Block Ad-blocking Browsers? Ridiculous!

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I’m sure you guys would’ve heard about Danny Carlton and his decision to block Mozilla Firefox users from visiting his site.

You’ve not heard about this? Then read on!

What’s this all about?

The Mozilla Foundation and its Commercial arm, the Mozilla Corporation, has allowed and endorsed Ad Block Plus, a plug-in that blocks advertisement on web sites and also prevents site owners from blocking people using it. Software that blocks all advertisement is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers.

Read the rest at Why Firefox Is Blocked.

What is Ad-Blocking?

Ad-Blocking is the act of blocking advertisements from a website. This could be done by installing plugins for the browser, or it could be done even on appliance level where you configure the content-filter device to block all ads from reaching the user.

You might be wondering – what’s the purpose of blocking ads?

Ad-blocking is not so much about “I don’t wanna view ads.” Ad-blocking was introduced to settle quite a few problems.

1. Unwanted ads – ridiculous, annoying, flashing ads.
2. Bandwidth issues – in networks with many users.
3. Avoiding accidents – like sudden appearance of sexy or unsuitable ads for minors or office. 😉
4. Totally avoiding ads – yes, there are people who insist not to view ads at all.

Whose rights? Who’s right?

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While Danny mentioned about the rights of web site owners and developers, what about the rights of viewers? Have they not the right to not view your site?

In my opinion, the website owners have the rights to display ads, the viewers have the rights to ignore / block ads. Simple as that, there’s no such thing as FORCE.

A Small Percentage, Eh?

In reference to the site Why Firefox Is Blocked

Demographics have shown that not only are FireFox users a somewhat small percentage of the internet

Apparently someone doesn’t realize the Firefox is probably the fastest growing alternative browser available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

Based on statistics from a reliable source, Firefox holds 34.5% of the browser market. So I guess someone thinks that 1/3 of the entire browser population is SOMEWHAT SMALL PERCENTAGE.

Arguably speaking, if it was a SOMEWHAT SMALL PERCENTAGE, then why even bother to put a blanket ban over them? That would be pointless, wouldn’t it? Some effort to add a little javascript to forward Firefox browsers to ANOTHER domain and all the bad press.

There’s A Disturbance In The Force

Damn right there is, there’s no reason to blanket block anyone. To blanket block a particular browser is no better than being racist.

Could one website’s content be so great that the owner has the right to decide which browser the visitors should use? I don’t think so, unless the site so happen to require some Microsoft related ActiveX modules or whatever else that can’t do on other browsers.

Another point to note is that not everyone who use Firefox has Ad-blocking plugins installed. I’m a Firefox user for years and I’ve not installed such plugins, so to block all users of a particular browser just because of a minority is unjustified.

Is Ad-Blocking A Matter of Concern?

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Yes and no, it depends entirely on the owner of the website.

See, if you’re livelihood is totally dependent on income from ads, then Ad-blocking might reduce your earnings a little but I’ll be surprised if Ad-blocking hurts your income badly, after all if you rely totally on ads then I’m sure you have other form of monetization methods that are not subjected to ad-blocking activities such as Kontera, Paid Per Post, Text-Link-Ads and many others.

Furthermore, since Danny mentioned that the Firefox SOMEWHAT SMALL PERCENTAGE – how much could it damage earnings? 😉

What Do I Think Is The Best Solution?

Education. If you have loyal readers, I’m sure they don’t mind supporting you. I’m sure they don’t mind clicking your ads once a while.

From my point of view, blanket browser blocking is an act of desperation. It’s like “hey you’re not helping me make money, please use IE and get me some dough or I’ll spank yer ass!” Does it sound like “Pay me before you read my content!”? Yes it does, might as well make it a PAY PER VIEW site.

On the other hand, how about designers make ads less annoying and more interesting? 😉 Not as easy as it seems but I believe this ad-blocking issue does highlight the matter that people hate unattractive ads that go blinking like a broken traffic light. USELESS and IRRITATING, can’t turn it off? BLOCK IT! Blame the designers and horrible webmasters for ridiculous ad placements too.

Moral Of The Story

Despite my earlier (perhaps nasty) comment on the act of blanket blocking of browsers, I believe Danny Carlton isn’t that dumb a person to exercise such idea without a purpose.

By the looks of it, the act was to magnify the matter in order to bring it to the attention of the masses. It certainly is a great way to tell the world that ad-blocking should be practiced with some common sense. Ad-blocking is not wrong but if everyone who browses the internet blanket-block ads then we’ll probably have a lot of sites closed and many bloggers would end up job-seeking. 🙂

Those who are familiar with the Internet have probably learned to ignore ugly ads and only take notice of interesting ads. There’s no reason to block ads in fact, just let it be and let the publishers get a few additional impressions. 8)

16 thoughts on “Block Ad-blocking Browsers? Ridiculous!

  1. this is just ridiculous. who wants to see porn ads? who wants to see bandwidth hog ads? who wants ads that redirect you to warez/porn sites? definately not me, that’s why i chose to block all the ads. if you’re depending on ads to make money, then i better hope your site will close down soon. this is an act of desperation, something that Microsoft would do. 😀

  2. To me, Ad-blocking is certainly up to the viewers’ choice.

    As for the porn-ad, heck how often do you come by porn ads on non-porn sites? 🙂

  3. there are some non porn sites, advertise porn sites. it’s kinda annoying when stuck with a flashy ads, it distracts you from reading the sites’ content.

    i do agree though that ad-blocker is definitely up to the users to use.
    nobody force them to use, so why force them not to use it? 🙂

  4. i dun think is a good solution lol..

    yeah, like what u said above, majority of users using IE as premium web browser which im not one of them.

    bad thinking of him

  5. Blocking certain web browser is stupid move.
    If I were informed that my web browser was not able to surf that site using my preference web browser, I will not visit that site(you can said anti that site until they realise their mistakes). There was one local IT retails site, not sure which company already, but they implemented such thing and ask the user to surf with IE. The next thing i saw in few weeks, was that site supported Firefox. 🙂 Irony isn’t ? Well, as for porn advertising, I think it depends on the site owner. I believe porn advertising offers lucrative price in returns, but you face lash backs from users who visited and saw “unrelated” ads. Well, adblocking is popular nowadays due to few factors like goldfries mentioned. I’m wondering, and pondering, I know flash ads is popular, but if visitors are blocked to click something on the site caused by the ads, ain’t they doing the damage to themselves? I mean, comeon, you wanted to do flash ads, we readers do not said we hate it, but at least do a decent one and with a noticeable “CLOSE ME”. Many of this advertiser loves to hide the “CLOSE ME” buttons and this is the only way for us to revenge on them.

  6. Hehe, a local IT site – I remember that one. I was like WTH – is the content like so great (or the site was so badly done) that only IE users are allowed to view? 🙂

    One thing for sure, ads are part and parcel of websites since it’s early days. That’s how people earn and that’s how it would be.

    It’s just that some people went a little overboard on ad-placements and stuff. 😉

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  8. you’ve seen nothing. the gadgetzone’s site has been “under maintainance” since like ages ago.

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