I love Google, but I got sick of seeing their ads on every website I go to now. Researched the problem on Google and came up with this: add this line to your hosts file, and presto, you are google ad-free.

127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com

Seems to work so far.

But then all those little shareware vendors don't make any money!

(I think adblock in firefox can stop them too, as the google-ads are mostly displayed in iframe's if I'm not mistaken)

Otis wrote:

But then all those little shareware vendors don't make any money!

(I think adblock in firefox can stop them too, as the google-ads are mostly displayed in iframe's if I'm not mistaken)

Not just shareware vendors. Keep in mind that the person who wrote the words on the page we're reading has to pay hosting costs in addition to the knowledge and labor that it took to write those words.

The google ads aren't in an iframe, as far as I know, it is just a pieced of javascript.

But I'm not buying anything from the ads. I'm not clicking on them. So I'd rather not see them.

hmm... maybe a default placeholder under the google ads is in order.

"Thanks for visiting our blog, reading our words, using or bandwidth, and most of all, your continued non-support!"

I think everyone should be free to determine by themselves which bytes they're pulling over the internet into their own machine's memory. There's already enough bandwidth lost due to ads at almost every site you can imagine.

sirshannon wrote:

hmm... maybe a default placeholder under the google ads is in order.

"Thanks for visiting our blog, reading our words, using or bandwidth, and most of all, your continued non-support!"

But I'm not supporting your site if I don't click on the ads. Which I'm not doing. There seems to be some confusion about something that is pretty straightforward. I'm not buying anything.

JimFoye wrote:

There seems to be some confusion about something that is pretty straightforward. I'm not buying anything.

I guess there is some confusion. What does buying have to do with anything?

Otis wrote:

I think everyone should be free to determine by themselves which bytes they're pulling over the internet into their own machine's memory. There's already enough bandwidth lost due to ads at almost every site you can imagine.

We should be free to determine that and, to some extent, we are free to determine that. But that bandwidth argument isn't really anything worth mentioning, the size of the text ads google uses are much too small to consider a problem.

I'm just pointing out the shame I feel when I block ads on a poor starving blogger's site even though they're words are worthy of my time and I do not plan on even giving them the chance to put a click-worthy ad in front of me.

For the record, I'm willing to bet my "hosts" file is bigger than yours. I've been using the supertrick for years.

sirshannon wrote:

JimFoye wrote:

There seems to be some confusion about something that is pretty straightforward. I'm not buying anything.

I guess there is some confusion. What does buying have to do with anything?

The ultimate goal of the ad is to get me to buy something. I'm not buying anything (spent my last dollar on LLBLGenPro ). So why do I even want to see the ad? The reason I did this is not really because it bothers me that much to see an ad, but geez, if I go look at 8 sites in my Google search list, I see what is essentially the same set of Google ads 8 times!! It gets old. I've read that the first people who put them on their website actually made some money, but now it's common to make $5-10 a month off them. I mean, I'm sure some folks make more, but I'm also sure the majority are making pennies because friggin' _everyone _is doing it.

Anyway, you beat me to the punch, so what are you arguing with me for?

You know what I hate, is when I drive down the road and see a billboard that says, "Does advertising work? Just did!". No, it didn't. "Getting me to read the billboard" just worked. One of these days I'm going to call the billboard company and when someone answers I'm going to say "What did I just buy?"

JimFoye wrote:

You know what I hate, is when I drive down the road and see a billboard that says, "Does advertising work? Just did!". No, it didn't.

You don't understand the point of advertising.

If you read that billboard, then it worked. Because that was the point of the billboard.

Surely you didn't actually think that seeing a laundry detergent on a billboard was supposed to cause you to pick up your mobile and call in an order for a gallon. If the point of advertising was to cause an instant sale, then 99% of all advertising would be a failure (instead of the current 50%).

But again, this doesn't have anything to do with google ads because people that use google ads don't care what you do after you click the link and many google ads (at least on the sites I run) aren't even selling anything to you. I guess that is due to the nature of the sites I visit (and contribute to).

If you contribute to a site by clicking on the ad, then you're not contributing from your pocket. The person who placed the ad is paying. Does that seem right?

