SillyDog701 Message Centre

[Antony]

[Don_HH2K]

I have a different reaction to ads. I don't have any image ads up at HardwareHacks, as a matter of fact, the average page only contains three images: the logo (582 bytes), the Valid HTML 4.01 insignia (<2KB), and the Valid CSS insignia (<2KB). The stylesheet that is downloaded is also <2KB. Therefore, it's very fast to load, even on dial-up, since even the largest of articles is only 17KB in total. Plus, I'm working on converting all those crazy SPANs and BRs to block-level with H4 and P, so page sizes will take a large drop in size but not in content.

There's no special scripting to the layout or anything. In fact, the top layout is actually just a table. I'm working on converting the W3C insignias and the copyright info to tables as well to further cut down on the size.

As for my standpoint on ads, I do not like things that slow down page load time (even though I do have a 1.5MbPS DSL connection). I used to use ZoneAlarm Pro, but I found out that Adblock worked even better. Conjoined with such extensions as Flashblock and Imageblocker, as well as disabling JavaScript on most pages, I can get everything to load quite quickly with no annoying ads.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050101 Firefox/0.6.4

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Main rig: Turion64X2 @ 2GHz, 2GB DDR2-667, 100GB HD, Radeon X300, 15" LCD, XP Pro x64
Server: P2 @ 233MHz, 192MB PC66, 20GB HD, 13.3" LCD, Windows Server 2003

[DJGM]

My opinion on web ads . . . if they're discreet, and bear some relation to the content of the webpage I'm
viewing at that time (Google Ads being a prime example of this) then I'll just leave them were they are.

BUT, if I encounter any ads that have excessive multimedia content or animation, or have little or
nothing to do with the webpage I'm viewing, I will definitely block those without any hesitation.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b) Gecko/20050205

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Mozilla = Swiss Army Knife: It's versatile, reliable, and contains useful tools.
Microsoft Internet Explorer = Old Swiss Cheese: Full of holes, and it stinks!

[Andrew T.]

I never block all ads; only rare ones I find particularly obnoxious. Adblock is a particularly useful extension that can be used to block site elements other than ads; for example, I use the extension to block an image-tracking counter on my own website so that my own visits with Mozilla Firefox are not counted on it. I also used it to block a non-ad Flash animation on one particular website that deteriorated the performance of my browser when I visited it.

I don't think it's necessary to villianize all users of Mozilla or Mozilla Firefox, or assume that we are intent on blocking all advertisements on websites.

Since these last few posts deviate from the thread's original topic of making web content accessible to any browser, I have split them off.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

[scroob]

I do not look at ads to begin with, so what's the point of loading them? Adblock can be set to load the ads (so the web site gets paid) but to not display them. What's unethical about that? I don't look at ads in the newspaper, either.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

[Antony]

[David Wonn]

Ads? What are ads?

UserAgent: Lynx/2.8.5dev.16 libwww-FM/2.14

[Al]

[Fulvio]

I am with DJGM, any animation is rejected. The reason is simple. Just think about going to store, and having your view blocked by someone asking to buy its products. They want to attact my attention, and they do, but in a negative fashion. Kill Flash from the Prefbar is enough, or refuse to support such website, after letting them know of my view. But, otherwise, I do not find ads offensive. My field of vision can be very narrow.
There is not much difference between animation in ads and Junk mail with purposelly mispelled words. But, at least, ads in a website serve one useful purpose, by supporting it.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0 (ax)

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"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP2, FF2.0.0.14, TB2.0.0.14 IE7.0, Opera9.27, SM1.1.9, Flock1.1.4, Safari3.1, Sygate5.6; AVG7.5, JRE1.6_05

[profman]

I do not mind any "normal" or unintrusive ads. I treat them just like ads in the newspaper or a magazine.

Annoying ads are the ones that I want to block or eliminate. This includes most "pop-up or under" ads, although I allow these on a few trusted sites.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217

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profman, the mad chemist; User of Mozilla 1.7.1x, Firefox 2.0.0.x, & NS 7.2; Moderator of SillyDog Forums. Forum Search or NETSCAPE (+ more) SOLUTIONS

[Lorraine]

I wonder if anyone looks at the ads on TV.
I don't look at them, my mind seems to click right off and sometimes I fall asleep. I always have a book handy when watching TV, just so that I can read when the commercial comes on.
On the computer, I find it's mostly the same thing, except for the pop up or drop down ads. They annoy me, otherwise I really don't bother with them. I don't look at them in the newspaper unless something catches my eye.

Of course, everyone looks at ads at sometime or other. Especially when they are going to buy something. I usually surf the net to see prices. So there are times and places for ads and when going to the supermarket
-Lorraine

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)

[Antony]

Some ads can be very annoying, that's really another issue. Good website designers should know not to have annoying ads.

However, the point is... a number of Mozilla/Firefox users simply block every ads. They have a strong hatred towards any ads. This is really unethical.
And according to observation, most of those who would spend time to block every single ads are those who loathe Netscape, those who believe everything should be open source and free. And many of those are college kids. They don't pay for most contents, and wanting ads free.

No one asks them to study any ads, but preventing any possible ads being appeared is way unethical, a very shameful behaviour and attitude, in my opinion.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/125.5.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.12

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MozInfo701 | MacCentre701 | AntBlog701 | don't steal music.

[Pu7o]

i dont mind when websites have ads, as long as they're not popup/popunder ads!

popup/under's can be extremely annoying, like you open a page, and immediately a new window pops up in front of you. The same thing for popunders: i want to leave, close the window, and immediately a window appears in front of me.

However i dont block banner ads, as they don't really annoy me. Except, of course, those flash-like ads which appear in front of the website, preventing me from actually reading the site's content. Also, i never put ads on my own webpages, because i know how annoying they can be.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.3; Linux 2.6.10; X11; i686; en_US) KHTML/3.3.91 (like Gecko)

[Don_HH2K]

I just noticed, this forum is for the ethics of Mozilla/NS/Firefox ad blocking. In addition to the Adblock extension, I have ZoneAlarm Pro, which blocks ads in IE too (or anything you tell it to, even Arachne for DOS if you wanted). It's not really a matter of a FF/NS/MZ user, it's more of a matter of the user's perspective, whether they be a FF/NS/MZ user, K-Meleon, Arachne, or IE user. In the case of IE, some people might want to block ads, especially after MS's JPEG processing issue. Plus, dial-up loaders might want to disable all images for that matter and just have the text. As for a broadband Linux/Mac user, that has absolutely nothing to worry about (or close enough to it), that's another story.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (Donzilla/0.6a2)

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Main rig: Turion64X2 @ 2GHz, 2GB DDR2-667, 100GB HD, Radeon X300, 15" LCD, XP Pro x64
Server: P2 @ 233MHz, 192MB PC66, 20GB HD, 13.3" LCD, Windows Server 2003

[Fulvio]

And, then I visit a website. I don't know what triggered it, but I see a popup in Mozilla Firefox. I am blocking popups, and I got two different popups maeked, broght by specific POP. I have not seen a popup or pounder since 1.0 Pr.1, I think. Whichever is the cause, that's unethical. Unfortunately, these exceptions are causing some people to attempt to remove everything. For now, I will continue to work with my preferences(options). Next, boycott the websites.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0 (ax)

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"I've got a very poor sense of direction. I keep forgetting which way is forwards."
WinXP, SP2, FF2.0.0.14, TB2.0.0.14 IE7.0, Opera9.27, SM1.1.9, Flock1.1.4, Safari3.1, Sygate5.6; AVG7.5, JRE1.6_05