Stop, Thief! Why Using an Ad Blocker Is Stealing

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Wow! To be labeled a thief for defending myself and my family. I have 5 computers in my household, and before I started using ad blocking and script blocking software I had to spend hundreds of dollars every 2 to 3 months to keep my family's computers functioning. Who pays for that? That was money that didn't go to cloth my children, nor did it feed them, and who was it that took this from my kids and my family? Advertisers and content providers that use malicious advertising. I agree with the masses here as well. IF sites are going to start stopping me from viewing their content unless I allow them to infect and control my computers, then those said sites will no longer be visited by me or my family.

Clearly the person that wrote this article only thought about this from one side. And he seems to only be thinking about the monetary gains that he and his benefit from. He fails to see the amounts of money that his viewers spend on PC maintenance because of his sites failure to screen their code. Yet he has the audacity to call us thieves? I hope the moderators for this site are paying attention because they just lost a viewer. And while I am only one person, that is one person that will no longer use this site and hopefully will inspire others to seek their information elsewhere.
 
Ad-block has their own browser!! Thank you. I will be trying this out pronto. I don't mind well placed unobtrusive ads, but Tom's is one of the worst. I don't even like to bring it up on my phone because when I go to scroll through an article, it goes suuuuper slow. Why? There is an ad that is there and Tom's really wants to make me see it. Even if it annoys the hell out of me to the point that I don't want to even view Tom's on my phone.
 
You know I distinctly remember reading close to a month ago that AdBlock Plus had won a court case against Germany's Die Zeit and Handelsblatt where they claimed that blocking ads was illegal and threatened their ability to make money. The German court in Hamburg thought otherwise and said it's not illegal and people have a right to block what ads show up on our computers. Now living in the US this ruling doesn't affect me but I agree with the German courts ruling; this is MY computer and I have a right to say what shows up on my screen. Just because I visit your site does not mean you can bombard me with all sorts of adverts for crap I have no interest in. I have ABP turned off for certain sites that I like and that don't have intrusive adverts such as newegg, and game publisher sites (their auto playing of game demo videos are annoying though). Here on Toms I have to use ABP since you have very large banners at the top that pop up after everything else has loaded and I go to click on a link to an article and instead get the stupid advert! These adds also take up a lot of room on the screen even at 1920x1080. Lets not even start talking about the links to certain key words in articles that bring up adverts.

Saying I'm stealing from someone and preventing them from putting food in a childs mouth!? Come on now that's just trying to prey on peoples emotions, which I might add is a favorite tactic of politicians. Don't shift the blame on lost revenue to the consumer, place the blame where it should be, on the advertisers! If they didn't use such annoying ads in the first place and try to shove their wares down our throats on every site we go to and try to track our web viewing habits there would be no need for apps like ABP, NoScript and others.
 
I think perhaps it boils down to this. If your business model is such that it leads a large number of customers to take steps to bypass it then there is something wrong with your business model. Instead of attacking your customers for trying to ensure they have a safe and pleasant experience with your product you should perhaps examine that business model.

The worrying thing is that you are not just some hack journalist, you are the Editorial Director on this site. If this is an example of the judgement that you exercise in that role that it casts a deep cloud over the impartiality of content on the site. This is a defite self-inflicted shot in the foot for Toms.
 
Wow. You guys just lost any and all respect you ever had from me.

Pop ups, pop unders, freaking TALKING ads, not to mention proving a pathway for viruses. There's really a lot of things I could say about why people block ads, but what it really comes down to is this: When it's your computer and your internet and your money then you can decide what to display. Until then, it's none of your business.
 
Right. Because ads are never exploitative.

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

 
41 blocked ads on this page alone. 41.
23 on Tom's Hardware's landing page. 23.
That is 64 ads to read this article if I did not have ad-block installed.

For this reason alone, I ONLY view Tom's while using Chrome with Ad-Block enabled. 64 ads to read 1 article?
 
The purpose of the internet was not to display ads. It's not the purpose now, either.

Advertisers saw an opportunity, and chose to take advantage of it. Nothing wrong with that. Some people chose not to take part in that venture, especially once the ads became intrusive (and downright harmful), and there's nothing wrong with that either.

You have no right to decide how people use the content you have freely provided, and you have no right to rule on their ethics either. They did not enter into any agreement when accessing the web and your site that they would be bombarded with advertisements. They are under no obligation to follow the status quo and your "that's the way it's suppose to work" argument. It's absolutely NOT the way the internet was designed to work- it's just a system some people put in place to take advantage of an available opportunity. You have no right to whine about losing an opportunity that you were not entitled to in the first place.

