Some sites now not loading if you use ad-blocker--will the trend continue?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

Don’t know about you guys, but I started seeing this in just the past few months. Went to Forbes.com just now via Google. It wouldn’t let me see the page until I turned off my ad blocker (I didn’t).

Recently, CBS.com wouldn’t let me watch a video because it couldn’t serve an ad from its sponsor.

To the companies that are now doing this, let me just say this: FUCK YOU!. I’m never turning off my ad blocker, and I will just do without your site if you try to make me. I don’t care if you’re Youtube, Facebook, whatever: I will not suck down your goddamn ads.

So what do you think, is this the start of a big trend, or will the sites that do this remain outliers?

Here are some additional thoughts. First, here’s a good article by a blogger I like who says:

20 is years is plenty–let’s stop waiting for online ads for mature.

He quotes another good article that describes advertising as

The Internet’s Original Sin

In general, online advertising seems to work pretty terribly. My only question is why it works at all. I’m not sure why Facebook advertising is successful; it seems like a terrible place to advertise. About the only thing I can comprehend is Google’s search-based advertising (not fucking Adwords).

I’m also not sure why anyone is still without an ad blocker at this late date. I believe I started back in 2008 or so, right around when I started using Facebook. I’ve never been troubled by ads on that site or Youtube.

Anyhow, feel free to offer your insights on any or all of the above!

#2

If your site doesn’t work with my adblocker and/or HOSTS file scumblocking, then your site can eat shit and die.

I stopped using Coke’s rewards program after they redesigned their site last year and it just wouldn’t work with something in my HOSTS file. Damned if I could figure out what, and double dog damned if I’d want to remove it if I could figure it out. Fuck you, Coke.

#3

I am ignorant of this “HOSTS”–educate me, please!

#4

For sites I value the content on, and they ask me nicely (some sites have really great splash pages) I’ll do it - after all they need to be able to fund themselves and while native content is one way that gets around ads, I prefer a clear delineation.

The Guardian is one such site, and one of only a couple of Australian news sites which offers unlimited free content. And while I use Facebook and Twitter for my main breaking news source, I do like to be able to go and read more. (And let’s face it, Facebook and Twitter offer just as many paid ads).

The alternative is a paid gateway and the amount of content I browse I’m thinking I’d be paying for a lot of monthly subscriptions. So provided the ads are not popups, it’s an exchange I’m willing to make for some sites. For others, I’ll navigate away and find the content somewhere else.

#5

I had been using AdBlock on my iPad and had to disable it, because the VPN it connects through kept disconnecting from my wifi. It works fine on my PC, so I’m not sure what the problem is. However, while I was using it, like you folks, if a site didn’t let me in because of AdBlock, it just didn’t get my clicks.

#6

Translating from a domain name “example.com” to an IP address that your computer actually needs to fetch the content usually involves something called a DNS lookup, where your computer goes to some known server and says “Hey, where’s example.com located?” and the response is the actual address.

You can short circuit this with a hosts file on your local computer where you can make a list with entries like:

0.0.0.0 example.com

This tells your computer “No need to go look up example.com. I know the address. It’s 0.0.0.0”. Which of course goes nowhere.

So if you make your hostfile have a bunch of ad-serving servers all go to 0.0.0.0, then you’re not going to see ads, since your computer will not know where to go get them.

#7

I see, so it’s like a kind of ad blocker on your own computer?

#8

functionally, yeah - the problem is keeping up with the list of hostnames taht are possible, - nothing in this case is ever constant or straight forward (not the blocking, the managing). - and (last I tried) you can’t block an entire domain , you have to block each individual host - which makes this file grow pretty large pretty quickly.

THere used to be some sites that kept some starting points - haven;'t reviewed the one they reference http://lifehacker.com/5817447/how-to-block-unwanted-ads-in-all-applications-and-speed-up-web-browsing-with-the-hosts-file - but the article is pretty good.

