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Do you agree with 'Adblock' plugins?

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Why would you do that? said:
He was banned. The comments in the thread support that, but it clearly wasn't permanent.



I wonder about this, too. I'd think that Google of all people would be anti-ad blocking. Google removes applications like Market Enabler from Android (which switches your Android market to a different region), yet they don't remove ad blockers from the Android store or Chrome store.

To be fair, when Chrome was in its infancy, the way the plugin system used to work did not allow ad block plugins to be possible. Some used to complain that there was no ad blocker on Chrome.
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No, except he wasn't. People thinking he would be just like in this thread doesn't make it true. You only get banned if you act like a complete ass, just like in any discussion, that's it. Stump's post in the thread confirms that.
 
As someone who runs a small blog, ad revenue helps me to keep it alive. Considering the amount of work I put into it the revenue isn't anywhere near enough, but it is something at least.
 
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
No, except he wasn't. People thinking he would be just like in this thread doesn't make it true. You only get banned if you act like a complete ass, just like in any discussion, that's it. Stump's post in the thread confirms that.
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He was, I remember that incident, which is why I could find it so easily.

If you want to see what EviLore says about this, straight from the horse's mouth, look here, here, here, and here. Based on those posts, you're right in that you "only get banned if you act like a complete ass," but I'm right in that advertising your use of ad blocking is seen as that. Perhaps you're right that an innocent screenshot with an ad missing won't get you banned. All the cases I've seen were some poster basically saying, "I use adblock," or "Hey, use adblock."

In conclusion, don't mention your use of ad blocking on NeoGAF, and especially don't advocate its use on NeoGAF.

Mr_Zombie said:
Many people don't/didn't want to switch from FF to Chrome because adblock plugins (Adblock/NoScript) work better on the first one. If Chrome blocked all ad block plugins, lots of folks would switch the browser back to Firefox.
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I completely agree. However, Chrome was actually gaining a lot of popularity before the ad blocking plugins arrived. I'm curious as to how many people would have stuck with Chrome if they never allowed for ad blocking plugins, especially considering many people's attitudes towards recent Firefox releases.
 
There was one ad on GAF that I had to block on my netbook actually. I think it was an Everquest ad and it was animated. That ad caused my netbook to pretty much freeze completely, especially if it was a GIF thread on top of that. As soon as it scrolled onto the screen my browser would slow to a crawl, and it could take a couple of minutes for it to snap back. Only blocked it on that particular netbook though, and it was ages ago so the ad is probably not in rotation anymore.

Sqorgar said:
But I'm not paying for the service. The advertisers are. And the websites are selling ME to the advertisers. Most of the time, it's just my time and attention (which I don't consider free), but often they are selling information about me or providing a service by which trackers can follow me and keep track of what websites I visit. That's the service they are really performing, and I have to admit, it does somewhat bother me.
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This is my sentiment exactly. I don't like being tracked. I like privacy.

Also, while I'm browsing new sites I'm not gonna be sure right away that it's a site I want to continue to visit and support. What if something about the site pisses me off? Like, something offensive. Well great now they got money off of me anyway, so now that site can go on and spread that offensive crap even more, and Google and others now know I was there and think I might be interested in products that are related to it. Well, not with adblock. If I like a website I will turn off adblock on it.
 
This thread is shameless. So much blatant lying and pandering.

Why not talk about penis size or the number of women you've slept with while you're at it?
 
Instigator said:
This thread is shameless. So much blatant lying and pandering.

Why not talk about penis size or the number of women you've slept with while you're at it?
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Not sure what you mean by pandering, or what anyone is pandering to. But definitely a shit load of lying going on lol ...

This whole " I don't leech content from sites, I don't believe in ad block software" is laughable to me. I hate ad's with a passion, and gladly donate to sites that accept donations (if I like the site and frequent it a shit load). I would do the same w/ gaf but it's been said Evilore is never going to put a donation thing up. That is just what I heard, from like 1 guy actually ... so not sure how much merit that has. Whatever everyone has an opinion, someone made a thread about this so just giving mine.

There is a reason I do not have cable tv, I fucking hate commercials so much they actually give me headaches. Now I cannot say internet ad's give me headaches or anything like that, just not a fan. It's funny ever since I've been using the net I don't think I've clicked on more then like 4 ad's ever. They must get revenue off views/unique views because I can't imagine everyone clicks them. Then again ..... they probably do.


surly said:
Do sites get paid just for having ads displayed, or do I have to click on them before they earn any revenue from it? Cos if it's the latter, I have never clicked on an ad on any site unless it was by accident and that's a rare occurrence.
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Both I think more money for clicks, and general money for visits. I mean it has to work that way, I never clicked an ad unless it was by accident. I should stop posting in here before I get banned lol.
 
