Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Should you Ad-Block? Ars Technica Says No

It is now possible to use extensions that will simply block the display of all ads around the page, allowing you to focus on the content. Great progress for some, but, in the long term, is it right for the ecosystem?

Ars Technica's editor in chief, Ken Fisher, pens an eloquent appeal about the risks of ad-blocking. Simply put, most of the data you get on the web is free - because the bill is paid by the advertisers. Most sites are paid by their advertisers per views, not per click. When you remove this, you take out money, dollar by dollar, that your favorite sites are using to fund their publication. In the short term you are damaging your own savorite sources of information.

We agree with Ars Technica, and will not recommend any general Ad Blockers outside of standard pop-up blockers, already included in most browsers. What do you think?

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