That's another problem with these Google ads. I have inadvertently clicked on them before, "contributing" to the website by facilitating the transfer of money from one party to another. But ultimately the point of that party is to sell something.

As is ultimately the point of advertising. Amazing how confusing something so simple can be.

JimFoye wrote:

That's another problem with these Google ads. I have inadvertently clicked on them before... Amazing how confusing something so simple can be.

heh

sirshannon wrote:

JimFoye wrote:

You know what I hate, is when I drive down the road and see a billboard that says, "Does advertising work? Just did!". No, it didn't.

You don't understand the point of advertising.

If you read that billboard, then it worked. Because that was the point of the billboard.

Surely you didn't actually think that seeing a laundry detergent on a billboard was supposed to cause you to pick up your mobile and call in an order for a gallon. If the point of advertising was to cause an instant sale, then 99% of all advertising would be a failure (instead of the current 50%).

Google ads cost money. To get back the money, the google ad has to lead to sales, directly or indirectly (mostly indirectly). So IMHO it's not that important if the sale is direct or indirect, the ad is there to sell something, be it an image so you'll know the name and come back later or try to convince you to take a look at a site you weren't planning to visit.

IMHO the whole ad-payed website business model is seriously flawed. Back in 1994 when I made my first website, it was all about content (no images! ), mostly hosted on university servers. The fun thing is, that never changed, except for the hosting part. It's still solely about content. No-one visits a website for the ads. (at least no sane people).

It's not a surprise more and more people try to find a way to get rid of ads on websites, mostly because they're annoying (flickering flash crap or animated gifs) and/or distracting and/or seem to blend into the content you're looking for that it's hard to distinguish them from the content (which IMHO is the start for real trouble).

Some people understand that content is important, not the ad. If you want to pay your bills be sure you have content people want to pay money for. If not, your content is perhaps not that special. Don't make the mistake a lot of websites make: the internet is a pull-medium: the visitor decides what kind of content s/he will see, not the website hosts. This sounds weird perhaps, but it's the person with the browser who decides to which link s/he browses.

But what's the problem today? Less and less companies are willing to pay huge piles of cash for bannering and other ads, because less and less people will see these banners and ads and will click on them. The websites who based their business model on bannering and ads see their money source run out and want to convince users not to use ad-blockers. The largest dutch techwebsite even treatens to ban you if you run banner-blockers. A sign they clearly didn't get it. To bind users to you, to gain money, you should provide CONTENT for money, as the sole reason users are visiting your website is the content.

sirshannon wrote:

Otis wrote:

I think everyone should be free to determine by themselves which bytes they're pulling over the internet into their own machine's memory. There's already enough bandwidth lost due to ads at almost every site you can imagine.

We should be free to determine that and, to some extent, we are free to determine that. But that bandwidth argument isn't really anything worth mentioning, the size of the text ads google uses are much too small to consider a problem.

It was a general remark. I don't care if an ad is 16 bytes long, I don't visit a site for an ad. The sole reason I don't visit IDG websites for example is that whenever I do that, I first have to wait 20 seconds (their code is apparently that slow, I'm on a large ADSL pipe) till the ad page is loaded and I can proceed to the content I'm actually trying to visit. I found out way too many times the content there wasn't that interesting or was available elsewhere as well. So why bother going there?

I'm just pointing out the shame I feel when I block ads on a poor starving blogger's site even though they're words are worthy of my time and I do not plan on even giving them the chance to put a click-worthy ad in front of me.

Why feel shame? YOU decide what you'll read. He was lucky you visited his blog so his writing got read. That's the core deal: publishing some content on the web is easy. Being read by a lot of people is another thing. If I find it hard to read the actual content because ads in whatever format they're presented distract me from reading the actual content I either try to block the ads or go away.

If a poor person tries to keep his/her site up by adding some advertising I don't mind, as long as it's not distracting me from reading the content. Though that's the whole point: ads which don't grab the attention of the reader are useless. So it's in fact a catch 22. And I must confess that every time I see a great content providing site being destroyed by the advertisements I feel a little more sad: where is the old atmosphere where you could publish content and people would read it because it was good content? Why does everything have to be turned into a money maker? "Oh we're succesful, let's squeese as much money out of it while it lasts!"