Do sites get paid just for having ads displayed, or do I have to click on them before they earn any revenue from it? Cos if it's the latter, I have never clicked on an ad on any site unless it was by accident and that's a rare occurrence.
 
macuser1of5 said:
disgusting? really?

disgusting?

and I don't know what's so unbelievable about not using adblock. *shrug*
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nah that's cool if you don't use adblock. hell 99% of my gaf time is on iphone and i see ads on there all the time and misclick (mistouch?) more than I'd like to admit.

just the amount of BS that's floating around in this thread is crazy. it's almost as if this is a parody thread but not all of us are in on the joke.
 
The minute sites decide it's ok to do bad behavior (popups, popunders, install bad programs onto your computer), it becomes ok. Because a lot of sites are dicks, it's okay.

Because the number of sites that do popup and pop under or pop anything has declined (except philly.com, i hate that site..) i don't have adblock. I do remember it not functioning well with some sites I visit, have to use for work.
 
Instigator said:
Not this, but rather comments like "i use adblock but I make an exception for GAF" or "I like the ads on GAF, they're funny". That is some serious BS.
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It's sad when people have to kiss ass like that, I mean maybe they were really being honest but some how I doubt it lol. I have no intention of being that guy that "goes against the system". I know a few mods and they are super nice, and Evilore seems like a decent human being. But I am not going to pretend I like advertisements on any site, since I don't!

I really want Evil to earn, he deserves it and this forum fucking rocks. I'd gladly donate money, probably monthly ....


Zionyx said:
The ads I see on GAF aren't ever targeted/influenced by what's on the page. :(
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I love gaf , but sheeeet this ain't google man!! That kind of technology is crazy cool from a nerd stand point, seeing like all video game ad's on my FB and shit was kind of like "Oh wow" at first. Then I just blocked it lol.
 
I have ABP and noscript disable on my most frequent sites (Such as penny arcade, GAF, amazon, google/youtube, crunchyroll, funimation, etc....)
 
Are there any browsers that force everything (popups and such) to open into a new tab? Seems like a functional thing that would make it easier to control ads. I don't care about ads on websites. If it's obtrusive, I don't visit. And I can ignore the others. But popups make me rage.
 
I think my job uses add block software. I see adds at home but not at work. But what difference does it make if you never click on the adds anyway? I never do for any site.

...Well sometimes the temptation to punch the lady in the face or shoot the chicken are too much to ignore but I quickly back out afterwards.
 
MightyHealthy said:
This.

I can't believe how many ad companies basically infect people's computers without reprecussion.
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Very easy way to infect people w/ malware. Especially people who have zero protection, and there are loads who run absolutely no antivirus because they feel they are smart enough to never get infected in the first place.

No one is that smart. You can have malicious urls and the next thing you know you have spyware/malware and at worst a trojan. Nod32 blocks the shit out of the most unsuspecting url's, as does google chrome.

But yeah never had a problem with gaf ad's until last month and that was just a shitty ad network that Evilore took out very fast. But some sites are fucking crawling with bad stuff, you don't need to download some obvious exe to be infected anymore.

Sorry for semi derail I get very passionate about virus's apparently.
 
Riggs said:
Sorry for semi derail I get very passionate about virus's apparently.
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It's a serious thing though so I wouldn't worry about being passionate about safety.

Hell, I have WOT blocking sites if they are in the yellow

Riggs said:
No one is that smart. You can have malicious urls and the next thing you know you have spyware/malware and at worst a trojan. Nod32 blocks the shit out of the most unsuspecting url's, as does google chrome. .
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How much better is chrome for security? I'm currently using firefox
 
surly said:
Do sites get paid just for having ads displayed, or do I have to click on them before they earn any revenue from it? Cos if it's the latter, I have never clicked on an ad on any site unless it was by accident and that's a rare occurrence.
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I don't. Maybe sites that get hundreds of thousands or millions of hits a day get paid for "ad impressions".
 
I think it's really dumb to use adblock and then omit your favourite sites from them (like some people say they do, with Neogaf). Right, so Neogaf can get their ad revenue (and your select few favourite web sites) but the millions of other web sites can't?

Better to not use adblock AT ALL in my opinion, and just avoid sites with silly ads.
 
