Do you think Adblockers should be banned?

MasterA Level 3

May 30, 2016, 8:02 am

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Do you think Adblockers should be banned?

I am sure that this is a very interesting topic to discuss. Adblockers. I am sure most of us here use adblockers because we hate all those annoying ads, especially, those pop up ones. However, as a webmaster, I hate adblockers because most of my revenue from my website comes from ads and adblockers are hurting my revenue.

There are a few ways to get past adblockers but there are some disadvantages with it.

Display a message to encourage people to whitelist your website. This may make active members whitelist your website. However, if you have too many ads, they may prefer seeing the message rather than the ads. This method is not guaranteed to work although it is better than doing nothing.
Disallow access for people who use adblockers. This is a method that is useful to some extent, especially if you have a very popular website. Forbes use this method, yet they have an alexa of 222. It seems to be working for them but if you have a small website, people may rather leave than remove their adblockers and you will lose traffic.

What are your thoughts on Adblockers? Do you think Adblockers should be banned?

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Beverly

I've been on the Forbes.com site and that intrusive intro ad which plays when you first hit the site is very annoying. Not at all softened by the 'quote of the day'. An ad is still an ad, and I would think that ad finances a lot of pages. Still, there are two sides to this argument, both site owner and site user. As a site owner, I know it's important to finance the site by placing ads. As a site user, I don't want to see a site that is junked up with banner ad from top to bottom. That's especially true for flash game sites. It's just so easy to accidentally click on a 'game' advertisement which loads into an off-site page, sometimes riddled with malware and spam. For a legitimate site, you have the options you mentioned, which is to politely ask your visitors to disable ad blockers or to completely block the site user from seeing premium content until those adblockers are disabled. I can't think of other options for now, besides premium site supporters, which would negate the need for ads at all - assuming you can find them. As for your question about blocking members who use Adblockers, that's really up to you as site owner. And, possibly you show ads that can't be blocked, such as affiliate reviews/links, etc. It's all going to be dependent on your own specific situation and your goals for your site.

10 years ago

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idealmike

This was actually featured on BBC Click the other day. AdBlock are now taking payment from websites that want to be removed from their block list. So there are now anti-adblock adblock blockers! It's like a constant arms race.

I don't think they should be banned though. I don't think that would even be possible? What you have to realize is that the Internet is for the users. The users being the people who browse and visit websites. And the largest proportion of Internet users are end-users who search for, visit and browse websites because they are searching for some particular content and want to have a relatively free of obtrusion experience. Also they don't want to have their bandwidth used up by large ads that take forever to load slowing down their browsing experience.

But at the same time, in order for some websites to remain up, they need to place ads on the site to gain revenue to even bring you a site in the first place. That is fair enough. But some sites do go OTT with the ads and have multiple ads all over the page from the header, to the sidebar, in the page content and in the footer. It's just over kill in my opinion. Those sites are taking advantage of their users and not providing a quality experience and it is only fair that the user blocks ads on that site via their AdBlock plugin or addon.

Of course, there are ways around blocking adblockers. The first is to pay the Adblock companies a fee to have your site removed from their block list. That way even if the user blocks the ads on that site, they will still show regardless. However I am not aware of how much this fee is and it would probably vary from Adblock to Adblock company.

The other option is to use some kind of adblock detection script and then put a popup on the screen politely asking the user to disable adblock while using their site because ads are needed for revenue yadda yadda.

Or there are other more brute methods such as disabling any access to the site at all while the adblock is enabled but this would mean that a portion of those visitors will flatly refuse to do that and go elsewhere and seek the content they desire elsewhere.

IMHO the current best way around it is the 2nd option of putting a pop up on the screen every 30 seconds of something that can be closed by clicking the X or anywhere on the screen to hide it temporarily with it recurring and showing again every 30 seconds or so that the user ends up getting fed up with the annoying popup message and just disables adblock to remove the popup message altogether.

So do I think adblockers should be banned as a user? No. I find them very useful in speeding up my browsing and experience on a site. If I find a site very useful to me and will probably be returning to it. I will possibly disable my adblock on that site provided it isn't overlade with ads that effect my experience of it. But as a webmaster I would love it if they could be banned. It would mean more revenue for me even if it meant annoying some people and reducing their positive experience using my site.