If your business model is so rigid that it cannot adapt to a changing status quo, then that's your problem. People are under no obligation to participate in it or adjust how they conduct themselves to fit your needs.


Besides, what everyone (especially people who make a living off of it) doesn't want to talk about is that online ads are not actually effective and significantly overvalued. We're in the middle of an ad bubble, and it is poised to burst. You'd better figure out now how to survive without ad money, because soon you're not going to have an option.
 
Ok, I'll disable adblocker on tomsguide.com...

Full page background ads.. looks terrible but I can live with it
Full page being greyed out and blocked until I close the ad...no, just no. Ad block goes back on.
 
"Advertisers have brought this on themselves. I used a PC with a 3 GHZ single core when my main PC had hardware trouble and I could barely surf the internet because the ads brought it to its knees. Once I installed adblock plus performance was normal again.

Then there is all those ads trying to trick you. Fake download buttons, fake warning messages, scripts that install toolbars without your consent and whatnot. I daresay surfing the internet without adblock is more dangerous than surfing the internet without a good firewall (as long as you still use the windows firewall or some other basic protection).

I don't just use adblock plus I recommend it to everyone for their own protection. Especially those that don't know much about PCs. Not only are they dragging your bandwidth and CPU down, they are actually a security risk."

Ditto tho, for me its not about blocking the adds. Its strictly for security purposes. Ever since ive been using noscript, peerblock, and addblock i havent had a single virus/malware issue, have not had to reinstall windows on any computer i use that have them installed.

Its a bit annoying having to constantly whitelist certain things on certain sites for them to work correctly, but its definitly worth the hassle.

I dont mind adds off on the side of a web page. What i do mind are the annoying pop ups that cover up the page(even worse when they dont work right and block content regardless of what you do). What i mind are adds that auto play sound, start muted and its fine. Do your adds without scripts, and they will happily display themselves on my pages. Otherwise your adds can screw off.

If you dont want your site to allow free access, its simple add a pay wall, and i wont bother going there. If you want to allow free access, and plaster annoying adds all over it, dont complain when i wont watch your annoying adds.

Its too bad its not stealing tho. That would be cool if i could get the money from blocking the add, instead of the site getting the money when i watch it. Id be all for that to punish the malware scripted adds, or the adds that blast sound, or the popup adds. May be then that crap would go away.
 
I'm not going to view ads; that's not up for negotiation. So either block Adblock users or give me an alternative. I'm an adult with an income. I'm willing to pay for what I use. How about figuring out how much Tom's would collect for the ads that should have been forced on me. Give me a way to pay that via PayPal or whatever microtransaction tool suits your fancy. I'll be glad to send a couple of bucks to Tom's and any other site I enjoy.

I won't be viewing any ads though.
 
not only do i use adblock plus to just get rid of all the ads but i also use the element hiding helper in FF. sites i frequent are SSSOOOO much better without the 20 different placements of those "share me on ____" or "follow us on ______" button bars that can literally be on a screen in 4-5 different places at the same time. most of them follow the screen as you scroll. i often forget about these buttons until i visit a new site and see them all over the place. then i remember and thank goodness i found that little gem of a tool.

here's a thought i have about this. i spent a lot of time on the forum helping others and of course this is something i do for free. (i have turned down money people have offered in pm's probably 1000 times!) the author says users steal from tom's by blocking the ads they should see when coming her for the help i give for free. tom's does not offer me a piece of the ad pie from all the forum users that come here for the help i and many others offer. who's stealing from whom? just a thought anyway.....

i donate to multiple sites monthly and would be happy to donate to tom's as well to get all this stuff removed. been an avid reader for many years, and will continue to read but will always avoid ads if i can. i can't think of anything i might see that i need but don't already know about anyway.
 
This article is such nonsense. By this logic if a person records a tv show and fast forwards by the commercials they are stealing, or stores should charge customers who enter a store and just browse. Advertising is not a guarantee of viewing by a visitor. If a site wants to charge for content they can. But a free site putting ads on their site does NOT mean the visitor has made an agreement to view those ads. So it's an incredibly incorrect assumption that the creator of content for a free site that they voluntarily create and create content for is somehow entitled to revenue or that visitors have agreed to indirectly pay them simply by visiting their site and viewing ads.
 
I can't even visit this page without getting that in my face video ad. I have to wait for the dumb ad to load so I can click on the damn X.

Denture your kids as an excuse to justify the ads. That was a weak reason.

