Adblock Plus Maker Proposes Change To Help Sites 615
Dotnaught writes "Wladimir Palant, maker of the Firefox extension Adblock Plus, on Monday proposed a change in his software that would allow publishers, with the consent of Adblock Plus users, to prevent their ads from being blocked. Palant suggested altering his software to recognize a specific meta tag as a signal to bring up an in-line dialog box noting the site publisher's desire to prevent ad blocking. The user would then have to choose to respect that wish or not."
annoying prompts, on all sites soon (Score:5, Insightful)
I expect to see this meta tags on most sites in the near future.
User consent, eh (Score:5, Insightful)
We need a tag for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I wanted to see ads... (Score:5, Insightful)
Next, we are going to see a new feature to our javascript blocker that asks us if we are sure we want to block access to javascript for a given site, "cause they really, really want it!"
No. (Score:1, Insightful)
No.
The genie is already out of the bottle; there is no going back.
Extortion racket (Score:5, Insightful)
Wanna pay me some protection money? Just a buck a week will keep you safe. If you don't pay it, I'll break your legs.
This is just like the time the phone company got you to pay to have your number unlisted. Then they turned around and sold their unlisted numbers to people. Then they came to you to sell you caller ID, so you could screen your calls. Then they started charging telemarketers money to have their caller ID's blocked from displaying.
Fuck them.
Fine with me, as long as it's an option (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fine with that, as long as there's a setting to control whether or not to honor the flag. I want the option of saying "No, if I want ads to not be blocked I'll add an exception for that site myself so don't bother bringing up the dialog.". I note that there's already an option to disable ad blocking for the page or the whole site in the right-click menu of ABP's icon, so an easy way to add an exception's already in place.
Another extension (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe there should be an extension that blocks extensions from being automatically updated just because it's listed with others to be updated. That should solve the updated with new "features" problem.
Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus doesn't this effectively break some ad companies EULAs? Because I know a lot of them forbid you from enticing users to click the ads by saying "Please click the ads" or something.
Re:If I wanted to see ads... (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Now that I've blocked all the ads, I'm not exactly going to be all "Oh hey, now that I have a nice fast web-browsing experience, I need to slow that the hell down again with advertising. After all, if I want a product, clicking on ads is SURELY my first line of thought as opposed to say... searching specifically for it via google or whatever, and researching the best method by which to obtain said product".
Yeah, I can't forsee even the slightest number of ads being actively re-accepted with this. If it's blocked, it's blocked for a reason. It'll just create more slowdown when loading webpages, since now instead of loading nothing in those spots, it'll have to load their little menu asking if you want to view the ad.
Time for a fork (Score:5, Insightful)
Time for a fork. If he's serious about this, Wladimir Palant should /not/ be allowed to control this project. The whole /point/ of Adblock Plus, is to, y'know, BLOCK ADS.
Seriously. He's already being courted by advertizers like this, and is apparantly willing to work with them - he can't be trusted. Who's to say they won't convince him to sneak in some code that 'accidentally' fails to block a certain set of ads?
Take it out of Wladimir Palant's control, and we'll all be better off.
I'd only agree to view ads if (Score:5, Insightful)
...they had no Flash, no animated GIF, or any other obnoxious animations to attract attention to themselves. I wouldn't block ads as a matter of course if I could be sure they all stuck to my "nothing moving" requirement. And it only takes one offender to ruin things. If Palant carries through with his unblock idea, I hope he imposes similar requirements on sites and ads wishing to be unblocked. Otherwise, I hope someone forks Adblock Plus and does away with the unblock free pass.
Text vs. Graphic Ads (Score:4, Insightful)
What I do mind, is Graphic Ads that disrupt the layout of the page, or the flow as I am scrolling to read. Completely unacceptable.
I would be willing to allow select pages to display text ads that are carefully placed to minimize interference if I only want the content while at the same time providing helpful suggestions when I might want them. Is that too much to ask? I think it might be...
Ad Blocker Block... Ad Blocker Blocker Blocker (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see them as being hypocritical for allowing their own ads given the tremendous service(which increases safety while speeding up browsing) they provide for free.