As said, it's a constant arms race and one that will eventually lead to ever more brute methods of displaying ads to users as the adblockers evolve, so to will the ad companies evolve ways around their blocks. This was actually featured on BBC Click the other day. AdBlock are now taking payment from websites that want to be removed from their block list. So there are now anti-adblock adblock blockers! It's like a constant arms race. I don't think they should be banned though. I don't think that would even be possible? What you have to realize is that the Internet is for the users. The users being the people who browse and visit websites. And the largest proportion of Internet users are end-users who search for, visit and browse websites because they are searching for some particular content and want to have a relatively free of obtrusion experience. Also they don't want to have their bandwidth used up by large ads that take forever to load slowing down their browsing experience. But at the same time, in order for some websites to remain up, they need to place ads on the site to gain revenue to even bring you a site in the first place. That is fair enough. But some sites do go OTT with the ads and have multiple ads all over the page from the header, to the sidebar, in the page content and in the footer. It's just over kill in my opinion. Those sites are taking advantage of their users and not providing a quality experience and it is only fair that the user blocks ads on that site via their AdBlock plugin or addon. Of course, there are ways around blocking adblockers. The first is to pay the Adblock companies a fee to have your site removed from their block list. That way even if the user blocks the ads on that site, they will still show regardless. However I am not aware of how much this fee is and it would probably vary from Adblock to Adblock company. The other option is to use some kind of adblock detection script and then put a popup on the screen politely asking the user to disable adblock while using their site because ads are needed for revenue yadda yadda. Or there are other more brute methods such as disabling any access to the site at all while the adblock is enabled but this would mean that a portion of those visitors will flatly refuse to do that and go elsewhere and seek the content they desire elsewhere. IMHO the current best way around it is the 2nd option of putting a pop up on the screen every 30 seconds of something that can be closed by clicking the X or anywhere on the screen to hide it temporarily with it recurring and showing again every 30 seconds or so that the user ends up getting fed up with the annoying popup message and just disables adblock to remove the popup message altogether. So do I think adblockers should be banned as a user? No. I find them very useful in speeding up my browsing and experience on a site. If I find a site very useful to me and will probably be returning to it. I will possibly disable my adblock on that site provided it isn't overlade with ads that effect my experience of it. But as a webmaster I would love it if they could be banned. It would mean more revenue for me even if it meant annoying some people and reducing their positive experience using my site. As said, it's a constant arms race and one that will eventually lead to ever more brute methods of displaying ads to users as the adblockers evolve, so to will the ad companies evolve ways around their blocks.

10 years ago

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samstone6688

Google is now explicitly banning ad blockers that prevent ads from being served in other apps from the Google Play Store, David Ruddock at Android Police reports.

Since 2013, the company has prevented ad blocking apps from entering the Play Store, under section 4.4 of the Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement, which stated that apps should not "interfere with" or "disrupt" other apps.

However, an update to the Google Play Store Developer Policy Center on Wednesday makes that ad blocker ban far more clear.

Google outlines "common violations" of its policy, which under the "device and network abuse section" includes:

"Apps that block or interfere with another app displaying ads."

This update doesn't appear to be a change in policy. It looks like Google is just trying to make it more obvious where ad blocking apps stand: They can't stop other apps from showing ads.

Google sent Business Insider this statement via email: "We are constantly evaluating Google products and their policies. Mobile apps and Web browsers work differently with different levels of access and control. To provide a positive user experience, we remove apps from Google Play that violate our developer distribution agreement or policies. This includes apps that interfere with the operation of other apps but does not prohibit stand-alone or explicitly integrated apps that block ads as part of their designed functionality."

Nevertheless, it's still a confusing territory, not least because Google still allows ad blockingbrowsers in the app store. These apps don't interfere with other apps, but they still prevent the display of ads, squeezing publishers' — and, indeed, Google's — revenues.

10 years ago

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procoder

Good question. Nowadays ads is the main thing to keep site alive. Blocking members who use adblock it seems a bad idea, because they have installed adblocker for some reasons. However, try to block 'adblocker' in some section of your website, i have tried personally this way and it worked fine for me.

10 years ago

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robertman11

I hate ads so my vote goes for no, adblockers should not be banned. Additionally, it is my computer, my browser so I should have full control over what I want to see and do not want to see. Ads are intrusive, waste bandwidth and time. I understand the need for them but some websites have gone to far and they are too intrusive.

On another note, I hate those sites that detect when you are blocking ads and won't let you proceed. That means I immediately leave.

10 years ago

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hitmeasap

I would probably never sit in front of my computer without my precious ad blocker. I hate ads and I couldn't agree with robertman11 more than I do. It's my computer and I'm in charge. I also do exactly what robertman11 does when a site detects that I'm using ad blockers.. I leave.

On the other hand, I can still understand why ads exist and I understand it's revenue loss for people when you're using ad blockers.. but still, no. Ad blockers should be free to use for anyone who wants it and I would seriously stop using internet without one. Long live ad blockers!

Best Regards,
hitmeasap

10 years ago

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Barida

I think it is right that some of the adblockers should be blocked. For goodness sake, those ads do not constitute an issue to anyone that comes online.

9 years ago

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Corzhens

I have read one discussion in this site about adblockers being the bane of websites that share revenue from the ads. One is Adsense which will not have an effect in advertising if the website has adblockers. So what will happen to the current state of the online advertising industry? If all websites will have an adblocker that will be very effective in blocking advertisements, that means the end of the ads.

8 years ago

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