother to try to go to their site anymore. They are dead to me. LOL.

    I will open up a couple of sites like my banking or others but, other than that. It's adblock and scriptblock by default everywhere.

    I feel great. :)

  88. ShortLegs

    its the repeats that get me

    Agree with every comment on here.

    But what really gets me, is tracking my habits. I've just insured my car, why the fuck are you serving up ads for car insurance? That's looking at YOU, gocompare.com... I've just bought $ITEM, I'm not going to need another.

    I block, I ghost, I badger. My web experience is relatively ok on PC. I do not give one fuck for loss of adv revenue. If I like a site, I support if they have a mechanism to let me send them some dosh.

  89. Michael Habel

    Two Words...

    Oh HELL NO!

  90. EPurpl3

    I am a web designer and I create flashy animated ads. No remorse at all for using ad blocker, I already offer so much to those greedy bastards who use them :DDDD

  91. Lotaresco
    Facepalm

    No guilt

    I don't feel any guilt when I see these warnings, because they are wrong. I'm not using an ad blocker. What I am blocking is javascript. I'm also blocking cross-site scripting and tracking cookies. Here's a clue advertisers. If your advertising and desire to grab personal details from me look like an attack on *my* network I've got every right to stop you.

  92. Charon

    Numbers...

    So 180 people said they feel guilty about using ad blockers and a few used whitelists ...

    63 said they didn't ..

    There is 130 ish ppl commenting here that they feel no guilt. Why don't they come here and and try the poll?

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Numbers...

      Why don't they come here and and try the poll?

      Would you knowingly walk into an ambush? I don't think so. I don't feel guilty. El Reg is unblocked but my hosts file kills off most of the offensive advertisers. I use this one for starters and add to it if needed: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

      Most of us have been making the point and been ignored... you want readers... push back on the advertising industry. No shouty, no malware, no autoplay, no screaming music. And.. no fucking tracking.

      Yeah.. I suspect the industry does read the comments here but figure we're just a bunch of ungrateful malcontents. I will state proudly that I'm an ungrateful malcontent. Bite me ad agencies.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Numbers...

        "I suspect the industry does read the comments here"

        And frequently post defensively. But not in this thread. Maybe he's lost his job - or just taken the weekend off.

  93. asdf

    not big on browser based solutions except for privacy badger (for tracking)

    Personal opinion is anything blocked by privoxy on the default settings deserves it.

  94. cdilla

    Never whitelist

    I never whitelist sites. There is the security aspect, but mostly it's because ads are bloody annoying.

    Websites that need the income can raise a paywall - if they are worth the money to me I'll pay.

    One or two sites I used to visit regularly now block on sensing an adblocker, but pretty much every site has the same information, albeit maybe rehashed by a different hack, duplicated on many others. El Reg is my favourite IT news site and has been since it started, but there are many others covering the same ground to migrate to were ads ever to become mandatory.

  95. OchaiThenoo

    Zero guilt. I've never clicked on an ad ever and now I don't see any now they're blocked. Zero chance of malware since ad servers don't bother to check what they're pushing. I pay a subscription to a couple of sites and still ad block them since paying them doesn't switch them off.

    I see no change in the foreseeable future.

  96. HarryBl

    "We are left wondering why publishers, rather than diversifying their revenue, keep insisting on making the user experience as crappy as possible:"

    Because they're as thick as mince and know no better.

  97. gotes

    Gotta get paid

    I support a few of my favourite independent "content producers" through Patreon, which lets you decide how much you want to donate. I really couldn't care less if I lose access to poorly written articles on ad-ridden local news website because I use an ad blocker. I certainly don't want to pay a £5 a month subscription to a site that I may read one article on every couple of months.

    I would prefer a pay-per-view system whereby you load up a wallet with low value tokens, and the website would request a certain number of tokens to view the content. If you don't like it, f-off or look at some adverts. Of course this service would be monitoring browsing habits, and probably start making "suggestions" (i.e. advertising).

    I think content creators deserve to get paid for their work, I just prefer to pay those who I feel deserve to be paid, and in my opinion, the stuff with a shitload of intrusive ads isn't worth reading, let alone being paid for.