...

For the record, I'm willing to bet my "hosts" file is bigger than yours. I've been using the supertrick for years.

My hosts file is empty so I think you win this contest. My adblock list though is quite long. I almost never see an ad while I browse websites. And I don't feel sorry for that either, it makes the internet look as if the spirit of the old days is back again.

I agree with all your comments, Frans.

I don't visit IDG websites for example is that whenever I do that, I first have to wait 20 seconds (their code is apparently that slow, I'm on a large ADSL pipe) till the ad page is loaded and I can proceed to the content I'm actually trying to visit.

I used to visit a forum and I noticed that every time I went there the top part of the page with an ad loaded, then there was a pause, and then the rest of the page loaded. It was uncanny how that pause always appeared to be the same. I looked at the source, and sure enough it was a calling a Javascript function to sleep for 5 seconds! I had to give up on this site because psychologically it seemed like an eternity to wait for it. If I disable JS then it's not a problem (that would solve a lot of annoying ad behavior, now that I think about it), but of course that is not possible, many sites would not work right, including my own.

I agree that people should always have, and exercise, a right to download bytes they choose to their computer.

I also agree that many advertisers have chosen 'evil' advertisting, including popups, popunders, and delayed content ads.

In addition, it's true that the point is content.

I used to run AdMuncher, which does a great job of blocking ads, one of the best I'd seen.

Then I started a website, and discovered that content is purely funded by revenues generated by sales, which are initiated by customer contact through... you guessed it... advertising on websites. I dumped AdMucher. Was I feeling guilty? Perhaps.

Advertisting is a social contract. I get great content on the web, and the price I pay is that ads will appear within the content. For me to prevent those ads is a breaking of the social contract.

On the flip side, a site operator that creates ads that are not relevant to the site, are distracting to my experience, are intrusive or damage my computer, has also broken the social contract.

Those that break the social contract should not get what they seek, be it content or revenue, user or site operator.

I can choose the option to not visit the site depending on the proportion of content value to advertising annoyance.

I support sites that give me great content by seeking out ads on those sites for things in which I have an interest.

Don't feel guilty, instead take action, by showing support or protest. Allow the ads, make the critical-thinking decisions, and keep the social contract intact.

Shameless plug: http://www.developerfood.com

Thanks for the recommendation on AdMuncher.

I could debate the whole 'social contract', ads done properly I will agree could be deemed a social contract, the new flash popups with misleading close buttons or appear over the actual article text etc. I would deem not a social contract but something closer to spam.

If I open any magazine it has tons of ads, it has ads concerning the topic of the magazine, are well positioned so as not to be obtrusive to the content. Nothing keeps me from flipping the page and not actually reading the ad if I so choose.

On the topic of 'social contract' do you own a Tivo or DVR? do you fast forward through commercials, do you go to the kitchen and get a beer, run to the restroom? while they are playing? Are you breaking the social contract when you do any of these things?

In these days of internet advertising it has swung to the overly obnoxious and intrusive and rarely actually relate to the content of the article or site, I make no attempt to block google ads, they are typically off to the side such as in print, or a single one across the top, they do not keep me from the content.

Hell I don't mind click through advertising, 'ala tv comercial', a reasonable banner, side ads, or even an ad placed in the middle of an article, 'ala print' its when it interfers with the content with popup, flash popup, delayed 5 second pauses that in the end hurts the what I will call 'good' ads because we are forced to load blockers to hide them.

my 2c.

John Gooding

On the topic of 'social contract' do you own a Tivo or DVR? do you fast forward through commercials, do you go to the kitchen and get a beer, run to the restroom? while they are playing? Are you breaking the social contract when you do any of these things?

An excellent point. I do own a TiVo, and I love it. It would be unfair for me to just speak for myself, but the site techdirt.com has frequently pointed out studies of TiVo users who say they will watch ads that are entertaining and interesting.