What about the tremendous service the other sites provide for free? I let sites show me advertising in exchange for giving me free content, because I think that's a better deal than having to pay for it directly. I don't use an ad blocker, and I haven't even disabled my Slashdot ads (although I could probably make the case that I've actually earned that right on this specific forum).
NoScript doesn't provide more of a service than the content-generating sites you're visiting. If someone makes their ads more obnoxious than you can tolerate, then don't go back there.
Re:If I wanted to see ads... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I wanted to see ads... I wouldn't block them. This feature seems redundant.
A fair point; and one that many comments seem to bring up.
The blog post, however, explains the rationale. In particular, adblock was intended to be a mechanism to 'restore balance' in online advertising. Not to necessarily block ALL ads, but to give users the power to block excessively annoying ads, so that webmasters would tone back ads to an acceptable level (for fear of users blocking them entirely).
In practice the way AdBlock currently works, it's just so easy to block everything and forget about it. Users then forget to ever "unblock" pages that they like and would like to support (through advertising).
Now, if you're a user committed to never seeing any ads at all, then yes this feature is useless for you. You will no doubt turn it off. (Yes, the intent is for an option to be present to never show these little warnings.) But for those of us who do want to support some sites, the reminder will help us make that decision.
Of course it is entirely possible that webmasters will abuse this meta-tag as much as they abuse the ads themselves. (Why wouldn't a webmaster turn the tag on all the time?) Since the default will still be to block ads until the user says otherwise, at worst this will mean a little bar shows up in the browser the first time they visit a site. Not a huge deal. (And if it annoys you, then you just turn off the behavior.) I like the idea of being able to preview how annoying ads are for a site, and then deciding whether or not to let them through. (As long as the default start-state is "block" then I won't be inundated with crap...) I, for one, want to be able to support sites that are smart enough to have reasonable ads. (Yes, I currently manually unblock sites using the AdBlock context menu... but this would make it easier.)
Although I like this proposal, I don't understand why it wouldn't be simpler to just have someone do the sorting for those "ad-server lists". What I want is a block-list that blocks the annoying ads (e.g. flash ads that cover the page) but doesn't block un-annoying ads (e.g. demure text-ads). A whole spectrum of lists, depending on people's tastes, could be constructed. Do these kind of "nice blocking" lists already exist?
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting raped in prison was kinda dirty, but I don't see it as being hypocritical given the tremendous service (protection, etc) which I was given for free.
If you really want 'no script', turn it off in Firefox. But I'm not willing to 'let it slide' because of how I've been helped in the past. Hopefully someone will rise up and write a "NoScript2" which does the same thing minus the kick in the teeth.
Re:We need a tag for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine it can be so assumed. And can it not also be assumed by virtue of Adblock Plus being loaded into a browser that the owner does not intend to grant that wish?
I don't see the point of this at all. Adblock Plus asks me if I want it to display ads? Well... no. No I don't. That's why I installed Adblock Plus in the first place. The clue's in the name. My answer will be no, every single time. If it was ever going to be yes, I would have whitelisted the site myself already.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems stupid.
noting the site publisher's desire to prevent ad blocking
If the publisher desired their ads not to be seen, they wouldn't have put them on the site.
Re:I suspect that Adblock and NoScript... (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, but here's the thing: No one has the right to make money using a bad business model. We're seeing that with newspapers, so why should other Web sites be immune?
I don't know about you, but I pay for my Internet access, and I rather like the idea of controlling what gets downloaded onto my computer and what doesn't.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much it.
Personally I don't mind ads on sites if they are non-intrusive (those floating ads ARE intrusive). As someone who has run sites in the past for gaming clans/guilds/etc I can assure you that the meager revenue generated by hosting ads does help, and even if it's on a larger corporate scale it's the site's right to show the ads.
Think about it like this - just as you have a right to block the ads, the site has a right to block your access if you block their ads. No, I do not particularly like advertising, but it's there for a purpose.
If you don't believe the site should be generating revenue, or that the ads are too intrusive, then don't go there... I don't go to Wired anymore for both of these reasons
I used to not-mind ads... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mousover popups (Score:5, Insightful)
The latest dirty trick that's ticking me off are mouse-over popups. They buy a wide banner placement, and if you make the mistake of scrolling over them, up pops a huge screen-grabbing popup. Fortunately adblock plus takes care of the danged banners in the first place, so I haven't been getting those since I installed it.
