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Poll: Do you use an adblocker?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Do you use an adblocker?

#211

Post by gnosis »

jdangu wrote: post #178
dlikhten wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thought is: If you can't afford me blocking ads then do one of two things: 1) No flashing ads. No flash ads (cpu time is mine!) No ads that blur content with ads. And I will turn off ad blocking on your site. If ads have sound and I can't block it I will never visit the site. This is why arstechnica has ads turned off for me, autoplaying video and sound. BTW I will not turn off blocking of the +1 button or Like or…

1) The industry is finally realizing that a massive amount of people got pissed by flashing display ads. Up to 14% of the online population uses an ad blocker (much more on HN :). Last month, the IAB published their new guidelines, including max CPU usage for Flash banners: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676... I'm working on a product that helps publishers verify that CPU usage from ads ser…

"Up to 14% of the online population uses an ad blocker"

I would bet you anything that far more of the general population would use ad blockers if they knew ad blockers existed, and if installation and use of an ad blocker could be made very simple and understandable to them.

Re: Poll: Do you use an adblocker?

#212

Post by gnosis »

maximusprime wrote: post #203
dredmorbius wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is heavily biased toward hackers and tweakers, in the sense of those who prefer to hack at and tweak their environments. Many, many, many moons ago I ran across a page which reported on user display resolution setting as reported via javascript. At a time when low-end equipment generally supported at least 800x600 and likely 1024x768 display, over 50% of users showed 480x640 . Which was the Windows default at the…

I don't think that's the explanation. Reddit is also heavily anti-corporation, anti-advertising, anti-mainstream. It's just the culture on HN and Reddit. I've always been a hacker, tweaker etc. But I can't imagine how anything would work without advertising. And it's not something I find annoying or have trouble filtering out. It's like if you're walking down a street, and you see all the shop signs... If you're not…

"Reddit is also heavily anti-corporation, anti-advertising, anti-mainstream. It's just the culture on HN and Reddit."

HN is not "heavily anti-corporation".

Plenty of HN users own their own corporations and defend/praise them constantly. The majority of HN users be against working for most big corporations, because so many HN users are involved in the startup scene, which is dominated by small corporations. But that doesn't mean they're against big corporations per se, and I'm sure plenty HN users are dreaming of being bought out by big corporations, or even working for the likes of Microsoft or Google, which are not exactly small. Most HN users are willing, eager participants in the corporate economy. Many are even libertarians, who staunchly defend capitalism every chance they get.

Also, I don't think HN is "anti-advertising", just against viewing ads on their own machines. I would bet if I ran another poll asking how many HN users are against advertising as such, only a small minority would come forward.

Finally, I've seen no indication that HN is "anti-mainstream". HN is not a meeting place for some kind of underground subculture. With a few exceptions, the people here seem to be relatively mainstream, conforming, well off individuals.

Re: Poll: Do you use an adblocker?

#215

Post by smh »

There was a Flash advert with a man gesturing and waving at me. It was so distracting I literally could not read the article text. I installed adblock and reloaded the page.

An example of "tragedy of the commons", perhaps?

Re: Poll: Do you use an adblocker?

#216

Post by lucian1900 »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #20

Banner ads pay my salary, so out of professional courtesy, no. It's very easy to voluntarily blind yourself to ads. Plus, if I see something egregious on my employer's site, I can let them know. I use Ghostery to see who's buying data from whom.

You could just use adsweep, which loads them, but then hides them.

Re: Poll: Do you use an adblocker?

#217

Post by jerhewet »

gnosis wrote: post #211
jdangu wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) The industry is finally realizing that a massive amount of people got pissed by flashing display ads. Up to 14% of the online population uses an ad blocker (much more on HN :). Last month, the IAB published their new guidelines, including max CPU usage for Flash banners: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/508676... I'm working on a product that helps publishers verify that CPU usage from ads ser…

"Up to 14% of the online population uses an ad blocker" I would bet you anything that far more of the general population would use ad blockers if they knew ad blockers existed, and if installation and use of an ad blocker could be made very simple and understandable to them.

My suspicion as well. I was talking to my boss yesterday about the results of this poll, and he had no idea there were addons for blocking advertising.

And, being the contrarian he is, he didn't install one after I told him how to find them on the intertubes. Go figure. :-)

Re: Poll: Do you use an adblocker?

#218

Post by gcr »

Luakit (my web browser of choice) doesn't have an ad blocker extension yet.

I find that I subconsciously don't visit websites with too many ads anymore, so it's not much of a problem.

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