More power to the ad blockers.
 
I hate when I see a site "kindly" asking me to disable adblock, then I look in the corner and I see "29" ads being blocked on said page (THIS page infact). Nope, not going to disable it for that. Come back and ask again when you have sorted out the intrusive, overbearing BS that web advertising has become.
 
Wow. Talk about having an opinion. You do know what Dirty Harry said about opinions don't you?

I am sure since you researched this so well that you do know there is at least an inkling out there that TV advertising does not work. Yet the industry does not want to face this fact since it would, well, destroy the industry.

Next time, please stop pandering to your audience with idiotic statements like "if you block ads, you are keeping food from children's mouths." Just another sign, if you ask me, of this site's endless downward spiral.

If you ask me, it is simply insanity to keep doing something that does not work. The industry should get some balls and find something that does work and that does not cost their clients an arm and a leg.
 
"Forget about platinum and diamonds — attention is the most valuable commodity on Earth. That's why advertisers spend billions of dollars trying to grab a few moments of your time when you're watching TV, reading a magazine or surfing the Web [ad here]"

Yeah, you're right. And who owns a person's attention? The person. It is not yours, nor any other website's, to sell. In fact, by selling my attention, you are stealing from me.

Every time you host and ad, you are really stealing food from my children's mouths.

Web surfers do not "pay" for the free content. Free content is free. If you want to charge for it, go ahead, but don't accuse me of stealing my own attention. Don't accuse me of stealing what you freely offer for free, just because you expect to exploit me while I'm there.

BTW, abandon Adblock Plus and move to Ublocker. The OP is correct that they run what amounts to an extortion scheme with websites.
 
Horrible article, even as an editorial, it's just whining "I'm not paid enough, click more ads". We all know why ads are there, calling your own readers thieves for not enough click through sets a bad precedent. We don't click ads or watch ads cause forced advertising is B.S. Am I going to click one of the many ads on mortgages that popped up around this article, hell no. Too many sites abuse the system, where they purposely make everything multipage just to load more ads. There are better ways of making money than bogging down every tab with 10+ animated ads all stealing our data and using up resources. Open 10 tabs and the system bogs down to almost unusable at times. Producers of content need to figure out better ways of doing it and stop blaming their viewers and supporters.
 
This whole op-ed is a argument againast a battle that has already been lost. The people who are blocking ads have already deicded they dont want to clost 20 pop ups or endure head ache and nausea inducing flashing graphics or the videos that just start playing. And the worst part is that the advertising never fits the content. A good example is that while I wanted to view a 15 second video on youtube they tried to show me a 30 second advertisment first and as soon as the video ended immediatley tried to start another advertisement.

Or your trying to read a very small 2-3 paragraph article and have to close 3 popups and a video, Again it does not fit the content.

Instead of complaining about ads being blocked ask yourself what ads are being blocked and what do users consider fair advertising. I'm all for banner ads on the sides of the screen or the top of an article.

However showing my pictures of cars and paper towels while im browsing computer related things is not going to help anyone plight either.
 
You take off full screen adds and videos you have a deal, I will white list you. I have no problems white listing websites with non intrusive adds.
 


While humoristic (I admit), this kind of reply to an article does not add anything to the discussion.
 
I kind of have a hybrid method for ads.

I keep ad blocker off while glancing through the front page but turn it on when I read articles. The fact is ads are so flashy and distracting, I lose my place while reading text.

Years of playing sports and video games has trained my eyes to spot and track any movement without thought. I can't unlearn this at 46 years old.
 
I agree Ad blocker is wrong

Noscript > Ad blocker
Click to expand...
I agree Ad blocker is wrong

Noscript > Ad blocker
Click to expand...

You don't have to choose, why not use both?

The author failed to explain how not watching an ad is stealing. Who gets the "stolen" ad time money? If its MY attention the ads are aiming for, then I can chose what to watch or what not to watch. If I throw away junk mail is that also stealing? Poorly written and conceived article.
Click to expand...

Depending on the terms of the campaign or ad network, publishers get paid based on a combination of ad impressions, clicks or actual sales after the click. If you block an ad, those impressions are lost, even if you would have chosen not to click the ads. Also, there's always a possibility that you might click an ad if you saw one that appealed to you.
Click to expand...

Nope it was never a possibility at all. Advertisers are the lowest form of life on the planet and have been a waste of food for over a hundred years. I wish I COULD deprive them of food and drive them into some field that wasn't a complete waste of bandwidth, time, and money. Even lawyers have more usefulness and value to society than advertisers.
 
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