  98. boidsonly

    No.

    I do not feel guilty...

  99. Oor Nonny-Muss

    I block ads for the same reason I don't visit the Daily Mail - I don't like being lied to.

    Pangs? Only when hungry.

  100. DainB Bronze badge

    Recently one of relatives, fairly inexperienced user who knows how to push power button and find icon to launch "Mozilla", tried my AdBlock + NoScript + Ghostery browsing experience to visit her favorite site and immediately requested the same setup on her own computer.

    That's how bad it is, not only tech savvy people using AdBlockers now.

  101. ilmari

    Am I the only one in comments NOT using adblock?

    Although theregister makes me tempted to do it, because ADS COVER THE FIRST ROW OF HEADLINES. Not always, refreshing it enough makes it produce an ad that doesn't cover headlines. Eventually. But I guess that's the idea, make it half broken, more refresh more views?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Ads Covering First Row of Headlines & Refresh?

      TheRegister has ads covering the First Row of Headlines?

      TheRegister refreshes?

      I would have never known that went on if you hadn't enlightened me...thanks to adBlock Plus!

  102. Kevin Johnston

    They want honest?

    OK, here it is then...

    Most of the news sites I used to visit got so up themselves with adverts that it was taking an age to load each page so I put in a blocker. Now those sites not only have even more ads and pop-ups that I just don't go there, some of them don't even do more than add some 'follow the twitterati' stories and have multiple copies of the same article spread around the home page (Telegraph I am looking squarely at you here).

    I now use Reuters for raw news and they are whitelisted since they have a very clean site, it does have ads but pages load very fast so I am happy to let that through. For tech news I come here obviously and also go to more focussed sites for the products I support.

    If I try a new news-site and the page fills with ads, I just don't go back.

  103. pro-logic

    Do I feel guilty. No. Here is one of the reasons.

    The Sydney Morning Herald which is the local rag in my city

    - No adblock page size: 7.8MiB and about 400 requests

    - With adblock enabled: 824KiB and 230 requests

  104. Sleeve98

    No, no, it's not the ads - it's the Java

    Serve all the ads all you want. God knows we can't go to a ballgame without seeing a Budweiser banner draped over the outfield wall. It's being watched that's objectionable. It's why the IOT is such a nightmare for me: marketers' ideal is to know even what we talk about in our own homes in order to profit from pushing personal advertisement, and no matter how strongly they feel they're entitled to such information, I equally strongly disagree. I don't want any corporation - even grocers - to know that I'm out of bread. I really can't see how that's unreasonable.

    For the moment our phones and PCs are their brightest eyes (eavesdropping television microphones notwithstanding (>cough!< Samsung!)) but in light of the recent picnic we saw a fortnight ago with long-pwned Apple devices suddenly and urgently needing an upgrade, it's clear that it's just begun. Tailoring my Java permissions is also why I'm spared the plague of Auto-Play that's turned up lately, so it follows that I would support a return to billboard-style advertising on the internet, as with the late millennium, in the days before Flash and Shockwave planted a neon "mug me" sign over every user online. Hotlinked JPEGs BUILT the frikin' internet, for cryin' out loud. I know, I was there.

    Oh, billboards don't make as much money for advertisers? So sorry to hear that. PCs have been commoditized down to $250, movies on disc have been commoditized down to $2.99 in the checkout stand at the grocery store, my own job was commoditized and shipped to Bangalore. It's time we commoditized Madison Avenue's asses for once.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No, no, it's not the ads - it's the Javascript

      "my own job was commoditized and shipped to Bangalore.

      Being offshored means I don't have any money for a lot of the stuff advertised.

      "It's time we commoditized Madison Avenue's asses for once."

      The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats

      TED video: The Pitchforks Are Coming

  105. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Marketing's own goal.

    I used to read a certain newspaper. Mainly because it allowed comments, was reasonably accurate, was free and the adverts were not too intrusive.

    now it wont run with adblock,wants a subscription, comments no longer featured, and its clear that articles are in fact advertorials.

    And I read it about 2 mins a day instead of 2 hrs, just to see what the PR industry wants me to think today.

