Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love [Ars]

[HalifaxPete]

When a site has a contract to display ads from Google or other ad display companies, does the site have an option for what ads get displayed in the respective ad zone?

In order for the ad display companies to retain their reputations, every advertisement displayed should always be legitimate.
There have been some Google ads that I thought "I am not going anywhere near that!"

[sswilson]

Originally Posted by HalifaxPete

When a site has a contract to display ads from Google or other ad display companies, does the site have an option for what ads get displayed in the respective ad zone?

In order for the ad display companies to retain their reputations, every advertisement displayed should always be legitimate.
There have been some Google ads that I thought "I am not going anywhere near that!"

I stand to be corrected, but AFAIK websites don't get to "chose" which google ads are displayed, but, the option is always there to block IPs from domains you don't want. Case in point are ads which appeared here for Swoopo.... the North American ones were blocked by the website when they first appeared and then the European ones were blocked when they started to appear.

As far as the ads which slow the website down go... those are few and far between, but when one does come up, please let us know immediately and the boys in the back room will resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

My own impression is that the problems occur because of the way that google ads work.... the ads themselves do not reside on google's servers, only the pointer to the URL. Ads which slow the website down usually are either due to poor web servers on the ads' part, or (like one of the early Gigabyte banner ads we had), poorly coded flash.

AFAIK, the way ads are served up on the page has been changed on HWC as well.... when they first started going up the website processed the ads + content in series so that the content wouldn't load up until the ad was finished doing its thing. I believe these things now happen in parallel with each other.

[mo' power]

I disabled my blocker for this site a coupla years back. I emerged with the HWC afterbirth...

[burebista]

I'm one of the hardcore ad haters. I hate them on TV. I hate them on radio. I hate them on magazines. I hate them on open spaces. I hate them anywhere I see them.
Maybe it's a reminiscence from 20 years of communism here when I never see an ad and then 22 years of "capitalism" when I'm suffocated by ads. I don't know. All I know is that I change the channel on TV/radio when I saw/hear them, I don't buy magazines, I close my eyes on open spaces.
So surfing on net I use AdBlock.
You have 2 choices here:
- made a subscription mode ad-free
- you made a forum ad-free for users with some reputation/post numbers/whatever.

Sorry guys, as long I can read a site ad-free I'll visit it with pleasure. If I can't that's it, move to another one. And if in the end I cannot find one ad-free then I reach the Internet end.

[gingerbee]

or just use chrome cause i have never had a slowing down because of the ads

[belgolas]

I notice a lot of ads are targeted to words on the web page. So of we are talking about batteries there might be a battery ad. Ads also seem to be targeted to what you view on the Internet.

I have never bought anything online because of ads but I may have bought a pop or some gum because of ads at stores. All the ads about cars are not going to make me buy one.

I guess if your an uninformed person that only gets their "reviews" from ads then you may buy a lot because of ads but I think most people here research everything from toasters to headphones to cars to CPUs. So they are not that effective to us.

[Deviant]

Originally Posted by gingerbee

or just use chrome cause i have never had a slowing down because of the ads

Hmm, I've tried Chrome on my system but it often times out. i.e. Trying to load 4-5 webpages, but nothing loads until 5-6 seconds later.

I whitelist HWC and several other sites that I tend to visit. I only block ADs that I find placed in annoying areas in such sites though.

[Kilauea]

I've never used an ad blocker before and will continue to do so because the websites I visit are smart enough not to bombard me with all sorts of crap. Keep it clean and keep my visits.

Anyway, if said website is bombarding me, I think I will just question my visit of the site before getting an ad blocker. That is even more true since I got my 24in LCD, The ads actually take enough space for me not to bother with them.

[gingerbee]

Originally Posted by Deviant

Hmm, I've tried Chrome on my system but it often times out. i.e. Trying to load 4-5 webpages, but nothing loads until 5-6 seconds later.

I whitelist HWC and several other sites that I tend to visit. I only block ADs that I find placed in annoying areas in such sites though.

I am using it pretty much all the time along with firefox and have not had a problem at all i even use it a lot in virtual pc's.

[Caldezar]

I've turned off blocking for HWC because I'm actually interested in the content here and want to help support it. But I keep my blocker running for just about everything else.

Basically, any idiot with a few hours of free time can create a website. And any idiot with a few more hours than that can get organized with paid ads on their site. This encourages the creation of an IMMENSE amount of useless drivel on the internet, all designed to get people to view and/or click on ads. I'm sorry, but if these people have the freedom to create and display anything they feel like, then I should have the freedom to block it. This kind of ad campaigning wouldn't survive anywhere else. If you want to make some money off me... earn it! Produce content worth viewing, and I'll unblock your page and visit it more often.