Montresor said:
I think it's really dumb to use adblock and then omit your favourite sites from them (like some people say they do, with Neogaf). Right, so Neogaf can get their ad revenue (and your select few favourite web sites) but not other web site can?

Better to not use adblock AT ALL in my opinion, and just avoid sites with silly ads.
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few? I rarely (if at all) go to other sites that are not whitelisted.

Otherwise it's on.
 
surly said:
Do sites get paid just for having ads displayed, or do I have to click on them before they earn any revenue from it? Cos if it's the latter, I have never clicked on an ad on any site unless it was by accident and that's a rare occurrence.
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Both, it depends on the ad. Lots of advertisers just want you to see the ad, McDonalds runs web advertising but they don't expect you to click and order a burger over the internet. They're fine with just knowing you saw it. Those are pay-per-impression (or, per thousand impressions). Those are the ads every website wants, and those tend to be bigger, richer advertisers.

The lesser ads, the shitty "punch the monkey and win an ipad" ads, are pay-per-click. And yes, people do click. Those ads wouldn't still exist if they didn't.

So yes, if you're using Adblock, you're slowly killing your favorite websites -- every time you look at their site, it costs them money in bandwidth and the advertising is the only reason they can offer it for free.

Thankfully, no, the vast majority of people don't use Adblock.
 
I don't mind ad banners or windows in the layout of the page. This is not the reason why people use ad blocking software.

I can not tolerate video ads as well as pop-ups which open another browser window. I don't want to watch 30 seconds commercials or waste time trying to figure out which window is an ad, and which one is the page.
 
Why would you do that? said:
He was, I remember that incident, which is why I could find it so easily.

If you want to see what EviLore says about this, straight from the horse's mouth, look here, here, here, and here. Based on those posts, you're right in that you "only get banned if you act like a complete ass," but I'm right in that advertising your use of ad blocking is seen as that. Perhaps you're right that an innocent screenshot with an ad missing won't get you banned. All the cases I've seen were some poster basically saying, "I use adblock," or "Hey, use adblock."

In conclusion, don't mention your use of ad blocking on NeoGAF, and especially don't advocate its use on NeoGAF.


I completely agree. However, Chrome was actually gaining a lot of popularity before the ad blocking plugins arrived. I'm curious as to how many people would have stuck with Chrome if they never allowed for ad blocking plugins, especially considering many people's attitudes towards recent Firefox releases.
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You won't get banned unless you're telling me people on gaf to use it just to block gaf. And I remember that thread too, I was in it. He definitely didn't get banned. Again, read stump's post, if they were that sensitive then they wouldn't have 8 bans in like 10 years. I know Evil's stance that's why I said he doesn't ban, again unless you're acting like an ass in a conversation it won't happen just like each and every thread on Neogaf.
 
FanTomasas said:
I don't mind ad banners or windows in the layout of the page. This is not the reason why people use ad blocking software.

I can not tolerate video ads as well as pop-ups which open another browser window. I don't want to watch 30 seconds commercials or waste time trying to figure out which window is an ad, and which one is the page.
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Right but the ad banners that you can easily ignore don't pay enough to cover the server costs on most sites. The annoying ads don't exist because webmasters hate you, it's because they're the only ones that pay enough to support a site that actually has costs (that is, a site that requires a staff rather than just hosting some files).

No webmaster wants to annoy his or her readers, and if they could cover their costs and time with a little unobtrusive pixel that doesn't bother anyone, they would. Nobody writes or creates with the dream of covering their work with annoying, flashing ads that make irritating noises the whole time.

But they don't have a choice because all of the alternatives are also bad. If you're not wealthy through other means, then you can either put some content behind a paywall (a nightmare for most creative people, because it means fewer people will see your work, and getting your work seen is the whole reason you create) or begging for donations (and to get enough, you do have to continually beg in an annoying and obtrusive way, or else you get a burst of donations on the first day that quickly peters out) or selling merchandise (which only works for specific types of websites, with a particular kind of fanbase that wants to wear your URL on a t-shirt).

If you're like most internet users, what you want are ads that are either purely tailored to your tastes (which requires the site to do a ton of invasive tracking to know everything there is to know about what those tastes are) or ads that are unobtrusive and easy to ignore (which won't pay anything to the webmaster - even a pay-for-display campaign won't last if the data shows nobody is noticing it).

So we will have to pay to look at a website, and we can either pay in money or in endured annoyance. It's perfectly natural to want it for free, just as I want my cell phone and air conditioning and rent to be free, but the real world doesn't work that way. Every little thing you see on the internet cost somebody else money to create or host or both.
 
