Stop, Thief! Why Using an Ad Blocker Is Stealing

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There's really no need for argument. I've already seen this notification on other websites... "Please Disable Your Ad Blocking Software to Access This Content"... which is YOUR tool to fight ad-blockers, and equally as powerful as our tool to fight unwanted advertisements (ad-blocking).
 
Here's a little thought - just in case there are any journalists following this thread.

Either this is a big problem, with a lot of people using ad-blockers, or else it's just a small minority. If the latter, what's the fuss - there's still plenty of income from those who don't block ads. But if the former is the case - and I assume that the author of this article must think that is so - then rather than just saying they shouldn't how about doing a little investigation to find out why they do so. What have advertisers and/or publishers done to so pee off people that they find it necessary to run additional software (with all the implications for stability and performance that that entails) to block their material? And what can said publishers/advertisers do to remedy this situation?

I can't believe that advertisers really want to antagonize people by pushing stuff at them that they don't want to view and that, if anything, will persuade them not to buy products from that supplier. The only people I know who act that way are those spammers who endlessly mail people with offers of Viagra, penis enhancers, and the like in the hope that just a small percentage will respond. (OK - I admit it; I block such emails. I don't look at them all on the off chance that I might want to follow up that offer to share $5,000,000 with a Nigerian princess. Mea culpa.) Is that the image that reputable companies want to build for themselves? And are those the sort of people that reputable publishers want to rely upon for a living? You might as well just be done with it and sell cocaine - the returns are much higher even if it is a little risky. Don't publishers have morals, or do they just expect their customers to have them?

So, rather than putting the blame on the individual end-users, how about addressing the real root of the problem. How about writing articles about unscrupulous advertisers? Who knows, given time you might even be able to win back the trust of some of the people who now just automatically block all marketing material. But you are never going to get the trust of people by labelling them as thieves, by equating individual freedom of choice with illegal activities. That's something out of 1984 or the heyday of communist Russia. Big Brother doesn't know best.
 
Just today I was reading an article on a website and a full screen ad pops up. When I hit the X button, it took me to the ad's website! If I went back a page in my browser, the same page kept popping up and was impossible to close without inspecting the source code and hiding the element manually (Yep CSS modding was the only way). That is why an ad blocker is necessary.

Of the 6 out of 10000 people who click on adds, I bet all 6 accidentally click them, too.
 
Time is a war. Adblock is just one weapon in this war. The marketers will come up with responses. But lay down my arms? Never.
 
I kind of want to post solely to highlight this line from this article:

"Every time you block an ad, what you're really blocking is food from entering a child's mouth."

The fact that someone actually wrote that sentence presumably with a straight face is, I think, a representative example that is all that really needs to be said about this article as a whole.
 


I agree, I think that was a bit too far. It's not really blocking food from entering childrens' mouths, it's blocking more money from getting to rich people (well, depends on the business).

If you want to give children food, go to freerice.com. That is a legitimate website where you should not run an Adblocker because every time you view it the company gets more money from the ad companies and it donates a large sum of it to the poor as rice.
 
Due to the potential for harm, advertising relies on trust. The trust that tomshardware is asking of us, is of a level that would be unacceptable anywhere else. if you want to test them, I recommend you go to an airport and if before scanning anything, a guard asks you something like "did you pack the bags yourself?", then tell them "No, I did not, but but this random guy that I met at the bar, packed them for me and told me to bring them to this airport"

After you do that, tell us how they respond. Before going, tell us what you imagine the response will be.

With websites, we the users are able to do our due diligence, and determine if the site is trustworthy. But with ads where you are essentially providing an unknown 3rd party access to host whatever they want on portions of your site, then we have a problem. as the safety of the main site becomes irreverent, we are now dealing with an unknown variable that had many chances to be malicious. (browsing through this article can easily increment the adblocked counter 40+ times. that is 40+ attempts at the Russian roulette

If you want to improve the trust in your site, then meet us half way by ensuring that you packed your packets yourself.
 
I had to get an ad blocker, because I couldn't enjoy reading on your page. Your page was the main reason I got it. I can deal with advertisements on the side, but it hit a point where you had several WITHIN the article breaking it up so much I got sick of figuring out where to go next to read. Reading articles and news is supposed to be a casual thing, not a profession. If it becomes a too much of a hassle, you will loose the reader entirely. Ad blockers have SAVED your site from loosing many people.

I understand you do need advertisements to make a living, but you need to do a better job of where you put them. Show us, the readers, that you are hearing us and changing the placement of your ads, as well as you personally verify each ad, then I will white list this site.
 
I think everyone should refrain from harassing the author and being rude in general. You can't condemn someone for their opinion; at the very least I'm thankful for the interesting thread/article... lots of interesting stuff
 

I think that most people here, with a few exceptions, have been considerably more polite to the author than he was to them. Expressing an opinion is fine; calling people thieves is not so polite.

And I'm sure that you respect the right of all of us to express our opinions, not just the author.

As to whether you can condemn someone for their opinion - well I am pretty intolerant of people who express certain opinions. I'm sure you must be too.
 