I wouldn't block non-annoying ads. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know some of you would say that any ads are annoying, but I would be willing to load and view reasonably sized banner/side ads that were:
- not animated
- didn't popup or popunder in any way
- didn't play sounds
I'd subscribe to an adblock plus list set which didn't block sites which would play by those rules. Every time I decide to play nice and view ads to show support I get hit (within 24 hours) with one that's so annoying I give it up.
Of course I also think this will never happen, so it's a bit of an empty promise - as soon as I got hit with an ad that violated those rules I'd instantly go back to the nuke it from orbit list.
Re:Time for a fork (Score:3, Insightful)
As someone said above: if you wish to block all ads forever, then you might consider a fork of ABP. However, the extension was originally started to put the balance of power between webmasters and users back in the middle, and to encourage advertisers to use less annoying ads that users would be less likely to block.
IMO, this would be along the lines of the reasoning that led him to start the extension in the first place.
Re:Who uses these things anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you come to the issue of how the ad placement and content messes up your website because you're not using Internet Explorer. These ads can screw up the page layout, making the user's experience with the website just out-and-out suck.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
As for NoScript's meddling with AdBlock, my personal belief is that is okay as long as the meddling involves only the showing of NoScript's as since I am using NoScript for free. I wouldn't mind if AdBlock meddled with NoScript to show AdBlock's, and only AdBlock's, own ads.
I think the GP's main point was that you say it's alright for noscript to force their ads upon you as you use their software for free but it's not fine for other content publishers to force their ads upon you. So what gives noscript the right to unblock their ads when, say, /. can't unblock ads as it doesn't have an invasive plugin but is also free to use and a good source of news and information? Personally I think that a site that is continually evolving and changing can demand more revenue then a plugin that can be written once and then simply maintained but that is another discussion.
History Based... (Score:1, Insightful)
Am I the only one for whom this feature will presumably never activate due to not preserving my browsing history ever?
wrong type of choice (Score:5, Insightful)
They're talking about the wrong type of choice. I'm not interested in choosing whether to allow all ads on foo.com or block all ads on foo.com. First off, it would be a pain, because every time I hit some new web site, I'd have to make this choice. In many cases, this would be my first and last visit to the site: it's just a google hit, and it turns out it's not relevant to me. Why do I want to add extra effort to this quick, pointless visit to foo.com? And even if it was a site I thought I might be coming back to, how would I make an informed decision? I'm not yet familiar enough with the site to know whether their ads are annoying or not. I don't know if their ads are animated or static; I don't know if they load flash; I don't know if they lock up my cpu with heavy javascript.
What I want is a way to control the type of ad that's shown. I don't mind text-based ads. I just don't want ads with graphics, flash, or javascript (beyond the basic javascript that's required in order to load a text-based adsense ad).
The sites that think this is a good idea also need to do a reality check. The reason I use adblock plus is that I don't click on internet ads. I never have, and I never will. If, as TFA says, 5% of internet users use adblock plus, and if most of us never would click on an ad even if we selectively turned off filtering, then what is the point of showing us ads? The number of impressions would go up by 5%, but the number of click-throughs would go down by 5%. Advertisers would see that click-through rates were down 5%, so they would be willing to pay 5% less for ads. So sites that ran ads would get exactly the same revenue, and all they'd gain would be the happy knowledge that they were annoying 5% of their users and making them more likely to stop visiting.
Re:Extortion racket (Score:3, Insightful)
Wanna keep me looking at your ads? Just a buck a week will do. Here's my PayPal account...
Re:Hmm...Adblock Plus dialog answerer plugin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
So what gives noscript the right to unblock their ads when, say, /. can't unblock ads as it doesn't have an invasive plugin but is also free to use and a good source of news and information?
What you said.
I'm referring to the program or programs which control how you view the content, and not the content itself. There are ways to support Slashdot, for example, and you can see that I'm a subscriber.
When VALinux release a browser or a plugin that I use then I won't mind it displaying only its own ads. Hell, I wouldn't mind being forced to see all of OSTG's ads if the browser/plugin is good enough.
