While blanket ad blocking in general is still theft, the real problem is Ad Block Plus's unwillingness to allow individual site owners the freedom to block people using their plug-in. Blocking FireFox is the only alternative. Demographics have shown that not only are FireFox users a somewhat small percentage of the internet, they actually are even smaller in terms of online spending, therefore blocking FireFox seems to have only minimal financial drawbacks, whereas ending resource theft has tremendous financial rewards for honest, hard-working website owners and developers..
Since the makers of Ad Block Plus as well as the filter subscriptions that accompany it refuse to allow website owners control over their own intellectual property, and since FireFox actively endorses Ad Block Plus, the sites linking to this page are now blocking FireFox until the resource theft is stopped.
Individuals who continuously exaggerate rants against applications which are widely used is nothing new. Microsoft Windows supposedly crashes all the time.
Many websites that are adwhores and complain about their ad's being blocked have in the past resorted to some very underhanded tactics too. Such as; wiping clean a visitors HOSTS file and other ad blocking software's filter's such as a proxy ad blocking software like CookieCop that prevents adverts from being displayed. It only requires a browser with JavaScript enabled to do it.
It happened to me once many many years ago after I enraged a very popular website owner/maintainer which still runs that popular website. When I used to friends with him we got into our own hellish war over adverts when he went the "malicious route" of dealing with people that blocked his sites ad's, which is why I keep my main block lists backed up off my PC, and even have my editable HOSTS file on a completely different hard disk which can be restored just by double clicking one batch file installer.
I really don't consider blocking ads stealing. Nothing which improves my computer's usability or security can be stealing. Really, a ad banner or two in nice places, outside of the main area of view, without any flashing texts or sound is ok. But a site full of flashing and ringing banners coupled with javascript windows telling that your computer is at risk clearly isn't ok.
Really, when I surf the web, I don't look for advertisements. And what I don't look for, I don't want to see.
This guy is just a goon. Its the same guy who complained so much about the prefecth option in CCleaner and goes around on download sites giving it low scores because of it and the toolbar. (he usually goes by mastertech). Just ignore him and hopefully he will go away one day.
it seems that every so often some sites like to block users of FF who have enabled certain add-ons - there's some sites that block FF users who have the extension that allows faster browsing and the prefetch features (I forget its name).
I suppose some sites rely on advertising to keep the site going but that's their problem not mine...
Fasterfox, that's its name! Some site owners complain that users of that eat their bandwidth...
That one I can sympathize with. If everyone using that extension drives up your bandwidth bill by thousands of dollars then I can see why you wouldnt want those on your site. To be honest I didnt even notice an increase in speed when I tried that.
I just looked on digg and aparently someone hacked his site.
This guy is just a goon. Its the same guy who complained so much about the prefecth option in CCleaner and goes around on download sites giving it low scores because of it and the toolbar. (he usually goes by mastertech).
That clown again! He's like some ass itch that just won't go away.
I'm pretty sure even linux and mac users have a host file. (just block... THE WORLD!)
I've been using IE7 since installing the new pro plug in. I have to say its pretty compelling. On my widescreen monitor for some reason I think IE just looks better. I fully expect to run into some problem driving me back to firefox soon though.
I fully expect to run into some problem driving me back to firefox soon though.
At the moment I would instead use IE7 which I can't stand one bit versus the most recent incarnation of Firefox which is really buggy and I've since downgraded back one version to solve the issues I was having.