Again, it's an application of the social contract. TV ads that are not obnoxious and present the viewer with something they are interested in at the time will get attention. Ads that have been seen 400 times, that are uninteresting or offensive get zapped.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050405/1056233_F.shtml

From techdirt.com:

...there are interesting points that seem obvious -- but haven't gotten much attention in these debates. The first is that, while everyone figures out how to fast forward through commercials, some people apparently forget until a bad commercial comes on. In other words, they're fine watching a commercial that seems interesting, amusing or relevant -- but when the bad commercials come on, they realize they are wasting their time.

More at: http://www.techdirt.com/search.pl?query=tivo

Also:

Advertising Is Content http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040726/1151253_F.shtml

This has been an ongoing theme around here, but it looks like slowly, but surely, TV execs are realizing that advertising is content. For too long, many people assumed that content was what brought people in, and advertising was the annoying stuff they put up with to see the stuff they wanted. When you begin to realize that advertising itself is content (and that any content can be used for advertising), it opens up a whole new world of possibilities, where things like TiVo and unauthorized downloading aren't scary. In fact, they're so not scary that they start to look like wide open opportunities. E-Media Tidbits is noticing the fact that commercials are apparently starting to become entertaining enough on their own that there's now a whole TV channel devoted to them.

Keywords: Advertising is content, and the social contract applies. Throw cr*p content ad me, I won't pay attention and will invoke methods to prevent them, either by skipping the ads via TiVo, or by no longer visiting the website. However, the social contact implies that I give them the chance to provide me with the ad content in the first place as a cost of providing the primary desired content, i.e., a quality web page or a quality television show. I got it for free, I should give them a chance to expand that with quality content-based advertising, and I reserve the right to block the ad, or ignore it, or quit visiting the website, as I see fit.

My problem is with wholesale blocking. I oppose it. It's not good for providors of free content, free broadcasting, or a free society.

I dropped AdMuncher for that reason, and I woudn't accept a TiVo that somehow blocked all ad content.

Call me nuts!

I think it depends on the personal preferences about the topic if ads are content to say 'blocking ads isn't right'. After 10 years of webbrowsing I am literaly tired of waiting for crap from a website which thought I had to have that too together with the content I do want to see.

So that's why I block all ads as much as possible. I also block all 3rd party cookies because I don't want to give tracking information to the big ad companies.

About ads in magazines and papers: these made me wonder why a free paper has almost the same amount of ads as a non-free paper. Why do I have to pay for a paper which comes for 30% with ad pages?

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind ads in general, I just don't want to get them into my way in ANY way when I want to look at content and especially when they look like content, when the thin line between content and advertisement is blurring more and more, I really want to get rid of them.

Sadly enough, advertisers know that ads disguised as content work, they can't be blocked, but is the content real (I'm talking about infomercials, not advertainment ) or in favor of the advertisers?

And sorry to say it, but if content can't be published anymore without ads, this world really has ended. Because ad-sponsored (indirectly or directly) content publishing will never be independent.

So that's why I block all ads as much as possible. I also block all 3rd party cookies because I don't want to give tracking information to the big ad companies.

In that case you'll like AdMuncher. It's not one of those proxy types, it's a BHO that strips these out very nicely. It's fast and still creates an attractive page. You won't know the ads aren't there.

I agree, there's no stopping advertising on websites and the affect that has on the quality and type of content. I browse around the forums at webmasterworld.com, and they're all about how to provide 'just enough content, but no so much that the user's won't be enticed by the ads.' It's disheartening on the whole, but on a micro level I know there are people who are simply committed to the content or product they provide, and won't let themselves become compromised. Like yourself!

swallace wrote:

So that's why I block all ads as much as possible. I also block all 3rd party cookies because I don't want to give tracking information to the big ad companies.

In that case you'll like AdMuncher. It's not one of those proxy types, it's a BHO that strips these out very nicely. It's fast and still creates an attractive page. You won't know the ads aren't there.

I use adblock in firefox, which I think does the same thing.

I agree, there's no stopping advertising on websites and the affect that has on the quality and type of content. I browse around the forums at webmasterworld.com, and they're all about how to provide 'just enough content, but no so much that the user's won't be enticed by the ads.' It's disheartening on the whole, but on a micro level I know there are people who are simply committed to the content or product they provide, and won't let themselves become compromised. Like yourself!