Allowing one's own ads dosen't bother me but it is a slippery slope which may devolve into allowing ads from selected outsiders and going sharply downhill from there - and if I have to look at ads in that fashion then I will look for better plugins. If none exist then I will use Chrome instead of FireFox until myself or somebody else code a plugin which gives me control over what I see.
Re:Also (Score:5, Insightful)
I noticed that, too. I left the ads enabled. Slashdot is one of the few sites where I feel like it's worth supporting, and also where I occasionally see something interesting in the ads. Not that I like ads, but if anything, the fact that they're valuing my contributions enough to offer me the ability to block the ads makes me want to support them more. Weird, huh?
And no, I'm not a plant.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmm...Adblock Plus dialog answerer plugin? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it did anything remotely annoying someone would immediately fork the code to make it quit doing that. Adblock as a product would then cease to exist and the forked code would take over. Ain't the internet and open source great?
Re:Hmm... (Score:1, Insightful)
They may have the right to show ads, as you say. But they have absolutely no right to demand that I view them.
As for Wired, well their site is a horrible, confusing mess even without their ads.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google set up this nice search engine, then put adverts on it, and allowed others to have adverts.
Now, for every search I do there are 3-4 relevant sites, 5-6 exact copies of those same sites on a different server adding adsense advertising, and 2-3 other sites with ridiculous amounts of advertising and half-assed content.
This advertising-supported revenue model is really cluttering up the net, and I blame google 100%. Every halfwit wants a webpage with advertising on it, creating piles of redundant sites. Tech support website - there's a million of them, and they have different "guru" users, and people as the same questions on every site. Too much information, most of it wrong.
I've given up searching for error messages... half the hits are someone asking the question and no replies. Multitasking while the pages load, I usually resolve it myself before I find something relevant and/or useful.
Don't get me started on porn - seen her, seen her, yeah this is a copy of that other site, yeah these are all copyrighted images with the logos removed.
Fuck you internet, and fuck you google.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
They may have the right to show ads, as you say. But they have absolutely no right to demand that I view them.
As for Wired, well their site is a horrible, confusing mess even without their ads.
The hell they don't. You're visiting their web site hosted on their hardware, at their expense, and maintained with their time/money. If they turn around and say "Unblock or stop accessing", then that's perfectly within their "rights". And it's perfectly within /your/ rights to stop using the site in protest.
Re:How about a way to download but not display ads (Score:2, Insightful)
That's even worse! It would mean bandwidth wasted on ads that are guaranteed not to have any effect. That's just a waste of money both for you and for the site owner. No good ad system works based on the number of times an ad is viewed. They work based on which ads get clicked on or generate sales.
Re:Client-side opt-in site-support (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I know, most people don't use ad-blocking, so the ad companies won't get weird ideas to circumvent that.
This is an important point. Unless I'm mistaken, the vast majority of web users don't use ad-blockers. Heck, over 80% still use IE. So what exactly is the problem? These webmasters are wasting a lot of energy complaining about a small minority of users who block ads (and, we can infer from that action, that they're not the type of people easily swayed by advertising anyway). It would be more productive for them to find other ways to gain revenue, such as by having better products, finding ways to lure more people to the site, etc.
Screw advertising. (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree. The only way to make this whole system fail is to refuse to enable it. The great trick of the advertisers is making you think they have some entitlement to stick themselves into your life.
You want things to change? The system must fail in order for it to change.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, that's horseshit.
They do have both the technical and legal ability to do so. You agree to their terms the moment you access the site. If you don't like the terms, you are free to browse elsewhere.
There's a gaming site here in Australia (PALGN) that at one stage detected if you were blocking ads and asked nicely for you not to (they linked to an article they'd written on running costs, etc for the site). It was quite reasonable, they didn't force anyone to view their ads, but they could, and it would be 100% legal.
Just like it's 100% legal to block certain countries, IP ranges, etc from your site, it's 100% legal to block people who are blocking ads. It's your site, you have the right to refuse entry.
Just because you "think" something is true doesn't mean it is. Maybe check your facts before posting.
