Some unnamed websites have joined forces to block all Firefox users because of the Ad Block Plus plug-in. Here’s what they have to say about Firefox and its users:
The Mozilla Foundation and its Commercial arm, the Mozilla Corporation, has allowed and endorsed Ad Block Plus, a plug-in that blocks advertisement on web sites and also prevents site owners from blocking people using it. Software that blocks all advertisement is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers. Numerous web sites exist in order to provide quality content in exchange for displaying ads. Accessing the content while blocking the ads, therefore would be no less than stealing. Millions of hard working people are being robbed of their time and effort by this type of software. Many site owners therefore install scripts that prevent people using ad blocking software from accessing their site. That is their right as the site owner to insist that the use of their resources accompanies the presence of the ads.
While blanket ad blocking in general is still theft, the real problem is Ad Block Plus‘s unwillingness to allow individual site owners the freedom to block people using their plug-in. Blocking FireFox is the only alternative.
This was the same debate the TV broadcasters raised with TIVO. Do viewers have legal duty to watch advertisements? Should we be arrested because we look the other way or go to the bathroom? I’m hoping blind people are exempt from all this, because they’ve been avoiding banner ads since the web was started!
Update: The site has been changed a bit, with a whole lot of backpedaling.
No where do we assert that “since Firefox users have the ability to block ads, they must be thieves and must be blocked.”
You can read the quotes from above and judge for yourself as to what they said. (I think you know my opinion on the matter!)
Please name them.
1. Sorry, I forgot to include the link. It’s fixed now. (I’m still not sure who they are!)
Whois has the site registered to:
Danny Carlton
19724 E Pine St
Suite #149
Catoosa, Oklahoma 75015
United States
If these sites require you to let the ads through, does anyone really want to visit them? I’d like to know who they are – none I’ve encountered yet but you never know.
Cry me a river you “hard working” hosers.
A gray area for sure – but, at the moment, the internet is a public resource, just like broadcast radio and broadcast TV. If a site chooses to makes itself private through some sort of name/password mechanism, then a user may have to consent to a binding agreement of some kind.
However, if anybody can enter your public site without any sort of validation, then how they view the data within is their own business.
I click on exactly ZERO ads. ZERO! I also turn the radio station when an ad comes on the radio, and channel-surf when an ad comes on TV.
Some businesses, especially advertising, have unavoidable inherent risks. Since I’m MALE, I buy little-to-nothing that is advertised to me. Shoppers like me, who aren’t impulse shoppers, only buy things we want or need.
Advertising is highly unlikely to turn me into a customer, so by blocking your ads, I’m saving you money on bandwidth and CPU time. NOW, YOU OWE ME something for making the effort to help YOU out.
lol these ppl will get same effect as that long number to “hack” AACS got
now even more ppl will know what it is and how to use it.
PS: dvorak should start a vote: “do you use ad block?”
Firefox does not block advertisements that are presented in a reasonable manner. Just those which are obstructing the intent of users. When i go to a web page i intend to see that one page and not some other task popping up on my computer. When we couldn’t block popups we ended up almost with a broken web. Users were loosing control of their computers. I’m sure i wont miss going to the web sites that are blocking Firefox as i’m sure that i wont miss doing business with those who must break the web to advertise.
Go ahead… block me from visiting your stupid website… see if I care…
(that is my response to the vast majority of websites that would apply the blocking rule).
There is only one website that I regularly visit where this type of ‘punishment’ makes sense: SALON.COM . They give you the choice of either paying an annual subscription or watching an advertisement before you get into the full website. The big difference with them is that their content is actually worth something (and is expensive to produce), contrary to 90% of the sites on the web. So charging in some form makes sense.
Maybe websites should get a clue as to why we block ads; turn of the huge, flashing, sudden music, jumping ads that take forever to load and annoy the heck out of the reader and we will leave your ads on… leave that annoying crap asking me to “click this moving frog to win a trip to Texas” and I will block your ads if not your whole site.
What makes you think I would WANT to visitt?
There are plenty of other sites…. How about a FireFox ‘reature’ that blocks the blockers? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha let’s see who blinks first!
no hits = no money
I wouldn’t be surprised if M$ is behind this somehow.
Lets count.
1. I want to see those millions of people that are getting PAID to advert on my PC…If nothing else to get a BAN list going.
2. Iv reset computers from scratch…Thats about version 4 of IE…the first site it wants to see is MSN. After getting 5 virus and 17 bots, I WROTE to MSN. Those adverts, they get remotely, were filled with all this CRAP. I asked if they SCANNED any of it before posting them onsite. They eventually removed them. I WONDER WHY..