#9

What annoys me most is when a page loads, I start reading it, and all of a sudden an ad loads in the middle of the page and makes everything else (like, the content I was reading) reformat and jump around randomly. This seems quite common on news sites, especially. Yes, OK, I understand that you need to serve those ads because they’re your revenue stream. But find out in advance how big the ads are, and just set aside a rectangle of that size for them to load in.

That, and when slow-loading ads prevent the rest of the page from loading. If you ask the ad servers for their content, you’ve done your part. If the ad server is unable to respond in a reasonable amount of time, that should be the advertiser’s problem, not yours.

Meanwhile, I’m puzzled by how it is that hosts files still work. It’d be easy enough for ad URLs to be coded using the IP addresses directly, instead of the human-readable domain names. Why don’t they?

#10

Cool, thanks. So why use instead of a standard ad blocker?

#11

The biggest difference is a ‘who manages the block list’.

the ad-blocker can be detected and some people don’t like installing add-ons.

Its also functionally quicker than the plugin is (since nothing has to be queried to block).

Its also from a time before good ad-blockers existed, and some of us old(er) folks still like doing things that way.

#12

It was inevitable I suppose. Now that ad blockers have become popular and common enough to make a noticeable dent in revenue, content providers start looking for ways to discourage us ‘freeloaders’. The next escalation will be stealth ad blockers that websites won’t be able to see you using until someone figures out how to.

My biggest issue with ads is how much they slow down page loads. Since I installed my ad blocker there are some pages that load 5 or 6 times as fast. If it weren’t for that, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with it.

Blocking ads that are often crap and malware vectors is just a bonus.

#13

yup - and links from one new site to another thats blocked by pay/subscirbe sites.

Because they aren’t going to use any single IP to route adds - that would be way easier to block @ firewalls, etc. by using hostnames (and lots and lots of variations on ‘adserver1.addcompany.com’ - they get around average blocks.

#14

I’ve only encountered it so far on Forbes and, well, Forbes’ (largely blogger) content isn’t that important to me. So long, Forbes.

#15

I personally don’t mind. They gotta make money somehow, and if I’m interested in the content, I’ll happily expose myself to ads. I would prefer the places, though, to have a subscription model option, too, so if I’m interested in the content, I’ll just pay for it, like I do here.

#16

Indeed. Very lame site.

#17

I’ll turn off the ad-blocker for big content - meaning TV shows or the equivalent. I figure I want to see the show before it’s available on Netflix or Amazon Prime, and the price of sitting through the ads (on mute) is fair.

Anything else is a no-go.

#18

I understand that someone needs to pay the bills, and advertisers are it, for the most part. I just wish that more sites followed the SDMB policy of letting you pay some money to make the ads go away. There are sites I frequent where I’d be willing to do that, and others I visit less often - well, it doesn’t matter as much.

What really bothers me is the ads that follow you around the Internet and won’t leave you alone. A couple of months ago, I was looking at ads for laptops, but I got so damn tired of seeing pictures of laptops everywhere I looked that I couldn’t stand deliberately going to websites to shop for laptops.

Worse than that was, about 3 weeks ago, I made the mistake of shopping for underwear online. And if you think I was sick and tired of seeing pictures of laptops everywhere I turned, that was nothing compared to how fed up I am with men’s underwear-clad crotches staring me in the face, all across the Web.

Like I said, I understand someone has to pay the bills, and most of the time until now, the ads haven’t been too bad, but I’m really close to breaking down and getting an ad blocker.

#19

I stopped going to Forbes and Wired for this very reason. Wired, especially, should understand why we block ads.

#20

Exactly it for me. It’s about supply and demand. If you demand I turn off my ad blocker, then what you’re supplying will have to be worth it to me.

Sometimes it is, and I turn it off and reload the page. Mostly, it isn’t. In a day and age where everyone is plagiarizing from everyone else, chances are I can find what I was looking for quite easily elsewhere.