Do you use an ad blocker?

[oliver602]

Re the topic in the News forum about blocking ads on the blog page, I've always wondered how many people use ad blockers. Not directly electronics related but perhaps interesting to Dave and his blog.

[BravoV]

Voted no.

For me, if a site worth a frequent visit, it's ads don't bother me, and sometimes even clicked them if its relevant and see that is just a really small gesture of appreciation to the site owner.

If a site needs an adblock, usually its not worth my time and the 1st visit will be my last, so never feel the urge to use it.

Imo, realistically these thing are here to stay, just live with it.

[alm]

Yes, but I will disable it for sites like eevblog.com.

[ModemHead]

Yes, but I will disable it for sites like eevblog.com.

This used to be the case for me, but since the Twitter and Facebook and GooglePlus icons started showing up on every post, I've turned the ad-blocker back on with extra rules to get rid of the ridiculous number of HTTP requests generated by those useless (to me) little additions.

[alm]

This used to be the case for me, but since the Twitter and Facebook and GooglePlus icons started showing up on every post, I've turned the ad-blocker back on with extra rules to get rid of the ridiculous number of HTTP requests generated by those useless (to me) little additions.

Yes, these are very annoying, especially on my smart phone. They've made page load times much slower. An option to disable them, or disabling them altogether (is someone really going to 'like' a random forum post?) would be most welcome.

[The_Penguin]

No.  If a site has ads that are intrusive or annoying, I won't spend time there.
Any site that I get a lot from (like this one) deserves my support, and I'll even purchase from an advertiser if they're competitive.

[ModemHead]

This used to be the case for me, but since the Twitter and Facebook and GooglePlus icons started showing up on every post, I've turned the ad-blocker back on with extra rules to get rid of the ridiculous number of HTTP requests generated by those useless (to me) little additions.

Yes, these are very annoying, especially on my smart phone. They've made page load times much slower. An option to disable them, or disabling them altogether (is someone really going to 'like' a random forum post?) would be most welcome.

Yes I really don't want to deny any revenue to the sites I visit regularly from ad impressions or whatever, and I don't mind setting exceptions in the ad-blocker accordingly.  But unfortunately it is the best tool I have to get rid of such annoyances, so it has to be enabled.  Having a site-wide option to disable the social-networking stuff would be most welcome here too.  I guess that means I like your post.  The old-fashioned way.

[firewalker]

EEVblog is in my "exception list". So no, I don't.

Alexander.

[Rufus]

This used to be the case for me, but since the Twitter and Facebook and GooglePlus icons started showing up on every post

I had to update filters to get rid of that crap. I refuse to 'like' anything without being given the option to 'dislike' it.

[baljemmett]

I don't use an ad blocker, per se, but I do use a Flash blocker on my Firefox installs which has a very similar effect.  With Chrome I can kill the Flash plugin manually when it starts chewing up every last byte of address space it can get its mitts on, so I don't use one there.

(Edit: holy crap I'm not with it today.)

[mariush]

Not using something that would block ads specifically, but I do have the Flashblock extension which loads Flash objects only when I click on the area where the Flash was supposed to be. So some ads obviously won't load.

[saturation]

I block everything I do not wish to see, that includes trolls.  A forum filter works only on the forum, but adblockers work on the whole net.

Ads are not necessarily bad; I like seeing electronics parts ads, and unblock those.  In many ways meeting and shows, like CES, are one big ad, and it can be seen productively as seeing what's out there that's new.

[Zero999]

Yes I do but only for annoying adverts. I use Opera's content blocking feature and only block stuff I hate.

I agree with advertising and it providing a revenue stream for webmasters but will block intrusive advertisements.

[jnd]

Yes, for quite a few years now I install and use adblock on any new browser I'll be using often. Some time ago I also started to use flashblock which works well by itself for some ads. If some site is worthwhile and doesn't have annoying ads, I add it to whitelist.

The funny (or sad) thing with flashblock is that some webs are hard to use or doesn't work at all. Prime example is the Intersil. It's mind boggling how such simple designed website is completely done with flash, all the menu buttons doesn't react to middle click (save the very bottom link line), with flashblock it's simply almost blank page.

[nanofrog]

Currently, No, as I skip sites that annoy me too much.

But some sites I want to visit are getting more annoying with intrusive ads, so I'm starting to consider it.

[amspire]

I used to use an add blocker when my connection to the Internet was slower, but I haven't bothered for at least the last 5 years.

Like a few others, if a site is too annoying, I avoid it or alternatively I keep a link to the one page I need on the site.

If a particularly advertising or tracking company annoys me, I add an entry in my Hosts file to redirect my computer from their domain.

[Kozmyk]

I use Ad Blocker but I disable it for a site that I want to support; like this one. 8^)

[Galenbo]

I use Ad Blocker but I disable it for a site that I want to support; like this one. 8^)

Same for me. Beside the "support", it's also interesting to see these Ads.
What new products or movements there are in this sector.

Totally different on the mainstream/general sites like FB or News.
Really don't need the 1000'th  Watches, Kitchen, Travel, Restaurant, ...

[Monkeh]

Yes, I use an ad blocker on nearly all sites.

Most ads are annoying, the hosts are slow and unreliable, they're also prime targets for malware infection (one server, a hundred million targets? Yeah, that's never exploited. Not once in history. )

If the ad is on the non-intrusive list in Adblock, I see it. Otherwise I don't care to check every site to see if the ads are going to be a problem or not.

E: In fact, I've just added one for this site because I'm fed up with the space wasted by the broken supplyframe.com ad at the top.