3. ANYONE know how many Scripts are trying to get on my comp, from DV?? 7…I ALLOW 1..ONLY DV… NOT Brightcove, not google, NOT Vizu….
4. the MAIN problem with much of the adverts is they wish to TRACK you and how many times you see their adverts, WHICH requires AT LEAST a cookie. YOU have to rights to STOP anything from being placed on your computer.
5. How many of you understand…That ANYTHINg that is displayed on your monitor MUST be stored on your system FIRST… Look in the Temp internet dir.. Sort by date. There is a setting to SHORTEN how long it will remain, but SOME can be set to stay forever.
So, anything you have displayed, shown, played, every location you have been to, is STORED on your machine….And unless it has an Expiration date to be erased….ITS STILL THERE…
I dont even see the ads anymore – i’ve learned to ignore them – but i do have adblocker installed…
This is bullshit anyway, the web page is out on the public domain, therefore he has no position to say its stealing
Don’t these retards understand that the kinds of people who use extensions like AdBlock in the first place, are the same people who will NEVER click on a damn on-line add anyway and just want their world to be less cluttered by unwanted garbage advertising junk that they wouldn’t ever buy in the first place??
Firefox users unite! The infidels are trying to exterminate us. It is time we declared “Browser Jihad”!!!
By the way, I’m not the first to make the religion connection. There’s a link at the top of the page that SN linked (repeated here). The writer Andrew compares the Firefox following to a religion, and eventually compares us to Jehovah’s Witnesses. I just figured that a comparison to Islamic Fundamentalists can’t be too far off, since it seems to be so much in vogue these days 😉
#16 – Gary Marks
Thanks for trolling. You earned a Trolls”R”Us gift card.
blocking ads is like muting commercials or surfing channels until they are over. You may have the right to broadcast that crap at me but I have an equal right not to watch it.
Hell, Jägermeister, troll is a major step up from what most people call me. You have a nice weekend too!
“If Firefox users make up a “small percentage” of web users how can blocking them create “tremendous financial rewards”?! That makes no sense! And one last thing, according to John a whopping 65% of our readers use Firefox! Hardly a “small percentage” by any standard. ”
Are you sure you want to commit to that statement? It sounds like you are telling the fine people who have their adds just to the left of this post that no one is looking at them, and they wouldn’t buy their stuff any way, even if they could see the adds.
That might bode ill for Perkel and the whole little internet business he has going there. But then, I guess that is what you get for catering to compulsive masturbaters…
I would suspect Google is involved in this scheme. Ad block removes all those Google ads the company is screwing advertisers for. You know the ones on web pages where the kids are clicking each others web page ads to milk the Google cow for a few grand every month.
20. “Are you sure you want to commit to that statement?”
I’m just stating a fact. And merely because you use Firefox does not mean you’re blocking ads. I don’t block ads, I’ve been on the web so long I don’t even notice them anymore. (I do surf with Flash turned off, however. That was the reason I switched to Firefox in the first place. Back when it was called Phoenix.)
#15 – I agree. Also, I think a much higher percentage of Dvorak readers use Firefox because, well, we’re smarter (patting self on back).
#21 –
I wish, but some people want you to pay up.
Well they’ve no one to blame but themselves really, ad companies took it way too far with flashy crap like “Punch the monkey” and “Press the fart button”…. if they can’t self-moderate and won’t respect their visitors, then they lose.
Tough titties.
And as has already been mentioned, you can’t block browsers as well as you think you can… the webserver only knows what it’s told by the client.
This movement is doomed from the start… all it’ll take is another plugin.
Or you could do something like this on your own web sites to block IE users from your content:
http://www.devin.com/ieblock_howto.shtml
#26, I agree with that statement
#20, it is not true Firefox has a small user base. It’s growing every day, and last heard, Firefox has a 25% market share.
#14, thanks for the links. I’m contemplating whether I install this, or if IE Tab still remains in favor.
wow – I block popups, fast forward on my DVR, and I don’t contribute to Public Radio.
I must be the next Lex Luthor …
#24 – damn straight!
I use Safari. What ads are you all talking about? I don’t see any ads.
Theft ?
What about the “free ” placing of their ads and spyware on computers – not the time , or the ” free” space and resources they are stealing but the absolute cost and aggrevation of the spyware cancers they are depositing.
They should be the ones charged
Talk about self righteousness as well as the pot calling the kettle….
Never mind send the girl over.
I could teach her how to type.
“Ad blocking in general is still theft”. Uh no, it’s not, it’s automating the process of exercising free will to ignore shit not worthy of a second glance, that would without blockers, have to be manually ignored.