Just throwing my opinion in the bucket... I want to agree with the author, but too many people have too many good points. Security and presentation matter much more than advertising. If Tom's (Or any other site) has a problem with people using ad blockers, there's a few measures they could take. They could try to circumvent the blockers, which will serve to anger their reader base, they could appeal to them to remove the ads (Which requires a lot more open communication and something more than an Op Ed article that the site distances itself from) or they could simply block anyone with an adblocker from accessing content.
The third is the most displeasing, and many people certainly would choose to find their news elsewhere rather than give in and subject themselves to malware vectors. But it would be interesting to see, I wonder who would end up helping the site's success more: The users who use adblockers but contribute to search engine hit counts for tom's and provide support in the forums, or the theoretical users who would turn off their adblockers to keep access to the site in the case that content was blocked.

Ultimately, I think what many have said is quite true, that a new business model is needed. This one has seen it's prime and is rapidly reaching it's end of life. If at this point the advertising gamut hasn't sorted itself out to be reliable, safe and efficient, it's just not going to happen and more and more abuse will come through the pipes. This isn't a problem that is fixable by appealing to adblockers or by circumventing ad blockers, because the root of the problem isn't the adblockers people are using. The problem is and always will be the ads.
 
If ads had valuable content, I wouldn't block them. I'm tired of the fat burning ads and other misleading and SPAM ads. Get a real job if you want to feed your kids. Writing on the internet should be free.
 
If the ads did not attack me (and my computer) I would tolerate them, and might even notice them occasionally. But the reality is they act in an antagonistic fashion and I respond in kind. Any other response would be foolish.
 
<mod edit>
Just took Tom's Hardware down a few pegs for allowing such blatant lies.
Taking food from a child's mouth? Really?
Just totally disgusted...
Shame on TomsGuide! 🙁

<Watch your language in these forums>
 
WE have options and are not under duress that we MUST read an ad or watch one. That's what advertisers are going to have to learn. Their ads cripple our ability to use our own computer. And this is what made us search and find for ways to get around it.

I will not be made to feel sorry for them under any capacity. Most ads are misleading anyway.
 
"...what you're really blocking is food from entering a child's mouth."

What a pile of mush! In-your-face unsolicited advertising deserves every defense mechanism that the consumer can employ PERIOD! And, btw, using the "guilt" factor just doesn't work with any rational person who has a couple of functioning neurons to rub together!
 
This argument is as lame as the Media Companies stating they are going broke because of piracy. They are wrongly assuming that everyone wishes to watch their crap. That the few paying viewers is due to piracy not due to discretion. If adds are only receiving 0.06% success perhaps they should consider a more efficient method of reaching the masses considering the inconvenience caused to the other 99.94% of us.
 
Toms writing about ad block being evil just got it removed of my whitelist, thanks tom for showing who you really care for, I'll do the same.
Click to expand...

Yep, me too! This article has got to be one of the dumbest things that I have ever seen. These so called "Advertisers" are "STEALING" everyone's bandwidth who doesn't use an Ad Blocker. I don't get online to be bombarded with BS! I don't need 3" added to the length of my pecker and I'm not interested in what the Kardashian's have done to their lips, the ones attached to either end of them.

"Every time you block an ad, what you're really blocking is food from entering a child's mouth." BaaHaHaHaHA!!!!!!

This moronic article would have you feel sorry for the gunman's children when his attempted robbery goes wrong!

I'm surprised the stooge who wrote this Web-Vomit isn't trying to send us on a guilt trip for not sending that African Prince our bank account information.

Flip, Flop Much, do ya Tom?

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/565-best-adblockers-privacy-extensions.html

<Sentence removed>

P.S. For extra Tom's ad blocking goodness, download "Ad Muncher" which is now freeware, and run it along with the Ad Block Plus Extension in your browser. That should starve out every single one of these thieves "children" and cut the <insult removed> right outta the advertising gene pool!

<Mod edit: Please be respectful when stating your opinion. Thank you!>
 
advertizing has become a joke and not a funny one at that it is blatantly invasive and an aggravation, taking food from some childs mouth....shame on you for even uttering that.
 
too many ads have malware. as far as saying ads are a good thing is a different story all together. good for the site? sure they generate money which is stupid; good for the consumer? not really it is way over hyped as a tool. to me advertizing is the bane of the information age and invasive. i've just about quit watching tv because all you get is the program scattered in an advertizing panorama. when will advertizers learn they have stepped over the line?
 
Also as a side note, there are some websites that say it respectfully and make a clear point when they detect AdBlock running. An example is www.nexusmods.com and they make a clear and simple statement about how the site wouldn't exist without ads. Fine, they're not in my face about it, and so I enabled ads for them since they asked nicely. The end result doesn't make any difference to me, but since they asked in a respectful way (I.E. Not being so entitled that they had to piss off everyone on the website... BTW congrats on that.) but it is a respect issue. They asked respectfully and I responded in kind. It's the only website that has done it in this manner (go see for yourself) and as such, it's the only website I have enabled ads.
 
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