Re:Hmm...Adblock Plus dialog answerer plugin? (Score:0, Insightful)
and then the "blacklist" format would change so that only the code with the undesired/unasked for so called "feature" would work correctly. Ain't [insert stuff here] great?
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
They certainly can try, but ultimately there is no way a webmaster can "detect" if his advert was displayed properly, short of looking over the end-user's shoulder.
In the USA it's perfectly legal under copyright law for browsers to alter the display to remove ads. If webmaster wants to replace his homepage with a TOS contract, that's another story.
(Also it is hilarious that you "think" something is a "fact" based on one site who detected one ad-block method, and decided to be an asshat about it. Typical nerd spazoid reaction, I guess.)
Point being, most webmasters know adblocking is just a fact of life and they've learned to live with it. If Taco tried to stop adblockers from accessing Slashdot, most people would end up having a nice laugh at his expense.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't HAVE to use a browser at all to view their site. You could use wget piped to less and 'render' it in your mind's eye. Alternatively, you could use a simple (or complicated!) algorithm to render the parts that you were most interested in and suppress those parts that you were not interested in. The fact that someone else will give the webmaster money every time someone downloads the instructions and subsequently renders the ad in no way changes the fact that you are free to use your computer to process information in a manner you see fit.
From a pragmatic standpoint, I agree with you that in order to support websites that ads should be viewed, but claiming that you're required to process information the way the sender wants you to simply doesn't seem to have support.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose you could combine the ideas behind display ads and CAPTCHA -- "To navigate to the next page, please select what color the shirt in the HBO ad above is."
Shit, maybe I should patent that.
Re:Client-side opt-in site-support (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly correct -- Adblocking is a problem only if you are trying to sell ThinkGeek t-shirts or goatporn to Linux nerds.
But for the vast majority of sites have a bread-n-butter business model that isn't really affected by ad-blockers. Even Slashdot supports itself by selling HP servers and Novell stuff to IT types that are just checking the tech headlines.
The only thing that might make me think adblockers are not a tiny minority of users is the fact that Firefox was promoting ABP on their homepage.
Re:We need a tag for this? (Score:3, Insightful)
How nice to be so binary, but for many of us the situation is not so clear-cut. I do not want to be shown animated ads at all: their usefulness to me is outweighed by their intrusiveness. But I'm perfectly happy for a site to include text links, because they may be relevant, and will help keep this website, which I have found useful enough to visit, operational.
Currently there is no way for me to express this preference. I have to block everything or nothing.
Re:annoying prompts, on all sites soon (Score:5, Insightful)
Call you paranoid? Gladly. By "something else", you of course mean the "browser history", if you read what you responded to. If you don't like that your "surfing habits" are being "tracked" then turn off the browser history. ABP wouldn't be "tracking" your habits, it'd simply be looking at the "tracking" data stored on your computer by your browser and doing some simple addition.
Not all are anti ad (Score:2, Insightful)
I use adblock plus because of two other reasons, security, and until recently being on dialup it made pages actually load like within one day or something. Really, web pages have become so bloated now that for dialup users it's like being way back in 95 or something. And the security angle is legit, too many ads have been proven to be vectors for malware.
Personally I have nothing against ads, as long as they are plain text. Anything else, including active javascript or flash based ads, or animated gifs, I don't want to see or load them. If the content is good, they have my eyeballs, if the ads are in good taste, relevant to the site, and don't abuse my security or force me to try and load full megabyte a page crap (like those 'click for the next page' websites, frequently linked to in articles here, when it is a slim paragraph of text and 9/10ths of the page is ad), then OK, none of that crap, I will check them out. If it is something I am interested in, fine, if not, fine, same as ads on TV or radio. I've never bought a used car from any of those obnoxious screaming car salesman type TV or radio ads, and won't do that from any website either. Too loud and flashy and it crosses the line into being annoying, that is what adblock is for. And all the javascript proponents in the web0sphere have yet to come up with secure javascript, it is totally INsecure, so I mostly block that on general principles and do a very careful whitelist for exceptions and it is always temporary, don't have a single site on permanent "allow". These doo doo heads brought blocking their stuff on themselves by crossing many lines into serious bogus and stupid land.
Re:Hmm...Adblock Plus dialog answerer plugin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember the original Adblock? Me neither.
