I block most ads and flash because I hate waiting for them to load. Maybe if sites with a lot of ads would pay for their visitor’s broadband:cool:
I have a forum site that was created by the users of another forum that was sold and the new owner plastered the site with intrusive ads. I am able to pay for the webhosting with a PayPal donate button and no ads.
Bill
I use it because Ads are very irritating. Ads are so easy to identify I don’t think anyone really reads or clicks them unless it’s a quick impulse. Except for maybe facebook ads, those are decent looking.
Some sites wont let you view their content if you have ad blocker on. For myself, I don’t turn the blocker off, I just leave, but that’s an option.
In my opinion the people clicking Ads are mostly computer newbies. I’ve only clicked about 3 ads total this year, they were images, and all had to do with web hosting that I was interested in at that immediate moment, which is very rare!
Advertising is about a whole lot more than putting relevant ads on your website to make you money. Ever since advertising has existed there have been ways of blocking adverts, from VCR’s with software installed to not record adverts to people recording shows from the radio on cassette tapes and skipping adverts.
The idea that “adverts help people” is a load of crap. Everyone on here that has put adverts on their website has done it for one thing and one thing only, profit; and there is nothing wrong with that! However, people come to your page for its content or its services, not your adverts.
Reddit, currently the most popular social news website in front of Digg, has a novel method of showing adverts by making them available to the community by allowing comments and votes on them. In addition to this, they leave fun Flash games and nice messages thanking their users for not using AdBlock. As a result (and don’t quote me on this) a lot of Reddit users have turned off AdBlock on Reddit because they want to support the website, and trust that the adverts shown won’t be intrusive to their experience.
Rather than come here and complain about your adverts not reaching people that don’t care about them, why not take a leaf from Reddit and thank those users that don’t use AdBlock, in addition to opening the floor to suggestions as to what you can do to make the ad experience more tolerable.
I do agree on Author’s point but should not interfere w/ the viewers. For example, would public TV station exist w/o commercials? What if there was a plugin for you TV to skip commercials? w/o a doubt many people will install it! However, if you start denying the users because of AdBlock… you will always lose… it’s not a battle you want to fight. The maximum action you can take is to “nicely” ask your viewer to set their AdBlock to disable on your site. If not, those users will never ever visit your site again and they may say negative things on other forums. I don’t know too much of your site but if you have commenting system then your users add value to your site. You don’t want to lose that.
How about this? for the people who use AdBlock, put up a “flash” page. This might annoy the user enough to disable the AdBlock. But, don’t threaten them saying their IP be blocked!
I think that it will only annoy users and make them leave the site.
That’s why you have to have the right amount of ads and you really need to integrate them nicely. If people didn’t abuse of ads, then visitors wouldn’t turn to ad blockers to enjoy their browsing. They would accept the ads, ignore them if they wish, or click on them if they please.
For example, would public TV station exist w/o commercials? What if there was a plugin for you TV to skip commercials? w/o a doubt many people will install it!
TiVo
UPC
Ziggo
Are you also going to block Lynx users? What about users who block images? Maybe people whose monitors don’t display the correct shade of green for your advertisements?
The web is an open standard; part of the design includes users being able to download your hypertext and do whatever they want with it. I might be using Firefox to browse your website. I might be using a client which displays the HTML only, requiring me to parse it manually. I might be using a browser with a custom stylesheet, ignoring all of your styles. I might be using a browser which parses your HTML and displays the page to me in an interpretive dance.
The bottom line: you have absolutely no control over what people do with your markup. This is simply the way that the web works.
That is why it continually baffles me when people build websites using a business model where they release free content supported by advertisements, and then get angry when they realize that visitors are blocking the ads.
The ad-blockers are not the problem; your business model (and the business model of countless others) is the problem. If you are going to release content for free and support it with advertisements, either understand that all of your visitors might block the ads or choose a different medium where you can control exactly what your visitors see (i.e. not the web).
In the meantime, I will continue to block all of your ads and I will also block any attempts that you make to detect this block.
Note: When I say “you” in this post, I am not referring to any specific individual but rather to a hypothetical entity that releases ad-supported free content. Please don’t take this personally.
I rest my case… it’s like hackers… why do they do it? Answer is “Because they can”
Honestly though, the author can put a friendly reminder to the user that they are using AdBlock. I’m sure he has viewers who fully support his site but forgot to disable the AdBlock. Happens to me time to time.
Link?
Sorry, no link. It’s an internally developed project. 
copy paste below and put it as a URL and see dancing images
javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position=‘absolute’; DIS.left=(Math.sin(Rx1+ix2+x3)x4+x5)+“px”; DIS.top=(Math.cos(Ry1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+“px”}R++}setInterval(‘A()’,5); void(0);
must scroll to the top of the page to see the show 
While most people on a site like this are aware of these type of browser plugins, the general public aren’t. Don’t know why you’re getting so agitated when only about 5% of people use them?
Agreed… I would concentrate on improving the website so that it entices visitors to stay longer, refers others and compels visitors to click on the ads by placing them in a pleasing fashion.
I’ve been surfing and developing on the web for about 15 years and I do click on ads if they are relevant to my interests. Furthermore, if the product is worthwhile I’ll make a purchase. It usually amounts to a few hundred dollars a year but I’m sure there are others who do as well.
What compels me to click on an ad is that I know it’s an ad and it looks professional. That it’s not stuffed in the content or stuffed in the navigation like an afterthought. It’s psychological of course but that’s what a great deal of marketing is.
The issue will get worse when these items become part of the default settings of browsers and the such.
And trust me, they will.
If you want quality content you should be wiling to pay for it. At very least be willing to tolerate ads. People act like they are entitled to free content.
E
Actually no I don’t think that’s the case. I think in many cases entrepreneurs create sites, fill them with content and then expect that they will magically be provided residual income. The rational is that they have done the heavy lifting providing the site and content but regardless of the content, design, etc… The site would not exist without the network that supports it along with the many organizations worldwide supporting the network, name servers, etc…
The bottom line is that nobody owes you anything just because you created a site. Even if you filled it with great content. If you want to monetize it, you need to market it and come up with a reason to buy in.
I do have paid for memberships for a couple of websites but the content is unique and my membership account reduces the number of ads in view and gives me access to a classified ads section as well as member only information. The cost is meager; $10/year or $40/lifetime.
The problem isn’t necessarily the fact that people are avoiding ads, but that site owners are unaware of other means to finance their websites. Ad-blocking wasn’t just created by magic, it was born from a need, and that need stems from intrusive adverts getting in the way of people trying to enjoy their preferred form of media, whether it be American sports that take three hours and contain only 20 minutes of actual play, or whether it be a simple information site that repeatedly tells me to have “Live Sex Chat with horny Russians”.
If you want to display adverts on your website, you need to think about how your users will react to these adverts. If you’re that dead set of using advertising on your web pages give A/B Testing and basic questionnaires a try and you’ll soon find out where the best place to put your adverts is.
Link?
This better not be another scam like that interpretive dance browser mentioned earlier!
I’d check again, but I’m at work and my employers aren’t cool with my unquenchable thirst for live sex chats with horny russians during work hours. I’m pretty sure it happened to me yesterday when I was reading a Family Guy information website.
Essentially blocking ads can be seen as abusing one site’s service/offerings, so banning them is an acceptable solution in my book. We don’t manage these sites for free, we have costs.