FanTomasas said:
I don't mind ad banners or windows in the layout of the page. This is not the reason why people use ad blocking software.

I can not tolerate video ads as well as pop-ups which open another browser window. I don't want to watch 30 seconds commercials or waste time trying to figure out which window is an ad, and which one is the page.
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Yep. I use a plugin manager and a pop-up blocker. I still get static image/gif ads in layouts, those don't bother me and I understand why they're necessary. The Flash ones are a problem and as long as I'm not getting those I'm ok.
 
cstretten said:
Does blocking ads matter if one never clicks on them?
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Yes. A lot of them are paid for with CPM. Every 1000 impressions earns some money. Those website skins you see are almost always CPM, so blocking those is hurting the website.

As a website owner, of course I am against ad blockers. About 20-30% of my visitors use them. Not much you can do about it I guess. The most annoying thing is if they are daily visitors. That means they value your work, want to read your content, but don't want to do anything as simple as having an advertisment rectangle somewhere on the side of the screen or a background that would otherwise be just white anyway.

If you value a websites content, don't use adblock. Someone puts work in good content, they deserve to make some money in return.
 
Rebel Leader said:
It's a serious thing though so I wouldn't worry about being passionate about safety.

Hell, I have WOT blocking sites if they are in the yellow




How much better is chrome for security? I'm currently using firefox
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I am not an expert but chrome is pretty legit, I've seen it suggest I do not visit certain URL's multiple times, in tandom w/ my nod32. Nothing against firefox I used use that until chrome came out. So I am not sure which one is more secure, but I do love chrome.

As to all of you, especially the guy who says he runs a website, saying we are hurting sites by blocking ad's. I believe this is true, but perhaps you should set up a donation option also. A lot of people out there have money and are willing to donate to great sites.

I for one would definitely donate to neogaf, and not just a one time donation. Advertisements are part of the world and the internet, and are a great way to make money to run your site (and perhaps even make a living). But there are other options also, like donations. I don't see a problem with doing both. But I am sure in gaf's case Evilore has his own reasons for the way he does things. Just my 2 cents I do not run a website so I will leave it to the guys who know what they are doing.

My point is you cannot get mad at people using adblock type software, they are not doing it to hurt the site. People are tired of being bombarded with popups and obtrusive (instrusive? sorry I never got past 2nd grade) crap they do not want to see. Gaf ad's are not that bad, but we all know some sites go overboard. And these days you have ad's that can give you malware, it's gotten to the point where I feel you almost need a blocker. Thankfully you can white list, in the end it's up to the user obviously.
 
XenoRaven said:
People always say GAF ads are funny and I kind of feel like it's just a meme I'm unaware of. The only ad on GAF I've ever laughed at is the one about the "Hot Arab Girls" or whatever.
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The "Combat Arms" ad with the guy who have 6 arms and a gun in each hands is another funny one. Although its probably the only one.
 
Riggs said:
As to all of you, especially the guy who says he runs a website, saying we are hurting sites by blocking ad's. I believe this is true, but perhaps you should set up a donation option also. A lot of people out there have money and are willing to donate to great sites.
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Of course, there are different revenue models, but not all are a fit for every website. Some sites can run on donations or subscriptions, but most can't. Those are fit for websites with unique content and a fanbase for it or targeting certain professional audiences by having information that isn't available anywhere else. We actually researched this option, but the amount of people willing to pay a small subscription charge is so low, you earn more by showing them advertisments, even with a good amount of them installing adblock.

My point is you cannot get mad at people using adblock type software, they are not doing it to hurt the site. People are tired of being bombarded with popups and obtrusive (instrusive? sorry I never got past 2nd grade) crap they do not want to see. Gaf ad's are not that bad, but we all know some sites go overboard. And these days you have ad's that can give you malware, it's gotten to the point where I feel you almost need a blocker. Thankfully you can white list, in the end it's up to the user obviously.
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Of course they aren't doing it to actively hurt your website. They visit, so they value it, even more when they are returning visitors. We value those people and are not going to block them from our website or anything.

I am as annoyed by some ads as anyone of course, that's why our website skins don't use flash (just a background and a static leaderboard). For our rectangles we can't do that, since those are delivered by the advertiser instead of made by our own people, and they want video in it most of the time. We refuse some of them, if they are too large, play sounds, those kind of things. But I do wonder what kind of websites people visit that still bombard you with popups and such, since almost all respectable websites will not allow those formats.

As for malware, that is just a very tiny change to run into those I think. I personally never have (not that that is saying much about the rest of the internet of course, as it does happen to people). But that's why you have a virus scanner and protection from your internet browser.