    <shrug> Well if that's the way they want it...

    I mean really, pay per view AND adverts?

  106. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I use TheRegister to test if my adblock is working

    So, definitely not.

  107. Prndll

    My question is......

    Why would The Reg suggest that it is somehow wrong for me to take responsibility for my own equipment with actions that are not only intended for the protection of my data, my privacy, my computers, and my identity but also things that help to prevent my equipment from being used to harm others (like botnets)?

    Uh Reg....these issues do have the potential for taking YOUR website out (just like KrebsOnSecurity). Why would you want that? It is clear to me that your readers are trying to protect themselves. Why would you suggest anything less?

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: My question is......

      Personally speaking, I think it's fair to say that the advertising+media world fucked up pretty bad with shitty bloated Flash ads, invasive popups, and dodgy ad networks that try to infect people. So I get why people use ad blockers to protect their systems and avoid slowing down their browsers.

      (FWIW El Reg has a small but able ad ops team who are fast, smart and dedicated to weeding out any crap ads. We try our very best to serve only quality ads that won't piss you off in the hope that ppl whitelist us in their ad block plugins, if they're using them.)

      Why are Reg journos anti-blockers? Well, there's a worry that when ads across the web are finally cleaned up - such as using pure HTML5, no creepy JS, no sound, no fucking tricks - no one will see them anyway because the bridge has been burned and everyone's using ad blockers, and then we'll be left with Bloomberg and, er, Bloomberg.

      And that's no fun at all.

      C.

      1. Prndll

        Re: My question is......

        I can certainly appreciate your point of view. In a very real way, I agree.

        It does raise the question though of who defines "crap ads" when it is so easy for anyone to 'buy' access? This is not to mention that a very big part of it does not even come close to being under Reg control. Which means it is very difficult to say with any real certainty what is and what is not crap.

        For the record though, I don't use adblockers per se. But I do filter out over 260,000 websites from my network. I do this with NO GUILT. I do this purely out of self protection. Not only for threat mitigation but for bandwidth control aswell. Since I don't use other people's software, I am not under their control. I see no reason for this to ever be done any other way. I am a user that cares.

        Perhaps it is time for ALL online news sites to stop being so dependent on 'advertising' of any kind and rely on quality content. It might be surprising to discover how effective this will be at brining in more visitors, readers, and loyalty.

      2. Kay Burley ate my hamster

        Re: My question is......

        I disagree, El Reg has the most annoying ads outside of the daily mail. Animated, noisy, big and bordering the text while you are trying to read it. Without an adblocker this website is impossible to read for any length of time.

  108. Kaltern

    Quite simply,

    If blocking ads kills a website, then their content is lost.

    If the website in question required tons of tracking and advertising to survive... then it most likely isn't going to be missed.

    El Reg uses advertising. I block it because it is (IMO) too obtrusive (it was a while back, I've not unblocked it for months). If it was a couple of ads tucked away in the corner, and not full screen on each side with massive click zones, I might consider unblocking. (I just checked - and no, they're still there. Sorry.)

    Besides, I imagine El Reg doesn't just rely on dodgy ad networks, and hosts their own ads sold to companies directly?

    Anyway, there is too much regurgitated trash on the web, and if half of it disappeared because of ad blocking, I really don't see that as a problem. I remember back in the old days of yore, when advertising consisted of a single banner at the top of the page. That was unobtrusive. Until someone realised that a GIF anim would work too. Then it all went downhill from there...

    Maybe there should be a WWW Advertising Standard. Only x number of ads per page, with agreed restrictions on how they're presented and tracked,

    Of course, I'm dreaming again...

  109. phr0g

    No.

    And sites that block me because of it get blacklisted.

    And sites that get around my blocking of auto play videos get blacklisted.

    I will go and find online what I want, when I want. And I want quite a lot.

    Saying that, I had no problem with small, link-type ads that are targeted to my cookies. Just that nowadays they want a third of the site real-estate and want to wave at me and shout at me.

    Guilty? You'd have to be extremely weird to feel guilty about it imo. Or be a EuropeanLiberal socialist MP (I say that as a European Liberal socialist).

