Majority of Americans now use ad blockers
Majority of Americans now use ad blockers
We're dreaming of a white list, because we're just like the ones you used to know
I am surprised the reason for blocking ads doessn't include making sites somewhat readable. I guess faster loading could be it? But generally it's more of a layout problem than a bandwidth one.
I tend to not use adblockers, or when I do it's on a black list system for worst offenders rather than by default. However, I absolutely refuse tracking, and if it's the only option I go to firefox reader mode immediately.
The usual false dichotomy of "personalised ads or you're killing us!" is not acceptable.
Many parts of the Internet has become functionally unusable without one. And given online advertising's history as a vector for malware, as blockers are just the sensible choice.
I've been using an ad blocking DNS for years and would not consider using the internet without it. Since it's a DNS it works everywhere on mobile or Wi-Fi. I just figured that an ad blocker of some sort is basically a digital condom and must be used. When I see people who don't use one, I think they are crazy.
I used to not run an ad block. I figured the ads didn't bother me so why bother?
Then I encountered a banner ad that screamed "HELLOOOOOOOOOO" anytime the mouse went over it and I couldn't download an ad blocker fast enough.
Advertising companies will do anything they can to annoy the shit out of you, then act like people running ad blockers are the problem.
I thought the text said "stop AIDS" but practically the same thing.
Does anyone ever actually click on an ad? Like "hey thats cool I wanna check it out/buy it right here right now"?
I have adblockers active everywhere and only disable then somtimes for specific sites that really don't work otherwise, but even if the unlikely case would come up that something is interesting I would just look it up separately? Mostly I just turn a blind eye on them anyway, but just wondering, some people gotta really click/buy from these ads? It just seems so surreal to me..
I've always thought that the ad supported internet is something people will eventually get sick of and the financial foundation would evolve over time to find models that don't rely on infinite spam. Instead efforts are focussed on forcing us to view them. At this point I'm expecting the next version of Chrome to require the Ludovico technique while browsing.
Ads are just pure negative. There was even one study that calculated this as a direct financial negative, although unfortunately in narrow circumstances: it was calculated that for mobile users in the US, paying for the data transferred to display the ad was more expensive than what the site owner got paid for including it on his site.
Back in the day, major news sites like the BBC ran ads that were infected with malware that then infected computers. These weren’t shady sites like people expect you to get viruses from.
Installed an ad blocker the day that news broke and never looked back. Ads are potentially harmful to your devices.
Says a company that makes an ad blocker
It is shockingly irresponsible of the Author to not include security concerns of advertisements in their article.
Yea that shit didn’t have the hold on millennials like it did the chain letter sending dummies of the previous generation.
In my day ads were vectors for viruses AND were dumb and annoying as fuck.
Some would agree they still are.
Highly unlikely, but hopefully one day.
Ad blocker is kind of a sad name for a content/spam filter, a vital security tool, but that's what we got. Especially since browsers naively didn't include filtering and block lists by default and they only became common as add-ons.
That's because ads fucking suck
and among advertising, programming, and security professionals that fraction is more like two-thirds to three-quarters
Leopards, face etc
I remember the good ol days when the ads would lag up the loading of the page
Now they all load first and cover the entire content of the page because screw usability
Looking at you, every news outlet site ever
Even if nobody used ads, ads just don't work anymore. Kids can't even percieve them anymore, old people who click on everything are a shrinking market segment, and most people in the middle seek to learn about market offerings from influencers they've chosen to trust.
People themselves have turned into ads since ads themselves don't do their job.
Look at influencers.
Instagram used to be fun for someone to share their journey, now it's ad...influencer...double ad...Triple influencer...Another ad...a real person sharing their journey...55 more influencer ads mixed with 29 actual ads.
Oh and the occasional OF girl who managed to flash some puss without it getting taken down.
I love when i bought something...(i assume) google thinks it's a great idea to advertise that exact combination of products from the exact webshop on the next website i visit.
How much did tiktok ruin google's brain to make them think that is going to be effective marketing?
Mankind truly is on the way down.
Asked how likely big companies would be to abuse their data, Americans were most wary of TikTok (59 percent), followed by: Meta (56 percent), X/Twitter (49 percent), OpenAI (48 percent), Google (44 percent), Apple (41 percent), Amazon (40 percent), Microsoft (38 percent), Comscore (32 percent), and Adobe (31 percent).
I'm surprised people trust Microsoft and Amazon more than Apple; Amazon needs all the data they can get on you to build "better" profiles on what to sell you, ties your Alexa requests to feed advertising (you can opt out) and Microsoft, especially with Edge (post advertising and services team takeover) has been trying to send everything to Microsoft to feed both ads and their AI. FFS, even Outlook warns you now that they'll share your data with >800 "partners".
Apple is no saint, far from it, but people trust a conglomerate over it?
Ublock: Origin plugin on each browser, and/or a proper piHole style DNS blocker. Anything else is probably capturing your data to sell.
I'm still surprised so many people don't use them.
I've been blocking ads since 1998, thanks to WebWasher. That acted as a local proxy that blocked all known ad urls. No heuristics, no algorithms, no nothing. Back in the good old days that was plenty.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
More than half of Americans are using ad blocking software, and among advertising, programming, and security professionals that fraction is more like two-thirds to three-quarters.
More striking are the figures cited for technically savvy users who have worked at least five years in their respective fields – veteran advertisers, programmers, and cybersecurity experts.
"People who know how the internet works – because they work as developers or in security or in advertising – they've all over the years decided that it was a good idea to use a tracker blocker or content blocker or adblocker, whatever you call it," said Jean-Paul Schmetz, CEO of Ghostery, in an interview with The Register.
"It's pretty unanimous that people who work in this industry and know how these things function want to protect themselves."
Schmetz said one surprising finding had to do with the extent to which people trust various companies that collect online data.
But truly the best way to support The Register is to sign up for a free account, comment on stories, share our links, and spread the word of our honest independent IT journalism.
The original article contains 681 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Many websites, especially on the sketchy side of the internet, are completely unusable without adblockers
Majority of Americans now use ad blockers
Most of them don't even know what phone they have. This article is completely false lol
Not entirely surprised.
The numbers were already up there, but I imagine YouTube's recent campaign only drove them higher. More people than before are now aware that adblockers exist and they love using them.
Honestly, personally I do not mind ads. But the amount of garbage that is loaded in the browser on popular sites make uBlock necessary for me.
"tracker blocker or content blocker or adblocker, whatever you call it" ah yes expert
I am shocked that its that low. But I manage a website for a sports league and they want to display sponsor logos on the front page. They were all getting caught by my adblocker. When I talked to other board members, none of them used ad blockers. I debated if I should try and adjust the urls or not.
This isn't already the case?
@boem good.
W
Great ad I saw recently was a Charlie Day Mt Dew commercial. He said one word and a Mt Dew sign dropped over him and he yelled in his Charlie Day voice, "Hey I didn't even take a drink yet!" And that was the commercial.
Short. Sweet. Funny.
Getting really sick of the “hurr hurr ads bad only idiots don’t use adblockers” circlejerk on here. I pay $8 for YT Premium which seems super fair for the 10-15 hours of content I get on there a week. I like supporting creators, a lot of which rely on ad revenue to continue making their channels.
For the rest of you that thinks you have the moral high ground from blocking ads, what do you think the solution is? Subscriptions don’t work, paywalls are easily bypassed, and more reasonable ads don’t generate enough revenue to keep sites in business. Content shouldn’t just be free, people deserve to be paid for their work.
Should the free internet just die and become a series of subscription silos? It seems to be going that way, and more ad blocking will just accelerate that more.