As you say, people whitelisting good websites in their adblocker is great. But it would be better if people did it the other way. If they are going to black ads, only block those that you find really annoying and let the others run. If that would be the default option for everyone, I think a lot of ads will not get blocked by users.
 
I can say from personal experience that the ratio of people who say they will donate versus people who will actually donate is something like 200 to 1. It becomes an easy rationalization, especially when people are saying it publicly ("It's okay for me to block the ads because I would pay if they asked") but when it comes time to actually pay up month after month, basically the actual payment gets replaced with a vague intention to pay at some point in the future.

To get a reliable stream of donations that you can count on every month, you'd have to do a Wikipedia Jimmy Wales thing. Just continually hammering the message for months on end.

And if you think that will create less annoyance than the ads, go look at the Penny Arcade kickstarter thread. People screamed bloody murder when they talked about transitioning away from ads to a donation model.
 
Good info thanks for the response. Subscription model kind of sucks imo, I don't like pay gates on giant bomb or Arstech for instance. But what about keeping your current ad model, plus adding a donation option? Not sure if you have one or not. I figured it could only help with revenue.

I don't think donations can ever substitute for ad's, because like David H Wong said most people never end up paying. But together donations and ad's could be a good thing. I don't think the site would be viewed as greedy, at least not by me.

The PA kickstarter was really different it was not an internal donation set up on their site. They used kickstarter, totally wrong platform for that type of thing. I was against the move also simply because that is not the purpose of kickstarter. It is to "kickstart" something, PA already is massive and successful. But I am not even a PA fan thankfully, not to invested in that whole thing.

Good info on the ad's though, some stuff I definitely didn't know.
 
Instigator said:
Not this, but rather comments like "i use adblock but I make an exception for GAF" or "I like the ads on GAF, they're funny". That is some serious BS.
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Yeah, with some even going through the trouble of posting screens saying they don't block it, the mods dont' crack the whip that hard, damn.
 
skinnyrattler said:
Are there any browsers that force everything (popups and such) to open into a new tab? Seems like a functional thing that would make it easier to control ads. I don't care about ads on websites. If it's obtrusive, I don't visit. And I can ignore the others. But popups make me rage.
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Opera. That's one of the reasons I hate using other browsers, it really manages tabs like a pro.
 
I tried adblock once, like two years ago, it was so I would not get all the ads from porn sites (like livejasmin) but for some reason it didn't work on those so I turned it off. Those are the ones that truly bother me :\ I want to skim and fap, not watch shit ads.
 
I use AdBoost. It turns the page content into adverts and the adverts into the page content.


(Caution: Product may be fictional).
 
Instigator said:
Not this, but rather comments like "i use adblock but I make an exception for GAF" or "I like the ads on GAF, they're funny". That is some serious BS.
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macuser1of5 said:
oh

yeah, those are a bit transparent haha
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Riggs said:
It's sad when people have to kiss ass like that, I mean maybe they were really being honest but some how I doubt it lol
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Yeah, it's all people lying and sucking up and not what people actually do. You're totally right.

Wait, no.

The opposite of what I just said.
 
i would totally use an adblock thing if i knew how. i'm too lazy to figure it out. but ads suck, we all know it. they suck on tv, they suck in movies, they suck in newspapers, they suck on the internet.
 
The problem with the user/site relationship and AdBlock is that advertisements may be the sole source of income for the website...so by using AdBlock, you're cutting off the site's revenue completely which means that content/staff/existence will suffer.

Where things need to go in my mind is alternative funding sources for websites. Offer me the ability to pay you directly instead of seeing ads. Make it so you're either getting ads, or you can pay for content and not see ads.

In the "post-PC" devices this isn't a problem, as you can have free apps and freemium apps and premium apps...you see this model working over there already.

For vanilla websites, though...you can't really ensure that anyone is seeing ads at all due to things like AdBlock.

Minimally, the wide use of things like AdBlock should be a red flag to businesses that users don't want to see ads...so alternative revenue streams should ACTIVELY be discussed and onboarded when things reach critical levels.

I'm almost certain a site/service would make more money by charging me even $1 a month vs. serving me ads. The problem is that I wouldn't pay literally every site I visit $1 a month for the privilege. The big guys would be OK...the little guys wouldn't be able to get anyone to sign up for ad-free, and folks accessing the content for free could just as easily block ads all together.

In the PC world it would have to be an honor system...in the Post-PC world, you can hardcode it straight into the app and everyone wins.
 
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