The important difference is that you’re actively filtering your own content, as you should.

It’s the fact that there are people who don’t know what’s getting blocked that is concerning.

Kudos to AdBlock. I checked back in to see whether my rather flippant comment, or even the entire discussion, had been deleted, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was not.

Based on your response, and further perusal of the website, I see that this is a “fair and balanced” discussion of the topic of adblockers (no irony intended). I acknowledge the balanced view you bring to the topic, and the importance of the discussion of the subject to the future the entire internet.

While I have a negative knee-jerk reaction to the intrusion of advertising-supported content on a medium that I have been using for over twenty years, I see your point in describing the positive aspects. I will admit both to channel-surfing during the ads on commercial tv and inconsistent support of one of my other favorite media, public radio and tv. It seems that I cannot without difficulty overcome my desire to get what I want for free.

As regards to the topic above, it gives real insight to webmasters who rely on commercial support for their efforts and are responsible to their supporters. My counterpoint to your solution merely demonstrates that the principle you are advocating is effective. There is no way I can program my adblocker (the Adblock extension for Mozilla) to counter all the permutations if the general solution you advise, and any competant programmer realizes it.

Hopefully, commercial advetisers will realize that the ability to avoid their so-called “targeted advertising” is advancing as quickly as the advetiser’s ability to target it, and will give due deference to those responsible webmasters that can demonstrate their ability to deliver the desired message to the intended recipients. I generally resist the advertiser’s efforts, but ultimately, I would rather surrender personal information to the New York Times website (for example) in order to access their content than to pay a monthly fee.

As realist, I will accept advertising to pay for my content. As a technologist, I will resist doing so with all the tools at my disposal. To reach people like me, advertisers will have to expend a significantly greater amount of effort. My ability to escape advertising relies on the stupidity (PC: lack of sophistication) of the average internet user.

I believe that above all, discussion and awareness to this issue is critical.

I am also adding this to my adblock config. There are hundreds of ads
which I am ok with. However I do not like websites which try to hide
URL’s. To me this is the same as a website which changes the status bar
(I’ve disabled that in firefox) to prevent me from checking the URL. I
want to know where a URL leads to before I click on it.

If you are wondering why this message is GPG signed then I’m just trying out using it. Also because this site has no login so it’s easier for trolls to impersonate people.
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Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32) - WinPT 0.7.96rc1

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=========================================
= Say NO to web ads ! Reclaim your web! =
= You have the right to block ads ! =
=============blockads@gmail.com=============

Post comments to :
blockads@gmail.com

Use firefox http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/adblock

Yes, and there’s another problem - doing this will some time result
in Adblock following and checking redirects. In the end, this will
not help.

Plus, nobody complains about simple banner ads. The thing Adblock was
invented for are intrusive popup or layer ads. I think there should be
an option for Firefox Adblock to block ads only for