  110. David_42

    Not even one tiny little wafer

    I've never clicked on an ad, I never will, so why download them? Advertisers pay for views, so if I don't download I'm saving them money.

  111. bombastic bob Silver badge
    Devil

    I'll stop blocking ads when...

    I'll stop blocking when

    a) you stop using jquery and nodejs and other monolithic mega-scripting in your ads

    b) you stop using script *PERIOD* in your ads

    c) you stop using COOKIES to TRACK me (in your ads and elsewhere including invisible GIF)

    d) you stop using ANYTHING to TRACK me.

    e) you stop using FLASH or POPUPS or CLICK THROUGH or any *OTHER* video or active/moving content, particularly content that requires USER ACTION to MAKE IT GO AWAY.

    At that point, ads will be simple banners. They're not irritating. I won't block them.

  112. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "because the bridge has been burned and everyone's using ad blockers"

    The bridge has already been burnt. It's not the blockers that did it. It was the ads.

  113. Kay Burley ate my hamster

    Not at all

    I'm using one right now to block the flashing wrap-around ads on El Reg. I assume you still do that, probably sound coming from it too.

    Although most of the time I forget its running, so it's a real shock to use other people's computers.

  114. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Guilt? You Gotta Being Kidding

    No Guilt Here. Will consider whitelisting sites and/or ad companies when they can absolutely guarantee:

    1. No Tracking

    2. No Malvertising

    3. No Cost to You for us showing you our ads. They pay my bandwidth used.

  115. razorfishsl

    Over at the DM in the UK they are autolaunching & running ad videos in the back ground.

    then there are the continual shill articles that try to pass as news.

    so no... Fuck them , that's what I say

  116. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Use Tracker Blocker

    Those who are feeling guilty but also prefer privacy can use a good tracking blocker. They'll block most ads on most sites cause almost every ads contain tracker. They'll allow some tracker-free ads. They are not generally useful against pop-up though.

  117. Daniel Voyce

    Adblock + Scriptsafe

    This combination takes care of all the ads and the associated "Hard Block" that Forbes et al tries to place on you. As the first poster said, "Until they can guarantee that they wont serve me up crap then they can stay blocked"

  118. Public Citizen
    Joke

    After having carefully considered the question {after I stopped clutching my sides and laughing hysterically} the answer is........

    NO.

  119. Potemkine Silver badge

    A sum-up of advertising online

    : Snake oil and security flaws.

  120. Buttons
    Thumb Down

    We notice you're running an ad blocker . . .

    Nope, not at all. It ruins immersion. Its the same with TV, so I avoid ad channels if I watch anything at all.

    Why would I fight through several layers of ads to get to content? Similarly with TV, why would I get hooked on a drama just to have the immersion spoiled by some needless snack advert that has nothing to do with the item I'm watching? I exercise choice and leave it out.

    Restricted by blocking ads? Not really. I can't read the whole internets in a life time and there is plenty content to see elsewhere so I don't find its that restricting.

    The upside of blocking is the total lack of malware alerts.

    PS - I have tried to run a browser without ad blocking, its a waste of life, pointless if you want to do anything useful.

  121. Maryland, USA

    Did you know that when you attempt to read an article that's blocked, often you can read the article in plain text by switching your browser to "reader mode"? You do now. That's how I read more than 10 articles a month in the New York Times, using my Lightning Pro browser on Android.

  122. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No guilt

    No guilt for all the reasons others have listed but my connection is very slow, often under 1Mbps, and I pay for use. I can't afford the overhead that comes with many ad's and popups. So I understand if sites do not want me to visit, which is fine if I have to pay to download more content than I'm interested in then I do not want me to visit their site either.

    A better model is to have everyone pay for data they use, and get paid for data they create but business and governments likes taking and using our data, my data, for free so we are stuck with what we have. For now.

  123. cortland

    If at the end

    If, at the end of the month, one discovers he has gone 5 GB over his limit, and must pay $90 US for having done so, a lot of that guilt will be erased with anger.

  124. Basil II

    I will not whitelist anyone's ads. Not No Way Not No How.

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