Do you use an ad blocker in your browser? Recently, I got fed up with pop-up ads, while looking for recipes – are cooking sites the worst? So, I installed an ad blocker add on, and things did not go well.
Choosing an Ad Blocker
Most of the time, I use Firefox, so I checked their site for recommendations. They don’t have bolt-in ad blocking, but you can turn on tracking protection, to keep sites from installing tracking cookies.
I didn’t turn that on, but I went to the page with ad blockers that Firefox recommends. At the top of the list was AdBlocker Ultimate.
AdBlocker Ultimate
Next, I did a bit of Googling, to see what people said about AdBlocker Ultimate. Overall, the reviews were positive, so I installed it in Firefox.
It was easy to install – just search for it in the list of available addons for Firefox.then click the link to go to the AdBlocker Ultimate page. The page has details on the addon, and a ratings chart, which shows a high number of 5-star ratings.
In hindsight, I should have read some of those 1-star reviews, before installing it.
Website Whining
After installing and enabling the ad blocker, I went back to a few of the cooking sites again. As promised, the ads were gone.
However, many of the websites had some kind of ad blocker detector. Instead of ads, there was a pop up message, asking me to white list their site. That would allow ads to show, and most sites promised that the ads would not be annoying.
On the AccuWeather page that I visit every morning. there are usually lots of ads, but I check the weather, and leave quickly. With the ad blocker installed, they showed a message at the bottom of the screen, counting how many times I had visited, with ads blocked.
Creepy! Now I’m using the Canadian government weather site, which doesn’t have ads on it. They’re tracking me too, I’m sure, but at least they don’t brag about it.
Ad Blocker Pop Ups
The website whining was bad enough, but then things got worse – AdBlocker Ultimate started to show pop up ads! A big ad appeared at the right side of the screen, congratulating me for blocking 1000 ads. The ad also suggested that I upgrade to the pro version of AdBlocker Ultimate. Maybe it doesn’t have ads.
Ad Blocker Code Mess
The final straw came a couple of days later, when I tried to create my weekly Excel newsletter. I write the newsletter in Dreamweaver, and then copy the source code to AWeber – the mailing list company that sends out the newsletter.
As usual, I made a copy of the previous week’s newsletter in AWeber, then switched to the source code, so I could paste in my new source code.
Instead of the usual source code, the old source code was filled with hashtags! I quickly closed the draft copy, then deleted it, and made a new copy of the previous week’s newsletter. The source code showed the same hashtags.
I tried with a different week’s newsletter, and it had the same problem. So, I disabled AdBlocker Ultimate, and removed it, then tried the newsletter again. Everything was back to normal.
No More Ad Blocker
Perhaps you’ve had a better ad blocker experience, with the one that I tried, or a different one. Maybe the free ad blockers are all like this, and you get better results with a paid version. Or, if I had turned on the Firefox tracking protection, it might have prevented some of this.
Anyway, I’m done with ad blockers, based on my bad experience. They seem worse than the ads that they’re trying to block!
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Problems With Ad Blockers
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Debra:
On Google Chrome, even though I cringe whenever I surf over to a new unfamiliar website, I use Chrome anyway, because the adblocker that I had been using on Firefox was so picky, full of details, and quite difficult to study and comprehend all of its capabilities, nuances, and, probably, errors.
I am sure that it blocked many ads, and that’s nice… but I was devoting too much scarce time on the interruptions that operating with the adblocker was causing, and still having to make many subjective judgments each day, anyway. Now I operate most of the time in Chrome, and I am living with an annoying crop of ads, but IMO it’s better than having to waste my time that adblocker on Firefox.
Thank you for giving this global issue some air time.
Thank you, and it’s good to hear that it’s not just me!