100% of the value in ABP is the fact that it blocks ads. As soon as that changes, I and everyone else who cares to will switch to ABPP, which I guarantee you will show up within a day or two.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because I know the sites need revenue to survive and I don't want to subscribe to 850,000 web sites (okay, it'd be just a handful really) I refused to run anything like adblock. I'd block popups and let other ads display.
However modern ads are even more obnoxious than pop-up and pop-under ads: they pop out and float over the content, they start playing annoying videos and audio without my prompting it, and they stay in the way over the content even after they're through playing. I stuck it out about a week and then finally installed adblock.
Now, the sites and advertisers lose out. Eventually when everyone gets fed up and turns to ad blockers, everybody will lose because the sites will either go subscription-only or shut down completely. Advertisers have gone too far and are alienating people who were willing to not block them to keep revenue flowing, but do they really think I'm going to buy their crap if they negatively impact my computing experience? Hell no! I'll just block their ads, and won't even be aware of what they're selling. If I happen to buy from a competitor because I got so annoyed that I didn't see their advert, well, tough shit. They brought it on themselves.
Everybody loses!
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm entirely with the OP on this.
I'll add that I would be more compelled by Internet ads if 99.99999% of them weren't worthless, annoying crap. It's the same problem I have with many television ads: Does anyone truly believe they will gain my business by attempting to insult my intelligence?
Things that blink and wiggle around when I'm trying to read. Some goddamn dancing peacock built in flash with a feather for every state urging me to take out a mortgage. Flash ads that talk! Stuff that tries really hard to look like Windows error boxes! Shit that pops up as an overlay on top of the page I'm trying to read, and obfuscates the way to make it go away! Some goddamned double underlined thing that pops up a big gaudy box that's nearly impossible to close because I had the audacity to move my mouse over the wrong word in a pararaph! Some thing that stalls a page loading for a minute and a half because it's got a thirty megabyte FLV embedded in it!
It's not bad enough that nobody pushing banner ads seems to sell anything I want. Apparently every advertiser on the face of the planet has also taken it upon himself to personally irritate, insult, annoy, obstruct, or attempt to cajole me through threats and lies ("Your system is insecure, click here to install our tool!" "492 malware threats found!" "Hide your porn history from prying eyes!"). Modern banner ads are the new spam, and it's only fitting that they be universally blocked until advertisers can find a way to be more compelling and a lot less obstructive.
Other than the odd impulse purchase from J-List or ThinkGeek or something, who seriously buys anything they see in a banner ad? Almost nobody, that's who. Search engines are the backbone of everyone's browsing experience nowadays, so if you're selling something on the web and somebody wants to buy it they're assured to find you long before you find them via stupid banner ads. And, you know, potentially turn them to one of your competitors instead because you insist on making your ads fucking annoying.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you considered a hosts file edit? Servers that dish out the most annoying stuff simply get added to a hosts file and null routed.
Even if the web host begged permission to display advertisements, the worst offenders that float over the article preventing viewing is simply fail to load. Non-obnoxious banners and stuff from more civil advertisers are not blocked, just the annoying ones.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So why bother with the meta tag at all? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or just split the ad list into categories...
I don't mind text ads, and static graphical banners i can tolerate..
On the other hand i don't like flash ads, and absolutely detest ads with sound (they interfere with whatever else i might be listening to), any kind of popups are also incredibly annoying. I especially hate the flash ad that plays a repeating buzzing sound, the ad got refreshed into a tab i hadn't looked at for a while, it took me a while to work out where the noise was coming from where i promptly closed that tab and filtered access to the site which served the banner.
Graphical banners meant to look like a windows dialog box (which looks stupid anyway when your browsing on a mac) but where the dialog is moving are also extremely annoying.
And as someone else pointed out, ads hosted on external servers which are slow, where the site has finished loading except for the ads and it won't display any content until the ads have loaded...
Re:Extortion racket (Score:2, Insightful)
There's advertising, and then there is a blinking flash distraction the size of two counties with popups and "smell-o-vision" too.
Advertisers need to remember that they are in the business of selling a product, not annoying their potential customers. When their ads are being blocked, the solution is to make ads that people will not want to block. They should not force their way past my blocker.